“No.” Even that single word hurt her, but she had to speak. “You’re not worthy to be a man.”
“What?” Dropping his breeches, he revealed himself. “Look!”
“No!” Rejecting him, rejecting everything, she closed her eyes, kicked out with her feet, flailed her hands. “No, no! You’re nothing. You can hit me, but you can’t rape me.” She drummed her heels on the seat until his silence eased into her consciousness.
Then only the patter of rain and the breeze through the door broke the eerie quiet until he whispered, “How can you say that?”
She pressed her palm against her eyes until gunpowder exploded behind her lids. “You poor man. You pitiful excuse for a man.”
Her pity seemed to convince him, for he tugged up his breeches and buttoned them.
When she was sure he was covered, she eased herself upright. She rubbed her jaw, checked her teeth, and wished he would say something.
His gaze fixed on the floor, Judson appeared to be thinking. “You said you knew I couldn’t rape you. How did you know?”
She blushed, in embarrassment for him and for herself. Shrugging helplessly, she said, “I just knew.”
“Women’s intuition?” he suggested.
“I suppose you could call it that.”
“Then everyone knows.”
“Well, I—”
“There’s no place for me here in England. Even if my every plan succeeds, there’s no place for me on this island.” He lifted his gaze and stared at her with such malevolence that she forgot pain, abandoned hope. “Do you know why I murdered Henriette?”
“Because she overheard your plans to—”
“Because she said what you said. Not so politely—the French are so crude—but because she said what you said.”
Chapter 18
“I don’t like this,” Northrup whispered. Shoulders hunched against the rain, he stood on the street before Robert Walpole’s town house. He held the reins of both their horses in his hands and glanced about in distress.
“Why not?” Adam rapped on the door with his walking stick. “It seems quite serene.”
“That means Judson’s not here.”
Adam stared at the door panels, memorizing the wood grain as hopelessness beat through his veins. “I know that. But we really have no place else to look, and there’s a chance—just a chance—he will arrive. Would you take the horses back to the stables, so if he does arrive, he’s not frightened off?”
Subdued, Northrup said, “Of course, sir.”
The butler, when he answered the door, seemed openly delighted to see Adam. As Adam shed his soggy overcoat, the butler confided, “It’s been quite a day, Lord Rawson, with the oddest folk arriving and departing.”
“Madame Rachelle arrived, then?”
Drawing himself up, the butler sniffed. “She is one of the odd folk, my lord.”
It should be funny, but Adam’s face felt carved in stone. “Is she still here?”
“Indeed.” The butler opened the door to the drawing room. “Everyone is still here.”
Adam stepped across the threshold and into the midst of buzzing conversations barren of listeners. “So they are.”
Mr. Jacombe sat beside the big desk, papers in hand, addressing the matter of Walpole’s investments. An attractive young woman, dressed in nothing but her stays, snored on the couch. A tailor leaned over his drawing board, scribbling furiously. Only Rachelle stood silent at the window, looking out on the rain.
“Where’s Robert?” Adam asked. “Where’s Robert?”
Rachelle swung around at his exclamation. “Lord Rawson, thank God you have arrived.” She hurried to his side. “That idiotic man you call your friend has retired to his den to work alone.”
Adam turned to the butler. “Take me to Robert at once.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Lord Rawson. Mr. Robert gave instructions he was not to be disturbed. But if you’d wait here—”
He spoke to Adam’s back as Adam stalked toward Walpole’s den. Rachelle smirked. “Lord Rawson is not one to let courtesy stand in his way.”
The butler sniffed. “Obviously not.”
Adam’s first impulse was to slam back the door, but he contained himself. Judson might, even now, be holding Robert at gunpoint. He put his head to the solid wood and listened, but he heard nothing. Kneeling, he peered into the keyhole, but the room looked dark. Dark?
Too late, he realized he gazed on the fabric of Walpole’s coat and failed to scramble back fast enough. As Walpole jerked open the door, Adam fell forward into an ignominious heap.
Walpole stared at his friend, huddled at his feet. “Good of you to drop in.”
