The Scot Who Loved Me

by Gina Conkle

She fought a rueful smile and watched Will pick up the nutmeg grinder and crank it over his bowl. The man seated at her table was a vanquisher of breakfast and a common man’s logician. A point would come. A big one.

  “Perhaps I am distracted with my work, Mr. MacDonald,” she said between nibbles of porridge.

  There was safety in formality, a medieval wall of sorts, allowing one to hide behind it.

  “No’ too busy to barge into my bedchamber and kiss my arse. You’ve ruined the insult.” The grinding done, Will armed himself with a spoon. “Next time someone yells Kiss my arse! I’ll grin like a half-wit.”

  She snort-sipped her coffee and gave in to a hearty laugh. Only Will could do that to her. She dragged her apron hem across her mouth to wipe herself clean. It was good to have the house—and Will—to herself. With the sudden need to journey to Brighton, Aunt Flora and Aunt Maude claimed a dire trip to the laundress was necessary.

  Will took a few bites, shovelsful it seemed, while keeping eyes on her. He wore his clothes this morning. Brown broadcloth mostly, though his neck cloth was a surprise. The knot was done just enough to say he cared. This could’ve been their future, sitting across from each other at the breakfast table, her with an apron, him with chin scruff. There was tenderness here. And fun. With Will, life would be. It was elevating and risky and beautiful. The indefinable pressure was growing, bringing prismatic wonder. Colors were brighter, the sky bluer, the sun shinier this morning.

  Yesterday’s kisses almost went unaccounted for—the blessing and curse of living with two aunts. Except now, they were five houses away, visiting the laundress, and Will’s stare could char ice. Lust lurked behind his rough charm. It was palpable. A living thing she could reach out and touch . . . like his whiskers and smooth bottom lip. Had to be the nutmeg. She was eating more of it since Will arrived. The spice was considered an aphrodisiac.

  Their first summer together, she’d asked why he devoured the spice. He’d answered that it tasted good. Like her.

  “My first day here,” he said. “I asked if you had any more surprises for me.”

  He invited her to pick up his conversational thread. If she did, she’d spill everything, good and bad: the reason for her locked doors, Cecelia’s name in Fielding’s books, the Countess of Denton’s shocking proposition, and how much the woman wanted him.

  Just your average breakfast conversation.

  “Out with it, Will. What exactly are you after?”

  Hers was a simple question. His was devastatingly direct.

  “Why?” Will’s amber eyes could singe wood.

  Pressure inside sharpened. “You mean, why did I kiss you the way I did?”

  “Yes.”

  She set down her spoon. “I had to . . . to touch you.”

  Will’s mouth dented sideways.

  “There is that, lass. There is that,” he said quietly.

  Stillness sat like a storm cloud. Will wanted a deeper admission, something not seeded in lust. He waited, his grin fading the longer her painful silence stretched.

  Didn’t he understand? It was him she needed. Will. To touch, hear, see, taste. To bask in his person the way flowers faced the sun and water quenched one’s thirst. It struck her right then, sitting across the breakfast table from Will, something they’d once hoped to do for the rest of their lives, that they weren’t very good at this. At the open-your-heart part of love.

  And yet, she knew . . .

  Will MacDonald owned her heart. He was her perfect match. No one else would ever, could ever have it.

  Why were they so awful at letting that be?

  She stared at her bowl, lost. She was drowning in needs: to soothe Will, herself, and the women of the league who needed reassurance with the sudden change of plans. And there was the single constant which brought them together—stealing Jacobite gold and taking it home.

  Indulging her emotions in these final hours wouldn’t do. The mission wasn’t done.

  Will rose from the table and took his dishes into the kitchen. She heard their gentle clatter as he set them down, and she heard his footfalls returning him to the dining room. He picked up his tricorn hat, which had been hooked on the back of his chair. She looked up and found him studying one of its corners.

  “I have one more farewell to make afore I leave.”

  Will’s afore I leave speared her. His eyes answered for Virginia.

  “Will . . . the gold. I have a duty to finish it.”

  “I know, lass. I know.” He set his hat on his head, a solemn man. “I’ll be back in plenty of time for tonight. I’ll no’ let you down.”

