Читать книгу Claiming His Defiant Miss - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 12

Chapter Four

He’d looked at her like she was the biggest mistake he’d ever made! He wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been for Preston! He had made his feelings perfectly clear. May hacked at the feathery green tops of the carrots and began slicing with more ferocity than finesse. She threw the carrot pieces into the stewpot.

‘Toss, May.’ Beatrice leaned across the worktable in the kitchen and put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘We toss the carrots into the pot. We don’t hurl them. Especially when they’re Farmer Sinclair’s carrots,’ she added with a wry smile. May smiled back, apologetically.

‘Good. Now that I have your attention, tell me what’s wrong. Is this pique of yours entirely about Preston or is it something more?’

‘Something more?’ May snapped, reaching for another carrot to dismember. ‘Isn’t it enough my brother is lying wounded in an obscure farmhouse at the mercy of a treasonous villain and no one will take me to him?’

Beatrice smiled patiently, years of experience in dealing with May’s hot temper and outbursts behind her. ‘It is enough. I am worried sick for him myself.’ Her hand went unconsciously to her stomach and rubbed it in a soothing, settling gesture. ‘I think the baby is worried about him, too.’

She laughed a little, but May frowned. ‘Are you all right, Bea?’ Bea had struggled the last two weeks with swollen feet and the occasional contraction, and she was huge.

Bea waved a dismissive hand. ‘We were talking about you. Don’t try to change the subject. You have a bad habit of doing that whenever the subject gets too hot.’ Bea reached for the mallet to hammer out meat for the stew. ‘Speaking of hot, May, Liam Casek is no iceberg.’ May didn’t miss the sly look Bea gave her. ‘Do you know him? I don’t recall Preston ever bringing him around.’

‘Bea! Shame on you for noticing. You’re about to give birth.’ May opted for a teasing scold.

Bea gave her a sly smile. ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t notice a handsome man.’

May finished putting the ingredients in the stewpot and lifted it, trudging over to the large arched brick hearth and hanging the heavy pot over the fire. She wiped her hands on her apron before responding. ‘He’s not the sort to be brought around.’ How did one explain Liam Casek and how he’d somehow risen from a pickpocket to being one of the Home Office’s most prized agents. She wasn’t sure exactly what he did, but he worked with Preston and that carried some weight. Preston did important and apparently dangerous work that could only be entrusted to the best.

‘But obviously Preston brought him home at least once.’ Bea was persistent, studying May with an intensity that boded no good. Suddenly, Beatrice snapped her fingers. ‘I know when it was! The summer of 1816, the summer you went to the lakes and Jonathon Lashley was home recovering from his wounds.’ May watched in dismay as the wheels of Beatrice’s sharp mind began to turn. ‘Preston always took Jonathon on holiday with your family, but that year he was unable to go.’

It had been a terrible year. Jonathon’s brother had gone missing in action and Jonathon had come home near death after Waterloo, something no one had expected. He was an heir. He was supposed to have been kept safe delivering dispatches behind friendly lines. May remembered hearing the news. Jonathon was one of her brother’s closest friends. The family had gathered in the drawing room, quiet and sombre. Her indomitable mother had been pale and her father had taken her grown brother in his arms and held him tight as if to convince himself his son was alive and healthy. They’d gone to the lakes that summer and Liam Casek had come in Jonathon’s place. Her father hadn’t entirely approved of Liam in the beginning. Her father had liked him a lot less by the end.

‘It’s funny you never mentioned him.’ Bea cocked her head to one side, considering. The next moment she let out a pained gasp, one hand on her belly, the other on the worktable to steady herself.

May was instantly beside her. ‘What is it, Bea?’ Beatrice had gone white.

‘I don’t know. Oh!’ Another pain took her and May got an awkward arm about her waist.

‘Let’s get you to your bed. You can lie down.’ It was all May could think of to do. It was hard work moving Bea from the kitchen to the downstairs bedroom. May was thankful they didn’t have to go upstairs. But Bea wouldn’t lie down. She held on to May’s arm.

‘You need to go for the doctor, May,’ she said softly. ‘I think I’m bleeding.’

‘I’ll go.’ Liam’s voice in the doorway made May jump. She’d have to get used to him being around all over again.

‘I’ll go, I won’t get lost. You don’t know where he lives,’ May insisted. If he was out seeing patients, Liam would never find him.

‘Then give me his direction,’ Liam insisted, his eyes hard as they squared off. ‘We can hardly have you out riding willy-nilly over the countryside presenting an easy target and we can’t both go.’

‘Just someone go!’ Bea said through clenched teeth, doubling over as another sharp pain took her, her grip on May tight.

May relented at the sight of her friend’s agony. ‘He keeps an office in the High Street next to the solicitor’s.’

‘Ah, so you can sue him if you don’t like his remedies.’ Liam chuckled. ‘Very nice arrangement.’ Even Bea smiled a little at the jest.

