“He didn’t do it,” she said through her teeth.
“Right.” Drew nodded. “Supposing that’s true—”
“Get out!” She lunged for the door. “If that’s what you have to say, get out of my carriage!”
He stopped her, his hand covering hers. “Not until you hear me out. Ilsa, I want to help you—I am here as a friend.”
“By persuading me to sit back and let my father go to the gallows? That is not a friend,” she said before she could stop herself.
He went still, something flickering in his eyes. “I never said that.”
“Supposing that’s true,” she said mockingly, throwing his words back at him.
His eyes closed in defeat. Ilsa gave another rattle at the door, and his hand convulsed on hers. “Let me go with you, then.”
She swallowed the word yes. It came so readily to her lips with him. “Why?”
“Please.” His free hand opened in appeal, then closed into a fist. “Please don’t charge off alone, into God knows what, because you’re frightened and hurt. I won’t stop you but, please . . . let me come with you.”
Frightened and hurt. How small those words felt to describe the days of anguish she’d suffered. She knew it wasn’t his fault and she didn’t want to argue with him—she still longed to throw herself into his arms and hear him tell her it would all come out well, somehow—but her heart and nerves had been shredded raw, she hadn’t slept in days, and it was too much.
“Why?” she demanded bitterly. “You have no idea what’s been said about me and my family this week, how our supposed friends and neighbors have turned on us, called me and my aunt accomplices, liars and thieves as bad as Papa—”
Drew held up his hands as her voice rose. Agnes had warned him that Ilsa had been through hell in the last two weeks, that she looked haunted and tense and was not herself. He still wasn’t prepared for the changes in her. Three weeks ago she’d been bright and carefree, smiling dreamily in his arms, the picture of poised elegance and beauty—except when she whispered in his ear to ride her harder and bit the side of his neck as they combusted together.
Today her eyes were red-rimmed, sunken, and shadowed. She’d lost weight and she looked as exhausted as he felt. She wore a plain gray dress, as opposite her former garb as possible, and he felt how her hand shook beneath his as she wrestled for the door handle.
“I won’t,” he promised, trying to gentle his tone. Saints, he was tired, and in consequence he was doing this very badly. “I won’t stop you.”
Her throat worked. “Why would you even want to come with me?”
“Because I care for you!” He plowed his hands into his hair, striving for calm and logic when his brain seemed to be tripping over itself. “Because I’ve been mad with worry since Felix Duncan sent a man pelting up to Fort George to warn me there were dangerous rumors about your father. I got on my horse and raced back. I don’t know what you’ve endured, beyond what Duncan and my sisters poured out on me last night—and I’m not sure I even understood half of what they said, since they spoke all at once.”
She inhaled sharply. “Did you send them this morning? To stop me?”
He looked up in dismay. His sisters had roused him and Duncan from their beds early this morning, clamoring to know what he’d learned during the night. Winnie and Bella had been loud opponents of everything he proposed to do, certain that he was mucking up his one chance to help Ilsa. Agnes had listened to him, and to Duncan, but when her sisters ran out, saying they would stop Ilsa if he would not, she went with them. He’d told them not to go, not to cause a scene for Ilsa’s sake, and still they’d bolted from the room before he was fully dressed. “I tried to hold them back. They would have had me break down your door in the middle of the night to keep you from going.”
Ilsa turned her face to the window, where the scenery had shifted to the farms and meadows that lined the road south. They were almost free of Edinburgh. If she tossed him out now, he would have a miserably long walk.
Her next words cut deep. “You said you would return within a fortnight,” she said, her voice wobbling.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, cursing himself for giving in to all the entreaties to stay for one more farewell dinner. He hadn’t thought there was reason to hurry. “It took longer than I expected.”
She nodded stiffly.
“If I had known—or suspected—I would have rushed back,” he added.
“No,” she said. “Of course you shouldn’t have. It is not your problem, nor your fault. I know you could not have changed anything had you been here.”
