There was no one there. Then, a shadow detached itself from a patch of deeper dark and William materialized in front of her.
“Ah, my dear, you came!” he said in a voice as soft as the night breeze. Even in the darkness, which only the light of the moon and stars alleviated, Beatrice could see the ringmaster’s eyes shining with excitement and greed.
“Yes,” she said. “I came. And I am sorry for it.”
From his hiding place, Jeames saw William’s eyes flick over Beatrice’s head.
He is wary. For all his pretty words and self-asssurance, he does nae trust her completely.
William took a step through the door.
Almost, I can see his nose snufflin’ at the air tae see if he is about tae wander into a trap. I hope she can talk him out of this.
William took another tentative step into the room.
“Is it just you?” Beatrice asked him. She was keeping her voice down, Jeames noticed but not enough so that he could not hear what she said from his place behind the curtains.
William did not answer but continued to slowly scan the room. His gaze passed right over the spot where Jeames stood hidden, peeking out from behind the musty velvet drapes.
Just a little further. Far enough in so that I’ll be able tae spring on ye. Far enough in so that ye will nae be able tae make a break fer the door and the grounds beyond.
“William?” Beatrice said.
“Beatrice.”
“I want to ask you, just once more, not to do this. Do not attempt to rob this place. It will be the end of the circus, the end of everything that you hold dear, if you are not careful.”
“But, my dear, the hardest part is over,” said the ringmaster. “The most troublesome thing was getting into the castle without causing too much of a noise and drawing attention to what we were up to. You have sorted that.”
“So, it is just you?” Beatrice asked again.
Once more, William did not answer her.
“Please, William,” Beatrice said. “Do not do this. The door is still open. You can leave and never look back.”
“And will you be coming with me?” William asked, turning his attention from the room to her.
Jeames held his breath.
It’s a fine question.
Even in the dark, he could see the dim shape of Beatrice pause, as if thinking. Finally, she said, “I will stay. If I am able.”
William gave a soft snort and hung his head briefly. Then he looked up. “I surmised as much. Could infer it from your demeanor each time I have come to pay you a visit. You are fond of this Master Abernathy, are you not?”
Beatrice paused for just a moment this time. “Yes,” she said.
“And do you love him?” William asked quickly.
“Yes.”
Behind the velvet curtain, Jeames’s heart soared.
She does?
“You are in love with him?” the ringmaster persisted.
“I am,” replied the equestrienne.
Jeames’s heart soared higher still.
She is?
“I see,” William said. Jeames could hear a genuine note of regret in the whispered word.
“How I hoped, when this day came, it would be with someone within the circus that you fell for,” William said. “I hoped that you would stay with us forever.”
Beatrice put out a hand and grasped William’s. “I know,” she said. “And you know, I think how much that place–how much you–means to me. It became my home and you have been as good a father figure as I could have hoped to have in this world, once my real father had been taken.”
“So, you will stay here?”
“If I can.”
“But you do know that Abernathy is betrothed to a Scottish highborn lady, do you not?”
“I am aware,” replied Beatrice.
Jeames bit his lip. That problem would be the one that he would have to face next.
“And still you would stay?” William asked.
“I would.”
William shook his head in confusion. “But why?” he asked, taking Beatrice’s hand in turn. “Surely, it would be better to take to the road again and leave these people to their lives? The pickings from this place will be rich enough for us to lie low and live well for a goodly while.”
Beatrice’s voice was shaking when she replied. “The picking will not be rich, William,” she said. “You will not get away from here. The guards will stop you.”
“Come, my dear, guards? What guards would these be? The guards sunk so deep in slumber, thanks to our doctored beer, that they will probably not wake until noon?”
“William,” Beatrice said, ignoring the man’s boasting. “Things have not panned out quite the way that you thought that they would.”
William’s head glanced once more around the parlor.
“I confess, Beatrice, that, guessing at how you felt about the Laird’s son, I was a little worried that you might take it into your head to go back on your promise.”
Beatrice’s head dropped. Ballantine put out his hand and tilted her chin with one finger. In the faint silver light of the moon that came in through the open door, Jeames could see that there were tear tracks running like lines of quicksilver down her face.
“Ah, I see that you thought about it. I see that, perhaps, you wish you had betrayed me,” William said in his quiet, knowing voice.
“William, this is your final chance to change your course. Not just the course of tonight, but the course of the rest of your life!” Beatrice pleaded.
