Jack took another sip of wine, trying to keep his features composed as the Irishman turned beet-red from his double chins to his thick shock of coarse, graying hair. “I suppose you wanted me to ask for your blessing, dear mother?”
“You could be doing worse than putting your faith in me. And I’m not your bleeding mother, even if you are a son of a bitch. What’s she like, this Becket woman?”
Jack considered the question. His first thought was to tell him Eleanor’s huge brown eyes were the most beautifully expressive feature in her small, gamin face. That she was fragile, yet seemed to possess a will of iron. That he felt like a raw, too tall, uncivilized golumpus whenever he was near her. That he felt uncharacteristically protective of her, and even more uncharacteristically attracted to her.
But he doubted Cluny needed to hear that.
“Quiet. Smart. Not necessarily trustworthy, but that’s all right because I don’t think she trusts me, either. Oh, and we’re not really married.”
Cluny looked at his wineglass, then carefully set it down. “Time to haul myself back up on the water wagon. What did you say? Are you bracketed or not?”
Jack waited for his just-arrived valet to put down the tray of meat and cheese and leave the room, heading for the dressing room to, most likely, cluck over the condition of his master’s wardrobe that was much the worse for wear after a week across the Channel.
“What’s that fellow’s name, again?” he asked Cluny, who’d settled his cheerless bulk into the facing chair.
“Frank,” Cluny said, popping a large piece of cheese into his mouth.
“No, not Frank. Francis?”
Cluny shrugged. “I like Frank better, a good, solid name. Why aren’t you married? Not that I want you to be, you understand, but why not?”
So Jack explained. For an hour, he explained, as Cluny interrupted almost constantly.
At the end of that hour Cluny had fallen off the water wagon—never an easy ride for him, even in the best of times—and poured himself another drink. “Are you sure that cousin of yours is worth all this skulduggery? I always thought you didn’t like the man above half.”
“It’s not him I’m doing it for, but his mother. Mothers love sons, Cluny, even if the son is a thorough jackass. Besides, even if it all started that way, we’ve moved far beyond my concerns for Richard. I’m…well, I’m invested in this now.”
Cluny looked around the large, well-appointed bedchamber. “Of course you are, lad. Everything you do is out of the fine, sweet goodness of your heart. I’ll be shedding a tear here any moment, I will that.”
Jack had told a small fib to Ainsley Becket—the house in Portland Square wasn’t really his. It was his cousin’s, as was the estate in Sussex. But where his cousin had allowed both places to go to rack and ruin, they were now returned to their former glory. His mother and aunt lived well now on that Sussex estate, not in constant fear of losing the roof over their heads. This house was now furnished in the first stare, thanks to Jack’s money. If he found Richard, he’d buy the pile from him, the estate, as well. If he didn’t find him, his aunt would surely be happy for the money.
He chuckled low in his throat. “I never said I was applying for sainthood, Cluny. But at least we’ve a fair division of profits between us and those who take the most risk. Or are you feeling a dose of Christian charity coming on and want to give back your own share?”
Cluny sank his chins onto his chest. “How far two such God-fearing gentlemen as ourselves have sunk. Not that they won’t hang us high enough.”
“And on that happy note, I think I’ll go off downstairs to my study to see if I’ve anything important to deal with that’s shown up in my absence.”
“A letter from your mother, that would be the whole of it,” Cluny told him, slowly pushing himself to his feet. “She’s well, thanks you for the silk, and sends her sister’s never-ending thanks for looking for poor old Richard. We’re not finding him, boyo, not if we haven’t found him yet. My thought is he’s moldering at the bottom of a well, or has long since been fed to the fishies.”
“I no longer expect to find him alive, Cluny. But I will discover what happened to him.”
“Even though he was a worthless bastard who, just like his father before him, begrudged you and your mother every crust of bread family duty forced him to provide his blood kin? Admit it to me at the least, Jack. You’re in this for the adventure of the thing. Those Beckets have thoroughly corrupted you.”
Jack paused at the door, his hand on the latch. “They’re a remarkable family, Cluny. A real family, not bound by blood but by something even more powerful. I admire them very much.”
“And they’ve made you bloody rich.”
Jack grinned as he depressed the latch. “Yes. That, too.”
He wandered through the mostly dark house, knowing its furnishings weren’t a patch on the grandeur of Becket Hall, but pleased nonetheless.
He’d gone from poor relation to foot soldier, from foot soldier to courier, from courier to spy, from spy to trusted aide.
But when an injury had forced him home and he’d learned about Richard’s disappearance, he’d picked up his deck of cards and begun his hunt for his cousin. Which had led to Kent, to Romney Marsh, to whispers about the Red Men Gang and, eventually, to the Beckets of Romney Marsh.
“Only good turn the miserable bastard ever gave me,” Jack muttered to himself as he made his way through the black-and-white marble-tiled foyer and to the back of the house, where Richard’s father had established a reasonable if incomplete library.
It was only when he reached for the latch that he realized that there was a strip of soft light at the bottom of the door. Transferring his candle to his left hand, he eased his back against the door even as he held the latch, slowly depressed it, and pushed it open, turning with it so he was ready to confront whoever was in the room.
“Miss Becket,” he said a moment later, battle-ready alertness replaced by anger. “What do you think you’re doing down here?”
Eleanor looked at him levelly, even as her heart pounded so furiously inside her that the beat was actually painful. She held out the book in her hand. “I couldn’t sleep, and decided there must be at least one sufficiently boring book in here that would help me.”
He took the marble-backed volume from her hand and read, “A Complete History So Far As It Is Known of That Celebrated English Thoroughbred—you’re interested in horses?”
Goodness, had she really picked that book? She lifted her chin slightly as she answered him. “No, not at all, which is the point of the exercise, is it not, when one is attempting to find something that is so stultifyingly boring it is virtually guaranteed to put one to sleep? Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
Or was the man unaware that she was clothed only in her night rail and dressing gown? And couldn’t he do something about that expanse of bare chest visible beneath his dressing gown? All that golden hair. Was it soft to the touch? It had to be, just as his chest was undoubtedly quite hard. Thank the good Lord he still wore his pantaloons, because it would be only the good Lord himself who could know what she’d do if the man had been naked beneath that dressing gown. Fainting seemed probable.
As if he was able to hear her silent conversation with herself—hopefully not all of it—Jack tied his banyan more tightly over himself. “I would certainly excuse you, unless you’d wish to talk for a moment? I think we’ve settled in fairly well, don’t you? You’re happy with the servant staff?”
Perhaps she should stay, if just for a few minutes. Not act too eager to be out of his company, as if she’d been caught out at something, being somewhere she should not be, doing something