by Gina Conkle
“You remember Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora.” She waved vaguely at the pair seated at a mahogany table with Cecelia. “I believe you are already acquainted with your cousin, Miss Cecelia MacDonald of Kinlochmoidart.”
Clanranald MacDonald land sprawled from the west coast of Scotland to the Hebrides. Some kin never met.
She pivoted to a yellow brocade settee. “And these are my cousins, Miss Mary Fletcher and her sister, Miss Margaret Fletcher, both formerly of Edinburgh.”
Will sketched a bow. “Ladies.”
“That’s not how you referred to me years ago at a summer fair.” Cecelia was coy. “I believe saucy article was your preferred sobriquet.”
He winced. “Words of a misguided lad. Please forgive my bad manners.”
“There is nothing to forgive.” She saluted him with her dish of tea. “You were quite right about me.”
The salon was a hothouse of ruffled femininity, the balance of nature having subtly shifted with Hades stalwart as a ship’s captain navigating stormy seas.
“Won’t you join us, Mr. MacDonald?” Mary motioned to an empty chair. “There is plenty of room.”
“I’m no’ joining anything. No’ yet.”
Anne slid the foolscap behind her back. Hades had come to bargain. There was nothing to do but corral him, one step at a time.
“It’s true. Last night Will agreed to meet with us and hear what we have to say,” she said to the room. “He hasn’t agreed to join us.”
Will showed no sign of appeasement. His broad shoulders remained just outside the salon doors.
Mary hummed sympathetically. “You have hesitations about our league. That’s understandable. But, should you help us, know that you will be well paid.”
“Keep your money. I don’t want it.”
Cecelia searched the other women, her light laughter sprinkling the air. “Well, that answers my fear of him stealing from us.” She turned keen eyes on Will and spoke in crisp, untrusting syllables. “Though I can’t imagine you’re here out of the kindness of your heart. In my experience, men always want something in return for services rendered.”
His smile was predatory. “Never said I wouldna take payment.”
“Then . . . you will join us?” Mary asked.
“If Anne gives me what I want.”
Furniture creaked, and six pairs of eyes veered her way: five of them curious and the sixth, exultant. A conqueror come for his due. The hearth’s fire blazed at her backside and her hands holding the paper she pinched so harshly it’d scream. A fine reminder that foolscap. They were so, so close—and Will was literally the key.
A drop of sweat trickled down her spine.
“Pray tell, what do you want?”
Will’s eyes burned molten gold and his voice singed, uniquely soft. “My demands are best made in private, madame.”
Her skin tightened. Madame? Will reserved the title for when angry or battling for control and curse the man, he had it. This was primitive. Barbaric. Before witnesses, no less. She should be properly offended. Instead, a vibration swirled inside her, hot and prodding to meet Will’s challenge and toss back one of her own. At the moment, she couldn’t think of one, but this awkward standoff was . . . stimulating.
“And I am supposed to yield, whatever it is you want?”
“Easy as that.” Will’s brogue danced around each word.
One could say Hades was amused, and she his current toy.
She flushed, felt it rising up her chest and landing on her cheeks. What game did he play? She refused to be cornered by a deal with the devil, but Will consumed the air. He commanded it. A ploy for power? Knowledge of the league?
Access to her body?
Pinpricks vexed her skin. Testy, seductive little sparks under layers of clothing. This was battle, and she stood in the fray. She’d planned every step of stealing back their gold. It was her mission, planned and delegated accordingly. Will was the unknown, the factor she’d resisted, and his jaw jutted the longer she held silent.
She knew that look; he wasn’t giving an inch. He didn’t have to.
“I do not like nebulous demands,” she said.
“And I do no’ like being ambushed.”
Her belly knotted behind her stays. Then you will hate me for what I require of you.
Guilt was a sword at her back, irony a whip. Head down, she contemplated the floor’s wood planks. Cecelia was in her side vision. Her pitiless, round-eyed visage shouting Tell the man you’ll give him what he wants! Her gaze swept to Mary’s neatly linked fingers. Small burns scarred what was once pretty skin on hands which toiled late at night with searing metal. No woman of substance and courage left this world unmarked. Life battered the brave.