  Again . . . the word hung in her dining room long after Will left.

  In their youth, they’d been good at sex. Very, very good at sex. They were good at parsing debates on Scotland, England, the dilemmas of kings and realms. But a frank discussion of the whys and hows of their emotions didn’t truly begin until . . .

  Unlocking him from Marshalsea?

  Telling him about their unborn child?

  She sat a long while in her empty dining room in her empty house. Her idle fingers found a loose thread on her skirt and rolled it. Her grandmother had done a wonderful job preparing her for the wifely tasks such as tracking household expenses, arranging furniture to please the eyes, and advising her on the mark of a good draper. Needful things, but not the stuff of life.

  Last night, Will had come to dinner and been fully present for the league’s last reiteration of their plans. Then he’d retreated to his bedchamber. Without a word, she’d cleaned his boots. A week here and that wifely task was already second nature. It wasn’t a chore; she wanted to do it.

  Her tasks done, she’d climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, finding more than a wall and bolted door between them. Will had been quiet on the other side. Reading is what he’d said he was going to do. He probably had. Or had he thought about his journey? Everyone was astir about theirs. He’d been closemouthed about his arrangements. But everyone knew . . .

  Will would leave for Virginia, and she for Scotland.

  Once candles had been extinguished, and darkness descended, she was alone in her bed, and he in his.

  That was the loneliest kind of dark.

  He couldn’t shake the sense that his breakfast conversation with Anne could’ve gone much, much better. He’d upended his life for her, and done everything he could to provide for her unique requests.

  The key imprinted. Done.

  A forge for Miss Fletcher to create a new key. Done.

  A willing back to unload bags of gold through a window. Ready, willing, and able.

  He’d carried her market day basket around Southwark for her and laughed after his male parts were called into question. What more did the woman want? There was the rub. Anne wanted the same thing he wanted—a heart cracked open and its contents poured out. All the things one person in love said to another. A simple thing yet vastly, vastly difficult. Nigh to impossible for some. In the best of circumstances, trust was built a little at a time.

  The road to rebuild trust was trickier. No map existed for that.

  He ambled along Wapping Wall caught in a vise grip. Anne’s sudden midnight appearance at Marshalsea was at one end, her inevitable dawn disappearance on The Grosvenor at the other.

  “The Grosvenor,” he said.

  Justice was, indeed, a devious wench.

  The sloop was probably out there right now. Sloops, schooners, wherries, lightermen boats, and brigantines jammed the river on one side of him. On the other was Wapping where Charles II’s navy had lived. At present, the waterfront district was home to dockhands, laborers, sailors of all stripes, criminals, harlots, and one exotic animal dealer.

  “Mr. Pidcock!”

  A bandy-legged man was worrying over a wooden cage with a blue parrot inside. The man turned, squinting into the sun. “Mr. MacDonald is it?”

  Will picked up his pace and extended his hand. “It is, sir.”

  A breeze batted crimped white hair th
at grew above his ears. Like twin banners, they were. The parrot squawked, its feathers ruffling. Pidcock pulled a bit of apple and fed it to the bothered bird.

  “There, there, Mr. Wiggins,” the old man cooed. “You’ll be in a new grand home before you know it.”

  Mr. Wiggins had been a fixture of Pidcock’s shop, but the old shopkeeper hoisted the cage and handed it to a waiting thrum-capped sailor. On the foreshore below, a lighterman’s vessel was loaded with caged creatures. Another parrot, three monkeys, two ferrets, and a turtle. Mr. Pidcock sniffed and withdrew a wrinkled handkerchief from his waistcoat.

  Pidcock dabbed his eyes. “Blasted wind’s picking up. Must’ve got something in my eyes.”

  “Looks like you sold half your inventory, sir. Business must be good.”

  “Business is awful.” Pidcock planted a fist on his hip and gave Will the gimlet eye. “My store’s been broken into. No one bothered me when I had an oversized Scot living above my shop.”

  “I am sorry to hear that, sir.”

  “Ehhhh.” Pidcock stuffed away his handkerchief. “It’s not all bad. Made up my mind to move to Great Russell Street. Has a nice ring to it.”

