The Scot Who Loved Me

by Gina Conkle

  “Don’t look at it so darkly,” he chided.

  “I prefer to call it cautious.”

  His ear-exploring fingers dipped to her neck. Her eyes were liquid, pliant, open. Slowly, he followed the trail of her ever-present black ribbon necklace. Tracing the ridge of her collarbone. Tracing the hollow well at the base of her throat. Tracing the high curve of her breast, sanctified territory usually guarded by her neckerchief.

  Pale skin pebbled everywhere he touched.

  “That’s better,” he murmured.

  “Will you ask about Rory MacLeod tomorrow?”

  He dragged his finger along the black ribbon into velvet warm cleavage. “We need to negotiate new terms, Mrs. Neville.”

  Her breath sawed quietly while merry voices rang from the kitchen. Dishes clanked, and cutlery jingled.

  “New terms?”

  Heat bloomed in his breeches. Her skin was soft, soft, soft. The freckle high on her breast, a tiny bump. Stolen moments were as exhilarating as a tumble in the sheets, anticipation in its purest form, a hint of what was to come. If he wasn’t careful, he’d miss the beginning of dinner to spend himself in his bedchamber.

  “You go’ the imprint of the key. Next comes the gold. Anything else is subject to discussion.”

  He was possibly the worst man. Last night he’d been outraged at her believing he’d barter for sex. Today was another story. Today her cleavage was his plunder. Until he touched hard metal. The medallion. He pulled it from her bodice, the thumbprint-sized gold warm from her skin.

  Seduction evaporated with a flick of his wrist. A curlicued nine in the center of a diamond had been etched in gold. The Curse of Scotland, the nine of diamonds, its lore long and lethal for highlanders. Feared and hated, even sober-minded lowlanders avoided it. The symbol carried a weighty history.

  The Earl of Stair, villain of the massacre at Glencoe in 1692. Nine diamond lozenges was the man’s crest.

  Every ninth King of Scotland had been a tyrant and a curse.

  A thief in Queen Mary’s court stole Crown Jewels—nine diamonds—causing heavy taxes on all of Scotland to recover the cost.

  Mary of Guise, Scotland’s French regent, swindled many a Scottish noble of land and money with her game Comette of which the nine of diamonds was the winning card.

  Cumberland had scribbled “No quarter” on a nine of diamonds playing card after Culloden. Some claimed this was false, but he believed it was true.

  And these were but a few of the tales of the number nine’s scourge.

  “We all wear a nine etched in Jacobite gold,” Anne said. “As a reminder.”

  Anne’s unflinching sense of duty gained new meaning. They’d not stood on the same side when the rebellion began, but they stood on the same side now. He acknowledged this with a solemn nod, the slim black ribbon a gentle tether from her neck to his hand.

  He couldn’t let go. He was undeniably tied to Anne and her league.

  Her eyes shined with gratitude. “I shall have a care when I negotiate with you. Last time I labored under false assumptions.”

  A rumbling chuckle vibrated in his chest. “You talking like a proper woman-of-business does things to me. Makes me want to unwrap every layer covering you and find out what’s underneath.”

  Her breasts grazed his knuckles from a slight inhale. He noticed them and he noticed her eyes glossy and sensual. It was the curse of a man in love, wanting to spend equal time on a woman’s breasts and her eyes. Both augured good fortune and happiness and all the lustful things that made him tick.

  “You already know what’s underneath,” she said.

  He could feel a wicked grin spreading. “That was young Anne. The wiser woman you are today offers a new and better reward.”

  Her mouth’s sweet wobble gratified him. He said something right.

  “Yet, for all my wisdom, I can’t seem to get one stubborn highlander to do what I want.”

  “You mean chase down information about MacLeod.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re of one accord, lass. I’ll ask about MacLeod, no new terms required.”

  He was becoming putty in her hands. He’d worked with the stuff, sealing windowpanes on ships. It was pliable and formless one moment, useful and strong the next. It stood against the fiercest gales and angry squalls, all that the seven seas could throw at it.

  “There is another reason I want the matter of MacLeod settled,” she said.

  “Mmm . . . what is it?”