But he heard the pain. Perhaps he couldn’t have changed anything, but she wouldn’t have had to endure it alone. He was in love with this woman, and when she needed him, he’d been drinking with his mates a hundred and seventy miles away, in perfect ignorance of the ordeal she was facing.
“What happened?” He’d heard from Agnes and his sisters, from Felix Duncan, from the sheriff-clerk and the procurator’s deputy. None of them could tell him what he most needed to know.
A single tear slid down her cheek. Hastily she swiped it away. “A nightmare.”
With a harsh sound he caught her hand and pulled her across the carriage into his lap. Ilsa resisted for a moment, but he wrapped his arms around her and she melted against him, her hands creeping around his neck.
“There,” he breathed, holding her close and stroking her hair. “I’ve got you, love. We’ll sort it together.”
It felt so good to hold her again, even like this. For a long while she simply let him; Drew murmured mindlessly, assuring her that he wouldn’t leave her again, that they would survive this, that she didn’t have to carry the burden alone.
“What did you mean?” she whispered eventually. Her fingers had curled into his neckcloth, like a child, and his jacket beneath her cheek was damp. “You said I should not go alone into God knows what. What do you fear?”
He shifted her in his arms. “Never mind that.”
“Tell me,” she said, in the same numb voice. “If you want to go with me, be honest with me.”
He shifted her weight and tried to choose his words with more care than before. “I only meant that you don’t know whom or what you’ll encounter, and what they might do to you.”
“I only want to find Papa.” She sounded drowsy.
He rubbed her back, wishing she would sleep so he could, too. He’d snatched no more than an hour of sleep before his sisters beat down Duncan’s door. Now that he was with her, holding her, exhaustion was pulling hard at him. “Are you entirely certain he’ll want to be found?”
Ilsa jerked upright, her head cracking against his chin. “What? Of course! He is my father—!”
“And he left without telling you where he was going.” Drew froze, suddenly wary. Christ, why had he said that? “He didn’t, did he?”
She stiffened. “That’s twice you have suggested I know where he went and even helped him flee. What do you mean by that?”
“Where did you tell the driver to go?” he countered, his mouth once more running ahead of his tired brain.
She set her jaw. “Do you think my father is guilty?”
He didn’t give a damn about William Fletcher. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!” she cried.
“I’m not interested in him, guilty or innocent,” Drew growled stubbornly. “Only in you.”
“You said you wanted to catch the thieves.” She put her hands against his chest and pushed. “You proposed the King’s Pardon. The sheriff listens to you, the procurator-fiscal, the lord advocate . . .” Her gaze jumped to his, her eyes widening. “Did you follow me today to help them find Papa? Is that why you are here? You were determined to find the thieves . . .”
His muscles turned to stone, and he set her back on the opposite seat. “No.” The word was hard and bitter on his tongue.
Ilsa pressed a hand to her mouth as though she would be sick. She blinked rapidly and he tensed to fling
open the door and help her out. His own eyelids felt gritty from lack of sleep, and the carriage was warm, rocking back and forth over the well-worn road. When Ilsa leaned back, pale but more composed, he exhaled a sigh of relief.
“I can’t make you trust me.” He opened the window next to him for some air. “But I’m not lying. I’m not here at the behest of the procurator or the sheriff.” He let down the shade on the other side to block the morning sun. “Agnes said the sheriff’s officers came to your house.”
“They searched it.” She leaned her head against the wall of the carriage, the energy visibly draining from her. The smudges under her eyes looked even darker when her eyelashes fluttered closed.
Drew sighed. “Try to rest,” he said gruffly. They could talk later. He had leapt into her carriage on faith and instinct, and that would have to be enough for now. Gently he spread the folded lap rug over her.
She blinked at him with unfocused eyes. “This is a nightmare,” she mumbled again.
He cupped her cheek and brushed away the track of her tear with his thumb. “It is,” he whispered. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They stopped in Dunbar, near the coast. He could smell the brine in the air even before they climbed down from the travel chaise. Drew had deliberately not asked again where they were headed, and Ilsa had not volunteered the information. She slept for some time and woke quiet and subdued. From the glances she stole at him, he could tell she didn’t trust him.