Her run-down properties, her body, her soul, she’d give him all.
Whatever Hades wanted.
Raising her head, she met his gold-chipped stare. “As God is my witness, this unnamed demand of yours, I shall pay it.”
Chapter Five
“We’re settled, then.” The deal struck, Will strolled into the salon, a beast among the delicate.
A voice of reason warned him. She didna honor her last promise. What makes you think she’ll honor this one?
It was a gamble he’d take. A fair arrangement in a new venture, however short or long it’d be. He claimed no unique skills. He repaired ships most days, unloaded cargo on others. He could only conclude Anne and her league needed a strong back, which was the one thing he could provide with ease. Rough around the edges, he didn’t belong in this temple of refinement with mirrored sconces and lime-white walls.
Aunt Flora with her merry blue eyes was his lifeline. She was cheery in black wool. Like her sister, she wore the same severe gowns they’d favored when he was a boy. Aunt Maude was surly as usual, her mouth pursing disapproval. He was certain she came out of the womb with a sour expression, but that sameness comforted him, the good parts of his past visiting the present.
He touched Aunt Flora’s shoulder and dropped a gentle kiss on her round cheek. “It’s good to see you, ma’am.”
Her work-scarred hand touched his. “Wee Will, what a sight ye are. An’ so braw an’ handsome.”
His heart pinched. More gray hair than ginger was pinned around her mob cap. She was Clanranald’s favorite spinster aunt, the one who tended unruly, motherless lads at large gatherings, lads such as he. Quick to wipe skinned knees and soothe troubled brows, Aunt Flora had an answer for all the world’s ills. When words wouldn’t do, a warm hug did. If she used the endearment given when he was a sprite of a boy, so be it. She’d earned the right.
“I canna believe you’re in London.” He tossed back his coattails and took a seat in a great chair between the table and the settee.
“Been here a few years now, but I want tae go back tae MacDonald lands.” She was quiet, reverent. “I miss the green. It’s no’ the same green in England, is it?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing like it.”
Longing blossomed in his chest. He missed her Ayrshire accent. Aunt Flora and Aunt Maude had spent their youth in Ayrshire with their merchant father, and the accent stuck. Hearing it was like going home. It was good to be among his people, to get a whiff of Aunt Flora’s verbena perfume and smell bread baking in the kitchen.
He was as ravenous for kinship as he was food.
Aunt Flora leaned closer to him. “The gold we’re stealin’ . . . some of it will buy sheep for our herds. They were wiped out you know.”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard.” Hands in his lap, he could be a youth again, listening, nodding, paying respect.
“Some of the gold we’ll steal will buy passage for our kin who want tae go tae the colonies.” Her eyes were dim and watery. “After the war, many were desperate tae leave but they couldna pay the passage. Indenture was the only answer. Boys sent tae one colony, mothers and fathers tae another.” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “It breaks my heart.”
“A fair number of our indentured kin are in
the colony called New York,” Aunt Maude said in a sad hush. “Do you know of it?”
“Only what I’ve read in newspapers, ma’am.”
Guilt stabbed him. Words of theft coming from the tenderhearted old spinster, it wasn’t right. Nor was it right, his clansmen selling themselves. He knew only of his father and others living free and well in the colony of Virginia.
“After the war, English sailors came ashore and put Moidart to flames. I canna go back. I have no home and my father is dead.” Cecelia rubbed her thumb across the rim of her cup, her polished English curiously gone, replaced by clipped western Scots. “I want to spite the Government. That is why I am here.”
“The English hunted forty Clanranald men on the Isle of Eigg,” Anne said across the room. “Our men, lured by false promises, trusted the English and surrendered in good faith only to be put in irons and sent to one of the king’s plantations.”
Aunt Flora dabbed wet eyes again. “They’re gone, Will. Lost tae us forever.”
He reached out to comfort her weathered hand, but Aunt Flora gave him a reassuring squeeze. This was a lot to take in: gold for sheep and gold for his kin’s safe passage out of Scotland. The state of MacDonald lands was worse than he thought.
