Chapter Three #3
Jack reminded himself that no woman had had the power to hurt him.
He’d known for some years that he wasn’t capable of deep love, and marriage wouldn’t suit him.
He’d seen how a woman could break a man’s heart when his mother had abandoned him and his father when Jack had still been in swaddling clothes.
While out riding with her groom, she had ridden away from Briggs in the woods and had never been seen again.
Not a word was ever heard from her. It was assumed she’d run away.
Even when the horse had returned without her, Jack’s father had refused to believe it and Jack’s nanny had told him that Father had ridden out until dark each day searching for her.
But after a month had passed and the Bow Street Runners he’d hired failed to find her, his father had been forced to accept it.
He’d retreated into himself, and that was the unapproachable man Jack had grown up with, who spent his days locked in his library with his rare books until illness had taken him.
When Jack had attended Eton, the gossip surrounding his mother’s disappearance had arisen afresh and gossip had swirled around him.
The students had parroted their parents: his mother had run away.
She’d left England with a lover. There had even been some suggestion of his father being behind her disappearance.
That she might have suffered at his hands when he’d discovered her to be unfaithful.
But there had never been any evidence to support any of it.
He learned from his old nanny, whom he was immensely fond of, that his mother had been very loving.
Unlike most ladies, who were more interested in their social pursuits, she had spent most of her days in the nursery and insisted on feeding him herself.
Had her love not been strong enough to keep her with him?
He’d defended her reputation using his fists against the schoolboys and though he had been large for his age and a strong lad, he’d been constantly bruised and bloody.
It had gotten him into trouble with the headmaster.
Letters had been sent home with the threat Jack would be expelled, and not wishing to add to his father’s anguish, he’d stopped brawling and fallen into a fearsome silence.
The boys, wary of him, had left him alone.
It had been a lonely existence for Jack when he’d been home, as well as at school.
He’d felt freer with the anonymity at Oxford, but he hadn’t settled down well enough to thrive there.
As the years had gone by and his mother had failed to return and no letter had arrived, Jack had seen it as a bitter betrayal.
But the years had softened him, and the sadness had grown less.
After university, he’d left home and gone to London, where he’d spent several years with a group of aimless young bucks, drinking, gambling and carousing.
Then, that had all changed. Late one night, he’d rescued a gentleman in Covent Garden who had been robbed at knife point.
Jack had beaten the thief within an inch of his life, then hauled him off to Bow Street.
The gentleman had been Mr. Edmund Filmore, who’d invited him to come and see him at his office in Whitehall.
So, at three and twenty years of age, Jack had become an agent for the Crown, which offered him a means of dealing with his anger.
His rakish reputation didn’t bother him.
Working as a spy suited him. Jack had no intention of marrying, even after his father had passed away and he’d become the fifth Viscount Hereford.
But strangely, he couldn’t deny that more than admiration for her beauty, he had felt some connection to Lady Prudence when he’d first set eyes on her.
As if they’d met sometime in the past. As puzzling as this was, it went against the grain with him to ignore a woman in trouble, and her plight refused to leave his thoughts, despite there being little he could do to ease her concerns.
Surely, she had no need of help from him when her cousin arrived within days to take over.
Jack was manifestly aware he must remain focused on ferreting out the dangerous miscreants.
If their information was correct, it was imperative to learn who the schemers were, and where they gathered to plot their insurgency.
And to do so before they set their plan in motion—a plan that could result in a bloodbath, the proportions of which the English government had never seen.
Not since Guy Fawkes, who, with his fellow Catholic conspirators, had attempted to blow up Parliament and assassinate James I of England.
Any action out of the ordinary on Jack’s part, such as stepping out of character, could blow his cover and place others in danger.
In the morning before breakfast, Jack joined a party of guests to ride over the estate.
They trotted close together while they conversed, but soon becoming bored, he fell back and turned his horse’s head toward the north.
He galloped his mount over the pastures and vaulted fences and hedges, reaching the small village, with its cottages, stone church, farriers, and haberdashery within the hour.
A few miles farther on, he approached the elaborate, iron gates of Sedgwick Hall.
He told himself that he merely wished to ensure Lady Prudence had arrived safely home.
Once reassured, he could finally thrust this affair from his mind.
A coach rattled up and passed by him to pull up before the gates. The gatekeeper rushed out of the gatehouse to open them. “Good day, Mr. Stanton,” the man said with a tug on his forelock. “Hope ye had a good journey.”
The new earl’s pale be-ringed hand emerged from the coach’s window and sharply waved the coach on. The gatekeeper had to scurry back out of the way of the horses as it rattled past.
Jack watched the vehicle wend its way along the avenue to the house. He shouldn’t judge Stanton poorly because he’d been unnecessarily rude. Yet he did. And inexplicably, it worried him.
Turning back, he left the road, threading his way through the trees and into a meadow.
He dismounted and walked his tired horse across the grass.
A right stinker, Stanton might have been, and regrettably, matters would now rest in his hands.
Bain had mentioned how dismayed Lady Prudence had been at being reminded that Stanton would come to take control.
An odd reaction, Jack thought. One would think she would have been glad of the support.
Did it place her in a vulnerable position?
It made him wonder just what her cousin intended for her.
Despite his annoyance at allowing himself to become involved when he should have ridden back to Bain’s and make use of the few hours left to him, leading his horse, he wandered slowly across the greensward toward the earl’s land.
A rider appeared on a rise in the distance.
Jack was unable to make out much about her, beyond her sex.
Her hat fell back onto her neck, and a cloud of flame-colored tresses danced over her shoulders.
And then he knew. Lady Prudence. You rarely saw hair that color.
Like expensive burgundy. As he mounted to ride on, another rider galloped into sight.
His stallion outpaced Lady Prudence’s mare, and he pulled up his horse beside hers.
The angry tone of their voices reached him, although Jack was too far away to hear what they said.
Stanton rode his stallion too close to Lady Prudence’s mount, forcing her back toward the house. It spoke volumes to Jack and ruined any idea he had about dismissing Lady Prudence’s plight as that of a young woman merely suffering from the effects of the awful tragedy and the loss of her father.
For a moment, he was tempted to intervene.
But much as he’d like to, Lady Prudence didn’t appear to be in any imminent danger.
And he had no right to meddle in affairs that had nothing to do with him.
Time was growing short. He mounted his horse and rode back to Bain’s estate.
He only had the rest of today and this evening to discover if any of the men’s tongues had loosened and let slip valuable information before the party ended.
And there were two men whom he intended to focus on, as pointed out by Miss Lindale. Mr. Francis Saxon and Viscount Craven.