Seduced by a Scot

by Julia London

  THE TROUPE WAS up surprisingly early, given how much moving around Maura had heard through the night. But there they were, all twelve assembled in the foyer with their bags and cloaks.

  Maura descended the stairs to see them off. Susan frowned at her. “You’re wearing the gown from last night. Where is your baggage? Your cloak? They are bringing the coach around, Maura—you must be quick.”

  She took Susan’s hand in hers, gripping tightly. “I’m no’ going with you.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t stay here, not with him!” she said, gesturing at Mr. Cockburn, who was leaning against the wall as if he couldn’t hold himself up any longer.

  “But if I donna help Mr. Bain, who will?”

  “What?” Mr. Johnson, having overheard, shook his head. “There is no need to worry, Miss Darby. His father will ransom him. Now get your things and come along now.”

  “His father willna ransom him, because he has no father,” Maura said.

  Susan gasped and looked around at the troupe. “What are you saying?”

  There was too much to explain, and no time for any of them. “There are things about Mr. Bain that you donna know, aye? Believe me when I tell you that he has no one to help him but me, and I mean to do just that.”

  “How the devil will you do that?” Mr. Johnson demanded.

  “I have an idea. And Mr. Cockburn will help me.”

  “He won’t help you!” Mr. Johnson shouted. “He is the one who offered Mr. Bain to those villains! What makes you think he will help you?”

  “Maura, please,” Susan begged her. “Don’t stay here. Come with us. We’ll take care of you, you have my word.”

  “We will!” one of the men called from the back. “But do come along! We should be gone from here.”

  “Go,” Maura said, and pulled her hand free of Susan’s. Susan eyed her closely, then sighed. “Very well, if that is your wish.”

  “It is. Susan—thank you for your kindness, aye?” Maura said.

  Susan smiled a little and shrugged, then unexpectedly kissed her cheek.

  “Come, Susan, it’s time,” Mr. Johnson called.

  Susan fluttered her fingers at Maura, then hurried out the door to join the others.

  When Fillian closed the door, Maura turned about.

  Mr. Cockburn was leaning against the wall. He looked broken and eyed her with resignation and skepticism.

  “Well, then, Mr. Cockburn, we must ransom Mr. Bain, aye? You know his father will no’ pay a farthing.”

  “And how shall we do that?” Mr. Cockburn asked. “We’ve neither of us a pence to our name, aye?”

  “I must sell my necklace, quite obviously,” she said. “And you will help me. You owe him that much, Mr. Cockburn.”

  “Aye,” he said wearily. “I do. I know that I do.”

  “First, we must learn where they have taken him,” she said.

  “How?” he complained.

  “They will have sent a note or a messenger to Cheverock with the demand for ransom, aye? That note or messenger will lead back to them. You must first take me to Cheverock. Preferably in a coach with a team of six. We’ve no time to waste.”

  For the first time in days, Mr. Cockburn perked up a little. He straightened from the wall. “Aye, you’re clever to think of it. I’ll just tell Mamma.”

  As he hurried away, Maura said a silent prayer. If she had to endure Mrs. Cockburn for a day or two to find Nichol, she’d do it. That’s how much she loved him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  GLASGOW. HE KNEW that much, at least, because they’d passed the Glasgow cathedral, a familiar sight, and the air had the smell of rotting fish to it, a scent he associated with Glasgow and the trade that ran in the River Clyde.

  Julian Pepper had taken boardinghouse rooms near the wharfs, and the constant clang of rigging sounded as if ships were just outside the door. The two small rooms smelled of humans—perspiration and excrement, smoke and stale ale. Scattered on the floor in one room were dirty, stained pallets for sleeping.

  Nichol decided he’d sleep sitting up.

  In the second room, a crude table, some chairs, a few wooden cups.

  Mr. Pepper pushed him down onto a seat at the table and poured stale ale for him, which Nichol drank because he was thirsty and didn’t know if he’d have another opportunity.

  Mr. Pepper sat down across from him and folded his hands on the table. “Well, then, here we are. Me, a man of the streets, and you, the son of a wealthy baron.”

  Nichol said nothing.

