Gypsy Lady (35 page)

"Such
a gracious request overwhelms me," Roxbury murmured.

A
sudden grin quirked at the corner of Jason's mouth, and some of the harshness
left his face. "Are you roasting me, uncle?"

"Yes,
to be sure! You're taking yourself much too seriously, and it pains me. Did
you truthfully doubt that I wouldn't help you? Have I ever refused you?"

Jason
had the grace to look uncomfortable, and he muttered, "No! And I apologize
for my surliness. This marriage has me more rattled than I realized."

His
nephew in an almost humble mood was very nearly Roxbury's undoing. A grave
expression hiding the smile that twitched on his lips, he said, "We will
say no more of this—other than, may I presume that with your usual arrogance
you have already informed Lady Tremayne to write me if the girl arrives in
Leicestershire?"

Grinning
suddenly, Jason nodded.

"Well,
then," the duke said placidly, "I shall do whatever is within my
power. As soon as I have any word, however small, I shall write you. You
will
let me know when you leave France for America, I
trust?" he asked dryly.

A
frown creased Jason's face. "If she hasn't been found by then—by the time
the negotiations are finished— I may not return directly to the United States,
but may pay you another visit."

Roxbury
stiffened and sat up abruptly, staring hard at Jason. Choosing each word
carefully he said slowly, "I would not! I should warn you that it is in
your own best interest to leave France no later than the middle of May. It
would not be wise to linger after that time, and you can do nothing here in
England that will not already have been done. Do I make myself clear?"

Jason's
green eyes, suddenly alert and hard, bored into equally hard gray eyes, and the
silence that filled the room was tense and ugly. Very softly Jason asked,
"Are you
ordering
me?"

The
duke, torn in two by duty and affection, opted for affection, knowing that,
like himself, if pressed too hard Jason would do exactly as he pleased. It was
easier than worrying where or what his unruly nephew was up to. "No,
Jason, I'm asking you." Then not willing to give in too tamely he tacked
on, "You night say, I'm
telling
you
for your own safety."

More
relieved than he cared to admit by his uncle's capitulation, Jason forced a
taut smile and proceeded to very nearly unnerve the duke by stating carelessly,
"So o-o—you warn me that Britain is about to strike the first blow and
reopen hostilities with Napoleon!" He needled the duke further by audaciously
musing aloud, "I wonder which side I would choose to fight on. Having a
French grandparent on both sides of the family tree and only one English strain
running throughout makes it rather a difficult choice, don't you think?"

"Jason,
don't try me too far." The words were spoken quietly, and recognizing—just
as the duke had recognized —that the other could only be pushed so far, Jason
cocked an eyebrow at his stony-faced uncle and grinned.
"Very
well!
We will cry pax! You must forgive me for getting a little of my
own back. You were enjoying yourself too much at my expense earlier for me to
allow you to escape without some retaliation!"

Jason had a last score to
settle before returning to France, and leaving Roxbury's town house, he drove
promptly to Pendleton's lodgings hoping to find him there.

Luck
was with him, for not yet completely recovered from the effects of the duel
with Jason, Clive remained in seclusion in his rooms. Brushing past the
manservant who answered his curt rap on the door, Jason strode into Clive's
rooms like a brash north wind.

Clive,
his arm in a black silk sling, was reclining languidly on a couch, a bottle of
port near his elbow. He had been idly leafing through the latest racing gazette
when Jason stormed into the room. At the sight of his visitor, he sat up
quickly and throwing the gazette on the floor growled, "Who let you in? I
have nothing to say to you."

Jason
cast him a look filled with dislike and grasping the lapels of Clive's brocade
lounging robe hauled him to his feet. "I have something to say to you.
Take this as a friendly warning,
salaud
—do
not
ever
threaten Catherine again!
And if you cause Rachael one second of worry, I shall personally beat your
brains out!"

Clive's
eyes were like hard gray marbles, and twisting out of Jason's grasp he panted,
"So, the little bitch told you! I should have known better than to use
her. Just once, I wish a woman would do as she's told!"

Jason
took a menacing step forward, his fists closing at his sides. "Clive,
Catherine is now my
wife!
And
if you so much as look at her the wrong way, it will go ill for you. Next time
it won't be a shot in the shoulder I'll give you— it will be in the heart. My
aim is very good, as you know. Remember that, if you ever think
to
force either one of them into a similar situation."

A
queer glitter in his eyes, Clive exclaimed, "You
married
her!" Flinging himself down in a chair he sneered, "What a fitting
combination—a gypsy lady and a Louisiana savage! You deserve one
another!"

