by Gina Conkle
Will nodded, appearing to digest this. “There’s go’ to be more.”
“There is,” Cecelia said. “Do go on, Mr. Styles. My cousin hasn’t heard all the details.”
Anne tucked a wayward lock behind her ear. Will pivoted well. She couldn’t. Her jangled nerves and lust-drenched limbs needed to recover. At least there was nothing to worry about here. Chatter swelled inside, the perfect place to converse about a crime. No one would hear them. No one would care. The White Lamb was crawling with harlots and rogues of every stripe.
“Of course.” Mr. Styles was bright eyed, speaking to Will. “Tomorrow, at half past one, you will see me steer my handcart to the doorstep of Denton House at Grosvenor Square. I shall climb the stairs while chewing a piece of soap. A froth will form quickly. At which time, I shall fall down at the front door, appearing to foam at the mouth. That will be your cue to come to the rescue and pound on the front door.” Mr. Styles beamed at his audience of three. “Easy enough?”
Will shook his head. “It won’t work. West of St. Martin’s Lane, all rag-n-bone men go to the kitchen or the mews. Never the front door.”
“For this outing, he will be at the front of the house,” Cecelia insisted. “Your pounding on the door will bring the housekeeper—”
“Who will slam it shut when she sees trouble on her mistress’s doorstep.” Will was mulishly certain. “And let’s no’ forget that Mrs. Goodspeed knows me.”
Anne watched him. Interesting, his knowledge of the habits of rag-n-bone men.
“Mrs. Goodspeed is no longer housekeeper of Denton House. Mrs. Brown is.” Cecelia’s voice firmed. “With you and Anne dressed in the height of fashion, Mrs. Brown will oblige you.”
Anne touched Will’s sleeve. “Once the door is open, you will pull Mr. Styles into the entryway—”
“The housekeeper will have a hard time removing you then,” Cecelia put in.
“—and that’s when you will offer to fetch a cup of water from the kitchen.”
“But I won’t go to the kitchen. I’ll go to the study and make an imprint of the key,” Will finished the plan neatly, intuitively, his eyes on Anne.
“While Mr. Styles and I will do our best to detain the housekeeper.”
She let her spine rest against the wall. Rum and the late hour were beginning to sap her. In a matter of minutes, Will grasped what had taken weeks to orchestrate. Every twist and turn had been argued and counter-argued with the league. Nothing could go wrong. The alternative, if Will had refused to join them, was her hunting for the key in the study.
“When you return, I shall make a miraculous recovery and be on my way.” Mr. Styles winked. “None will be the wiser.”
“All the servants will be gone on their half day, save the housekeeper,” Cecelia said. “You will be in and out in a matter of minutes.”
The four of them made a tight circle. Will, eyes on the floor, rubbed his nape. Crime didn’t sit well with him. A moral man, he was goodness from the crown of his head to the soles of his worn-out boots. She’d hardened her heart, but Will’s return scraped off calloused parts. His presence was a reminder: she used to wake up to honest, carefree days.
She gripped her mug with both hands. Prison terrified her. The cold finality, so bleak and hostile.
How did Will manage to endure it? A man who aspired to do good had ended up in a dank prison hold, while she worked ferociously in the shadows to skirt the law for a good end. There was no fairness in what life had dealt them. Yet Will was fearless as ever, a solid presence beside her.
“It sounds easy enough,” he said.
“It will be your quickest workday ever.” A cheerful Cecelia dipped her cup in the toddy bowl. “Nothing can go wrong.”
Chapter Nine
Their wherry glided through inky waters.
One Mr. Henry Baines had met them at Tower Stairs close to midnight. There was none of the usual “Oars and sculls! Sculls and oars!” cries of ferryman. Only one man waited with a candle lamp. At their approach, Mr. Baines had doffed his tricorn and swept a bow worthy of a queen for Anne and Cecelia. The ferryman left his lamp at Tower Stairs, his vessel guided by moonlight alone, a surreptitious passing since The Company of Watermen and Lightermen required well-lit ferries.
Whether driven by coin or a smitten heart, this wasn’t the first late-night ride he’d given these women. Probably wouldn’t be the last.