Furious, Adam stood up and dusted himself off. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Working. In privacy, I thought.” To the butler Walpole called, “Are my pens sharpened?”
“Indeed, sir, and waiting in the right-hand drawer of your desk,” the butler answered.
Walpole nodded and asked Adam, “Did you want to come in?”
“Damn it, Robert.” Adam stomped into the den. “Can’t you even be assassinated correctly?”
“Good to see you, too.” Walpole slammed the door. “What’s the meaning of this ridiculous message given me by the salon keeper?”
A great swell of exasperation caught Adam, and he retorted, “It means, you idiot, that Carroll Judson’s going to try and kill you.”
“That worm?” Walpole strolled to his desk and rummaged in his right-hand drawer. “Here they are.” He laid a pen on his paper and asked, “Should I be concerned?”
“The bullet from the gun of a worm is just as deadly as the bullet from the gun of the bird that eats the worm—” Adam rubbed his forehead. “Good God, Robert, do you hear the ludicrous things you’re having me say?”
“I?” Walpole asked blandly. “I have no control over your speech.”
Adam covered his face with his hand and fell back against the wall with a thump.
Chuckling, Walpole insisted, “Whoa! Rein in that somber attitude. I’ve warned you about it before. So you believe this nonsense about assassination?”
“I not only believe it, I wrote you a note about it.”
“You wrote that note?”
Exasperation welled in Adam at this Englishman, so smug in his home and his country. “I signed it.”
“It had no seal,” Walpole said.
Incredulous, Adam said, “No seal? Robert, I wrote the message at Madame Rachelle’s, and in a tearing hurry.” He glanced around the large room. “Where do those doors lead?”
“The one you’re standing next to leads to the hall,” Walpole offered.
“Thank you, Robert, but I know where I’ve been. I want to know where Judson is coming in.”
Walpole pointed at the portals one by one. “That one leads into the library. That leads to the kitchen passage. That one goes to one of my private chambers, where a lovely young whore was entertaining me when your Frenchie insisted on interrupting me on this matter of life and death.”
Walpole glared, but Adam ignored him as he tested each door to see if it was unlocked. “So Judson will probably come from the kitchen.”
“Or a window.” Hunched over, Walpole tiptoed to Adam in his imitation of an assassin bent on murder. “Or maybe he’ll slip some poison under the door, with a polite request I ingest it?”
“Sarcasm is unattractive in a man of your girth.” Adam peered out the window into the garden. “Try to take this seriously.”
Walpole straightened up. “It’s stupid. Why would anyone murder me?”
“Because of your charm,” Adam snarled, turning on him.
“Buck up!” Walpole ordered. “I’m a nobody.”
“Who, with a little luck, is going to be somebody. You’ve already proved your worth with the government once. No one doubts you’ll do it again.”
“Nothing’s as boring as yesterday’s villain.” Walpole clapped his friend on the back. “Un
less it’s yesterday’s hero.”
“If that hero has been boasting to all of his plans to direct England’s destiny, someone might find it of interest,” Adam said pointedly.
Quick with guilt, Walpole protested, “I didn’t do that.”
In no mood to humor his friend, Adam said, “Robert, you did. You confessed to it once, and no doubt that confession covered a multitude of sins.”
Walpole had the grace to look sheepish. “Oh, I don’t believe this!” He lifted his hand to still Adam’s protest. “But if it’s true, couldn’t you have sent someone besides a frog eater to warn me about Judson? I would have believed a solid Englishman.”
Adam rapped the floor with his walking stick. “Robert, you’d only believe the Second Coming if it put money in your hands. Now pay attention. We need to make arrangements for Judson’s capture.”
“Capture?” Walpole harrumphed and started for the door. “I’ll tell my servants to shoot on sight.”
“No!” Adam leaped forward. “Please, Robert, Judson still has Bronwyn, and I must know where he’s stowed her.”
Puffed and indignant as a ruffled grouse, Walpole said, “That’s the real reason I didn’t believe that frog woman! She told me your betrothed had been living at a salon. Are you saying it’s true?”
