Wild Wicked Scot

by Julia London

  * * *

  THE FOOTMAN STEPHEN was sent to accompany her. Margot brooded as he handled the team, slouching in her seat, her gaze fixed blindly on the passing countryside. When they reached the village, she sat up and composed herself. She turned to Stephen and said, “I mean to call on Mrs. Munroe.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  “And in the meantime, I should like you to give over the reins to one of the boys there,” she said, nodding at the boys from the mews. “Have them mind the team, and then you may go around to the butcher and buy a ham. I am of a mind for ham.”

  Stephen looked up the high street. “We’ve ham at Norwood Park. They were butchering—”

  “I want this ham,” she said a bit curtly to ward off any further arguing the footman thought he ought to do on behalf of the Norwood Park hogs. She reached into her reticule and retrieved two shillings. “For the boy,” she said, and hopped down from the carriage before Stephen could come round to help her. “Very well, Stephen, go now and see about that ham.”

  “Yes, milady,” he said uncertainly. But he started up High Street all the same.

  Good man, she thought. Obedient. Just as she’d been all her life. A mouse of a thing, always doing as her father and brothers instructed. Oh, but that girl was dead now, never to be resurrected.

  Margot strolled along until she was certain Stephen couldn’t see her, then reversed course and hurried down High Street toward the Ramshorn Inn at the bottom of the road.

  The innkeeper came bustling out from behind the counter the moment she stepped inside, wiping his hands on the bottom of his stained apron. “Madam,” he said, his eyes darting around the common room, as if he feared he’d left it cluttered.

  “Good morning, Mr....?”

  “Collins, milady. Willie Collins.” He yanked a dirtied rag from his pocket and made a show of dusting a chair for her.

  “Thank you, but I won’t stay. I’ve come only to have a quick word with my brother Mr. Knox Armstrong. I understand he has taken rooms here?”

  The man blinked. “Yes, milady. A pair of them.”

  Whoever the bird was, she must have been quite something for Knox to take a pair of rooms. “Would you please send someone up to him and tell him I have come?”

  “Eddie!” Mr. Collins shouted.

  A dusty little boy appeared from the back of the inn. Mr. Collins took him aside and leaned over him. He glanced back to Margot as he spoke to the boy.

  The boy sprinted up the stairs, tripping over one in his haste. Margot could hear his ungainly clomp as he ran down a hall above her head. She and Mr. Collins looked up, as if both of them expected joists would begin to rain down on their heads. The boy’s heavy footfall was followed by the sound of a door slamming, and then another, and then the boy was running again, down the hall and stairs.

  “I’ve done it, Papa!” he called as he skipped across the inn into the back room once more.

  Mr. Collins smiled anxiously when they next heard the footfall of a man striding down the hall above.

  Knox appeared, taking the steps two at a time. “Thank you, Collins,” he said briskly as he leaped to the floor. The innkeeper scurried to the back room as if escaping a melee.

  The melee was Margot’s brother. Knox looked a mess. He did not wear a wig, his blond hair was uncombed and his shirt hastily donned and opened at the collar. He sported a scraggly beard as if he’d gone unshaven for several days. “Margot!” he said, casting his arms wide. “What are you doing here?” he asked jovially as he embraced her and hugged her tightly.

  Her brother smelled of sweat and a woman’s perfume. “A better question is, what are you doing here?” she asked, stepping back.

  “Enjoying my life,” he said with a wink, and took her by the elbow. “Collins! Send tea up for the lady!” he bellowed over his shoulder.

  He led her up the stairs as he chatted about how happy he was to see her, wondering aloud how long it had been, and how he hoped that she’d come home for an extended stay. They reached a door that he pushed open. He stood aside so she could enter ahead of him.

  Lord, but the room reeked of sex. Margot was uncomfortably aware that she’d interrupted her brother in coitus.

  “It looks a fright,” he conceded. “But I was not expecting company.”