William smiled sadly. “Some of us,” he said, “do not have the misguided hope of being swept off of our feet by a wealthy noble to sustain us, my dear. I’m afraid that my course is set, the rudder jammed into position.”
“I cannot help you then,” Beatrice sighed.
“Beatrice, you have already helped me quite enough,” William said. “If you do not want to share in the spoils of this enterprise then I shall not expect you to help me carry them away.”
Beatrice shook her head. “So be it,” she said.
William hugged her to him, a brief embrace of sincere and open love. “I have wished you happiness in everything you have done,” he said. “And that does not change now.” He released her, and the ghost of a tear glinted in the corner of one jade eye. “But a man must do what his life, and those in it, obligate him to do.”
Jeames stepped out from behind the curtain.
“I couldnae agree wi’ ye more on that, Mr. Ballantine,” he said.
27
Beatrice watched as William’s head whipped around and saw the looming figure of the Highlander step out from the shadows in the corner of the room. She observed the look of disbelief that flit across the tall ringmaster’s usually composed features.
He did not see it coming. Even he, a man who usually considers every angle, did not really believe that I would give him away.
The guilt gnawed at her insides like worms through an apple. She felt dreadful, seeing the pain that she had wrought, take shape in William’s slack mouth and staring eyes.
In the time that William stood, stunned at the revelation that Beatrice had alerted the Laird’s son, Jeames had snatched a poker from the mantelpiece and struck sparks into the parlor fire. The tinder was dry and ready, placed there by a servant, and it was the work of just a few moments before the parlor was filled with warm, orange firelight.
The kindling of the light acted like a slap to the face to William. He started, looked wildly around, like a sleepwalker woken in mid step. Before he could utter a word, Beatrice had stepped past his back and closed the parlor door with a snap and bolted it for good measure.
She was glad that she had taken this precaution for, a moment later, there was the thud as someone threw themselves bodily at it. This was followed by another thud. The door quivered and there was a muffled curse from outside.
“It is nice tae see ye again, Mr. Ballantine,” Jeames said in a level tone. “Though, I’ll nae
deny, I’m saddened that it is under such circumstances.”
William did not reply. He regarded the Scotsman with unreadable eyes.
He is calculating. Thinking. Already ruminating on how he can get out of this predicament without leaving empty handed.
Beatrice edged back out of the way. There was a tension in the air. It was the same feeling that she sometimes became aware of when the circus was on the road and a storm built up around the convoy. The same feeling of tenseness that sprang up between two dogs when a bone landed between them.
“I hear that ye did bring a few friends with ye,” Jeames said, nodding towards the door.
“Well, yes,” William replied, “I mean, I wasn’t going to be able to carry off too much with just my two hands. Large as they might be.” He held up his big, long-fingered hands to Jeames.
Beatrice’s heart was in her mouth. She had seen a few fights during her time in the circus, of course, when tensions had been running high within the country. Those fights, though, had been over trivial things, set off by something petty and ridiculous, and settled quickly.
This is different. I can feel it. One man trying to take the possessions of another, from his very home. The other, trying to defend what is his. One driven by desperation, the other by duty. One in the wrong, one in the right.
“I wish ye had taken the chance that Beatrice just offered ye, Mr. Ballantine,” Jeames said. He stepped around a corner table, towards William, never taking his eyes off of the other taller man.
“Too late now, is it?” William asked.
“Afraid so, lad,” Jeames said, maneuvering around a comfortable-looking armchair. The fire was to the Highlander’s back. He was just a broad silhouette to Beatrice. “I’m nae tae keen to open up that door and let ye out into the night, nae now that I ken ye have friends out there.”
Ballantine nodded. “Understandable logic,” he said.
“Aye.”
“So, what are my options, Master Abernathy?” William asked.
“I s’pose ye could turn yerself in, and I could hold ye in the wine cellar.”
“I can see that delaying the circus’s departure somewhat,” William said.
Beatrice got the very real impression that William was winding himself up to do something foolhardy. This worried her, as he was a man who only opted for violence as the very last resort.
“William,” she said. “Please stop this.”
Without looking at her, William said, “You have wounded me more than I can ever hope to articulate to you, my dear. I might have thought that you would not show. I entertained the notion that you would contrive for more guards to be set and thus deter my efforts. I did not, though, ever think that you would lure me into a trap.”
“You said you were going to kill people if necessary, William!” Beatrice exclaimed. “The people in this castle are good people. A maid or soldier shouldn’t have to perish, just so that you can get away with the silverware!”
An uncomfortable look stole over William’s face.