The worst of it was, she was right not to. Once she fell asleep, he was paradoxically unable to close his eyes. He’d watched her for hours while dissecting and scrutinizing everything he knew. Drew had no intention of helping the Edinburgh sheriff apprehend William Fletcher, but neither would he exert himself to save the man unless it was necessary to help Ilsa. Because no matter how he tried to slant and explain the apparent facts, they looked very bad for Fletcher.
Duncan’s letter to him at Fort George said only that Thomas Browne, a common criminal familiar to the sheriff-officers, had come forward to claim the pardon. Under questioning, he readily gave up one accomplice, Edward Stephens, a fellow known for gambling and long suspected of thieving, who was apprehended on the verge of boarding a coach for Berwick in possession of stolen goods.
But Browne had also declared that the leader of the ring, the mastermind of every operation, was still at large, with the tantalizing hint that it was a highly respected citizen of Edinburgh. Rumors sprouted at once. Stephens had done odd jobs for Fletcher, and Browne told the officers the thieves had used false keys to open the locks of the robbed shops. Within hours Deacon Fletcher’s name had come up, and Duncan had sent his letter express at dawn the next morning.
Drew hadn’t slept the previous night because he’d roused the deputy procurator from his bed and demanded to know all. It was a shameless abuse of his newly elevated status, and he did not care. Unfortunately what he learned was that things had only got worse for the deacon.
Browne’s accusations were credible, detailed, and complete, in the sheriff’s eyes. He had led the officers to a bunch of keys hidden near Fletcher’s cabinetry workshop in Dunbar’s Close, which opened a number of victims’ doors. Stephens had become far more cooperative when it emerged that his wife had helped sell some of the stolen goods; in exchange for her freedom, he told the officers where to find more items waiting to be smuggled to Berwick. The goldsmith had identified several pieces as his.
Browne refused to name the mastermind; he wanted a reward for that, not just a pardon. Suspicion had already fallen on Fletcher because of the keys and where they were found, and the fact that William Fletcher was known to have been hired to repair or replace locks at some of the burgled shops. Officers had uncovered Fletcher’s history of wagering—and losing—at the cockpits. It was circumstantial, but highly suggestive.
Once the man fled Edinburgh, though, both Browne and Stephens swore that William Fletcher was indeed the planner and instigator of their robberies, that they shared their spoils evenly between them, and that he’d told them often that if any of them got caught, he would leave them all to twist on the rope. No one, he’d allegedly boasted, would believe he was a thief.
Everything fit. The sheriff believed Browne and Stephens. Drew couldn’t see a reason not to.
He knew it would be harder for Ilsa. Drew’s own father had certainly fooled him, charming and genial, never hinting that he’d mortgaged the silk shop and gone into debt. It wasn’t as bad as robbing half of Edinburgh, but it had taken Drew years to repair the damage and cost him his chance at attending university, as he’d dreamt of doing. Ilsa had been raised as a beloved only child, adoring and adored by her father, and she would defend him to the last. Drew didn’t even plan to try convincing her.
He drew a deep breath of bracing salty air as she stepped stiffly down. “I’ll secure rooms,” was all he said.
She didn’t look at him. “Thank you.”
He took two rooms and asked for dinner. Fortunately the inn was almost empty, and the innkeeper was able to offer them a private parlor. They ate in silence.
“Will we travel again tomorrow?” he asked after a while.
Her glance was dark with suspicion. God, how he hated that.
“I’ll speak to the driver if we are,” he added. “Tell him to make preparations.”
She reached for her wine. Most of her dinner was still on her plate. “No, I don’t think so.”
He nodded. So Dunbar was their destination, not merely a waypoint. Coaches left for England every day, and the harbor offered flight abroad. Did Ilsa suspect—or know—her father was here? Fletcher had left Edinburgh several days ago; it would be foolish for him to linger so near for so long, but then again, no one had found him yet.