  “At least, not my company,” she said, glancing at his disheveled bed.

  “All right, so you’ve caught me,” he said with a chuckle. “Will you scold me now?”

  “No. I hardly care—I came because I need you, Knox. Quite desperately, as it happens.”

  Knox’s smiled faded. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Everything! Pappa and Bryce have done the most extraordinary and wretched thing,” she said, and felt tears welling. She clenched her fists to keep them from falling. Tears solved nothing.

  “Margot, God in heaven! What is wrong?”

  She told him everything. About Scotland, and Arran, and how she had come to see that wild, wicked Scot in a different light. She told him that Arran wasn’t dealing with the French at all, and that Thomas Dunn had spread scurrilous rumors about him in England and in Scotland and had turned him into a reviled man. How the rumors, presented in a certain light—such as an estranged marriage with an English heiress—made them seem true. And how they had come to Norwood Park for help, but her father had handed him over to England.

  Knox’s frown deepened as she spoke. He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense—”

  A knock at the door signaling the arrival of the tea interrupted Knox. He opened the door, and when Mr. Collins had deposited the tea service and quit the room, Knox poured tea for her. “It doesn’t make sense that Thomas Dunn would say things about your husband for no reason.”

  “Dunn is in debt. He wants Arran’s lands and trade,” Margot said.

  “No,” Knox said. “I suspect Father knows something he’s not telling you.”

  “Oh, I think he’s told me all, Knox. He certainly told me that it was either Arran or him,” she said bitterly. “He somehow took him to Fonteneau—”

  “Fonteneau!” Her brother looked stricken.

  “Why do you look like that?”

  “That’s where they took the other Scot.”

  That dull twist in Margot’s gut took another painful turn. “Dermid? Why?”

  “Fonteneau is an old abbey fort. It has dungeons.” He frowned down into his tea. “Lord Putnam has fallen on desperate times and has turned the abbey into a jail of a sort. It’s where they keep men bound for trial in London. Until the proper authorities can come for them.”

  Margot jerked involuntarily and sent her teacup flying. She suddenly couldn’t draw a breath—it was as if her throat had closed. She began to wheeze.

  Knox calmly stepped in front of her and pushed her head down, between her knees. “Breathe.”

  “I have to go,” she said hoarsely when she at last managed to catch her breath.

  “Where?”

  “Fonteneau!”

  “Margot—how will you go?” he asked. “Think of what you’re saying.”

  “I’ll ride,” she said, and pushed his hand from her head so she could sit up.

  Knox snorted at that. “You can’t ride—”

  “Yes, I can! I have learned to ride at Balhaire.”

  Knox chuckled. Margot roared with despair and frustration as she shot up from her seat and shoved against his chest with all her might. “I’m going, Knox! I am going to find a way to free him! This is all so very wrong and it’s my fault. You can help me, or you can wallow in your bed!” She tried to push past him, but Knox caught her arms.

  “All right, all right, darling. Calm down—”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!”

  “Margot!” he said loudly, taking her hands
in his and pushing them down. “But let us speak rationally. You don’t know Fonteneau as it is today. The old man is doddering and decrepit and keeps to his bed, and Putnam has given his life up to drink and debt.”

  “He likes to game,” Margot said. “Take me to Fonteneau. I can occupy Putnam while you free Arran.”

  “That’s madness,” Knox said. “Do you know what will happen if you are caught trying to free an accused traitor?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t want to know. Can you not understand, Knox? I am his only hope. Do you see? I am his only hope.” And there they were. The tears she’d been fighting for days began to fall, silently streaming down her cheeks. She bowed her head, ashamed of them.

  “Good God. Margot...do you love him?” Knox asked, his voice full of surprise.

  She did, didn’t she? She loved him. She nodded, swiped her fingers beneath her eyes. “I suppose that I do.”

  “Bloody hell.” Knox sighed and gathered her in his embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head. “Then I suppose we must go, mustn’t we?”