Supremely uninterested in Walpole’s skepticism, Adam answered, “Oh, that. Yes, Bronwyn’s been living at Madame Rachelle’s. You owe Bronwyn a rather large debt, Robert. She’s the one who discovered Judson’s plan.”
Groping for his chair, Walpole began to speak, then thought better of it and sank silently down behind his desk. At last he began again. “Adam, what have you been doing these past hours? I thought you would have rescued the gel by now.”
“Judson has been two steps ahead of us the whole time. But now—” Adam shook his head.
“Now, what?” Walpole asked.
“Judson’s doorman said he was coming here. Why hasn’t he arrived? Did he stop somewhere with Bronwyn and…” Adam couldn’t finish. He’d almost admitted his fears, and speaking them aloud made them too real. “I have to know what has happened. Whatever you do, don’t shoot him.”
“At least”—Walpole opened the left-hand drawer and lifted a gun from his desk—“not to kill. Do you need a pistol?”
“A pistol is not my weapon, you know that.” Adam loosened his seaman’s knife from its case.
“What if he doesn’t arrive?” Walpole asked shrewdly. “What will you do then?” Adam just looked at his friend, and something of his bleak depression must have impressed Walpole, for he protested, “Damn, Adam, you can’t be attached to this woman. Not you!”
Adam was spared a reply by a creaking noise at the kitchen door. He tensed, laid his hand on the hilt of his knife. The image of relaxation, Walpole leaned back in his chair, but his hand rested on the drawer with the gun. They waited, silent, watchful, as the doorknob turned with excruciating slowness. The brass decorations on the escutcheon around the twisting knob branded themselves on Adam’s brain.
Inside him, the desire to kill Judson warred with his need to know—know where Bronwyn was, know how she was, know he could hold her once more.
Squealing on its hinges, the door swung open. Damp, with face powder glued to his frock coat, Judson gazed at Walpole, gazed at Adam, smiled with crooked cordiality. “I never expected to see you here, Lord Rawson.” He laid heavy emphasis on Adam’s title. “Have I interrupted a party?”
Behind him the smells of the kitchen wafted up the passage. A dim light shone through the open window where he’d entered. But no one moved behind him.
Disappointment clawed at Adam. Judson was alone. Madness to hope Bronwyn would be with him, of course, but a madness he had indulged in.
As the seconds ticked by, Judson mocked, “Ineloquence has never been the bane of the honorable Robert Walpole before.”
“Nor is it now.” As the reality of the threat struck him, Walpole marveled, “I thought Adam had run mad. I never thought you would really come.”
Judson’s gaze slid to Adam. “Just a friendly call.”
“Friendly callers come through the front door,” Adam admonished. “But then, friendly callers don’t sketch a plan of the room arrangement and study it until the ink smudges.”
“You’ve been spying on me.” Judson’s hand clenched at his side, and he jeered, “You’re just like your father.”
Adam took a step forward. “My father? My father never stooped to murder.”
“Murder?” Judson repeated in arch amazement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Voice rising, Adam threatened, “I warned you I would stomp you into the dirt, and now—” Walpole snapped his name, and he subsided, but he discovered his knife now rested in his palm. Forcing himself to relax his grip, he took several long breaths. He couldn’t throw accurately under such tension, and he owed it to himself, to Walpole, to Bronwyn, to pin Judson against the wall.
“You really came,” Walpole said again. “What do you expect to accomplish with this lunacy?”
“Lunacy?” Judson inquired, his painted eyebrows tilted in reproach.
“Did you think no one would notice you killed me?” Walpole slammed his fist on the desk, and Judson jumped.
“Nervous, Judson?” Adam mocked. “You work better alone, in the dark, with no one to watch and expose you. How will you kill us both?”
Walpole glared at Adam. “Damn it, shut up. He wants to kill me, so stop interrupting.” Transferring his attention to Judson, he challenged, “So kill me, but I must warn you—I am prepared for your scurrilous attack.”