  Mr. Pepper stood up. He walked to a shelf on one wall and picked up a wooden box. He brought that back to the table and opened it, withdrawing paper, a quill and a bottle of ink. “How are you at writing, Mr. Bain?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I can write,” Nichol said.

  “Aye, you’ve one leg up on me, then. I canna write but my own name. I’m not fancy like you,” he said, and one of his ruffians laughed.

  Nichol laughed, too. “I’m not fancy, Mr. Pepper. I’m a vagabond and have spent most of my life moving from one place to the next.”

  “Those are fine clothes you wear for a vagabond.” He shoved the paper and writing implements across the table to him. “Pen a letter to your dear old pappa, and explain to him that for the bargain price of four thousand pounds, he might see the bright face of his firstborn son again.”

  Four thousand pounds. Not even the king would ransom him for that. “The debt is two thousand,” Nichol reminded Pepper.

  “I know what the debt is, sir. But I also know to catch the golden egg from the goose that lays it.” He grinned, revealing a gap in his front teeth. “Write it, just as I said.”

  Nichol slowly drew the paper to him and picked up the quill. He dipped it into the ink and wrote a letter to his father.

  The Honorable William L. MacBain of Cheverock, Baron of Comrie

  My lord, I am writing to you as the hostage of a man who should like four thousand pounds to guarantee my safe return to the bosom of my family. I’ll not burden your final days with the details of how this came to be. But as I know very well that you will not entertain the idea of paying ransom for a man you utterly revile, I will take this opportunity to say that upon reflection of your recent revelation to me, I have come to understand that the flaw in your character runs much deeper than I could have imagined. I fear it runs too deep to be repaired with a few words of prayer uttered by the vicar over your grave, and I therefore conclude that you will not find your heavenly reward. Perhaps you would find solace in knowing that you have destroyed my childhood and my happiness in retribution for having lost your own. But I regret I cannot give you that small victory, for I forgive you. I forgive you the sins you have visited on me. I utterly, without hesitation and with all due clemency, forgive you.

  May you rest in peace,

  Nichol Iain Bain

  He folded the paper and reached across the table for a candle to drip wax and seal it.

  “Not so fast,” Mr. Pepper said, and gestured for the folded letter.

  Nichol handed it to him and watched as Pepper opened it and studied it. He waited, wondering if the man had been truthful about not being able to read. But Pepper nodded, folded the paper, then picked up the candle, tilting it a bit to drop wax on the folds to seal it.

  He lifted one finger in the air and said, “Bring the lad.”

  Moments later, Gavin was pushed into the room. He was ashen, clearly nervous. Nichol smiled, trying to reassure him, but Pepper would not allow the lad to be soothed. He stood up and came behind Nichol, and held a knife to his throat.

  “What’s this?” Nichol asked, trying to keep calm. “You’ve been so hospitable until this moment, aye?”

  “You know how to reach Cheverock, do you, lad?” Pepper asked Gavin.

  Gavin swallowe
d and nodded slowly, his gaze on Nichol.

  “Here then, pick up the letter and carry it to the old man. Wait a day for his reply, but no more. Do you understand?”

  “Aye,” Gavin said, his voice a near whisper.

  “A full day, that is. Twenty-four hours. But not a moment more. If you’ve not returned by Friday, you’ll find this one’s headless corpse waiting for you.”

  “That’s no’ necessary,” Nichol said. “It would make quite a shambles of the otherwise bonny accommodations here, aye?”

  “Shut your trap,” Pepper said. “Do you understand, me boy?”

  “Aye, milord,” Gavin said, his shaking voice giving his fear away.

  “Then go on with you, deliver the letter. One more thing,” he said as Gavin moved for the door. “If you think to run to the authorities, just remember that my boy Davey is not here.”

  “Aye, right you are,” Nichol said. “We seem to be missing a ruffian.”

  “Davey waits in town. If you cross me, and bring the authorities down on my head, Davey will find you. But he won’t kill you. He’ll kill your mammy.”

  All the color drained from Gavin’s face.

  “All right, then, that’s a bit too far,” Nichol said irritably. “No need to frighten him to death before he can deliver the note.”

