James considered the room in which he had awakened this morning, in all its patent disarray. The nightstand he could remember, and he was quite sure the purse had not been there. But were there places he hadn’t thought to look? He had looked in the wardrobe, but not beneath it. And he recalled a cabinet now, beneath the washstand. He had not looked there either. Uncertainty burrowed under his collar.
He eyed the angry woman standing ramrod-straight before him. He didn’t trust her. She had tricked him into something last night. And yet he found himself wavering on the edge of offering her a chance at redemption.
“The Blue Gander,” he told her, giving up the struggle to be right. He almost hoped he wasn’t. “I will give you five minutes to search the room. And then, if my money purse is still not found, you’ll need to argue your case before the magistrate. I don’t want your promise of two hundred pounds, and I won’t listen to any more excuses. Fair enough?”
Her gray eyes narrowed on him. “What about the gaol?”
He shrugged. “I was not being fully honest about Moraig’s lockup. It may have a bed. And a window.” He hesitated. This next bit was his one advantage here, but he found himself wanting to be honest. “The summons is actually for a civil matter, not a criminal charge. As you have pointed out, the evidence I have is mainly circumstantial.”
She shifted her balance, a wary bird seeking flight. “It feels a bit like a trap.”
James sighed. “Lady Thorold, I promise you. I have no intention of trapping you. If you are responsible for the loss of my purse, you claim you will replace the money. If you are innocent, I am more than willing to hear any evidence you have supporting that as well.”
She tilted her head and considered him a long moment. James could almost see the careful measure of trust blooming in her gray eyes. He was solidly caught in that gaze, just as he had been last night when she had stared up at him over their false vows. Only this time, instead of being drunk and lascivious, he was stone-cold sober and sympathetic.
Damn, but this woman affected him in unexpected ways.
She nodded. He hadn’t even realized he was holding his breath until his lungs began laboring again. Instead of grabbing her arm or pushing her elbow, he warily clasped her hand.
This he remembered. It felt small but warm. He remembered he had liked her hands, last night.
He pulled her in the direction of Main Street, his fingers threading over hers. Tried to ignore the way his touch made her flinch. He was not supposed to care whether she liked him or not. And yet, part of him hoped they would indeed find his purse in the little room above the Blue Gander.
And part of him was afraid of what he would need to do if they did not.
Chapter 18
FOR TWO LONG blocks, Georgette was pulled along by Mr. MacKenzie’s grip on her hand. And all the way, she simmered. In irritation at the way he had presumed her a thief. In anger at the ultimatum he had given her. And worst of all, in awareness of the way his hand fit over hers. By the time they rounded Main Street and began to dodge the crowd, her mind was numb from all of it.
It confused her, that hand. It secured her to his side as tightly as a nail to a board, and yet churned up feelings that were dangerous to examine. He was not the heroic man she had imagined, come to rescue her from a forced elopement. Neither could she see signs of the disheveled rake who had invited her back to his bed this morning. The flesh-and-blood man was sharp-eyed and hard. His purposeful stride and firm hand made her stomach flip in nervousness rather than attraction. All through the gathering Bealltainn mob, past shops and storefronts that were by now becoming familiar, she told herself that.
And still she had difficulty believing it.
The sight of the Blue Gander, with its boarded-up windows and colorful paper lanterns, made her sag in relief. He released her hand, though only to open the door and stand back. Her freed limb tingled in new self-awareness. She clasped her hands together and stepped inside, studiously ignoring the way MacKenzie’s hand hovered near her elbow, offering but not demanding aid. “Mannered” was the word that came to mind. Someone had drilled a bit of good English decorum into this bearded Scotsman. She wondered who had taken the time. A mother, perhaps? More likely a lover. She hoped the woman had received more than threats and accusations for her trouble.
Inside, the building was blessedly cooler than the four o’clock heat of the street. The place smelled of week-old ale, no doubt spilled from someone’s mug and left to molder in dark corners. The pervasive scent was overlaid with roasted chicken, wafting from the back kitchen. Georgette recalled Elsie had mentioned MacKenzie took his meals here, on occasion. As if on cue, she caught the telltale rumble of his stomach. She wondered if he had missed breakfast today looking for her. Not that it mattered. It was not like she was feeling inclined to buy the man a plate of food, not after the difficulty he was causing her.
They approached the front desk nearly side by side, and that was when they ran into the first bit of trouble. She had half expected a dramatic intervention from Elsie somewhere along the route, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. Neither did they encounter a problem in the form of her cousin Randolph, whom she hadn’t seen once since he had left this morning on the gray mare.
No, trouble was found in the form of the innkeeper, who crossed his arms and raised a bushy eyebrow at her request to have a little peek at the room.
“Absolutely not.” The man shook his head. “I just got the room set to rights. Took a pair of maids all morning too. Tar on the bedsheets, brandy soaked into the floorboards . . . I can’t afford to let you up there again, not after how you left it the last time. Why, the pair of you should be ashamed of yourselves, carrying on that way in a respectable establishment.”