  “Sounds better than Cock Alley and Maidenhead Alley.”

  Pidcock chuckled. “Indeed, Mr. MacDonald. Women will find Great Russell Street less offensive.”

  They both turned and faced the shop. The storefront boasted one mullioned window where a fat orange tabby pressed the glass from the inside.

  “Is Fat George going with you?”

  “Of course, I’d never leave him behind.” Pidcock was one part feisty and two parts softhearted. The old man scratched white whiskers sprouting from his chin. “’Sides women like Fat George. He takes a good scratch anywhere, he does. Your lady certainly enjoyed petting him, and he liked your lady.”

  “My . . . lady?”

  “The one who collected your things, dunderhead. A Mrs.—Mrs.—”

  “Mrs. Neville.”

  “I’m bad with names, but that sounds about right.” Pidcock sniffed and checked the skies. “I shall miss her.”

  Will went very still. “Miss her?”

  For someone to be missed, there had to be visits to make the missing noteworthy.

  “What did Mrs. Neville look like?”

  A low whistle and, “Black hair, slender . . . a bit too slender, ’cause I like some meat on a woman’s bones, I do.”

  “You sound quite familiar with her.”

  “Ehhhh. She’s come to the shop now and again.”

  Anne? He couldn’t believe it. His cousin might haunt Wapping Wall to cultivate sources with the criminal element here.

  It begged the question. “Are you sure the woman wasn’t blond, hazel eyed, well dressed but a bit of a tart?”

  Pidcock jammed a fist on his hip, knocking back his coat. “Mr. MacDonald, ladies may not bang down my door to visit me, but I do know blond hair from black . . . especially if it’s attached to a pretty woman’s head.”

  He loomed over Mr. Pidcock. “What else can you tell me about this black-haired woman?”

  “Easy there, Mr. MacDonald. You’ve never cared—”

  “Details, man. What was this woman like?”

  The woman could’ve been Ancilla, though he doubted it. She’d never set foot in Wapping Wall. But Anne? He was on tenterhooks. The possibilities of crossing paths with her exploded in his mind. He’d always thought she was living somewhere in Scotland, a woman done with him.

  Anne, here in London . . . checking on his welfare? He couldn’t breathe.

  “Well . . .” Pidcock’s caterpillar brows pinched a line. “She was a serious sort. Came in a time or two your first year here. I knew she wasn’t looking to buy an exotic pet. She’d be all casual like, petting Fat George, asking about the Scot renting the room above my shop.”

  “And you never thought to tell me?” He was aghast.

  “What am I? A messenger boy? If you remember, Mr. MacDonald, your first month here, barmaids, laundresses, and a married woman or two made the rounds to my shop.” Pidcock batted his eyes and spoke in falsetto, “Oh, Mr. Pidcock, do ye know when Mr. MacDonald will return? Did Mr. MacDonald say he’ll stop by the Three Sails today? Oh, Mr. Pidcock, please tell Mr. MacDonald that I’ll launder his clothes at half price.” A snort and, “You’d’ve got more than your laundry done if your head wasn’t in your arse half the time.” Another snort and Pidcock waggled a bony finger at him. “You, sir, told me to send those women away, and I did.”

  “Apparently, Mrs. Neville didn’t get your message.”

  “Ehhhh. She’s not St. James but she is quality by Wapping Wall standards. A pretty woman like that elevates my shop.”

  What would Pidcock have done if Countess Denton had come to call? Probably swooned. A bit woozy himself, he braced a hand on the window. Anne had been here, regularly by the sound of it, to check on his welfare. Wind scuttled a faded broadside past his feet. Ships listed gently in the Thames. He checked the skies and found lush clouds tumbling in. A storm was coming. He talked with Pidcock, of his plans and Pidcock’s plans, the gusts picking up around them. Until the farewell came to its end, Pidcock hugged his coat shut. The thing was missing half its buttons.

  “What was it your father’s said? ‘Wind is nature’s way of saying it has somewhere else to be.’” Pidcock opened his shop door. “Looks like the wind is telling you and me, it’s time to go, Mr. MacDonald.”

  They shook hands once more. Will walked along the river, his coattails blowing this way and that. Wind was indeed telling him it was time to move on.

