by Julia London
“You are too bold, Miss Darby,” Mrs. Cockburn snapped.
Maura was too drained to respond to the old woman now. She wanted only to find Gavin before it was all dreadfully, horribly late. She walked out of the room, making her way to the foyer and the door. She removed her cloak from the stand and threw it around her shoulders.
Mr. Cockburn was right behind her. “To the inn, then, I should think?” he asked crisply.
She glanced at him with surprise and skepticism at his newfound helpfulness. “Aye. To the inn.”
* * *
THE INN WAS in Comrie, only two miles from Cheverock, and was rather busy in spite of its remote location. So busy, in fact, that Mr. Cockburn could only secure one room for the three of them. They found a table near the door—Maura insisted on that, so she could see who came and went—and were served beef stew and ale.
The Cockburns devoured their meals. Maura hardly touched hers. Her nerves had turned her belly to acid, an unsettling mix of worry and fear. She couldn’t take her eyes from the door long enough to eat, certain she would miss Gavin.
It was nearly nine o’clock when Mrs. Cockburn belched and complained of a sour stomach. She insisted that Mr. Cockburn see her to the room they’d let. “Are you coming, Miss Darby?” Mr. Cockburn asked as he stood to help his mother to her feet.
“No’ yet,” she said. “There is no other place he can be, aye? He’ll come sooner or later, I should think. I’ll wait.”
“Perhaps he’s scurried away and willna return,” Mrs. Cockburn responded.
“Come now, lass,” Mr. Cockburn said as his mother began to move toward the stairs. “’Tis no’ safe for a young woman to remain in the common room alone, aye?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted and waved him away. There was hardly anyone left in the public room as it was—just a few men laughing and drinking from tankards. And the Cockburn driver, seated apart from them, who looked as if he was very nearly asleep in his ale.
“Donna waste your time, Dunnan,” Mrs. Cockburn said as she began to weave her way through the tables.
Mr. Cockburn smiled apologetically at Maura, pushed his unfinished ale in front of her, and followed his mother up the stairs.
Maura looked into the tankard of ale, watched the wee bit of foam slowly circling around the surface. She’d never felt as despondent as she did tonight. The loss of Nichol from her life was far more injurious to her heart than anything she’d ever experienced. And the feeling of helplessness seared the injury even deeper. After so many years of having no one who was for her, having no one she could trust, to find that person and then lose him was devastating.
If Nichol were here, he would probably tell her she was going to lose him anyway. Or would he? He’d been about to say something to her that night. That he’d never...what?
Whatever it was, in that moment, she had felt that the tide had turned and was no longer pulling them apart, but was pushing them together. She believed that Nichol had realized what she’d realized—for people like them, love like this wouldn’t come their way very often, and they ought to hold on to it. Love that meant trust, compatibility that was strong and prurient. Neither of them had sought the rapport they’d found. Neither of them had wanted the entanglement. And yet, here she was, pining over a man she’d known for a very few days, but felt as if she knew better than most anyone else in her life.
How would she ever recover? How could she possibly carry on, as if nothing had ever happened? Unfortunately, it appeared that she was going to have to face the possibility of it, because Gavin wasn’t coming to this inn.
Her wild chase would end in bitter disappointment. She was ridiculous to have believed Gavin would have been here, waiting for her as if by miracle. The lad had no money for an inn! He would be more comfortable in a stable—
Maura gasped and sat up. That was it! He’d not pay for a room at the inn, he would bed with the horses! She abruptly rose from her chair and hurried toward the door. She pulled her cloak tightly around her and went out, running down the path to the attached stables.
It was dark inside; she needed light. She groped around on a bench beside the door, looking for any sort of light, a candle, a lantern.
She had given up a hope of finding it when the driver—their driver—came stumbling toward the stables with one of the inn’s lanterns. His face registered his surprise when he saw her standing just inside the door. “Miss?”
