A Rogue of My Own (14 page)

R
EBECCA WAS UNABLE TO
eat lunch that day at sea, despite being hungry. The smell of food in the cabin had made her break out in a cold sweat and had put her back in front of the chamber pot until the sharp aromas were gone. Sailing was smoother later in the day, and by dinner she was able to sit at the tiny table with its one nailed-down chair, which Rupert had offered to her while he sat with plate in hand in the stuffed chair.

“Enjoy every bite of that meal,” he told her. “It cost me five bloody pounds.”

She nearly choked hearing that, but she continued to eat anyway, she was so famished. “He’s a thief,” she said of the captain with a nod of commiseration. “But I had no idea you were so low on funds that you’d feel the pinch of five pounds. I will certainly reimburse you.”

She wasn’t being flippant. He’d complained so much about the cost of this trip, naturally she’d concluded that he was light in the pockets even though she probably
should
have kept it to herself.

He gave her a hard look. “It has nothing to do being able to afford it or not. No one likes to be robbed, plain and simple. But it wasn’t the captain in this case, it was the cook. He didn’t like being inconvenienced when I asked for bland food because of your onboard malady, since he had a splendidly rich meal already prepared.”

She felt horrible after that. It was the second thoughtful thing he’d done for her that day, neither of them expected. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t even acknowledge her apology with a simple nod, leading her to think she might have hurt his feelings. So while she hadn’t satisfied her curiosity yet over why he needed her to pose as his wife, she couldn’t bring herself to question him further.

She was silent for the remainder of the meal. Returning to the bed, she didn’t lie back down, she just sat there staring at the floor.

The number of emotions that crossed her face was probably quite telling, but one finally prompted him to ask in a gentler tone, “What are you stewing about now?”

A better question might have been, what wasn’t she stewing about? But her thoughts had just briefly touched on his earlier remark about her swimming back to London. The results could have been disastrous in unexpected ways, and her expression had probably reflected that.

“You would really have let me jump overboard this morning in my condition, when it might have hurt the baby?”

He looked annoyed. “Let’s be quite clear about this, Becca. I don’t believe a word of that nonsense you were spouting about a baby. I
do
believe you had a motive for coming to me today. If you’d like to make a clean breast of it…?”

That was it! He’d called her a liar one time too many. “What I’d like is for you to shut up now, you’ve insulted me quite enough for one day.”

“Is that always going to be your response when you get backed into a corner?”

“This bed might be in a corner, but it’s quite roomy, thank you. I simply don’t feel a need to convince you when I’ve already told you that your opinion no longer matters to me. You lost your chance to be involved with this baby, and there’s not a thing you can do to change that now.”

Good God it was satisfying to tell him that and see his unexpected reaction. He actually looked furious.

“
If
you were enceinte, no, I would not have let you jump overboard, but since you aren’t, a little cold water wouldn’t have hurt you if you were as frantic to get back as you pretended to be.”

So he thought her worry over her mother was a pretense, too? He was despicable. He didn’t deserve another word from her on any subject. In fact, she lay down determined to let him think she had gone to sleep without giving him another thought.

Actually, she didn’t have to pretend to fall asleep. With a meal in her belly she did go right to sleep. But then her body had been racked throughout the day with dry heaves, which had exhausted her more than she’d realized.

The only thing that Rebecca could be thankful for before the
Merhammer
docked the next morning was that Rupert had made no attempt to claim his bed back from her. He hadn’t even mentioned their sleeping arrangement. He’d simply spent the night in the stuffed chair.

The next morning Rupert had no sooner left the cabin with
his portmanteau in hand after telling her they’d arrived in Rouen, than she was diving for the chamber pot again. The ship had been anchored near the docks. But having arrived in the middle of the night, it had had to wait for the harbormaster to show up in the morning to assign it a berth.