  “Once we have the gold, I will deliver it to Clanranald lands. Two days after we take it.”

  Her lips parted, a hesitation, as if words refused to form.

  “I won’t come back to London.” Anne squeezed his medallion-holding hand and looked into his eyes. “I will stay on Clanranald lands for good.”

  Queasiness sailed into his stomach. The floor was less straight, possibly slanted. Anne let go of his hand as surely as she’d let go of him at Castle Tioram years ago when she thought he’d deserted her. To her, he’d turned his back on her for the good of Scotland. How ironic, this ugly twist. Anne would depart for Clanranald lands, while he would set sail for Virginia. She was the one people counted on. She’d been at the heart of her father’s home, taking care of him and her brothers. She was the hub of this league, and like a good shepherdess, Anne didn’t want the women preyed on by MacLeod—if the man was a wolf.

  Now she dared to make plans for her future.

  Chairs scraped in Anne’s absurdly small dining room. Shy Margaret Fletcher poked her head around the corner. Cheeks blushing, she eyed their intimate stance.

  “Dinner is ready.” And the young woman slipped from view.

  He was sure he’d arrive at the table and find her face a shade of scarlet.

  “Your requests will be honored,” he said, tucking the medallion into her pretty cleavage. “I want them done more than I want all the Jacobite gold in England.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  His shoes were off and he was shirtless again in Anne’s kitchen, nursing a Mortlake jug stamped with windmills on its glazed brown belly. He needed the jug to quench his thirst. Aunt Flora was at his back, her touch like wasps stinging his flesh.

  “Oh, wee Will, yer back is a mess.” Her kindly face popped into view. “Brace yerself.”

  She daubed her greasy unguent on a new spot low on his back. He winced. Searing pain peaked and then, ahhhhh. The viscous slime oozed into his skin, leaving a tolerable simmer and an awful stench in its wake.

  “Healing is it?” he teased. “Then why do you torture me with a foul potion?”

  She chuckled. “It does smell something awful, but ye’ll thank me in the morning.” One final dab and she circled him, checking her work. “All done, laddie. No bandage tonight. Best tae let the wounds breathe while ye sleep. I’ll wrap the worst of them tomorrow.”

  He tipped the jug and drank. He wanted something stout, something he might find at the Iron Bell along with answers to his questions about the night Anne was attacked. Surely someone heard something? Saw something? Those plans were thwarted the moment Aunt Flora slathered her stinky unguent on his back. At present, her gnarled hands held up the once-fine shirt. A dozen candles lit the kitchen, illuminating smears of blood and bodily humors.

  “Is the shirt still good?” He cuffed ale at the corner of his mouth.

  Aunt Maude looked up from her work. “It’s cotton.”

  “An’ verra expensive,” Aunt Flora said. “Let me see what I can do tae save it.”

  “Donnae waste yer time, Flora. Toss it tae the rag heap and be done.” Aunt Maude shucked peas with a steady cadence. She scored each pod with her thumbnail. Then a pinch, it split open, and her finger sloughed green peas into a bowl, the empty pod discarded.

  Both women were his companions for the night. The whole evening was agreeable. Everyone had lingered over dinner, the company pleasant, the food satisfying, but to say that wouldn’t suffice. Lots of dinner tables had amiable people and goo
d food.

  He’d looked around the table when chatter swelled, a question coming to mind.

  Do these women know what they have?

  Did he know? Was it family? Contentment? An accord that ran deep?

  Their voices had ebbed and flowed, his heart caught in their rhythm.

  Anne and he had regaled them with their tale of the day’s adventure. The beauty of Grosvenor Square’s private garden. The countess’s early return to London had met with clucks of concern, and Mr. Rory MacLeod with mixed reactions.

  Was he friend or foe? Every woman had an opinion.

  The wax lump had been passed to Mary Fletcher who in turn regaled the table with her excitement at making a silver key. She had a half ingot of silver, and she expected to begin work on the key that night. His cousin yawned first. Chairs scraped regretfully back. Dishes were cleared, and Mr. MacLeod’s appearance was relegated to a minor detail. No great cause for concern, Aunt Maude had said. They should bear up and move on. The gold would be theirs in a matter of days. With that, the Fletcher sisters and his cousin disappeared into the night.