“Aye, will you help me, then, sir? Hold your lantern up and walk with me, will you?”
“Walk with you? Where to?” he asked, confused as to what she could possibly want in the stables.
Maura took a breath, told herself to remain calm. “There might be a lad here, aye? That was the reason for our trip to Cheverock, to see this lad. But he’d already left.”
“And you think he’s here?”
“I donna know—please, there is no time to waste! Will you hold your lantern up and walk with me?”
The driver stared at her as if he thought there was something a wee bit off about her. But then he shrugged his shoulders and held his lantern aloft. Together, they moved down the center of the stalls.
The horses shifted about as the walked, looking for food or attention. But they found no other being in the stable but the horseflesh. No Gavin.
At the end of the stable, Maura sighed with frustration. “I donna believe it,” she said, feeling herself close to tears. “I canna imagine where he’s gone. When we were at Cheverock, he stayed in the stable there, with the horses. I thought he’d be here.”
“Aye, mayhap that’s where he is, then,” the driver said, and yawned, clearly disinterested.
Maura blinked. Of course. Of course. He knew the cook there, the groom there. He would have looked for a place to sleep, some place he could trust. She whirled around to the driver. “I must go back to Cheverock, aye? At once.”
“Pardon?”
“To Cheverock! He’s there, I know he is.”
The driver looked almost frightened of her. “Miss... I canna bring round the carriage and put the horses in their stays by myself—”
“I’ll help you!” she cried, loud enough that horses began to whimper and shift about.
“You canna help me, you’re but a wee thing,” he said.
Maura grabbed his lapels and gave him a shake. “I must go back.”
His expression was stricken. He looked around them, then said, “Can you ride, then?”
“Aye.”
He rubbed his face. “Mrs. Cockburn will have me head, that she will,” he mused.
“I’ll be back before dawn, you’ve my word.”
He looked at the horses. “Aye,” he said, giving in. “Bram is restless. He’ll take you.”
Three-quarters of an hour later, Maura slowed the horse Bram to a walk and approached a dark house at Cheverock. A light burned in a single window on the first floor, but there were no other lights, no movement that she could detect.
She got off the horse and tied it to a post railing and walked quickly and quietly to the stables. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could hardly hear another thing. It was quite cold, and yet she was perspiring. She was entering a stable where she was not supposed to be, risking everything if she was discovered, perhaps even her neck. And if Gavin wasn’t there, it would all be for naught. The past fortnight would have all been for nothing.
The stable doors were closed, bolted by a heavy iron bar. It took all of Maura’s strength to lift it, and when the bar slid off to one side, it landed with a loud clang. She caught her breath and held it, listening for any sound that would indicate someone had been alerted. But all she could hear were the horses moving around inside.
She pulled one of the doors open. It squeaked horribly, and she winced, certain she would be discovered at any minute. Still, no one came. How was it possible they had not
heard her? A groom? A groundsman? Could they not hear the intrusion?
She pushed the door open a little wider, hoping the moonlight would help her see. She heard some movement then, the sound of a person, not a horse, and froze with absolute fear.
“Miss Darby?”
Her relief was so strong and violent that she had to grab onto the door of the stable as Gavin stumbled forward, wrapped in his plaid. He was blinking, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“It’s a bloody miracle!” she whispered, and threw her arms around Gavin. “Aye, it is a miracle, that’s what it is. Is there anyone else within?”
Gavin shook his head. “They’ve gone to the house. The baron is dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NICHOL WAS ON the verge of sealing a deal with Mr. Pepper, he could feel it. With all the time he’d spent waiting, he’d done quite a lot of thinking—he simply had to give Julian Pepper an alternative to murder. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult. Mr. Pepper did not seem the murderous sort.
And perhaps that was his overly optimistic view.
He had pondered it the first day. What was it that Mr. Pepper, with his greasy black hair and deep brown eyes, needed more than to kill Nichol when the ransom didn’t come?
