by Gina Conkle
She was avoiding him.
He padded to his bedchamber and shut the door. Anne couldn’t miss that noise either. He cocked an ear, and . . . nothing save those infernal muffled thumps. Light under their adjoining door shined brilliantly. Anne had to be burning a month’s worth of candles. He tossed his waistcoat onto the bed and jammed his candle stub onto an empty iron candle holder at his bedside table. Plank floors groaned anew from Anne’s bedchamber because the Neville household possessed no cloud-thick wool carpets to hush one’s feet.
Another thump came, louder this time.
“That’s it.” He walked to the adjoining door and knocked. “Anne.”
He rolled his eyes. Fine, romantic greeting.
“It’s Will.” He rested forehead and hands on the door. “Of course, it’s me because you put me in this bedchamber and you’re in that one . . . doing whatever it is that you’re doing.”
He cringed. Love turned men into utter blathering fools who talked nonsensically to closed doors.
“Do you need something?” she asked.
He lifted his head off the door and grabbed the latch. “I’d like to talk with you.”
It was bolted.
Against him? He tried it again.
“Please . . . can it wait ’til tomorrow morning?” she asked.
The latch was a staunch soldier guarding Anne. There’d be no passing here. He let go and stepped back, her bolted door a slap in the face. He’d wager all his measly coins that she’d locked the hall door too.
“Will?” Her voice was tentative.
This wasn’t a coy game. She had no reason to fear him. They were in a partnership of sorts, yet he was left out in the cold.
“Yes. Tomorrow morning.”
He’d asked if she and Mr. Neville were in love and got his answer. He didn’t ask the indelicate Did Mr. Neville exercise his husbandly rights? The possibility scorched him with a fresh wave of jealousy. If what Aunt Flora said was true, Mr. Neville passed along his house and his business, giving Anne security.
The man had married her, while he had deserted her.
After their parting, Anne at least had sent three letters—letters he never got. Blame the mess of war and his constant movement for that, but he never wrote to her. At first, a young man’s indignation kept him from picking up a quill; news of her marriage to Angus MacDonald stopped him for good.
He turned his back on the adjoining door and stared at nothing in particular.
He’d thought . . . what? Helping her league would erase the past? Make all things new? He owed a debt of heavenly magnitude with no earthly way to pay it. The bolted door was but another piece of evidence stacked against him. He crossed the bedchamber ruthlessly unbuttoning his placket. Once loose, his breeches dropped to the floor. He applied the same ferocity to removing the bigamist’s silk stockings. Stockings in hand, he gathered the breeches and was about to throw them at the lone mahogany chair.
His hand froze midair. Black wool stockings hung there. The same Will MacDonald, dockyard laborer stockings he’d left in a soggy heap downstairs last night.
He checked the floor beside the washstand. Moonlight from open drapes showed his boots had been cleaned, the leather oiled, the square toes pointing at him beside his satchel tucked against the wall—the same as his first morning here.
Anne?
Had to be.
He dropped the clothes on the table and sniffed his old stockings.
What a miserable sop he was, sniffing his stockings. But they smelled good, freshly laundered with a hint of lavender.
Hope stirred in his chest.
“Well, well, Mrs. Neville. You’re no’ so sparin’ with your tender mercies after all.”
This was another olive branch.
He closed the drapes and made his way to the bed. Clean stockings and a bolted door, an unexpected combination but a man had to work with what he had.
He sank facedown on the mattress, the bed’s creak lonely. He drew the sheets over his arse but no higher. No need to ruin them. From the other side of the wall, mild bumps sounded. He answered by thumping his pillow with a frustrated fist.
No one was above the draw, the beauty, the sheer strength of love. It molded men. It shaped women. Rebellions erupted from it with heart-carved passion for the land of one’s birth, but love for a woman was a different matter.
Rare was the man who walked an easy road to win his true love. And winning the same woman twice in his lifetime? A feat. Especially elusive, dark-haired lasses who moved mysteriously in the night.