  Margot lifted her head. “You’ll help me?”

  “I’ll help you. Against my better judgment, I’ll help you, love. Now listen to me and take heed—be ready to ride at two o’clock. Bribe one of the grooms there if you must, and tell everyone far and near that you mean to call on your friend Lynetta Beauly in my company. Then slip out of Norwood Park like a wraith so that no one can say precisely when you left to call on her. Can you do that?”

  She nodded.

  Knox caught her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Margot—can you do that? Because if you can’t, and we are caught, that will be the end of it. Of you and your Scot.”

  For once in her life, Margot was confident in the decision she was making. For once in her life, she was entirely confident she could do what she was being asked to do, without equivocation. Whatever it took to free Arran, she would do, without complaint.

  She peeled his hand from her chin and stood up. “I can do it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  FURY WAS AN inadequate word to describe what Arran felt. He assumed they’d put laudanum or some witch’s brew into his brandy, for nothing else explained how he’d become so leaden and incapable of defending himself. It had taken a full day to rouse himself from that fog—at least, he thought it was day—only to find himself in a dank hole. He was not alone; two of his men were nearby. Ben, whom the Armstrongs had rounded up when they’d drugged Arran. And Dermid, who, near as Arran could tell, had been in this hellhole for a month. He couldn’t see them, could only hear them. He couldn’t see anything, quite literally, as there was scarcely any light at all.

  But the English were arrogant, stupid pricks. Not only had they failed to divest him thoroughly of plausible weapons—he had an eating knife tucked away into his boot—but also they’d left the three Scotsmen unattended for the most part, appearing only occasionally to push food through narrow slots in the doors. Arran and his men shouted to hear each other, but no one seemed to care that they did. Their voices brought no one.

  At the top of the wall in Arran’s cell was a narrow window that allowed a bit of light. The opening was too small for a man to fit through. There was a hole in the window, big enough to allow bitterly cold air to filter into his cell at night and to carry the sounds of people and beasts moving about during the day. He had gathered, given the stench and the sounds, that they were somewhere near the stables.

  He’d also determined that whoever brought food to them each day trudged across flagstones that passed near his window. He heard the heavy steps, then heard a door open. Then heard the clang of it as he drew it closed, somewhere inside this building.

  Arran had a plan. He would feign illness and refuse to touch the food the man brought. Eventually, someone would have to open the door to see if he was dead. When that happened, he would overpower the bastard, kill him if necessary and take the man’s keys. He’d have to be precise about it—his knife was too small to inflict deep damage. He’d have to slice across a throat. He reasoned he had one chance—it was either kill or be killed.

  Well. It was kill.

  Then he would free his men, and they would fight their way out or die.

  Arran wondered how long before his keepers realized he was not eating and opened the goddamn door.

  In the meantime, he had ample opportunity to brood about that night in the Armstrong study. He’d been bloody stupid for having trusted Norwood.

  In the study that evening, he’d watched Norwood pour three brandies, had accepted one and had drunk deeply before he broached the subject of Thomas Dunn. Norwood had seemed neither surprised nor particularly knowledgeable about Dunn. He’d merely smiled at Arran, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “You will understand, sir, when I say that in this regard, it’s either you...or me.”

  And then a deep Highland mist had sunk down on Arran’s brain. He had been helpless, unable to lift his arms, as Bryce and another man overpowered him. He vaguely remembered being tossed into a carriage, and that his head kept bouncing off the squabs as they’d moved down the road. He recalled nothing more until he’d woken up in here. He had a straw mat, a bucket for waste and one filled with water.

  He’d roared his frustration when he at last came to, which was how he’d found his men.

  And then he’d continued to roar with frustration. For allowing himself to latch onto the slender ray of hope Margot’s assurances had given him.