A well-mannered counterfeit crank and an obliging ferryman. What else would Anne and her league produce?
Will wouldn’t know. She’d gone conspicuously tight-lipped since their near kiss at the White Lamb. They’d entered a tacit agreement, the word later hanging in glances between them.
Raw and restless, he didn’t regret a thing.
His cousin blathered amiably with Mr. Baines. The ferryman, barely twenty and broad of back, obliged her. They gossiped of ships and sea captains and pleasure barges (and who took them privately). Cecelia was intriguing to watch, harvesting tidbits of information from Baines. Her moue was an expressive language all by itself. She was laughter and light, or teasing and coy. He doubted she possessed a serious bone in her body. That his cousin was part of Anne’s league was quite surprising.
The next seat over, Anne’s spine was a ramrod, her face an artful sculpture within her hood. When the City’s lights faded, her eyes met his, vivid, direct, with a touch of wondering. The woman had ensorcelled him with her talk of a widow’s consolation. A kraken could swim upriver, swarm their slender vessel, and he’d be none the wiser of the fabled sea beast’s approach.
All from a plaguing image.
Rumpled sheets. Anne, hair loose, her face turned into a pillow . . .
Head high, he forced air into his lungs.
. . . underneath the bed linens, halfway down her body, the smallest stirring.
Loins heavy, he let the rush consume him.
Red lips opened wider. A soft moan, a louder one. The bed creaking, the stir hastening, and the woman, her pleasure cries a sweet song.
Anne sat an arm’s length from him, gentle winds carrying her not-so-innocent lavender and spiced-rum scent. He laughed, a low rusty grumble. He knew how her song ended. She had sung it for him many times in their lust-crazed youth.
Of all the White Lamb’s sirens, she lured him. Her emerald eyes haunted him from the shadows of her hood. Same as she did in Marshalsea’s shed while the warder babbled on about kilts. Anne was the only woman he could talk to yet never say a word.
Staring into her eyes was like that, one fluid conversation.
He’d known what it meant to be understood.
Gripping the wherry’s rail, he stared at the river. Their summer together had also been a long, fluent conversation in sex. But, he’d loved Anne. Fiercely. He’d been the same age as Mr. Baines when making that proclamation. Love had flowed like milk and honey then, an easy exchange in the give and take of youth. Now he could barely comprehend its vastness.
What does a young man know of love that an older man doesn’t?
No answer came from stygian waters.
His hold on weathered wood tightened. The beast within didn’t care. It wanted only to be fed.
Mr. Baines halted his drive and turned his face skyward. “Wind’s picking up. I hope it’s not more rainstorms.”
Spring and early summer had inundated the City with rain. Recent days had been a pleasant reprieve.
Anne searched the heavens, moonlight caressing her face. “It’s not a storm. There’s gentleness and warmth to it.”
“Not too warm, I hope,” Cecelia said over her shoulder. “The gutters will be a stew of awful smells.”
Will looked up and speckled stars stared back. “Wind is nature’s way of saying it has somewhere else to be.” When three faces looked at him curiously, he shrugged. “Something my father used to say on blustery days.”
“I like that.” Mr. Baines dipped the oars in water, his grin pearly white.
His cousin twisted around on her
bench. “I recall your father knew quite a lot about nature and whatnot.”
“He did. He taught me about hunting, fishing, how to properly shear a sheep—”
He stopped abruptly. Shearing was women’s work, but lacking a mother meant he and his father had to muckle through chores together. Cooking, washing dishes, a fair turn at the laundry, he could do it all. Growing up as such gave him a better understanding of a woman’s load. Except for childbirth and nursing a babe, household chores didn’t care who did them. Sharing tasks made work light. Could be why he’d tolerated Anne’s take-charge spirit.
Danger to his manhood didn’t worry him. Talk of home did.
His cousin had a peculiar look in her eyes as if she sensed the subject was perilous ground, but she’d test boundaries nonetheless.
“Do you miss it? The wide-open land, I mean. It must have been a trifle hard to live in the City after life in the highlands.”
Try life in a prison hulk, lass.
“The City grows on a mon.”
