by Hope Tarr
As excuses went it was plausible enough if lacking in inventiveness. And far more face-saving than the bald truth—he was scared to stay.
Accordingly, he forced his footsteps toward the door. He whistled for Elf to follow but for once the hound balked. A soulful look in her yellow eyes, she kept to her post by the bed until Jack had no choice but to retrace his steps, take firm hold of her collar and half drag her toward the door.
On the threshold he weakened, turning back for one last look. A glossy strand of still damp hair clung to the Frenchwoman’s pale cheek, and her long, slender fingers plucked at the coverlet as if seeking something or someone who existed only in the shadow world of dreams.
Hard-pressed to hold in a sigh, he shifted his gaze to Milread, who’d followed him to the door. “Ye’re certain ye can manage, then? Alistair—”
“Will fash and threaten, but in the end I’ll have my way.” Winking, she added, “’Tis true my bed lies within his inn, but I’ve still some say as tae who I let in it—and who I turn away.”
His mate from childhood, Milread once had invited Jack to share her bed. Though he’d appreciated the offer, he’d declined—vow aside, she was like a sister to him—and to her credit she’d only shrugged and told him he dinna ken what he was missing.
Now he reached out and, in brotherly fashion, bestowed a light pinch on her freckled cheek. “Ye’re a braw lass and a good friend.”
“Humph, am I now.” Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “But no so bonny as that one, more’s the pity.”
It was Jack’s turn to wink. “But ye’ve a heart the size of Edinburgh Castle and a fine, fat arse to go with it.”
She broke into a gap-toothed grin, taking in good humor what a lesser woman would have taken in offense. “That I do, Jack Campbell, that I do, though more’s the trouble it brings me. Now off wi’ ye before I take it into my head tae coax ye tae come back tae my room and stop wastin’ what the good Lord intended should be used.” She darted out a hand and gave his crotch a good squeeze.
Taken unawares, he jerked back. “Christ, woman, mind your claws. I may have promised no to use it, but that doesna mean I’m looking to be gelded.” A protective hand cupped over the sensitive area in question, he backed into the hallway, face warm and sure to be glowing.
Wiggling sandy eyebrows, she took a menacing step forward. “Nay worries on that score, laddie. I’ll lay odds it’d rise to the occasion.” Chuckling, she made a show of shooing him away. “But off wi’ ye, then, and mind ye take your great mangy beastie wi’ ye afore she pisses all o’er my floor.”
Jack looked down to the dog, still staring fixedly back inside the room. “Come along, Elf. We ken when we’re no wanted.”
When she dug in her doggie heels, he sighed and reached down to once more take hold of her collar. Wondering at his boon companion’s uncharacteristic stubbornness, he turned to go but found he couldn’t resist firing one last, parting shot. “Though, come to think of it, a bit of piss might just see it clean.”
“Gomeral!” Milread swatted at him but her heart wasn’t in it and forbye he’d already moved beyond reach. Always beyond her reach, was Jack.
Listening to his footfalls drumming back down the hallway, echoed in the softer clicking of his dog’s paws, she vented the lifetime’s longing that built in her breast on those rare occasions when she let herself dream of what would never be.
Around a heavy sigh she whispered, “What a waste. What a terrible waste.”
Chapter Three
Claudia’s first impressions upon waking were of the crunch of the straw-stuffed mattress beneath her, a female’s off-key humming and the strong, clean scent of evergreen; the latter seemed to sheathe her person like a protective mantle. For some reason yet to be recalled, her muzzy mind associated that aroma with a particular person, only she couldn’t remember whom. Male—no mistaking that—and large. Add to that her vague recollection of hair the color of a sunset, arms like steel bands and the deep timbre of a softly burred voice—a Scots burr. Clues to a yet-to-be-solved riddle, snippets of recollected impressions stole out from their hiding place to form a sensory sequence: the past week’s journey north into Scotland, the broken-down coach, the tavern room so densely packed that it brought to mind a barrel of cured fish. Standing head and shoulders above the crowd had been the tall, red-haired Scotsman with the big, strong body and the soft, sad eyes. Someone had struck her, she recalled that now, and he’d come to her aid. Afterward he’d touched her face with roughly gentle fingers, pried the knife from her clammy grasp and then taken her against the warmth of his hard chest. For those lovely few seconds she’d turned her face into the coarse crispness of his homespun shirt, redolent with the fresh clean fragrance of evergreen, and had known what it was to feel cherished and safe. And then she’d chanced to look up, to look beyond him, and had glimpsed the telling flash of light striking upon steel. A knife, only this time not hers, and aimed for her rescuer’s broad back.