  Did she know he was here? His instincts told him she was as much a victim in this as he, but there was another, albeit smaller, part of him that wondered if she hadn’t known this would happen. She’d seemed in her cups that night, a condition he’d never known her to be in. Was it possible she’d been poisoned, too? Or had she drunk so that she wouldn’t have to face what was coming?

  Arran had lost track of time when he heard the familiar footsteps outside the cell, trudging toward a door somewhere, and the sound of slop in a bucket knocking against a leg. He lay down on the straw mat and rolled on his side, facing the wall. He heard the sound of the jailer sliding food in to his men, then making his way down the hall to Arran’s cell.

  He repeated the same thing here—he opened the door to the shelf, slid a cup of what smelled like cabbage soup and bread onto it, and then shut the door and turned the lock.

  As unappetizing as the soup smelled, Arran’s belly rumbled. But he left it there, untouched. Tomorrow the man would return. He would see that Arran hadn’t eaten. He would wonder. He might go another day, or even two. But eventually, he would open the damn door.

  Arran slowly sat up and leaned his head against the wall. He closed his eyes and listened to the jingle of bridles and squeak of leather saddles as riders passed by. Arran’s thoughts filled with images of Margot, dressed in trews, her cheeks appealingly flushed by the exertion of the ride. The image was a peculiar draw in his belly, a sadness mixed with regret and the misery of knowing he’d likely never see her again. “Margot,” he whispered.

  He heard her laugh, a sound like a sweet confection.

  As if his predicament could be any worse, now he was hearing things.

  And then he heard the laugh again. He opened his eyes. That was definitely feminine laughter. He didn’t hear the clop of horses hooves, which said to him the riders had stopped. Arran vaulted up and lunged for that window, leaping as high as he could, his fingers seeking a hold on the grainy sill. But he couldn’t hold it and slid down the rough stone wall. He backed up and tried again, this time bracing his foot against the wall to vault himself higher.

  He failed to reach it. “Margot!” he shouted.

  The sound of horses again—the riders were moving away. Diah, had he imagined it? Was he losing his mind? Arran stared up at the window. He’d lost track of time; the light that came in through the windows was gray and dirt
y, hiding the sun or the moon. He couldn’t say if it was morning or afternoon.

  He tried to think through all the reasons Margot would be close by. Was something to happen? Was the trial to be held here? Had she come to see him hang? He stood in the middle of the cell, staring at the window, trying desperately to think.

  * * *

  “REMEMBER, WE WERE riding to Keswick to call on the Daltons when we were diverted because the road had fallen into great disrepair,” Knox said low as they gazed up at an abbey door in need of a coat of paint. The entire abbey looked ramshackle.

  “I remember,” Margot said.

  “Listen to me, Margot,” Knox said, catching her hand.

  She made herself turn her attention away from the derelict abbey.

  “He will know if we dissemble. You must make it seem quite sincere, do you understand? You were scarcely able to hobble along, and so forth.”

  “Knox... I understand,” she said calmly. She looked back at the abbey facade. “It almost seems abandoned.”

  “Not yet. But let this be a lesson to us all—this is what happens when one amasses gambling debts. All right, then, shall we?” Knox said, and together, they walked up the steps to the door.

  Knox lifted the brass knocker on the door and let it fall once, then twice more. Eventually a man opened the door. He was wearing an old-fashioned powdered wig, and his well-worn pantaloons were sagging at the knees. He peered curiously at them.

  “How do you do?” Knox said. “I am Mr. Knox Armstrong. My apologies for arriving quite unannounced, but my sister, Lady Mackenzie, was taken ill on the ride to Keswick. Is Putnam about?”

  The butler squinted. “Unfortunately, his lordship was just set to leave. He has been invited to dine at Chessingham Hall.”

  “Perhaps you could tell him that Margot Armstrong has come?” Knox asked.

  The man frowned.

  “Please,” Margot added. “We are old, dear friends, Putnam and I. I know he will take pity on me. I am really rather ill.”