  “Just making sure he knows what I say is true,” Mr. Pepper said.

  Gavin looked ill. He nodded. He swallowed hard and managed to say, “Aye. I understand.”

  “Well, then, go on with you,” Mr. Pepper said. He moved, as if he meant to knick Nichol, then laughed when Gavin began to breathe as if he might faint. “Go on, go on,” he said laughingly, as if this was all just a wee lark.

  Gavin picked up the letter and fled from the room.

  Pepper dropped the knife, sauntered to his chair and sat. “Are you a gaming man, Mr. Bain?”

  Nichol had four days to either think or talk his way out of this predicament. “At times,” he said, and settled back, as if he had not a care in the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE JOURNEY TO Cheverock might have been made much faster had only Maura and Mr. Cockburn gone, but Mrs. Cockburn was determined to come along, and she could not ride. And because the snow had made the roads difficult to travel, they were forced to wait another day.

  Maura found the wait to be excruciatingly painful in the house alone with the Cockburns, who argued incessantly over Mr. Cockburn’s transgressions, which apparently were many. She had nothing more to divert her than her increasingly wild imaginings of the worst possible scenarios that could befall Nichol or her.

  The next day they departed at dawn and lumbered along toward Cheverock in a cramped coach with bad springs and the press of hostile bodies.

  They reached Cheverock just as daylight was beginning to fade. Maura’s head was pounding. She was the first to disembark, pushing open the door and leaping before the driver could come down from his bench. She strode to the door, her heart racing with all the anxiety of the journey, of not knowing, of fearing this was all for naught, that they were too late.

  She knocked hard and long on the door, and after several moments, the strange thin butler Erskine showed them into a receiving room. As they waited for someone to come down, Mrs. Cockburn complained of hunger.

  “Dearest, you must be patient,” her son begged her.

  “Donna think to speak to me in that tone, sir,” she snapped. “Were it no’ for me when your father passed, you would have found yourself living in a constant state of hunger and in much meaner conditions than you enjoy today, aye? Who do you think made the linen manufacture what it is today? I did. It wasna because of you.”

  “By all that is holy, please donna argue now,” Maura said crossly.

  “And neither should you deign to speak to me in that tone,” Mrs. Cockburn said, but turned her back to both of them and walked across the room, and sat on a settee with a whoosh of air. “I’ve given all that I am to my son, and this is the thanks I am to receive? He will make a mockery of us before the world?”

  These were all things she’d said in the course of their drive, in various ways, and in varying levels of vitriol. The more she railed, the smaller Mr. Cockburn seemed to get. Maura was surprised that she actually felt a wee bit sorry for him.

  But she had her own worries. The Cockburns were a means to an end only, and she’d had quite enough. “Mrs. Cockburn! Kindly allow us to keep our attention on what’s at stake here now, aye? You may lecture your son all you like when you return to Luncarty. You’ll have little else to do, aye? Once word spreads, no one will want to dine at your verra long table.”

  Mrs. Cockburn gasped with outrage. She made a move as if she meant to launch from the settee at Maura, but that was an undertaking in the best of circumstances, and at that moment, the door opened and Ivan MacBain strode in, his face thunderous. Just behind him was Finella, whose smile constrasted brightly against her husband’s demeanor. “Miss Darby! How pleased we are to see—”

  “Shut up, Nella,” MacBain said curtly.

  Finella was quite taken aback. So was Maura. She swallowed down a small wave of hysteria. “Mr. MacBain, thank you for receiving us.”

  “What do you want, then?” he demanded, and gestured impatiently with his hand.

  She didn’t know what to make of his rudeness. “May I introduce Mr. Dunnan Cockburn and his mother, Mrs. Cockburn?”

  Ivan MacBain didn’t look at either of them, but kept his gaze fixed on Maura. “You’re no’ welcome here, Miss Darby.”

  “Ivan! What are you saying?” Finella exclaimed nervously, and tried again to smile at Maura. “We’re delighted to see her again!”