Lasses with secrets . . . his weakness.
Chapter Eighteen
Anne’s quill didn’t impart ink; it stabbed it. Ungraceful zeros and smeared ones lined two columns of her ledger as if a battle took place on the page. Perhaps this morning it did. Neglected ledgers, Aunt Flora’s shopping list, and correspondence cluttered her humble escritoire. The Countess of Denton had sent not one but two missives, hand-delivered by a footman (the liveried variety). Both letters stared with pompous authority, a styled D stamped in red wax, the drips reminiscent of blood.
Was she being dramatic? Twirling her quill, she couldn’t decide.
The Denton name carried a long history of power, seized in great legal swipes. When the correct channels wouldn’t suffice, shadow work did. Centuries of rank distilled their blood, arrogance inbred.
She fiddled with the black ribbon at her neck. A vise was closing in on her. On one side, the countess’s grasping hand reached into her home via the unopened correspondence. On the other, Will, the prize her ladyship wanted.
He was a patient statue in her salon with Aunt Flora bustling around him. A tuck here, a pin inserted there. His waistcoat for the night of the art salon had to be just right.
“You must be majestic.” Aunt Flora dipped to check a seam.
Burnished amber silk rippled like watery flames fitted to his body, and this was the waistcoat turned inside out. If clothes made a man, Will would be a king resplendent in morning sun spilling through her windows, strong and tall, hair clubbed, a shadow of whiskers adding a rough, storied touch until one spied his old boots. Firmly on, they were. Clean, proud, the loose leather folded under knees and thighs prone to caber tossing.
Definitely not a cricket player’s legs.
“This needs to be the final fitting, ma’am. At least for today.” His voice was a respectful rumble.
“What? You have things tae do?” Aunt Flora asked. “You cannae dash off now. Aunt Maude is organizing a tray of tea and biscuits.”
“I have errands.”
Anne checked the direction of the kitchen. Breakfast was not but an hour ago. What were the sisters up to, orchestrating a cozy morning tea?
Aunt Flora hummed and pinched the waistcoat. “Ready tae be off, are you? Seems my unguent did the trick.”
“Your potions have always worked.”
“Will ye need more tonight?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Didna think you would,” she chuckled. “It’s near magic, though the unguent carries a wee essence of the bogs.” She nudged his elbow up. “Arms out.” She circled him, starched skirts rustling. “All the same, yer back will need checking. Every night.”
“No need to fuss over me, ma’am.”
She snorted loudly. “Ye need a bit of fussing, Will MacDonald.”
Anne pivoted in her seat, her mouth curving with commiseration. She’d been on the receiving end of Aunt Flora’s mother-hen nature. Will’s head tilted a message of acceptance over Aunt Flora’s head: She is who she is. Daylight spiked around him and one could almost believe summer would last forever until his gaze traveled to the letters.
Will’s brows arched. Aren’t you going to open them?
She bristled. Duty called, and for once, she chafed at its yoke. When it came to the league, everything was fair game, even quiet mornings in her salon.
Aunt Maude swept in, a tray rattling with unmatched Lambethware dishes. “Ye’ll
have him looking like a prince, Flora.”
“I was thinking Hades,” Anne said dryly.
Three gazes speared her. Startled and confused from Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora while Will managed an amused smirk. All that lordly attire is sinking into his veins. She waved gracefully, a gesture to make her grandmother proud.
“It’s all the black and gold. I’m not sure of it.”
Aunt Maude set her burden on the table and turned to inspect Will. “He looks fine tae me, but goodness knows I don’t cavort in higher circles.”
“None of us do, except Cecelia,” Anne said. London’s lofty addresses had been her grandmother’s ambition for her, not hers.
“Well, Cecelia’s no’ here tae educate us.” Aunt Maude began setting the table as if the matter was done.
“I like the black and gold,” he said.
Anne eyed Will who eyed her boldly back. A silent skirmish was afoot.
