Page 60 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
“Is the current Mrs. Lewis a friend of yours?”
“No. I never met her. I don’t care if she’s the greatest villain in the world. She still doesn’t deserve to be . . . mistreated.”
“Did Hector Lewis mistreat you?”
“Only slightly,” she said cryptically, but her jaw was set the way Oliver’s got when he talked about Badajoz. Or rather, when he didn’t. “Enough to convince me he’d be a terrible husband, no matter what my parents thought.”
“So, you made your escape. You arranged for Wraxhall to have to marry you, is that right?
“It was an underhanded trick I served Francis, and I knew it. But I couldn’t think of another way to get out of the match with Lewis without putting my parents into a stew. Which is cowardly, but there you have it. I wrote to Lewis, informing him that if I heard the faintest whisper of his mistreating his wife, I would have the letters published. I sent another letter to his wife, saying much the same thing and assuring her of my aid should she need it. She never wrote back.”
“Why?” She had gone to a great deal of trouble to help a stranger.
“I felt guilty. I made my escape, but I didn’t think of anyone’s safety but my own.”
As simple as that. The woman had been beside herself for months, had become physically ill from worry for this stranger. She had paid Jack a sizable sum of money to find letters that would ensure the safety of a woman she had never met.
“If you’ll pardon me for speaking freely,” he said, adopting as deferential a tone as he could summon, “there’s nothing at all cowardly about anything you’ve done.”
Thinking of what she had said, he saw a pattern emerge as surely as if he had his cards spread out before him. Everywhere he looked there were women trying to help one another in dubious ways when there didn’t seem to be any other solution. Mrs. Durbin had stolen the letters to prevent her daughter from doing something wicked. Mrs. Wraxhall had committed blackmail and possibly extortion and spent a fortune hiring Jack, all to secure a stranger’s safety.
He was still thinking about this pattern when he arrived at Oliver’s room, only to find it empty, no trace of Oliver or his belongings. A housemaid was taking the linens off the bed.
“Where is he?” he demanded. Jack had wanted Oliver to go back to London, had practically insisted he do so, but didn’t think the man would leave without a word.
“You don’t know?” the housemaid asked, too pert by half.
Jack remembered that he was supposed to be the man’s valet. “No,” he said from between ground teeth. His arm hurt and he needed to know Oliver was safe.
“Don’t fuss yourself. He left you a note. And money, by the looks of things.”
It was a single sheet of paper folded over a couple of banknotes. Turner, I’ve been called away. Please use enclosed to travel safely to London. R.
What the bloody hell?
“He got a letter bearing the Rutland seal,” the maid chirped. “Mr. Smythe told me so,” she added, supposing correctly that Jack would trust the butler’s ability to recognize the Rutland seal.
Jack knew he had no business feeling anything about Oliver’s departure, not when he had always known it was inevitable. Hell, he preferred it when he didn’t feel much of anything at all. Still, his vision darkened with rage and loss and sorrow, and they felt like emotions belonging to someone else entirely.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Oliver could have ignored the letter. He had been ignoring his father’s letters for weeks and lived to tell the tale. But this latest missive had arrived so providentially, and sometimes providence was hard to ignore, especially when served up on a silver salver. He had been pacing the room, his peace of mind shredded by the knowledge that at that very moment Jack was orchestrating the concealment of more than one crime. And Oliver, because he knew of these goings on, was now complicit as well. He had almost let himself believe that he and Jack weren’t so different after all, that Jack’s penchant for self-made justice wasn’t such an insurmountable obstacle. But now that Jack’s actions had bled over into Oliver’s conscience, he felt much less sure.
So when the letter arrived, demanding Oliver’s presence in London, he grabbed the valise Jack had already packed and walked out the door. He was halfway to London before he identified the unfamiliar feeling chewing at the edges of his consciousness as shame. He had left Jack with nothing more than a terse letter and a random assortment of banknotes. And this, not twenty-four hours after the man had taken a bullet for him.
Oliver knew he had behaved inexcusably. Turner would never look at him again, and rightly so.
Oliver found his father waiting for him at Rutland House, standing before the hearth in the stale and decaying parlor that had once been his mother’s domain.
“I was surprised to hear you were in London, sir.” Oliver attempted a show of cordiality.
Lord Rutland was having none of it. “You answered none of my letters. What did you expect me to do? Sit idly by while my son keeps company with . . .” He let his voice trail off while glancing around the room, as if there was no way he could complete his sentence in the late Lady Rutland’s drawing room. “What do you know about that man?” Lounging at his feet were a pair of aged hounds, which Oliver recognized as heralds of a long visit. If his father had only planned to stay for a few days, he might have left his dogs at home.
“Which man?” Oliver asked, as if there could ever have been any doubt.
“Don’t play the fool, Oliver. I’m talking about Turner.”