  “We are no’, madam, and you will no’ say another word,” he warned his wife.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. MacBain, but I donna know what you mean,” Maura said pleadingly. “I’ve come on a mission of great urgency, I have. I donna like to be the bearer of bad news, but something terrible has happened.”

  “Is this part of a scheme? Whilst my father lies on his deathbed? He warned me something like this might happen, that Nichol would try and wrench a few farthings from him in his final hours.”

  Maura gasped. “That is no’ true!” she said with great indignation for Nichol. “He left this house with devastating news. He wants nothing—has wanted nothing—to do with the baron. Surely you must realize that is so, Mr. MacBain. He has no’ come round all these years.”

  One of Mr. MacBain’s eyes twitched. “You must think yourself quite clever, Miss Darby, aye? Nichol came here, knowing that the baron was close to death, hoping to gain from it. It was no coincidence that he came when he did, and once he discovered the truth, he resorted to meaner measures.”

  “Ivan!” Finella cried. “Donna say such wretched things!”

  Maura was astonished that Ivan or the baron could believe that Nichol had come hoping for inheritance. How would he have possibly known his father lay dying? After all these years, when he’d kept a proper distance, they thought he’d swoop in at the last moments of a man’s life and try to extort it? “No,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “He came because of me, Mr. MacBain, on my word. He would no’ have come at all had it no’ been for me, and the things that I did.”

  “Miss Darby, if I may?” Mr. Cockburn said.

  God help her, not him, not now! Her thoughts were racing, trying to think of what to say to convince Ivan MacBain. “Mr. Cockburn, please—”

  But Mr. Cockburn was suddenly in front of her, addressing the tall and imposing Mr. MacBain. “All we want, sir, is to know if you have received a demand for ransom, and if so, from where it might have come. Nothing more.”

  “Who the bloody hell are you?” Mr. MacBain said angrily.

  “I am Mr. Dunnan Cockburn of Luncarty, aye? Do you know where we might find your brother?”


  “How should I know? I’ve never known where he is. All my life, I have been left here to tend to our father and our legacy with no help from Nichol.”

  “Perhaps the news came by post?” Mr. Cockburn asked, doggedly ignoring Mr. MacBain’s anger.

  “No’ a post, damn you, a messenger. The same lad who had come before, who do you think?”

  Maura gasped. “Gavin? Where is he?”

  Mr. MacBain looked between Maura and Mr. Cockburn. “I donna know,” he said furiously. “Nor do I care—”

  “But what did he say?” Mr. Cockburn pressed in a surprising display of fortitude. “Did the lad say where you might find him, then, were you to change your mind?”

  Mr. MacBain laughed with incredulity. “Have you all lost your minds?” he asked, looking around at them. “The lad came, presented the letter, and said he was to return within a day’s time for the answer. But I told the little rat he could bloody well wait until hell froze over, aye? I’ve no idea where he’s gone, then.”

  Maura’s heart slipped from its moorings and began to sink away from her. She would never find Nichol now. She couldn’t begin to imagine what would befall him once those blackguards knew he could not raise the ransom.

  “I think you should leave,” Mr. MacBain said.

  “Aye, straightaway, sir,” Mr. Cockburn said. “But, if I may—”

  “You may no’!”

  “If the lad was to return, what time might you expect him?”

  “We must find him, Mr. MacBain. We donna care for the ransom. We mean only to find your brother.”

  Mr. MacBain looked angry and confused. “Get out,” he said, his voice shaking, “I want nothing to do with this, aye?” He turned and strode from the room.

  Finella watched him go, then turned a tortured gaze to Maura.

  “Finella,” she said quickly, reaching for her hand. “He is Mr. MacBain’s brother! He didna come for money, I swear to you. We only want to help him—”

  “The inn,” Finella said, glancing over her shoulder toward the door. “There is only one within miles, on the main road, aye? If he meant to return here on the morrow, he’d have no other place to go.” She pulled her hand free of Maura’s. “Now go,” she whispered. “Ivan is at his wit’s end, he is. He doesna mean what he says. He misses his brother, he does, but the baron.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “He’s confused, Miss Darby. And the baron, he... Well, he may no’ last the night, aye?” She hurried after her husband.