"That
may be," Jason said levelly. "But I warn you, I will take no insult
about my wife, and you had better forget any past relationship you had with
her."

"You
mean I should forget she was my mistress?" Clive asked slyly.

Jason's
glance was deadly. "That horse won't
run,
gros lourdaud!
She was never your mistress—no matter how you and
that old gypsy tried to mislead me. I've often wondered why you let me think
it."

"It
suited me," Clive said petulantly. Fixing Jason with a malevolent stare,
he muttered bitterly, "I planned on marrying her.
You
and Catherine—my two failures."

At
Jason's look of incomprehension, Clive's harsh laugh rang out. Having nothing
to lose, he boasted, "Oh yes, I hired those two men who failed to kill
you." He shot Jason a look brimming with hatred. "And I failed with
Catherine, too. She should never have reappeared after I gave her and that
damn brother of hers to the gypsies. But it was just my luck. Reina took a
fancy to her and double-crossed me. By rights the little slut should have been
dead and in the bottom of the sea,"

In an
odd voice Jason asked, "Are you telling me you arranged for Catherine to
be kidnapped?
For God's sake, why?"

Clive
gave him a derisive glance.
"Money!
What else? I
was the earl's favorite until that noxious little bitch was born. God! How I
hated and loathed her! He would have left me everything if he hadn't married
that insipid Rachael, and she had to give him a child! I was to—"

Clive
never finished the sentence because Jason
snatched,
him up bodily and hurled him across the room.

Pendleton
had no defense against the sledge-hammer fists that pounded into his body, and
Jason, blind with rage and in the grip of a savage, frenzied urge to kill,
struck him again and again, sanity returning just before he beat the man to
death. Staring at the bloodied huddle on the floor, Jason said softly, "I
should kill you, vermin that you are—and I will if you.
ever
cross my path again..'"

Then,
sickened by Pendleton as well as himself,
his
face twisted with disgust,
he stumbled from the room.

But
Jason was not Clive's only unwelcome visitor that evening. Jason had barely
departed, and Clive had just managed to have his many cuts and hurts tended
when his servant entered announcing, "Another gentleman who will not give
his name to me is here to see you!"

Davalos
walked in a second later, halting with surprise at the sight of Clive's
battered face.
"Bios!
What
has happened to you?"

Clive
threw him a smoldering glance. "I've just had a taste of a Savage, you
might say."

"Jason?
He is returned?" Davalos asked quickly.

"Of
course, you fool!
Who else?"
Clive bit out
angrily.

Davalos,
looking very proud and aloof, said, "I know nothing of your friends, and
it is possible that there are others who would do you harm."

Hunching
an impatient shoulder, Clive turned away and with a hand that still shook
raised a glass of brandy to
his
lips.

Watching
him with narrowed eyes, Davalos said softly, "So Jason has returned from
wherever he had hidden himself. And the first thing that he does is see you.
Why?"

"How
the hell should I know?"

"I
find that rather hard to believe,
amigo.
I
have paid you a large sum of money
to
accomplish a certain task, and as yet you have not done so.
You
say that Jason disappeared suddenly from Melton
Mowbray and that you could not find him. I have learned from other sources that
he held a meeting with a prominent banking firm shortly thereafter,
And
now as suddenly he reappears and proceeds for
apparently no reason to give you a sound thrashing." His eyes glittering
and a dangerous cast to his thin mouth, Davalos continued silkily, "Have
you tried to double-cross me—and perhaps Jason as well?"

Clive
was in no mood to stomach Davalos's comments, and he made a fatal mistake in
not realizing the nature of the man standing so near him. Angry and bitter and
looking for someone on whom to vent his frustration, he sneered, "Wouldn't
you just like to know?"

Davalos's
features darkened, and an expression that should have warned Clive crossed his
face. He was standing near a window in Clive's room, and almost idly his hand
played with a silken cord tied around the drapes. Slowly, with apparent
abstraction, he unhooked the cord, letting the drape swing free. Holding the
length of silk in his hand he said,
"Si.
I
would like to know. And I would like to know where Jason has been and now where
he has gone."

Clive,
paying little attention to Davalos's actions, gave a twisted grimace of a
smile. "That, my friend, you didn
't
pay
for. So you'll just have to wonder."

"True,"
Davalos agreed calmly as almost caressingly he drew the silk cord through his
hands. "But I did pay you to deliver a map into my hands."