She found Rupert on the deck, standing at the rail. She thought he was waiting for her there, but when she joined him, he made no move to leave the ship. She didn’t bother to ask why. Solid ground was in sight and she raced off the ship herself. He followed her down to the dock.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much,” she replied, and found a crate nearby to sit on. “The morning sickness I’m used to already, but that
plus
sea-sickness is a bit too much.”

“I’m sure,” he said drily.

She sighed. He simply didn’t believe she was having a baby. He had really made that perfectly clear last night. He’d developed a bad opinion of her because of all that nonsense with Sarah, so of course he assumed she was lying about this, too. The trouble was, the more she tried to convince him that he was wrong, the more he was likely to think he was right.

Time wouldn’t tell either, since she didn’t expect to ever see him again after this trip. He might think he could check on her in a few months, but that would be too late. She’d either be out of the country in seclusion where
he
certainly wouldn’t find her—or married to someone else. She was leaning toward the latter. Giving up her baby, even to Rupert, was, well, it was ripping her up inside every time she thought of that now.

R
EBECCA THOUGHT SHE MIGHT
start to cry right there on the dock, so she pushed her bleak thoughts aside.

“Can we go now?” she asked Rupert.

“As soon as my coach is on the dock.”

“You arranged for one to meet you here?”

“No.”

When he didn’t elaborate, she realized with some surprise why he hadn’t been so eager to leave the ship. “You brought a coach along?”

“And a driver. A first for me. I much prefer a swift mount. But I was warned that a ‘wife’ wouldn’t travel by horseback. Arriving at my destination with some flair and pomp will get us in the door sooner as well. You can’t exactly rent crested coaches, even at home.”

Of course you couldn’t, but she was reminded that he hadn’t explained yet why he needed a wife or some pomp. It was time to correct that.

But before she could broach that subject, he added, “Don’t
worry. I managed to scrape up enough pounds to pay for the coach to be unloaded first, prior to the cargo.”

She blushed. She had a feeling he was never going to forget her thoughtless remark about his being low on funds. But she wasn’t going to apologize again. Instead she asked, “What’s this all about, your unusual requirement? Are you here to seduce some unlucky lady, and just to make sure she doesn’t ask you to marry her, you want to bring a fake wife along?”

“That’s not a bad excuse, now that you mention it.” He put a hand to his cheek, as if he were actually giving it some thought. “Shall we leave the explanation at that?”

“If you do, I may help
you
to jump into the water.”

He lifted his foot and rested it next to her thigh on the crate and leaned down to say, “If you’re done with empty threats and pointless sarcasms, I will explain. I wasn’t planning on keeping you in the dark. I’ve been tasked with concluding an investigation that’s been going on for several years now. Since you’re so fresh out of the schoolroom, I assume that you’re aware of just how far our empire has spread?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you know that expansion hasn’t been without casualties or military occupation. In India, for instance, there have been uprisings of one sort or another caused by some of the smaller displaced rulers. But one attack was of particular note because some of our soldiers stationed there were killed with British rifles.”

“Stolen?”

“Yes, but not from the army’s supply in India as you might think. It’s taken nearly two years to follow the trail back to this side of the world to shipments that hadn’t even left England yet.”

“Why so long?”

“Because only one or two crates were being stolen at a time, so no one noticed.”

“And our armies are spread out in so many countries that the rifles could have come from numerous other places,” she guessed.

“Exactly.” He nodded “But the trail ends in Le Mans, at least we hope that it does. The thief in England was finally caught and persuaded to volunteer the name of the man who’d hired him.”

“So the French are actually trying to get back some of the land they lost to us in India, without actually revealing that they’re instigating the attacks?”

“A good guess, Becca, but no. Samuel Pearson is supposedly the man who masterminded the theft, but we need more evidence than just the word of a thief. But Pearson does have a good motive. He’s the second son of a minor English lord, an aristocrat, but untitled. He obtained an officer’s commission in the army and was in fact stationed in India for most of his military career. That was also where he earned his dishonorable discharge for some underhanded dealings with the sepoys under his command.”

“Aren’t they the local Indians who comprise most of our infantry over there?”