“It seems everyone here knows my agenda.” Judson’s hand slipped into his pocket, but he maintained a guileless facade. “I’m curious, though. Why should I attack you?”
“A good question, when your true enemies have led you to financial disaster,” Adam said.
Soft and sweet, Judson asked, “What enemies are those?”
“The directors of the South Sea Company. The company’s stock is plunging. Your stock is plunging with it,” Adam told him brutally.
At the mention of finance, Judson sacrificed his pretense. “This is a false drop in price, much like the drop experienced in June when the king left the country.”
Adam shook his head. “The directors lied to you. The bubble has burst.”
“No.”
Impatient, Walpole interrupted, “Look at the facts, man! The stock has dropped more than two hundred points in five days!”
“They’ve manipulated the market so the stock appears to be a failure,” Judson replied.
“Why would they do that?” Walpole asked.
Judson smiled, almost cocky. “You’re ruined, aren’t you?”
Taken aback, Walpole sputtered, “Why…no. What makes you think so?”
Judson’s smile slipped. “You bought the stock. For all your high principles, you invested heavily.”
“Yes, and I sold it.” Walpole stared grimly, challenging Judson. “I sold it on the recommendation of my friend, Adam Keane. Almost I bought again, not trusting his advice, but luck and poor communication with Mr. Jacombe saved me.”
Breathing heavily, Judson said, “That’s not true. They would have told me.”
“Why?” asked Adam, knowing the answer. “Why did the state of Robert Walpole’s finances matter?”
As Judson’s control broke, he screamed, “He’s a menace! He’s always sticking his nose in the Treasury, telling the king what to do, knowing the best way to handle the fortune of the kingdom. Sir John Blunt is the one who knows what’s best. Sir John Blunt should direct the course of the country.”
“So you’re going to kill Robert for dear ol’ England?” Adam laughed, brief and bitter. “Come now, tell me another tale.”
Judson stuck out his tongue at Adam, for all the world like the child he’d once been. “You think you’re so clever. Sir John Blunt is paying me well, and will continue to pay me well when he is appointed to hi
s rightful post in the government. First lord of the Treasury and chancellor of the Exchequer.” Judson rolled the title off his tongue. “Sir John has assured me I’ll remain behind the scenes to instruct the unwilling in his methods.”
“Blunt is not stupid. After you’ve performed your duties here, he’ll have you put down. He can’t afford to have a rabid dog like you roaming about.” Before Judson could protest, Adam added, “Blunt has already sold his stock, stripping the South Sea Company’s coffers early and often.”
“It’s not true,” Judson said, but it sounded as if he begged to be told a lie.
“What difference would it make if I had lost everything?” Walpole asked. “Why would that help your plans?”
“I thought…” Defiant, Judson said, “We thought if you were ruined, I could kill you and all would believe it was suicide.”
Hearty, bluff Walpole burst into laughter at the ludicrous plot.
From the copious pocket of his coat, Judson pulled a pistol and pointed it right at the convulsed Walpole.
Adam balanced his knife on his fingertips, aimed, yet as he threw Judson shouted, “Die slowly, like Bronwyn.”
The knife buried itself in the wall beside Judson, and Adam leaped after it.
Judson’s arm, extended out straight, swerved toward Adam, and Adam skidded to a halt. “If Bronwyn is alive,” he whispered, his preposterous promise balancing his despair, “I’ll smuggle you out of the country with enough money to set yourself up nicely.”
Indignant, Walpole snapped, “You’d reward him for trying to assassinate me?”
Ignoring Walpole, Adam kept all his attention on Judson and that pistol. The pistol never dipped, but, like a snake prepared to strike, it wavered between its targets. Adam coaxed, “You know you can trust me. It’s the only way you’ll get out of this alive.”
“And if she’s dead?” Judson asked.
Adam laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. “You’d better kill me now.”
Walpole insisted, “The worst crime you could commit is to kill an aristocrat.”
The black eye of the pistol pivoted toward him once more, and Judson stepped farther into the room. The light fell on his face, and what Adam saw there put a shaft through his heart. “Your face is marked.”