His first months on the prison hulk, he’d been desperate for news of home. Near the end, he’d been desperate to forget. Hadn’t they forgotten him? Vague reports of trouble had been whispers in the wind. Skirmishes of a few hardheaded highlanders. He’d become lost to his people, an abandoned foot soldier. Severing the past was akin to cutting off a rotting limb. He’d done it to survive. Now his people were calling him back. His kin. Their cry was soft, the weight of it heavy. He shifted in the fine upholstered chair, this new burden a very real yoke on his shoulders.
Aunt Maude poured a cup of tea and nudged it toward him. “I hear yer going tae the colonies once yer done helping us.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll make a home there.” He cupped the steaming dish with both hands and sipped.
“I canna blame ye. Arisaig is no’ what it once was. Farms burned. Houses empty. An’ the isles . . .” Aunt Maude wiped glistening eyes. “It’s no wonder ye canna go back,” she said in a watery voice. “Only the strongest heart could.”
“There, there.” Aunt Flora patted her sister’s hand. “Wee Will’s heart is strong and good. He’ll find a wife in the colonies, an’ get a passel of bairns in the bargain.” Aunt Flora beamed at him. “Ye can start by practicin’ with Anne.”
He nearly spewed his tea, while his cousin giggled behind her hand.
“I—” he set down the cup, coughing hard “—I’m no’ sure what you mean.”
“She means you will play my betrothed,” Anne said blandly. “It’s part of the plan.”
He faced her, his throat and lungs giving him fits. Surely, he was red faced. He could feel the hard coughs watering his eyes.
“No need to look so pained,” she drawled.
Lacking a handkerchief, he swiped a sleeve across stinging eyes. “What you see is shock, madame.”
“Blame me, cousin. It was my idea.” Cecelia could be innocence in white muslin. “You are to play the part of an up-and-coming merchant courting Anne.”
He pinched the front of his coat. “Wearing cast-offs from a rag-n-bone mon? No one will believe it.” He relaxed in the chair. “I thought you needed a strong back. To haul things and such.”
“We need that too, but it must be a well-dressed back.” Cecelia stretched her arm toward an old sea chest, a silent squatter in the room. “Your new wardrobe awaits. You’ll be pink of the fashion. After some alterations, of course.”
The chest’s lid slanted open from clothes crammed to overflowing. Silks and gold embellishments winked in the light, top of the mode by the look.
He’d never worn silk a day in his life.
“The rightful owner left my home in a hurry. The law was on his heels. It turns out he was a bigamist and will not return to London anytime soon.” Cecelia’s eyes were bright with mischief. “You will be comforted to know, he’s still alive.”
His gaze traveled to Anne. So she told the room about his refusal to wear a dead man’s clothes. He was twitchy about those things.
“I’ll wear whatever you want.” He answered Cecelia, but his eyes were on Anne, the color high in her cheeks.
Anne’s betrothed. The tables had turned in his favor. He sat back, knees wide, fingers loosely linked. The league practically served him Anne on a platter. Could be why she kept her distance, tense and straight.
Her blood-red earrings twinkled darkly. “I’m pleased that you will join us. Now, can we get on with the plans? We’ve dithered too long already.”
The battle cry given, the women took action. Quick voices bounced instructions around him. Tea implements were cleared. The Fletcher sisters collected wooden chairs off the wall. Anne strode to the table, unfolding foolscap. This mirrored meetings in West and Sons Shipping. Mr. West unfolding paper, the men gathering round the diagram to get their orders.
A life of crime never looked so efficient. Or so feminine.
The elder Miss Fletcher touched her sister’s arm. “Please fetch the wax from the kitchen.”
While Miss Margaret Fletcher nipped out, his cousin regarded him with wily eyes. “Are you drowning in this sea of women?”
“It hasna escaped my notice that there’s no men.”
“Our league has none. That is until you. It’s better this way. Women are barely noticed,” Cecelia said. “Maids, wives, shopkeepers. We are the cogs of Society.”
“We keep our mouths shut and our ears open,” Mary said wryly. “We excel at it.”
“Our clan chief knows about this?”