“I find that surprising. You liking the City.”
“It’s no’ a matter of liking. Learn the lay of the land and a mon can survive.”
“The way you learned to live off the land in the highlands before you were twelve,” Anne said quietly. “But there is a difference between surviving and thriving.”
A flutter stirred in his chest. “Indeed, there is.”
He’d become skilled at putting away memories of Clanranald lands . . . of Berneray and Benbecula and all the islets a lad with a skiff and a nose for adventure could explore. He’d grown up not far from Arisaig, but the isles had called to him. During midseason’s quiet, his father let him go for a day or two or three. The rugged, wide-open land had been in his bones, their whispers lingering to this day.
“I remember giggling madly about the name for sheep mating. Autumn is their season for it, is it not?” His cousin searched the air. “The name for it . . . it’s something sailors and soldiers use, something about a ram mounting—”
“Tupping.” Anne’s voice shot like lead from a flintlock. “It’s called tupping.”
“Yes!” Cecelia cried gleefully.
He grinned. Anne and her terse tones. She’d tolerate no talk of mounting. Did she wish to find a private place and be done with certain unmet needs? The seditious widow’s house loomed ahead, a lone candle lamp flickering beside the front door.
“When is the last time you saw your father?” Cecelia asked.
He fisted his hands on his thighs. Her question startled him, a rapier sharp cut to his heart.
“Summer of ’45,” he managed to say. “Afore I went to Edinburgh.”
On an errand to fetch the lass who changed me forever.
Anne fumbled with her hood, a shadow crossing her face. Was it guilt? A woman remembering the summer she’d been promised to one man while falling in love with another? Such a tale was not uncommon. She’d been no more ready for what happened that summer than he. Love had come at them like a mallet. It nearly destroyed them like one too.
“No wonder you want to go to the colonies.” His cousin was wistful, her gaze downriver.
Eight years since he’d last seen his father, and eight years since he’d last seen Anne. Visitants from his past, the two were inexplicably entwined. He looked downriver, a breeze cosseting his cheek. The water was a formless void save the narrow moonbeam striking its oily, onyx skin. That light pointed the way he would go once his promise to Anne’s league was done.
Why did it feel impossible?
“No’ sure he’ll have me,” he said roughly. “Last time we talked didna go well. We were . . .” His words faltered, and a hard swallow recovered them. “Our parting was . . . vicious.”
All eyes were on him. He shrugged heavily, the weight of youthful mistakes returned.
“He couldna understand why I supported the Uprisin’ and I couldna understand why he did no’.”
“He’ll have you, Will. With open arms,” Anne said. “I’m sure of it.”
A knot twisted behind his breastbone. The same knot came from talk of home, his father, and Clanranald. Like other men, he’d lost a great deal more than the war.
Relief flooded him when Mr. Baines announced, “Bermondsey Wall.”
The younger man leaped into the water, and Will joined him, glad to help. Bermondsey Wall lacked the usual boat-to-stairs landing, thus the wherry had to be hauled ashore through sludge. Water slapped his legs. Mud sucked his boots, but he needed to put his back into something. Exertion got his blood flowing. He was taut as a bowstring. Restless and cagey. Neither talk of home nor the bread of idleness sat well with him. A man was meant for labor, and a son to honor his father.
His heels dug in and sweat popped at his hairline. Could be the green-eyed woman watching him. Thoughts of Anne began to harass him again. Her hand moving under bed linens. Her sweet cries. His booted feet in cold water could not quench the fire.
An appointment with his hand might.
Molars grinding, he gave the wherry one last heave ’til it was half on dry land.
A panting Mr. Baines touched his hat. “My thanks, sir.”
His cousin, petticoats plucked high, picked her way over narrow wooden benches. She chattered on, veering toward Mr. Baines while Anne stood in the back. On impulse, Will sloshed through knee-high water and offered his hand.
“Mrs. Neville.”
“Mr. MacDonald.” A breeze caught her hair. “This is very gallant of you.”
He felt a smile creeping over his face. Standing in water, his arm out, he was in danger of turning into a fool. “You mean my sparing you from walking the length of this little boat?”