Nastily
Clive snapped, "Prove it!"

His
voice very quiet, Davalos inquired tightly, "Are you telling me that I
shall get nothing for my money?"

Clive
threw him a derisive smile and turning his back on him said curtly,
"That's exactly what I'm saying. Get out of here. I think—"

Clive
never finished his sentence for, like the reptile he resembled, Davalos struck.
He slipped the thin cord of silk around Clive's throat and tightened. Vainly
Clive's fingers clutched at the band biting into his neck. Davalos, a smile on
his face, only increased the pressure bending the other man almost backwards
with his strength. "See,
amigo,
it
is not wise to thwart me," Davalos hissed in his ear.

Clive,
fighting off the blackness closing in before his eyes, barely heard the words.
He fought desperately, but it was no use and a few minutes later his body slid
to the floor.

Davalos
stared at him a moment. Then quickly he left the room. There was no one in the
small hallway, and if luck was with him the corpse would not be discovered for
hours—perhaps not even until morning. It all depended on how long Clive's
servant would wait before checking the room.

Reaching
the street Davalos hurried away into the night. Now there was no choice—he
would have to leave England immediately, before a hue and cry was raised. But
that suited his purpose. Jason must even now be preparing to leave for New
Orleans—and he, Davalos would be right behind him.

But
there Davalos miscalculated. Jason was not on his way to New Orleans. There was
nothing to hold him in

England
now,
and Jason left that night for France. His return
to Paris was accomplished almost as quickly as the dash to England. And as his
curricle covered the now familiar roads leading to the capital city, his eyes
were unceasing in their search for a slim, violet-eyed figure. His curt
questions at the posting inns along the way elicited no new information.

As
each day passed and he still heard no word of his vanished wife, his face grew
harder, and his green eyes took on an icy expression that gave more than one
person pause.

In
private conversation with Monroe, he intimated that the situation in Europe was
such that he had felt it necessary to send his bride home to Louisiana. To
those who asked after his missing bride, he told the same story.

Unable
to bear the empty rooms at the Hotel Crillon, he moved his lodgings to a less
splendid address and proceeded to commit such wild excesses that he soon earned
the title of "The Mad Man from Louisiana;" No wager or dare was too
reckless or dangerous for him. He fought two duels, one of them with the
Chevalier D'Arcy, killing the man outright with a shot between the eyes. Only
the fact that D'Arcy was universally disliked saved Jason from a very nasty
state of affairs. Napoleon frowned upon dueling, but as D'Arcy was no loss and
Jason was connected, however slightly, with the very delicate question of the
purchase of Louisiana, it was good politics to look the other way.

Bent
upon
his own
path to destruction, the gambling halls
and cockpits became his haunts, and a different beautiful woman hung on his arm
each night. Pride that had at first driven him after a runaway wife now forbade
him to search for her. She wanted none of him, did she? Well then, the devil
with her! He wouldn't waste his time languishing like a lovesick fool over a
woman who didn't want him—not when there were so many who were eager and more
than willing to share his bed. And share it they did! It was as if by
possessing as many women as possible he could tear Catherine's lovely face from
his memories.

A
note from Monroe abruptly interrupted his rakish pursuits, and he managed to
arrive at the American legation showing few signs of his latest indulgences.
But

Monroe,
seated behind his desk, studied the tall, slim- hipped figure, as Jason
restlessly prowled the room, and observed the faint air of dissipation that
clung to the young man before him.

His
green eyes held a reckless glitter that hadn't been obvious earlier, and his
full bottom lip definitely had a cynical twist to it. Disturbed by Jason's
unceasing pacing, Monroe brought a halt to it by remarking testily,
"Jason,
will
you sit down and stop
moving about so! How can I concentrate with you stalking around the room like a
lion in a cage?"

Throwing
Monroe an impatient glance, Jason forced himself to settle in a large
overstuffed chair next to the desk. His long legs, encased in a pair of
tight-fitting buckskin breeches, were stretched out in front of him, and after
shoving his hands into the front pockets, he slouched back against the fabric
and rested his dark head on the top of the chair. His voice expressionless, he
asked, "Satisfied?"

Monroe
eyed him warily. This was a side of young Savage he hadn't encountered before,
and he wasn't sure he liked it. At the moment Jason reminded him ever so much
of a banked fire: behind his exterior a blazing flame roared, and it would take
very little to release the inferno that Savage barely held in check. Deciding
against polite conversation Monroe said bluntly, "We have agreed to pay
France sixty million francs for the Louisiana territory."