A snort of disbelief erupted from MacKenzie’s lips, no doubt due to the description of the Gander as a reputable place. “Did either of the maids happen to find my missing purse?” he inquired acidly.
The innkeeper shook his head. “Not that they reported. But I wouldn’t blame them for keeping it if they had, with the disaster you left them to tidy up.”
Georgette chewed on her lip, wondering if her stiff shadow of a Scotsman had already started counting down her five minutes. “How much?” she asked, worry pinching her throat. No doubt the proprietor would demand something extortionate, but it would be a small price to pay to ensure her freedom.
The innkeeper’s eyes narrowed. “I reckon I could let you up there if you pay for the night.”
“The night?” MacKenzie burst out. “But we only want it for five minutes!”
The innkeeper leaned in toward Georgette and clucked his tongue. “That quick in bed, is he? My sympathies, miss. Most Scotsmen can do a bit better.” He flicked a glance toward James. “No doubt he’ll improve as the marriage matures.”
A flush crept onto her neck, stinging and high and unwelcome. Clearly, the man thought her the kind of lady who engaged in such talk after her antics of last night. And clearly, he too thought they were married. A strangled growl came just behind her left ear. She silenced MacKenzie with a backward thrust of her elbow, smiled grimly as she heard the breath whoosh out of him. “How much?” she asked, already loosening the strings of her reticule.
The innkeeper lifted a gnarled finger and scratched at his chin. “One pound.”
“That’s thievery!” MacKenzie protested.
She considered elbowing him again, just for the pleasure of it. The bit of contact had reminded her he was human, and she sensed she would do well to keep thinking of him in such mundane terms. Instead of giving in to the impulse, however, she counted out the coins and placed them in the innkeeper’s greedy palm.
“Are you sure that isn’t my money you’re giving him?” MacKenzie demanded.
“Quite.” Georgette jerked the strings of the reticule closed. She waved the proffered key his way, then swept a hand toward the dark stairwe
ll that rose up from the inn’s entryway. “And I’m about to prove it. After you, Mr. MacKenzie.”
“ ’Tis James,” he said, setting one boot to the stairs. “My name is James.” He cocked his head over his shoulder, grinning down at her. “Unless the purse is still missing in five minutes, that is, and then I suppose we’ll be back to Mr. MacKenzie.”
She followed behind him. “I expect as far as names go, Mr. MacKenzie would be the more appropriate address for the man who would haul me before the magistrate.” The reacknowledged threat made the blood pound in her ears.
“I told you, if you can return missing money, there will be no need for me to pursue the charge.”
“Yes, well, you’ll forgive me if I harbor an innate mistrust of the man who all but dragged me here.” Georgette stomped up three steps in rapid succession, then paused at the first landing. Her hands settled on her hips. “How do I even know you speak truthfully about the amount of money that was in that purse? Perhaps you have really lost five pounds, and are looking for me to pad your bank account.”
He paused in mid-step, but did not look back. “If we find it, you’ll have no need to wonder, now will you?”
They ascended the remainder of the stairwell in stiff silence. They went up two, maybe three more flights. This morning’s headlong flight had been so rushed she had scarcely noticed whether she had been upright, much less how many steps it had taken to move from above to below. Mr. MacKenzie—or James, as it were—seemed to know the way. He climbed with steady feet, turned left at the top, and set the key in the lock of the third door on the right. The door swung open, and then they were there, back where she had left him.
Back where everything had started.
It looked different. Clean, for one thing. She remembered rumpled sheets and feathers and broken glass. The scrubbing the floor had received in the interim eight hours had done the room some good. The bed was neatly made with a clean white counterpane. A new chamber pot sat at the ready. She noted its location, handle-out, at the foot of the bed.
Just in case, of course.
“Your five minutes starts now,” he told her, pulling a watch from his pocket and pointing toward the center of the room.
Relieved to hear the discussion with the innkeeper had not detracted from her allotted time, but irritated she was still expected to prove her innocence, she stalked to the nearest bit of furniture. She pulled out the washstand drawers with a series of hard jerks. Nothing there but clean folded towels. A peek inside the chipped china pitcher told her it too was free of missing money purses. She straightened and eyed other parts of the room where a wallet could hide.
He stood watching from the open doorway, one lazy shoulder against the frame. Amusement creased his brow. “They did a good job cleaning up your mess, I see.”
His words brought a fierce wave of heat to Georgette’s cheeks. Her mess, he called it. It was the height of arrogance. There had been two soused souls wreaking havoc here last night.
“I don’t recall making the mess,” she told him, dropping to her knees to peer under the fringed coverlet. She had a peculiar memory of doing almost the same thing this morning, when she had been searching for her slippers. This time she found nothing of importance beyond a feather or two the maids had missed.
“Well, I remember.” His words floated down to her. “You smashed a bottle of good French brandy on the floor.” From her prone position, she watched his boots as they moved toward her. “Right about here.” One dusty toe circled a spot the size of a bedside rug, about a foot from where she crouched. “I picked two or three pieces of glass from my foot when I got home this morning.”