“Knows about it?” his cousin said archly. “Once we promised to secure the sgian-dubh—”
“You promised to steal the dagger.” Anne was beside him, holding the paper close.
His cousin steeled herself. “Yes, once I made that promise, our chief practically pushed us out the door.”
He whistled low as Margaret Fletcher scurried back to her seat and set a lump of wax on the table. “The ceremonial Roman dagger, you say?”
“The very same.” Cecelia MacDonald sat taller, quite pleased with herself. “But first we get the gold. Taking back the sgian-dubh comes later.”
The sgian-dubh, stolen during the Uprising, or so he’d heard. The tale of its loss was hazy, its beginning, however, was clear. Every lad was told the tale of the ancient iron dagger, pride of Clanranald MacDonald. Lore said a Roman general gifted the knife long ago to a MacDonald warrior chief. Their agreement being, You barbarians stay on your side of the bulwark. We Romans will stay on ours. Clansmen accepted it, cocksure in the knowledge the great invaders feared them.
Like him, the dagger had lost its way.
“I’m surprised our chief gave his blessing,” he said. “He didna support the Uprising.”
“What happened at Moidart and the Isle of Eigg convinced him.” Anne was solemn. A town burned, our herds destroyed, and forty men unjustly taken. The unsaid words were a firebrand in her eyes.
His hand curled to a fist. Her fervor was putting a fire in his belly. It wasn’t enough that Scotland surrendered. The Government had to rub salt in the wounds. “This is why you do it,” he said for his own edification. “To make Clanranald lands home again.”
“Yes. First the gold, then the dagger.” Anne was quiet, the only one standing at the table as if she couldn’t bear to sit down on the job.
The women gathered round the table were a force, their manner confident, their ages unimportant. Brave and beautiful, war had branded them, but loss would not define them. Their courage put a great yearning inside him—to be the hero they needed him to be.
In scanning their faces, there was no mistaking Mary Fletcher and Cecelia MacDonald capable of leading this league. With full curves, chestnut hair, and a cleft chin, Mary Fletcher was a beauty . . . as his purely male opinion went. By her plain fashion a
nd prim hair, she wouldn’t tolerate her appearance as her stock in trade. His cousin, however, thrived on it. She was a brazen piece. Proudly so. Honey-gold curls in flirtatious places, a heart-shaped patch on her cheek. Cecelia MacDonald would play her features to the hilt and give as good as she got.
Wise men would look deeper and find their true worth.
“And your leader is . . . ?”
Anne set the foolscap on the table. “Me.”
A half-cocked smile formed. He should’ve known. Anne was unafraid of firm decisions. She was his past, and for the next few days, his near future. She smoothed the paper, a pretty wisp of hair gracing her cheek. Someday a better man than him would earn the right to brush it aside.
“Lead on,” he said, but the salon was oddly quiet.
Not a rustle of petticoats or creak of a chair.
The women glued their attention to the foolscap. Forearms bracing on the table, he did the same. It was a detailed floorplan of a grand home. The league’s rival for the gold, no doubt. Someone with a lot of quid and an appetite for more. Eyeing it, a vague remembrance teased him.
“We do this in two parts,” Anne said. “Tomorrow, we make a copy of the key holding the gold.” To him, she said, “The gold is in a cabinet built into a wall, secured by a Wilkes Lock.”
“I know how they work.” He craned his neck for a better view of the floorplan. “A tricky lock with a numbered dial etched in the metal. Keeps count each time it’s opened.”
“Which is why we will have one chance to open it.”
He honed in on the room marked with an X where the gold was stored.
“When you find the key, press it into this.” Mary passed over a block of wax.
The whitish lump was cool in his hand. He would make an impression of the key?
“Have a care when you pull it out,” Mary said, finishing her instructions. “Or I won’t be able to make an exact reproduction.”
He rolled the wax across his palm. “We’re no’ stealing the gold the same day?”
“We cannot. There are nearly seventeen hundred livres. The cover of night is best.” Anne slid the map closer to him. “Tomorrow is the servants’ half day. Only the housekeeper will be in residence. That is our day to imprint the key.”