Was he all bluster? Was he talking through his hat when he told me of the lengths he would go to steal from the Abernathys?
“Sometimes,” she heard William mutter. “A man cannot choose his obligations.”
“Perhaps not,” Beatrice replied, gently. “But he can choose the manner in which he faces them. You don’t have to be this man, William. I know that you are better than this.”
From somewhere in the bowels of the castle there was a distant crash. Jeames took another step towards William. “What was that?” he asked. Beatrice could see the Highlander tense and half-turn against the light of the young fire.
“Whilst I may have trusted Beatrice to keep her word,” William said. “I am not in the habit of trusting luck. That would be the sound of some of my other associates.”
There was another faint crash and the sound of someone shouting. Beatrice saw Jeames’s attention waver away from William.
William moved with the speed of a snake uncoiling. He leapt bounded towards the distracted Highlander, his long legs carrying him over the floor with lightning speed.
Beatrice stood rooted to the spot, but she had just the presence of mind to yell, “Jeames!” before William was on the Scotsman. He crashed into him, arms around the Scot’s middle and tackled him over a spindly and expensive-looking side table.
Beatrice clapped her hand to her mouth and gave a soft little scream as the table exploded into splinters under the weight of the two combatants. The men landed in the wreckage with twin grunts and began to roll about the floor of the parlor.
William was not just tall, he was strong to go with it. A life in the circus was a life spent heaving heavy equipment around, pulling on ropes, lugging hay bales for animals to and fro. He was slimmer and less muscular than Jeames, but he was taller and had a longer reach.
Beatrice had no idea what to do. She felt as if she should help part them, but watching them rolling about on the floor, kicking and punching and cursing at one another, she knew that she would only end up getting hurt herself.
Even as she was watching the two men fight, she became aware that the thudding on the other side of the parlor door was continuing. What was more, the bolt seemed to be rattling in its place. Whoever was on the other side was managing to loosen the lock with their persistent pounding. Beatrice placed her back to the door, braced herself and gritted her teeth. As far as she could see, the contest between Jeames and William was an even one, but if any more of the circus looters were to join, the Highlander would be quickly overwhelmed.
Jeames elbowed William hard in the ribs and the tall Englishman rolled away. Silhouetted against the fire, the two men looked an impressive sight.
William rubbed at his side as he got to his feet. He glanced over at the door, no doubt checking how long it might be before he could expect help from whoever it was outside.
“Give it up, William, please!” Beatrice tried again.
Jeames grabbed William by the collar of his coat and flung him into one of the ornate couches that dotted the room. William smacked into the back of it and both he and the couch tumbled over.
“Are we alright, lass?” Jeames shot at Beatrice.
“Ye-yes,” she managed, her body vibrating as the door shook behind her. “I don’t know how much longer it’ll be before this door gives though!”
“Ye’re doin’ grand,” Jeames said. He jumped over the couch, intent on getting back to grips with William.
The ringmaster, however, was on his feet. In one swift motion, he reached down to his boot and whipped something free. Metal gleamed, bright and deadly, in the firelight.
He meant every word.
Beatrice could not help but feel disgusted and saddened with William then.
William swiped at Jeames with the dagger and the Highlander fell back with a muffled cry. A line of red bloomed across the Scotsman’s forearm.
“Let us come to some agreement, Master Abernathy,” William said, as the two men circled each other on the wide floor of the parlor.
“An agreement?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of agreement might that be, Mr. Ballantine?” Jeames asked. His hand was clamped over the slight wound on his other arm.
“The kind in which you agree to let me and my compatriots go free would be the obvious choice that springs to my mind,” William said.
“Aye, that might have been an option before I stepped out of that curtain, sir. Unfortunately,” Jeames said, “that time has passed. Now, yer only option is tae give yerself up. The fact that ye did nae have tae be subdued will count in yer favor when me faither judges ye, I am sure of it.”
William nodded. His knife caught the firelight yet again and the blade glowed white.
Jeames dodged as the weapon licked out at him again. He spun away as William attempted to jab him back into the fireplace, then stepped back in and hit William hard in the face.
It was a ringing that caused Beatrice to gasp and
William to stagger back a pace. Blood, black against the glow of the fire, pattered against the floor as William’s nose broke. Half-blind with tears, William struck out at the shape of James, but the Scotsman easily avoided him.
Jeames lashed out with a kick to the taller man’s knee and knocked that leg out from under him. William cried out as he was brought to the ground and Jeames pounced on him like a cat on a bird.
Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 26