* * *

Liam was fast in bringing Dr Stimson, a tall, sombre man whose face showed no emotion. He wasn’t the friendly encouraging sort, but he’d been educated in Edinburgh. May didn’t especially care for him under the best circumstances. Today, she had no use for him at all.

He examined Beatrice, suggested she was likely experiencing false labour which was entirely normal and which seemed to have stopped once she lay down. He prescribed bed rest until the babe was born and pocketed a little more of their coin.

‘I could have done as much!’ May challenged, following him out to his horse. ‘It has to be more than false labour. How do you explain the blood?’

The man didn’t even glance at her as he mounted up. ‘All babies come into this world in their own way.’ His voice was weary. ‘When you have birthed as many children as I have, you can tell me how to do my job, Miss Worth.’

May grabbed the bridle of the big horse. ‘She will not be one of the twenty per cent, sir.’

That got a response. He cast her a condescending look down the long pike of his nose. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Twenty per cent of women die in childbirth. She will not be one of them.’ It was a recent great fear of hers since Beatrice had got so big. What if there was no one around to help when the baby came? What if they didn’t have enough skill if the birth was difficult? She knew Bea worried, too, and all she could give her friend were empty promises she didn’t know if she could keep.

‘May, let the good man go. I had to call him away from his supper.’ Liam was behind her, his hand over hers, removing it from the bridle, his touch, no matter how perfunctory, sending sharp pricks of awareness up her arm. He was too close. She had nowhere to go that didn’t involve backing into his chest.

It was too close for the doctor, too. ‘Are you her husband?’ Dr Stimson’s eyes slid between them.

‘No, sir, I’m a friend of her brother who has come to watch over them,’ Liam offered and May bristled. He made it sound like they were children who needed a nursemaid.

The doctor shrugged, ignoring her entirely. ‘Too bad. That one needs taking in hand, a strong hand.’

‘Duly noted, sir.’ Liam nodded and May stepped on his foot. How dare he engage in a conversation about her when she was right there?

‘Ouch! What did you do that for?’ Liam scowled once the doctor had ridden away.

‘Why didn’t you defend me?’ May railed. ‘I despise that man and you kowtowed to him. “Duly noted, sir,”’ she mimicked.

Liam laughed. ‘You don’t need defending, May. You can handle yourself perfectly well when you want to. But you have to learn not to alienate the entire neighbourhood. Don’t you know you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar?’

May folded her arms across her chest, studying him. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing these past years? Catching flies with sugar?’ There’d been nothing but vinegar about him when she’d first met him, this glorious, angry young man who rebelled at everything, who was fiercely proud of being from the streets. He’d been rebellious in ways she couldn’t be or didn’t dare to be. She’d admired what she thought of as his courage.

‘When it suits me, yes.’ The rebel was still there in his long tangle of hair, the rough-hewn planes of his face and the hard muscles of a man who knew how to labour. But the rebel shared space now with a man who carried intelligence behind his blue eyes alongside his anger. This was a man who knew how to control himself, whose anger was no longer tossed about indiscriminately. She wasn’t sure if she resented him for that or if she envied him that control. ‘It’s important to be nice, May, until it’s time to be something less...nice.’

‘You sound like Preston.’

‘Maybe because that’s where I learned it.’ That gorgeous mouth of his smiled at her as winter dusk fell about them. Her knees wanted to go weak. This was the real danger, not the elusive Cabot Roan, but these moments when she could forget the past, forget the problems of the present and lose herself in him. She didn’t want to succumb to his rough charm again. One disaster was enough.

* * *

Disaster seemed to be the theme of the day. May sat on the edge of her bed, unopened letter in hand, staring at it. It was going to be bad news, she just knew it, but there was no sense in waiting. If she didn’t know what was in the letter, she couldn’t begin to plan against it. She drew a fortifying breath and slid a thumb beneath the seal. Her mother’s flowery script always looked so innocent. But she’d learned long ago that doom lurked in those elegantly cultivated letters. May skimmed the opening paragraphs, confirming they were her mother’s standard opening gambit: news about town, friendly gossip to soften the reader up so when the real punch came, it would blindside you.

There it was, four paragraphs in. May re-read it slowly.

We will be in Edinburgh for the holidays in order to conduct some business of your father’s regarding shipping and manufacturing that I don’t pretend to understand. We would kindly request your presence.

We’ve taken a town house in New Town, the address is at the bottom of the page. I’ll pack your gowns since you’ll have nothing suitable with you to wear. We are looking forward to spending the holidays together even if we are not able to spend them in London.

I have heard Edinburgh is quite festive this time of year and there will be plenty of entertainment. We’ll expect you December first. Several of your father’s business associates will be in town as well with their families.

Families. May crumpled the paper. She knew what that meant. Sons. Sons who had been groomed to run wealthy, productive businesses, who were ready to take their place in society as wealthy men. Some of them would probably have titles, all of them would have connections to some sort of nobility—perhaps their grandfathers if they were in business and allowed to make money, but still acceptable for the daughter of a second son like herself, still well placed enough in society to rise above the stigma of trade if need be.