“With his size, shouldn’t we consider something paler? A creamy yellow or a sky blue?” she suggested.
Creamy yellow? Will mouthed.
“And have him looking like a cake?” Aunt Maude huffed. The woman had stern opinions about London’s mincing fops. Tartans were dark, serious shades, which met with her approval. “What do ye think, Flora?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Will was the center of a feminine universe, arms out at his sides, his smirk growing as if he could do this all day. Rather sure of himself. Or was he glad to needle Anne? Revenge at finding her door locked last night? She’d heard his thumping.
“Pale colors are the height of fashion,” Anne said defensively. “I’m sure we can find something else in that sea chest. Something better suited to make him look more . . . or perhaps less of—” her hand flapped inelegantly “—of this . . .”
“Of what?” Aunt Maude pursed her lips.
Aunt Flora waited, and Will was the devil’s own, his smirk increasing.
She was in a verbal pit, and shoveling herself in deeper. “Lighter colors would be safer.” She hesitated. “Black and gold simply is . . .”
“Is what?” Will goaded.
She was on a knife’s edge, her thumbnail digging an indent into her quill. Irritation flared. Other indescribable emotions surged.
“You look dangerous.”
There. She’d said it.
Will’s predatory smile spread. “Black and gold it is.”
She dropped the quill and sorted papers. The admission cost her dearly, though she couldn’t name why. It was clothes they spoke of after all. Aunt Maude shrugged off her explanation and finished setting the table while Aunt Flora freed Will of the incendiary waistcoat.
Another certainty struck her this morning: Will was once again the man she’d found in Marshalsea. Rough voiced and a little off. She shut her ledger with a firm snap. Will visiting Mr. Pidcock, or doing whatever errand he had in mind, was a good idea. It was possible he’d planned to devote his day to chasing the man with a branded thumb. In London, that would be hundreds of men.
The sooner he left, the better—if he could unshackle himself from Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora’s attentions. Aunt Flora was no surprise; Aunt Maude was. The older woman went out of her way to attend him. It might be the appalling stripes on his back. She’d grumbled vociferously about them over breakfast.
Anne rose from her chair and tidied her desk to neat stacks of paper and ledgers, while Will retrieved his waistcoat. He bent over and a pristine bandage showed under his shirt, a hidden badge of honor for wearing his kilt. She should’ve taken care of him, but his first night here she’d been too busy convincing him the Jacobite treasure was real. She watched him slide braw arms through armholes (his waistcoat, not one of the bigamist’s). A charcoal-hued patch swayed until the waistcoat was tamely buttoned. The patch’s color was a near match, yet missing the mark.
Like the two of them.
Will deserved a woman to coddle him. A docile woman who waited by the hearth, darning his stockings and mending his clothes. A woman who would’ve tended his back right away. A woman unlike her.
She needed to escape, to clear her mind. Aunt Flora’s shopping list. She held it up, her ticket to freedom.
“Aunt Flora, I’m off to purchase these for you.”
“Now? No need tae rush off, dear.”
“Have some tea afore you go.” Aunt Maude scraped back a chair and took a seat. “And bring those letters with you. Goodness knows you’ve dawdled over them long enough.”
She stifled a groan. There’d be no private consumption of her correspondence and no quick escape from Will. He settled in, looking just as curious about those letters. The Countess of Denton was the league’s nemesis. Whatever the woman had to say should be known to all.
With a reluctant hand, she scooped the letters off her escritoire and found her seat. Will sat across from her, no less glorious in faded green broadcloth, his patched waistcoat mostly hidden. She propped the letters against her plate, the waxen D facing him, and sipped her tea. How appropriate. Hades was also the god of gold dug up from the ground, and Nemesis the goddess of revenge. Remorse was not in that deity’s vocabulary, the same as Lady Denton.
Comforting conversation flowed, mostly Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora, talking of the day’s chores, while Will was silent. The reprieve was bolstering. Her throat properly warmed, she set down her dish and broke the first red seal. Quiet descended on the table while she scanned the first correspondence.