Claudia bolted upright in the bed, belatedly coming into an awareness of myriad fists pummeling her cheek. “Ouf!” she let out and clamped one hand to the source of the pain, a frighteningly large bulge that felt as though it must encompass half her face.
The humming abruptly quit. “So ye’re awake,” stated the homey voice from the far end of the room, rather unnecessarily, Claudia thought, and far, far too loudly for good manners, but then this was Scotland. “I said ye’d come about in your own good time, but he wouldna listen.”
Squinting through the haze of pounding pain, Claudia espied the source of the voice, a wide-hipped female kneeling before the hearth, working the bellows to rouse what looked—and smelled—to be an already decent-sized peat fire.
Addressing the broad backside, she asked, “The man who fought for me, he is…?” And then, as the horrible, chilling possibility leapt to mind, freezing out all other thoughts save one, she blurted out, “Merci aux saints, he is not dead, is he?”
A loud chortle greeted the question. “Jack dead from a wee tangle wi’ that codless coof, Callum—no hardly. Why who d’ye ken it was who bore ye upstairs?”
Jack. So that was her rescuer’s name. Claudia sagged back against the headboard and covered her hands over her face as she fought to think her way through the throbbing. The episode in the taproom and the altercation with the coachman before it had brought home just how perilous travel could be for a woman on her own. As much as she needed transport, she needed a protector—a man strong and trustworthy to navigate her safely to her destination.
If the impressive display of pugilism she’d witnessed prior to passing out was any indication, Monsieur Jack of surname unknown more than met her first requirement. As for trustworthiness, he hadn’t taken advantage of her after she’d fainted—at least she didn’t think he had. That he also happened to possess the chiseled features and sculpted muscles associated with statues of Greek gods was a minor consideration as well as a happy circumstance. Going to bed with him—and surely he would expect some reward for his pains—should prove to be no hardship.
And yet the prospect of offering herself in trade once again, even if this time safe passage and not jewels and silks and servants was the commodity to be bartered, tore at her. Freedom had cost her dearly but she had paid its price and, despite her wretched state, she cherished her newfound liberty as once she’d cherished diamonds and pearls. Submission, even as a temporary state, would not come easily. It just possibly might not come at all.
Cross that bridge when you come to it, gel, she told herself, but in her head it was the voice of Miss Chitterly, her former English governess, that she heard.
Returned to the practicality by the memory of those very clipped, very British tones, she drew her hands away from her face and asked, “Jack, he will return soon?”
Apparently the maid finally found satisfaction with the fire, the delicious warmth of which Claudia could feel thawing her toes, for she put down the bellows, rose and turned about to reveal a pi
e-faced countenance liberally sprinkled with freckles. “Nay, I shouldna think so.” Swiping sooty hands down her apron, she started over to the bed. “He left a wee while ago, just before ye awoke.”
“Left!” Forgetting to heed the pain in her head, Claudia tossed off the coverlet and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
The room canted as her stocking-clad feet met the floorboards, putting her in mind of her landing at Dover when she’d disembarked only to find that solid ground seemed to pitch and roll just as the ship had. But she’d soon regained her “land legs,” as the English sailors had promised, and she was even more determined to do so now, for they were her only means of transportation.
But, she hoped, not for long.
“Mon Dieu, this is terrible, un désastre. Why did you not wake me?” Sighting her mud-caked half boots set before the fire to dry, she pressed a steadying hand to the plaster wall and started toward them.