She’d been so sure she’d run far enough that her parents couldn’t get to her here, that she’d be safe from their matchmaking efforts. All along she’d been worrying over the summons home. But they’d proven her wrong. If they couldn’t bring her home, they’d simply come to her and they had. Suddenly Scotland didn’t seem so big any more. Edinburgh was just a ferry’s ride away from their village on the firth and she didn’t think her mother’s letter was as harmless as it sounded. Her mother likely had a suitor picked out, or two or three.

She would not panic. She still had some time and she had Liam Casek under her roof, the one man in all of England her father truly despised. She could only imagine the look on her parents’ faces when she showed up on their doorstep with him. There was no question of him allowing her to travel without him, he’d made that plain today. Of course, that was assuming she went to Edinburgh at all.

She had almost a month. Anything could happen. There could be a storm. The Forth could be too choppy to cross, the alternate road route impaired from winter weather. Perhaps Cabot Roan would actually kidnap her! Her parents could learn of Preston’s injury and cancel their journey. Maybe they already had. This letter would have been posted before they’d have had news of Preston. Then again, if Preston was working secretly, they wouldn’t know at all. Still, it was possible one disaster could play against another to her benefit.

The news would devastate Beatrice. May wouldn’t say anything until she had to. If she actually left, it would most likely mean she wasn’t coming back. She didn’t see how she’d escape Edinburgh. The baby would be born by then and her original argument for coming here would be gone. Her parents would insist she’d done what she’d come to do and make her go home with them, back to ‘real’ life.

May folded the letter into squares. Just this afternoon, she’d been looking ahead to spring, making plans for the greenhouse, imagining raising a baby here. In a matter of hours, that fantasy had been shot to hell. She fought back tears. The past was closing in on her from all sides. She couldn’t go to Edinburgh. It would be the end of her life as she knew it. There was only one solution. She just wouldn’t go. One disaster was enough.

* * *

One disaster was one too many as far as Cabot Roan was concerned. He drummed his fingers on the polished surface of his desk and stared down the two men standing before him, caps twisting in their hands nervously. ‘How is it that you cannot find Preston Worth? He is severely wounded, likely suffering from loss of blood and unable to travel. He’s a rabbit gone to ground, and you two...’ he made an up-and-down gesture with his hand ‘...you two are certainly more than rabbits. You are foxes! You are hounds to the hunt. Surely you should be able to find one wounded man.’ No one who knew him would be fooled by the incredulity in his voice. It was done with the intent of overt sarcasm.

The taller of the two ventured to speak. ‘With all due respect, we questioned the local doctors in every town within a five-mile radius, sir. We offered gold for information. We asked innkeepers, we asked patrons at coaching inns if anyone had passed through.’

Cabot Roan nodded. Preston Worth was a slippery customer. He had managed to disappear and it didn’t matter whether he’d done it with or without help. It only mattered that Preston was gone and he’d ripped sheets out of his ledger. In the hands of the wrong people—Worth’s people—the information on those sheets would lead to unearthing his entire operation.

Under other circumstances he and Worth would have been friends. Worth’s break-in had been simple but bold. The man had wanted the information so he’d come and taken it. Few men would dare to invade his well-guarded domain. But Worth had braved the fences and the dogs and the guards. His window with its long crack and the broken lock still bore the mark of Worth’s presence. Cabot admired the man’s skill and his bravery. But that skill was going to put his head in a noose if Worth wasn’t caught before the information reached its destination.

Roan reached into his desk drawer and threw two pages on the desk. ‘Do you see these? They were “recovered” from the mail bag before it left on the mail coach.’ He’d paid a handsome fee to the postmaster for the right to look through the mail. Only a man as bold as Worth would trust damning evidence to the London mail coach. Hiding in plain sight as it were. That had been three days ago.

‘You have the proof back, then. It doesn’t matter if we find Worth,’ the shorter man said cheerily.

Roan slammed a hand down on the desk and half-rose. ‘No, you fool, it matters more than ever. Can’t you see, these are copies? The originals are still out there.’ With luck they were on Worth himself and his need to convalesce would slow down their arrival in London, but Roan didn’t feel that lucky. Worth would want the papers to travel with all haste even if he couldn’t. He would not hesitate to separate himself from the ledger sheets as his attempt at the London mails indicated.

‘Pack your bags, gentlemen. You are going to London.’

‘But the papers are here.’ The short one still didn’t quite comprehend.

Roan smiled tightly. ‘You’re not going for the papers. You’re going for his sister. If we can’t go to Worth, we’ll just have to bring him to us. I have it on good authority the family lives nearly year-round in the city and should be in residence.’

The short one knit his brow. ‘Forgive me, sir, but how will Worth know we kidnapped his sister if we don’t know where to send the ransom note?’

Heaven save him from fools, but apparently this man was the best at his job that could be found. Roan scowled. ‘The family will know how to reach him. Send the ransom note to them. They’ll set our little game in motion.’ He blew out a breath and silenced any further questions. ‘How hard can it be, gentlemen, to kidnap one spoiled debutante when she goes out shopping?’