  But where to?

  Chapter Thirty

  What does a man do with a woman full of secrets?

  Kiss her?

  Woo her?

  Tease them out one at a time by building trust?

  Answers were coming like wind-tumbled leaves, clusters of them spinning fast. It was his task to pluck them one at a time. Though they traveled in the night, he saw Anne clearly as if someone had swiped a cloth across misted glass and the woman on the other side was waiting to be seen. This might be the tale of all women, the desire to be seen, to be understood. He couldn’t do that for all of the fair sex. He could do it for Anne.

  Her heart had been established on a foundation of women and built in a world of men. The signs were there. A man didn’t need to look hard to see them. Her grandmother’s garnet earrings, swinging proudly from her ears. Her league’s profound unity, evident in Cecelia’s hand clasping Anne’s at the moment. They were heading into sweet victory or foul disaster. The outcome was up to them, though many staggering factors were beyond their control.

  It was the art of chaos. Control what one can control. It’s what he’d learned since the rebellion. Prison’s chiseling effect. A body learned quickly what to let go of and what to hold on to . . . and there was precious little worth holding fast to in this world. Anne, he was sure, had learned the power of secrets and trust. They were currency to her in the way silver and gold was to Ancilla and information was to his cousin.

  His cousin, who at present, pushed back a velvet curtain of robin’s egg blue to study the world outside.

  “We’re almost there.” His cousin’s red stomacher sank from her slow exhale. “Look at the line of carriages. Twelve deep. Bored of the country already, are you?”

  Face to the glass, Cecelia chattered about crests on carriages, while he and Anne carried on a silent, needful conversation. They had not had a moment alone since his return from visiting Mr. Pidcock. He had things to say, questions to ask. She carried on a conversation of a different sort, twirling a lock of hair.

  Her grazing stare was like hot coals raking his skin. Legs opened, shoulders back, his hands confident on the squab, he was a king on a throne. The barest upturn of Anne’s carmine-shaded lips was a tome’s worth of approval. The glint in her eye, a night’s worth of seduction. That was the way it was with Anne. More said in quiet moments than a thousand spoken words, but love couldn�
�t live by silence alone. Things needed to be said. Their first moment alone, he would.

  “Oh look, Mr. Williamson is wearing scarlet stockings.” Cecelia grimaced. “With shins like that, a travesty.” She flopped back on her seat and looked at Will’s shins. “Your choice of stockings, however, might set a new trend. That shade of gold matches your waistcoat, and with your calves, perfection.”

  “I bought them today. The haberdasher said it’d be a handsome pairing.”

  “Did he?” His cousin assessed the unseasonal black velvet he wore, its color broken with the burnished gold of his stockings and waistcoat and a plain white cravat. “When your coat opens, I think ancient warrior with a plate of gold armor about the chest.” She winked at him and spoke in a Western Isles brogue. “Verra handsome, cousin, verra handsome indeed.”

  He ran a hand over the waistcoat. The silk was liquid gold spun into cloth.

  “How handsome, would you say?” Anne asked.

  Cecelia’s mouth puckered. “I was thinking Alexander the Great come back to life.”

  “Not someone more elevated? Such as a Greek god?”

  “Well . . . if that’s the direction you’re going, then Apollo. Sun, light, and all that male beauty,” his cousin said archly.

  “I was thinking Hades.”

  Cecelia hummed thoughtfully. “The Underworld? Perhaps it’s all that black and gold he’s wearing.”

  “No. It’s not the black and gold. It’s the man within.” She smiled softly. “Hades was leader of the unseen, but tonight, he will be seen. Tonight, he leaves his mark.”

  His cousin’s gaze sewed a line from him to Anne. A perceptive woman, she knew their history and understood the current running deeply. Where it landed was anyone’s guess, though he had a certain destination in mind.

  Their carriage rolled forward and Cecelia checked the window. “That was fast. We’re already third in line.” She fussed with her gloves. “Do we all remember what we’re doing?”

  “Looking at paintings and drinking champagne,” he said.

  “Not too much champagne,” Cecelia cautioned. “And whatever you do, do not drink the red wine.”