The maid seemed to find the question amusing. “Why not, indeed?” she repeated, the corners of her wide mouth twitching as her hazel eyes followed Claudia to the hearth. “But nay worries, both your bed and board are paid in full, Jack saw tae that, and I’ve told him I’d stay on tae see ye settled for the night.”
In the midst of shoving her right foot into the shrunken leather, Claudia stalled. Up until now she’d been too focused on her goal to bother with wondering how it was that she, a penniless refugee, had come to occupy an inn room all to herself.
Wondering if she might have misunderstood, she asked, “He…he did all that for me? But I am but a stranger to him.”
The Scotswoman lifted her broad shoulders in a shrug but her gaze was thoughtful as she answered, “Stranger or no, everyone’s somebody tae Jack. It’s just his way. Now,” she added, abruptly switching to the lilting tone one used to cajole very young, very spoiled children, “there’s some lovely broth on its way up and, if ye manage tae keep it down, there’ll be haggis and bannocks and a pudding tae follow.”
Now that she’d stirred, Claudia was aware that her stomach was empty to the point of aching. Whatever haggis was (and with Scottish fare, she’d learned it was often better not to know), the name alone suddenly sounded delicious.
But even as her gastronomy voiced its plea for nourishment in the form of an embarrassing gurgle, she reached for her other boot and forced her foot inside. “First I must speak with, er, Jacques.”
The maid narrowed her gaze, all traces of humor vanishing as she asked, “And, stranger that ye be, what further business might ye have wi’ Jack?”
“My own,” she answered, then turned away to gather up the rest of her belongings.
Her cloak, or more properly her maid Evette’s cloak, had been draped over the back of the warming chair so that it might dry in the fire’s heat. She knew a moment’s guilt as it occurred to her that the woman she’d just insulted likely had been the one to hang it there. Then guilt drowned in the sudden surge of panic.
“Mon sac! My bag!” Her dizziness forgotten, she whirled on the maid. “What have you done with it?”
A snort sounded from the far end of the room. “Well, I’ve no nicked it if that’s what yer worrit for. ’Tis right before ye, plain as the nose on your face,” she added, tapping the bridge of her own rather bulbous beak.
Claudia swung back around and whisked the cloak from the slatted chair back. Sure enough, tucked between the wooden chair legs was her portmanteau. It didn’t look to have been rifled but…Heart hammering and mouth dry, she dragged it out into plain view, dropped to her knees and yanked it open.
Only when she found the brooch tucked into an inside compartment, carefully wrapped in its handkerchief just as she’d left it, did she dare to breathe. Feeling relieved and very, very foolish, she started up. “Mademoiselle, excusez-moi. It is only that I…”
A large foot clamping down on the bag’s leather handle brought a halt to her apology. “The name’s Milread, no whatever gibberish ye just called me. And ye’re no tae budge from this room until the mail coach leaves on the morrow. I promised Jack.”
With no choice but to let go, Claudia stumbled to her feet. Straightening to her full height of five feet two inches, she lifted her chin to stare up into the maid’s steely eyes. “You cannot keep me here against my will. Now release my valise or I shall…” She hesitated, scouring her brain for whatever schoolroom facts remained regarding British common law. “Or I shall have you—and Jacques—before the magistrate for…for abduction.”
Milread’s reaction was predictable and deeply gratifying. Her eyes widened and her square jaw dropped. “Have Jack before the law, will ye?”
But before Claudia could bask in the satisfaction of having cowed the formidable Milread, a gale of laughter broke forth, sending the maid staggering back. “Ye…take him…Och, but that’s rich. If ye only kent…”
Above all things, Claudia detested being laughed at and yet the unseemly cackling did have one highly desirable outcome: Milread had backed off the bag.
Seizing her opportunity, Claudia swooped. Slight she might be and the nearest thing to starved, but desperation seemed to steady her head even as it lent wings to her feet. Bag in hand, cloak draped over one arm, she yanked open the door and sped down the hallway.