“Shall I go with you tomorrow?”
“No!” She flushed and rubbed her temple. “Please don’t ask me questions,” she said softly. “You say you don’t care whether Papa is innocent or not, but I do care, very much. I accept that I’m the only one who believes in him, but I don’t want to argue and defend myself to you. Isn’t it enough that you’re here?”
“Aye,” he said after a moment. “Go on to bed. You look about to drop where you are.”
She gave him a sad, searching look and got to her feet. “Good night, Captain.”
He sat for a long time at the table, that final word racketing around in his brain. Captain. Not Andrew, or Drew, let alone anything more affectionate. She kept her distance and didn’t trust him enough to tell him what she meant to do. The easy warmth and powerful attraction between them might never have been.
Drew gripped the back of his neck. His feelings had not changed. Hell, even though William Fletcher appeared as guilty as sin to him, he would have extended that King’s Pardon to Fletcher, if he could have, damning any protests from the lord advocate and no matter that his own mother’s shop had been victimized, just to save Ilsa from further heartache.
There was no chance of that, obviously. Not only had Fletcher been named the mastermind and chief conspirator, he had fled like a guilty man.
So think, he told himself. How can you help her?
Ilsa was not surprised to see Drew when she came down early the next morning. Yesterday he’d worn his red coat and Stuart tartan, looking every inch the King’s man—the King, whose pardon had been dangled in front of a thief to coax him into blaming another man for the robberies. Even though it was Drew, whom she’d yearned to see and hold again, the red coat had jarred her.
Today he wore a more familiar dark green jacket and plain kilt. He still wore a sword at his hip and a dagger in his belt, but she felt more at ease. A full night’s sleep no doubt also helped. Being out of Edinburgh made her feel like she could breathe again—and, she knew deep in her heart, so did Drew’s presence, even if she didn’t quite trust his assurance that the sheriff-clerk knew nothing about it.
“Do you go into town?” he asked over breakfast.
>
“It’s not far,” she said vaguely. “I fancy a walk after the long drive yesterday.” She hated not feeling able to confide in him.
He looked down. His hair had grown, and dark curls fell over his forehead now. She gripped her teacup to avoid stroking them back. She knew how his hair felt tangled in her fingers, when she held him close and kissed him. “When shall you return?”
She wiggled her shoulders. “A few hours.”
“Excellent.” He drained his mug and stood. “I’ve a few things to do, as well.”
Ilsa was taken aback, but if she wouldn’t tell him where she went, she couldn’t ask where he went. “Very good. I will be ready to leave when I have my hat.”
They walked together into the town with minimal conversation. Ilsa was covertly studying the stone houses and trying to remember Jean’s directions, and Drew seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. When Dunbar Castle rose in front of them he bade her farewell. “Are you certain you wish to go alone?” he asked again, his gaze probing.
She fisted her hands, digging her fingers into her gloved palms. “Yes.” She wished she was as confident as she sounded. “I shall see you back at the inn.”
Drew only made a polite bow and turned, going toward the harbor. She watched him for a moment, wondering where he went and why, then resolutely turned away, heading east. It was near the beach, Jean had said, whitewashed with blue shutters.
Ilsa found it after a half hour’s walk. With great trepidation, she knocked on the door. Pleasantly but determinedly, she asked to see the mistress of the house. She was shown into a neat parlor, and a woman about Jean’s age came in.
“Mrs. Murray?” said Ilsa. “Miss Mary Fletcher, as was?”
“Aye,” said the woman curiously. “And I’ve not the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“You do, but it’s been many years. I’m Ilsa,” she said. “William Fletcher’s daughter. And I need your help to save him from the hangman.”
Drew finished his errands in good time. Dunbar had a small but active harbor. It might offer a departure point, but there weren’t enough ships for a man to slip away unnoticed, as there were in London or Glasgow.
A Scot to the Heart Page 25