Rupert appeared impressed and nodded. “That’s quite a teacher you had in your schoolroom.”

“Tutor,” she corrected. “Mother kept me close to home. But, yes, he was very well traveled and enjoyed sharing what he’d seen and learned firsthand of the world.”

“Your mother allowed such a broad curriculum?” Rupert asked curiously.

“She encouraged it. My father died when I was young, so my mother raised me as she saw fit.

“Interesting. Quite a radical approach with a female child. But then she wouldn’t be the first widow to go a tad overboard in her newfound freedoms. My mother did the same when she was widowed, not where her children were concerned, but for herself.”

Rupert’s team of horses were finally being led off the ship, one at a time, so he excused himself for a few minutes to help. The harbor wasn’t that big, so it was surprising to see that it had a crane vessel, which had already maneuvered next to the
Merhammer
to unload the larger cargo, and the coach was the first item it lifted to the dock.

Before Rupert returned to Rebecca, the horses were hitched to the coach, and he escorted her to it, then climbed in behind her. The roomy vehicle was comfortably upholstered in dark brown leather, with the floorboards highly polished. Thick curtains could be drawn over the windows. From the outside, it was obviously the coach of an aristocrat, not gaudy, but with dark brown wood that made the gold crest of the St. Johns stand out more prominently, so it would serve as “pomp” she supposed.

“Brace yourself,” Rupert said as he leaned back into the seat across from her, “I told my driver to make haste. He’s rather good at following orders.”

He’d no sooner said it than she was bounced a few inches off her seat. The timing, as precise as it was, set them both to chuckling for a few moments. It gave Rebecca an odd feeling. She shouldn’t be laughing with him.

She sobered and reminded Rupert that he hadn’t finished his explanation. “What exactly is Mr. Pearson’s motive?”

“Considering it was his former unit that was attacked with these stolen rifles, and more’n once—”

She cut in with a frown, “You’re talking about murder, aren’t you?”

“That’s a better conclusion than any other. He did bear a few grudges. The scandal of his discharge so disgraced him at home, he was forced to leave England for good and settled in Le Mans with his immediate family. But that’s all we have to go on. What we need now is some proof that he was receiving the stolen rifles, or that he was shipping them on to India. A receipt or a manifest will do.”

“Your involvement in this investigation has been requested by your tailor, I presume?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Jennings.”

Rupert chuckled. “Pearson’s not going to let just any Englishman in his door. An aristocrat was required, so, yes, Nigel did happen to think of me. And since I have time on my hands, I agreed.”

“You’re going to let Pearson know who you really are?”

“Of course not. We’ll use false names—Lord and Lady Hastings.”

“So what exactly is your plan?”

“I need to get into his house. If he didn’t have such a large family, I’d just sneak in and be done with it. But between servants, his many children, and even some of his wife’s relatives who live with them, there must be thirty people under that roof, and it’s not that big a roof.”

“Did you think of knocking on the door to get in?” she said tongue in cheek.

Rupert grinned. “You’d think that would be an option, wouldn’t you? And it is, but not without a wife in tow.”

“Why?”

“Because although Pearson is as rotten as they come, a
bloody thief, a suspected murderer, he has one good quality—he’s a devoted family man, even took his whole family to India with him. In fact, he prizes family so much, he appears to distrust any man who isn’t married or who doesn’t value his own family as much as he does.”

She scoffed, “No one could be that eccentric.”

“Pretty much my own words when I was told what I just repeated to you. But apparently it’s true. At any rate, the plan is to show up at his door as a married couple, just passing through town, heard another Englishman lived there, and having been gone so long from England on our grand tour, we were eager to make his acquaintance. Actually, we should probably change that to an extended wedding trip, considering how young you are.”

“You’re saying your entire plan is that simple? But don’t you still have to snoop through his belongings to find your proof?”

“That’s where you will come in. You aren’t just going to be window-dressing. It will be up to you to cause some sort of distraction so I can search a few key rooms in the house. But then that’s one of your fortes, isn’t it, luv?”