Nichol had come to a stunning realization as they’d passed the time playing various games of chance—for which Pepper now owed him one hundred pounds by Nichol’s count—that they were really very much alike.
“What do you do for your livelihood, then?” Pepper had asked him the first night as they’d played cards and drunk the whisky he’d brought with him.
“I solve difficult problems for esteemed men,” Nichol said. “Perhaps you could use my services, aye?”
Pepper had laughed. “The only difficult problem I have is you, is it no’? No’ my money Cockburn pissed away, is it? I, too, solve difficult problems for esteemed men,” Pepper had said, and had clinked his tot to Nichol’s, as if to salute that fact.
Nichol had seen then that they were of the same ilk, solving other people’s problems. In slightly different ways, obviously, but their goal was the same.
“What will you do then, if the lad doesna return?” Nichol asked far more casually than he felt about the situation.
“Besides cut his mother’s throat?” Pepper had asked.
Nichol had clucked his tongue at him, and the man had chuckled. “I donna know, to be honest. Go back to Cockburn, I suppose. Take his things and try and sell them. Furniture. Gold. Quite a lot of bother, really.”
“It will be hard to reach two thousand pounds selling his things piecemeal, aye? May I suggest something else?”
Pepper sat back, amused. “Aye, and what would that be, Mr. Bain?”
Nichol shrugged and pretended to study his cards. “A stake in his linen manufacture. It’s losing money to hear him tell it, but it could be quite lucrative if one were to consider markets on the Continent. A percentage is all you need, then. You can direct him. Tell him what must be done, visit him now and again, and reap the rewards.”
“Visit him? I live in London, not bloody Scotland,” Mr. Pepper scoffed.
Nichol played his card. “I’ll no’ take that personally.” He took the hand.
Mr. Pepper sat back and eyed him curiously as Nichol shuffled the deck. “Why didn’t you do it? Take the percentage, that is?”
“I prefer my line of work,” Nichol said simply. He didn’t trust Dunnan in the least, but he wouldn’t offer that on the slim chance he could get Pepper to bite at this idea.
“Aye, so do I. And I’ll have my two thousand pounds if it’s the last thing I do. When I give my word, I honor it, and I’ll have a tidy profit when your father sends his love.”
“Think on what I’ve said,” Nichol advised. “It is potentially worth more to you than two thousand pounds, it is. And besides, I’m expected any day in Wales.”
Pepper laughed. “I donna believe you. You’d not go off and leave the bird behind.”
“The bird?” Nichol asked.
“The lass,” he said. “Och, you love her, seems to me.” He glanced up from his cards. “Am I wrong?”
He was not wrong, but Nichol was surprised it was obvious to him. “Whether I do or no’, it doesna matter. ’Tis too late for me.”
“Och, don’t be such a pessimist, Bain. Your father will send for you,” Pepper said with a flick of his wrist. “No matter the acrimony between father and son, a man will not betray his blood.”
Julian Pepper didn’t know the baron. “I meant it is too late in my life,” Nichol said. Not the least because he had made it so. He had set wheels turning that he couldn’t stop now.
“Donna be a fool, Bain,” Pepper scoffed.
That brought Nichol’s head up. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll tell you a story, shall I?”
“Have I any choice?”
“I had a love once. She was as lovely as a fine spring day, she was. Beautiful golden hair,” he said, fluttering his fingers from his temple down his side. “I was a young man, green as grass, and I’ll tell you, lad, I would have walked over hot coals for her.”
Nichol smiled. He understood that burning desire.
“I loved her.” Pepper paused, glanced away a moment, as if seeing her standing there. “But I was full of piss and thought I ought to have the world, too. Thought there were better women out there for me. So I left her behind. Broke her heart.”
It was difficult to imagine Julian Pepper as the object of a broken heart.