She smiled back. “It’s not that little.”
And you’re no’ a fragile woman, but I want to take care of you all the same. The thought swirled inside him with stunning force. What would Anne say if he said it aloud?
“If you don’t mind, my feet are a wee bit soggy. An’ I’ll have a devil of a time cleaning my boots.”
She set her gloveless hand in his. “Perhaps someone with tender mercies will clean them.”
His chuckle was rusty as an old saw. He liked her dry humor. Subtle and rare as London’s cloudless blue skies but worth the wait. Anne balanced a foot on the rail and stepped up, an act of trust, warming him down to his chilly toes. The wherry wobbled, and he swept her into his arms. For the second time tonight, she grabbed handfuls of his coat and held fast.
Her rum-sweet exhale fanned his cheek. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“In the auld days, I’d’ve tossed you over my shoulder.”
“The City has tamed you.”
Maybe Anne wanted to be tossed over a man’s shoulder? His shoulder. In this, he couldn’t claim knowledge of her mind, but he knew exactly why he’d trotted into midnight waters. To feel her hand in his. To hold her.
“Might be because I’m aulder,” he said.
“You are twenty-eight. Hardly long in the tooth.”
Anne was a slender piece, engulfed in cloak and petticoats, yet his feet sank deeper in soft, hidden soil. Currents buffeted his legs, a reminder to get moving. He savored her body against his. The embrace wasn’t the same as lust and sex. It was holding. An arm hooked under white-stockinged knees hidden by voluminous skirts, the other supporting her narrow back.
His nature ran to elemental things. The powerful need to protect and provide. To earn a woman’s lifelong respect.
Anne rubbing his back was nice too. When she reached for his cheek, he stilled. Their faces were close, her hood fallen. Moonlight glossed ink-black hair and painted her a touch mysterious. Anne had never been mysterious in her youth, but how much did that young man know of her?
The older man craved deeper knowledge. He let himself forget his cousin and Mr. Baines watching them. He hadn’t moved from knee-deep water. Anne was dociling him, the great hulking beast holding a maiden fair.
She tucked loose hair behind his ear. “I forgot tha
t you know about sheep.”
Quivers traipsed his back when her fingertip traced the shell of his ear. He’d never been so grateful for that narrow strip of skin.
“A lad doesna forget his education,” he said gruffly. “You go’ yours by way of tutors. Mine came in a barn.”
He waded ashore, squeezing her close. Don’t think about tupping. Do no’ think about tupping.
She studied him intently. “You get a certain tone when you speak of home, yet you’ve stayed among the English.”
With Anne, a statement could be both declaration and question. He wasn’t sure of the answer. Emotions wanted to drown him. Why he couldn’t leave, yet why he’d believed now, years after the Uprisin’, he should. Answers bubbled near the surface, popping and breaking before he could grasp them.
“You don’t hate the English,” she said. “I don’t see it in you.”
“Prison changed that. They’re no’ all good and they’re no’ all bad.”
“Yet you hate that I had an English husband.”
His gut clenched. He had no words for that. None at all.
“You’re not bitter? About the English?” she asked.
“A wasteful emotion.” Out of the water, he eased her onto firm ground and called out, “Mr. Baines, hop aboard. I’ll give you a send-off.”
Talk of English husbands unsettled him. He needed to shove something.
“Thank you kindly.” The ferryman jumped into his wherry and found his seat. Oars in hand, he nodded. “Whenever you’re ready, sir.”
Will seized the opportunity to put his shoulder to the vessel. To burn his restlessness with a good, hard push. Feet digging into soft sand, he did push. And push. Limbs and muscles tensed and strove. Mud scraped the red hull and with a final thrust, he sent it swaying into the river.
Mr. Baines shouted a farewell, and Will waved from the water’s edge. A drop of sweat ran down his back, stinging a cut from the beating he took at Marshalsea. Last night Anne saved him from that prison. Now she waited for him, cloaked and quiet, at stairs that rose from the beach to Bermondsey Lane.
Skin on his chest pebbled. Night brimmed with intimacy, a different flavor than the White Lamb’s variety. Anne had to feel it.