  He’d gone to the kitchen, commenting on his back’s discomfort, and Aunt Flora whipped out her unguents, insisting she have a look.

  Before he knew it, his shirt was off and Anne had vanished.

  When he asked about her, Aunt Maude had clucked, “Never mind her, lad. Anne is a grown woman, twice widowed. She can come and go as she pleases. But you? Yer back is festering, and we cannae have you catch a fever. Sit there—” she’d pointed at the kitchen table bench with the authority of a general “—and let Aunt Flora tend ye.”

  He did, taking a Mortlake jug with him.

  Aunt Maude had settled down with her bowl of peas, muttering, “It’s a wonder. Why didna Anne take care of yer back yer first night here.”

  He could’ve told her Anne was too busy taking off his kilt, and he was too busy trying to survive it. The back of him hadn’t been his concern. The front of him . . . well, that was another story. Being well mannered, he drowned his words with another swig of watered-down ale.

  Aunt Flora settled on the bench near him, wiping her hands with her apron. “It’s best ye sit here awhile and let the unguent soak in.”

  “I’m no’ going anywhere, no’ smelling like this.”

  “I shoulda warned ye of the smell,” Aunt Flora said, but something in her smile told him she had him right where the dear old woman wanted him.

  He craned his neck to see over his shoulder. Light glistened on his skin. “Thank you, ma’am, for taking care of me. For always taking care of me.”

  Her aged eyes softened. Aunt Flora had been as close to a mother as he’d ever had. She’d taught him to read and tended youthful cuts and bruises. Companionship with her was easy. If life was a weave, she was the ever-present thread in his boyhood, steady and kind, never a harsh word. And understanding . . . always understanding.

  Her keen eyes took in his discarded shoes. She bent over and hooked them with her fingers. The bigamist’s shoes hung like awkward specimens.

  “An excellent pair,” she mused.

  “They are.”

  His was polite agreement only. The heel was too high and the cut too tight. They would never be his. He preferred his loose boots, the leather worn and brown, the soles repaired twice by a cobbler. Staring at those black shoes, their sparkly paste buckles mimicking diamonds, he faced a new fact. Anne’s many changes these eight years might include the wish for a man who liked diamond buckle shoes, even the paste variety.

  “They don’t quite fit, do they?” Aunt Flora said sagely.

  “They never will, ma’am.”

  Understanding ran deep, and that was a currency worth more than diamonds. Aunt Flora knew he’d live and die in his old boots.

  “Let me see what I can do tae make them comfortable while you have tae wear them.” She turned on her seat. “Maude, would you be a dear and fetch Mr. Neville’s shoe forms? The largest pair, of course.”

  The rhythmic shelling stopped. “But all his things are stored in the cellar.”

  “I know that. You grumbled about it when you put them there. But wee Will needs his shoes stretched.” She held up the bigamist’s shoes as evidence. “They’re tight on his feet.”

  Aunt Maude rose with a laborious huff and set her bowl on the table. She lit a taper and crossed the kitchen. “At least it’s no’ raining.”

  She opened the cellar door and dank smells invaded the kitchen. Aunt Maude’s sturdy footsteps sounded her charge into the underbelly of the house.

  Aunt Flora’s eyes twinkled under her mob cap. “It floods when’er there’s heavy rain.” She chuckled. “It floods in light rain too.”

  The cellar’s dank air brought the ghost of another man into the kitchen. Will hooked the Mortlake jug on his finger and rested his elbows on his knees.

  “Mr. Neville, he was a shoemaker?”

  “His father was a cobbler. Mr. Neville apprenticed with a ship’s captain when he was fifteen. He saved his father’s things, for sentimental reasons, I suppose.”

  “And what was Mr. Neville like?”

  He was prying, which made him worse than a gossip, but he had to know about the man who gave his name, a house, and a warehouse to Anne. The bench jiggled. Aunt Flora was studying her jar of foul-smelling unguent, probably considering how to answer him.

  “Well . . . he was older than me. A kindly, lonely man. He’d never married until Anne. They were introduced by her grandmother who, I think, wanted the union for Anne’s security.” Her mob cap’s frill fluttered from an emphatic nod in his side vision. “Yes, I am certain that was the reason.”