The inn was a small and relatively simple structure, the upper floor ending in a set of crooked wooden stairs that, judging by the muffled conversations drifting up, led below to the taproom. The doors to the other chambers were closed save for one. The sound of heavy footfalls closing in prompted her to take her chances and dart inside. She found herself in a storeroom of sorts. Heart skipping beats, she squeezed between a spinning wheel and a linen press just as Milread poked her capped head inside. Burrowed into her hiding place, Claudia held her breath, waiting. After a moment’s hesitation Milread faced about and bounded down the corridor toward the stairs.
Claudia held back, counted to three and then rose. Cobwebs and dust motes fell like snowflakes from the folds of her cloak as she dashed out into the hallway and down the stairs, skidding to a halt at the bottom landing.
The taproom she stepped off into was a far tamer place than that which she’d left, the earlier crowd having dwindled to a handful who hovered about the bar, nursing their pints. Barring the coachman, whose gaze she avoided, the company looked harmless enough, ancient even. Certainly a tall, virile, flame-haired young Scotsman would be hard-pressed to hide out among them. Which must mean he had left.
Merde. Hoping he might still be in the vicinity, Claudia made a beeline for the bar, where she threw herself, luggage and all, on the polished wood. Addressing herself to the pudgy, bald man standing behind it, she opened her mouth…and promptly forgot every English word she’d ever known. “Où est Jacques?” Where is Jack?
Frustrated when her question was met with blank stares and a caustic comment from the coachman on the subject of “bleedin’ furreners,” she used her hands to sketch what, if failing to do full justice to that magnificent physique, might at least convey a general sense of height and proportion.
“And he has red hairs,” she added, in English this time, then looked about and saw that so did several of them, at least what hair they had left.
“She maun mean Jack,” the innkeeper announced, vaulting his voice to address the gawkers gathering about her. Gesturing to the main door leading to the yard outside, he added, “Ye’re out o’ luck, lassie, for he left no five minutes past.”
“He is gone.” Whispering the words, Claudia felt a leaden weight lay anchor in her chest. Until now she hadn’t realized just how very much she’d been counting on having the handsome Scotsman accompany her.
Grinning from ear to ear, the innkeeper answered, “Aye, he’s gone and ’tis glad o’ it ye should be. ’Tis a dangerous thing tae tangle wi’ Jack Ketch, lassie, for ye’re like as no tae find your pretty toes tappin’ the wind.”
Toes tapping the wind? Claudia opened her mouth to unravel this latest bit of foolishness when, from behind her,
the coachman bellowed, “Maun have finished his business and meant tae be on his way.”
“Oh aye,” chimed in the old man standing to Claudia’s left, his leathery face splitting into a broad smile of few teeth and generous gums. “He maun be a quick worker, our Jack, but no verra thorough if the wench is comin’ abeggin’ a’ready.”
Anger spiking and head swimming, Claudia didn’t notice the coachman creeping up behind her until she felt his sour breath scoring her cheek. One large paw groping her buttocks, he pulled her hard against him. “Only come wi’ me on the morrow, sweeting, and I’ll show ye just how thorough a shaggin’ age and experience can give.”
“You are…disgusting,” she sputtered, drawing fresh guffaws from the group as she tried in vain to pull away. “Let me go.”
There was no mistaking the threat behind the boast, just as there was no mistaking the bulge knifing into her backside. Panicked, she tried again to shove him away but, pinned between her tormentor and the bar, and hemmed in on all sides by the men gathered about, she realized it[0][0] was no use.
In the throes of her flailing, a woman’s voice called out, “Leave her be, clot-head.”
Twisting her head about, Claudia saw Milread, red-faced and huffing, entering through the small door at the back of the room. Arms and hips working, she shoved her way toward the bar. Reaching it, she used her elbow to deal the coachman a sharp poke in the ribs. He fell back a step and Claudia lost no time in slipping free.
“Merci,” Claudia murmured, turning about on shaking legs and then filling her compressed lungs with a deep steadying breath.
Milread responded with a small nod and reached down to retrieve Claudia’s cloak, which had fallen to the floor along with her traveling bag.