He suddenly leaned across the table. “I’m forty years, lad. Forty. Never have I felt that way about a woman again, do you see? Never. That true esteem only comes round once. Don’t let go what you have in hand.”
“Poetic,” Nichol said, and threw down a card. He didn’t need Julian Pepper to tell him so—he was consumed with it. How many times had he berated himself for being so bloody stupid? He loved her, and this problem should have been the least difficult thing he’d ever solved. But he’d allowed himself to believe what his father had said of him. He had not trusted that anyone could truly want him in the same way. He had not trusted, period.
Pepper was right—he should have grabbed hold and held on to it the moment he realized what it was.
They played on as the hour for Gavin to appear neared. When Nichol couldn’t bear another hand of cards, he tossed them down and said, “No more.” He stood and began to pace. He’d been stuck in this hovel of rooms for nearly four full days. He was dirty and disheveled, smelled of bad ale and smoke, and frankly, it felt as if something was crawling in his stubble.
In one hour, all would be lost. He wondered how Pepper would do it. Break his neck? Weight him down and throw him into the river? Shoot him?
He was startled by a knock at the door. Pepper shoved to his feet as one of his men opened the door and walked in. Pepper moved forward, but he stopped, staring at the person who appeared in the open door behind him. It wasn’t Gavin—it was Dunnan Cockburn. Dunnan swayed backward, startled by Pepper’s looming presence before him.
But Pepper wasn’t looking at Dunnan, Nichol realized. He was looking past him. Looking for Gavin.
Dunnan looked behind him, too, then said, “Ah, I see, you were expecting the lad, aye? He’s gone home to Stirling. He was right worried about his mother, he was. I must say, Mr. Pepper, that was badly done, to instill such fear into one so young, aye?”
“What the bloody hell do you want?” Pepper growled.
“I should think it obvious!” Dunnan said cheerfully. “Whyever would I come to this establishment, but to pay Bain’s ransom?”
Pepper looked at Nichol, but he was just as confused and shook his head. “You’ve been to Cheverock, have you?” he asked Dunnan.
“Aye, that I have.” Dunnan hesitated. He rubbed a finger alongside his nose, t
hen cleared his throat. “I, ah... I regret to inform you, Bain, that your father has passed.”
Nichol swallowed. “He was no’ my father,” he muttered. “And I know he didna pay a ransom from his deathbed.”
“Oh no,” Dunnan agreed. “We had to be a wee bit more inventive,” he said with a small, bitter laugh. “May I come in, then?” he asked, and walked in without waiting for an answer. From his coat pocket, he withdrew a leather pouch and handed it to Pepper. “You’ll find it all there and more. Twenty-two hundred pounds, it is. We gave fifty pounds to Gavin—as he had quite a fright, thinking he’d find his mother with her throat cut.” He paused there to give Pepper a scathing look.
Pepper paid him no heed and grabbed the pouch from his hand. He opened it, dumping the contents on the table, then counted through the banknotes and the coins. He looked up at Nichol and grinned. “It is indeed all here,” he said, and looked at Cockburn. “Did you put any aside for a little wagering, Cockburn?”
“Absolutely no’,” Dunnan said, and sniffed imperiously. “I am done with that, I am. Now then, you have your ransom and a wee bit more. Bain is free to go, is he no’?”
Pepper looked up at Nichol, and he looked, amazingly, a wee bit sad. “Aye, he is. I’m a man of my word.” He counted out some banknotes and handed them to Nichol. “Unlike your friend, I pay my gambling debts.”
Nichol had no such tender feelings. He took the money—it was seventy-five pounds, and not the hundred Pepper truly owed—and put it in his pocket. “Good luck to you, Pepper,” he said.
“Aye, and to you,” Pepper said, and watched him stride from that room, grabbing Dunnan by the arm and forcing him to come along as he went. The only thing he cared about was Maura. He wanted to know how quickly he could find her, gather his things, and get on a ship bound for Wales. It was too late to ride.