  He took a casual swig. “Anne loved her grandmother, I collect.”

  “Indeed. She doted on Anne. The issue of inheritance was, I think, a sore spot.”

  “Oh?” He toed a crack in the floor.

  Aunt Flora corked her unguent with care. “Her grandmother believed a woman’s fortune should be found with her husband. Her worldly goods passed on tae her sons, though she did bequeath garnet earrings and a manageable old man as husband for Anne.”

  “A pair of earrings and a docile husband. Every woman’s dream.”

  A wise chuckle shook the bench. “Out with it, laddie. What exactly do you want tae know?”

  He turned his head slowly and met mischievous blue eyes.

  “Why do ye think I sent my sister tae the cellar when I coulda gone myself?”

  “I didna want to be rude.”

  The noise of clanking bottles rose from the bowels of Neville House.

  “The clock is ticking. Ye best get on with yer askin’.”

  He breathed deep, ribs swelling as if bursting with questions. Clamor from the cellar threatened to shove each question back into place. The odd pressure was astounding. Confusing. He wanted what he couldn’t have. What he could never have. All of Anne’s happiness, love, and passion. Oh, God help him, he wanted her passion. Her body against his. Her tart kisses and the sweet ones. He wanted her past, her present, and every bit of her future. And he wanted, needed, to atone for his grievous, youthful error—for unknowingly abandoning her.

  Staring at the flagstone floor, he could almost see that August day unfold. The weapons and ammunition loaded. The two outriders, pressuring him to get going. Men were counting on him. Anne was too. He could picture her, wind-tossed hair, her determined legs cresting the ridge near Castle Tioram, the land empty.

  And him, gone.

  How could a man make right that wrong? It was a question for the ages while another nettled him.

  “Did they love each other?”

  “They were kind tae each other. Mr. Neville had affection for her. He was glad tae have the three of us here. Anne managed the warehouse. Took care of him. She made his last years pleasant.” Her voice touched a respectful note. “With no family, Mr. Neville didna want tae die alone.”

  “And Anne?”

  Aunt Flora sighed. “She married him for our
clan. With few funds tae our name, it made things go faster. Our league needed tae be in London. Tae track down the sgian-dubh and the gold. What livres we have only came tae us this summer.”

  And the league had spent a hefty share of them to free his foolish kilt-wearing arse.

  He stared into the hearth’s dying embers. Marriage to Mr. Neville meant the clan gained a foothold in London. Without it, their progress would have been stunted.

  Anne. Ever sacrificing quietly for others.

  Aunt Flora rose from the bench. “I’ve seen her eyes shine only once with love. Her summer with you. After that? No more.”

  He drowned his gullet with watery ale, but nothing drowned his pain.

  He climbed the steps two at a time in stockinged feet, a waistcoat in one hand, a candle stub in the other. He’d finished the Mortlake jug, plying Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora with questions of Anne’s whereabouts. She shouldn’t be out alone in the City, even with that blade up her sleeve.

  Did they not trust him?

  They chuckled, while tending light evening chores, and reminded him, “Anne is—”

  “I know,” he grumbled before quoting their refrain. “‘A grown woman twice widowed. She can come and go as she pleases.’”

  He considered searching for her, his odorous back be damned, but on the top floor landing, he got his answer to Anne’s whereabouts. Light glowed under her bedchamber door. A shadow moved, plank floors creaked. He studied the sliver of light like a hawk.

  Had she sneaked in? Or had she been here all night?

  “Anne,” he said from the hallway.

  Fool! Go knock on her door.

  Then what? Ask where she’d gone? What had she done this evening that was so secretive even sweet Aunt Flora all but told him to mind his own business while she slathered the devil’s brew on his back?

  Which begged a better question: Did he have the right to ask?

  If he did, he was far from presentable. He smelled and his back was sticky and there was an oozing wound. Not a woman’s dream of romance and courtship. Nor did Anne answer his first call. Unless her ears were stuffed with wool, she heard him. The house was quiet and their bedchambers the only rooms on this floor.