“It’s an invitation to her art salon.” She tossed it aside and snapped up the next note. “Her ladyship must be loose in the head. She already invited me before she left for the country.”
“Odd,” Will said. “She’s usually no’ forgetful.”
She pinned her gaze on him. “She usually doesn’t chase a man either.”
An easy grin creased his face. “You overestimate my charm. Lady Denton doesna want me.”
No sooner were the words said than he knew them to be untrue. She could hear it in the playful timbre of his voice.
“Oh?” She lowered the unopened note. “And what would you call her actions yesterday? Friendly?”
“Acquaintances getting . . . reacquainted.”
To which she snorted. “Reacquainted?”
Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora faded in the way seconds at a duel would. The conversation’s subtle turn had the weightiness of a flintlock slowly loaded. Ball and ramrod at the ready, the cock half-cocked, and black powder poured into the muzzle.
Anne felt the second letter bending in her grip. “How interesting.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Do you wish to rekindle your past? Because the man I saw yesterday didn’t disentangle himself from a certain woman’s clutches.”
That ramrodded ball and powder.
Will’s eyes narrowed. “Easy, Mrs. Neville. You seem to’ve forgotten that I was at Denton House yesterday for no other reason than to help your league.”
Ready . . . “Yet, you barely supported our false betrothal.”
“I told her about it.”
Aim . . . “Once.”
Will’s fingers pinched white on the Lambethware. He eyed her keenly as if sifting through his thoughts while trying to make sense of hers.
“Next time, her ladyship will have no doubts about who holds my affections, madame.”
Fire . . .
Will landed his shot. Searing, precise.
A peculiar sensation cascaded, something which threatened to swallow her whole, at once thrilling and dreadful. Of all the things Will could have said.
Who holds my affections?
She was drowning in those four words until sound reason saved the day.
Of course, their false betrothal.
Will was mocking her gently. An odd combination, but he managed it. She’d lit a fuse, and there was no tamping it nor could the sparks be undone. This should’ve been addressed yesterday. She’d meant to. Will’s finger in her cleavage might’ve thwarted her best intention
s.
A regrouping was not out of the question.
“It’s a matter of details,” she said defensively. “Nothing is too small.”
He raised his cup. “For you, I shall have a care with every one of them.”
More nerve-calming tea was consumed. The table’s edge pressed Anne’s stomacher. A downward glance confirmed she was leaning forward, her hair on the table, the black curl taunting her. Since her second marriage, she was in the habit of pinning it. Yet, the night she freed Will and again today, she wore her hair down.
Because that’s how she wore it when she was nineteen.
Why did women do that? Why did she do it? The answer was quite simple. She’d done it to please a man. Eight years ago, Will had stroked and praised her unbound hair. She’d gloried in his touch then as she did yesterday when he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. His tenderness had been achingly dear. A terrible weakness, that.
She sipped her tea, deciding to use every pin in her arsenal of pins.
Aunt Maude cleared her throat. “There is more correspondence that needs reading.”
The second letter had fallen into Anne’s lap. She steadied herself, picked it up, and broke the wax seal. Two imperious sentences delivered a message in elegant script.
“The countess writes, ‘Meet me at your warehouse tomorrow at one o’clock. I want to renew our negotiations.’” She held up the note. “It’s signed ‘The Right Honorable, The Countess of Denton.’” Her smile was close lipped. “How kind of her to order me to meet her.”
“Strange that she’s taking an interest again,” Aunt Maude said.
Anne eyed Will cradling his tea with both hands. “Not so strange, I think.”
“I’m surprised the countess gave your warehouse any consideration,” he said. “I remember her rebuffing small business concerns as no’ worth her time.”
“You have it backward. I didn’t seek the countess. She sought me with an offer to buy it.”
“When?”
“Last June. I told you about that yesterday at Grosvenor Square.”
Will scowled. “I thought you went to her man of business with an offer to sell.” His scowl deepened. “You say she approached you in June?”