Georgette gained her feet and wiped her hands on her skirts. Being here, with him, in this room, and not remembering what they had done on the bed sent her stomach churning. “I suppose I should applaud my ingenuity in simultaneously destroying such a vile drink and giving you something to remember me by.” She raised an irritated brow. “And I thought you couldn’t remember what happened last night.”
“Now, I didn’t say that exactly. Parts of it are there, sharp as a pocket knife.” His eyes met hers, brilliant green. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and offered her a smile, the very portrait of a rake bent on seduction. “For example, I remember kissing you, even if I don’t remember properly marrying you.”
Her heart began a new, awkward rhythm in her chest. This man she remembered, from bed this morning. “How lovely for you, given that I don’t remember any of it.”
“I reckon my recollection of events would be even better,” he drawled, “if you hadn’t introduced me to the chamber pot this morning.”
She rolled her eyes. Of all things, why couldn’t the chamber pot be the part both of them forgot? “I already apologized for that.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe you,” he said. And then he walked away.
She blinked, staring at the spot where he had just been standing. He believed her, but which part? The bit about her not being a thief? Or was it just her apology he believed?
She turned in time to see him approach the one piece of furniture in the room that had not been fully put to rights. The wardrobe was a monstrosity, dominating one entire wall. Its ornately carved door still hung sideways off its frame. It was empty inside, but instead of rummaging there, James crouched and peered into the two-inch space that yawned beneath it. His nicely shaped bum waved in salute.
Georgette’s mouth went as dry as cotton batting, and for a moment she could not even summon the presence of mind to blink. Dear God, she was ogling the man’s posterior. Here she had been trying to teach Elsie to be a lady and she was behaving no better. She forced herself to swallow and looked instead at the taunting row of stitches running across his scalp. Yes, that was better. Look at the damage she had done, rather than the man’s more tempting parts.
A hot scald of attraction washed over her and she shifted her eyes to neutral territory. The stained wallpaper made a nice study. It was not too much of a stretch to imagine why she had acted so irrationally last night. Not with a body like that tempting her to misbehave.
He pushed up and shook his head. “Can’t see a thing under there.” He paced the length of the piece once, and then put a shoulder against one side and gave it a hard shove. Though Georgette estimated the thing had to weigh close to three hundred pounds, it scooted an impressive inch or so. He waved her over. “Help me move this.”
She approached warily, particularly given the inappropriate direction of her recent thoughts. James MacKenzie was as confusing as he was concerning. She had thought he would simply stand there while her five minutes clocked down, wanting to see her fail. Instead, he was rolling up his sleeves and putting a sturdy shoulder to the furniture.
She positioned herself where he indicated and pushed when he asked her to push. The wardrobe slid in slow degrees across the floor, revealing a swath of wood planking that more closely resembled the floor she remembered from this morning. A thick layer of dust and feathers lay there, accusingly, along with some shards of glass and a button that looked suspiciously like the one from the bodice of the dress she had been wearing earlier.
“Christ,” he muttered, staring at the floor. “I was really hoping it would be there.”
The admission struck her as odd. What did it really matter to him, after all? She had offered to replace the missing purse, with money to spare. His intensity of effort seemed more directed toward the matter of finding the thing than securing the money. She was the one who stood to lose in this, with his threats about going to see the magistrate. And between the bed, the washstand, and the wardrobe, she had to admit there were not many places in this small, rented room a money purse could hide.
Had she taken it? Perhaps last night, when she had apparently given no thought to propriety or the coming morning? She honestly couldn’t say. Georgette slumped against the wardrobe, defeated
by her doubts. The door fell the rest of the way off its hinges, hitting the floor with an outrageous clatter.
MacKenzie’s upper lip curved into smile. “The proprietor’s probably going to make you pay for that.”
She wished he would continue to frown at her. It was easier to retain her annoyance with him when he kept that mouth properly leashed. “I think we’ve paid the man enough, don’t you?” She blew an angry wisp of hair from her eyes. “Do you even remember how we broke the wardrobe door last night?”
His gaze fell on the piece of wood in its sad, horizontal position. He nudged it with his boot, his eyes a narrow study. For a moment Georgette was struck with the notion that this was how the man must look in court, all serious intelligence and speculation. He cocked his head in the direction of the bed.
“I already looked there,” Georgette told him, but he began moving toward it anyway. “I’ll not be the one who replaces the bedding,” she protested as he stripped away blankets and sheets and threw them onto the floor. “And the maids would have surely found it when they made the bed if you had left it on top of the mattress.”
“I’m not interested in the top of it,” he told her, flipping the entire mattress sideways off the bed.
And there, caught between the wood of the footboard and the last bed slat, was a bulging leather purse.
Chapter 19
GEORGETTE HAD BEEN mentally preparing herself for the looming visit to the magistrate, formulating her arguments for what might have happened to the missing money. And instead he had found it. James MacKenzie, for all his threats and barbed insinuations, had freed her.
For some reason, she started laughing. Her relief demanded release in some form, and crying seemed the less appropriate response, under the circumstances. He joined her after a moment, and the sound echoed about the room. They sounded good together, laughing. It occurred to her they even sounded good together arguing.
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