by Hope Tarr
“Ye heard ’em, Jack’s gone so ye maun as well come back upstairs. I’ll bring your supper up and then the bath.” Her brow furrowed and she added, “If ye’re still sure ye’ll want tae risk lung fever, that is?”
A meal, a bed and, Sacred Virgin, a bath—all could be Claudia’s for one blissful, restful night. After what had just transpired, she was even more in need of respite than she’d been before. In the midst of battling temptation, she felt a hard, angry gaze raking over her. She shifted her regard from the maid to the far end of the bar where the coachman hunched, glaring at her from over the rim of his raised tankard. Meeting that unrepentant stare, she acknowledged that her possibilities for safe transport to Linlithgow had just dwindled to one: she must find Jack Ketch and convince him to take her the rest of the way.
Turning back to Milread, she accepted her damp cloak and then reached out to take her traveling bag. “My apologies, mademoiselle, but first I must find your Monsieur Ketch.”
The maid’s mouth dropped open. Handing over the bag, she started to speak but, mindful of the precious minutes ticking away, Claudia hurried past her toward the door. “But keep them warm for me, s’il vous plait. The bath especially. It may be that after I find him, we will return.”
Armed with her rescuer’s full name, Claudia darted out the inn’s main door to the yard outside. Miracle of miracles, the rain had ceased and though it was cold enough to congeal the edges of the puddles that lingered, there was the specter of a sun in the gray-washed sky.
One of its wan rays struck the black hulk of the coach, springs keening as it canted back and forth in the gusting wind. Eager to put it and her recent encounter with its driver behind her, Claudia veered off the main path—and in doing so caught sight of her quarry leading his horse out from the stable, his enormous dog trotting a yard or so ahead.
Walking Beelzebub onto the path toward the road, Jack was oblivious to the excitement his appearance had stirred at the opposite end of the yard. He would have been on his way ere now but, exhausted though he was, he hadn’t been able to resist stopping to examine the broken coach wheel. He might not be a proper blacksmith, but he’d put in his share of hours at the forge, having apprenticed with his stepfather Tam until Callum had taken a sudden interest in the smithy, effectively ousting him from his place. Not that Jack had minded. The release from his obligation had been the answer to a prayer, for though he’d labored long and hard his heart had never been in the work.
Since the age of nine he’d meant to be a hangman.
There was skill in it as there was in most trades, but beyond that there was science and a certain innate knack. The touch, his mentor, Seumas, had called the latter, something you were either born with or not. Jack had the touch and he kent the science and though the honing of the technique was a never-ended thing, he prided himself that he was well on his way to one day standing at the forefront of his profession.
And yet earlier in the taproom, looking up into the Frenchwoman’s canny violet-blue eyes, he’d felt ashamed to own who he was and what he did.
Daft to let a stranger shame him, he who’d shrugged off the insults and curses of those whom he’d kent all his days. He didn’t even have her name and likely never would, and yet in that brief interlude before she’d fainted she’d managed to muddle his thoughts, set his body on fire and turn his very world on its ear.
And so at first when he heard the husky silk of her voice calling to him from across the path, he told himself it must be a trick of the creaking carriage. Or rather his own foolish fancy, for hadn’t he perhaps stayed on to tinker with that wee wheel in the hope of just such a “chance” encounter?
His heart skipping beats, he halted and raised a hesitant hand in greeting. “Hallo.”
The Frenchwoman returned his greeting, all but dancing on the toes of her tiny booted feet. “Jack Ketch. Monsieur Ketch!” Waving wildly, she started toward him.
His heart dipped even as his temper spiked. Ketch, the common moniker for executioner, and a foul insult it was too, for the real Jack Ketch had been a ham-handed blunderer, a drunkard who’d been known to mount the scaffold soused as David’s sow.
Skill, science, knack—Jack had them all and in abundance. He’d not let the French lassie, nor whomever it was who’d put her on to this mischief, make him bow his head in shame again. He fisted his hand on the leather strap and turned his horse toward the road.
“Monsieur Ketch!” Willing her spinning head to settle, Claudia used what breath remained to call out again, “Monsieur Jacques Ketch!”
Although Monsieur Ketch appeared unhurried, one of his long strides was the equal of several of Claudia’s. Was it her imagination or did those broad shoulders of his stiffen? Either way, he kept on. Despite his size, he moved with a silent swiftness that brought to mind the gazelles that once had populated the park of Château du Marmac. At this rate he would reach the road in no time at all.
But Claudia was determined. She hoisted her skirts and cut across the field, sloshing through mud and knee-high wet grass to reach him. Persistence at last paid off, and she caught up with him at the signpost marking the entrance to the main road. Rounding his horse’s wide rump, she fell into running step beside him.
Over his dog’s frenzied barking, she shouted, “Monsieur, arrêtez! Halt!” With her free hand she reached out and caught hold of his forearm, so that he must either stop or drag her along with him.
He swung about then, with such force that Claudia felt her feet leave the paving stones. “Dinna touch me!”
Holding on for dear life, she could feel his strength, his tension, pulsing beneath the pads of her fingers. For all that he was a peasant with no better occupation than to loll away his afternoon in a tavern, the man was tightly wound as a clock, his big body held rigid as a suit of armor.
“I’ll no stand to be mocked.” Facing her down with fierce, smoldering eyes, he shook her off. “And you can bloody well go back inside and tell Alistair, or whomever it was sent you, that I said to go to the devil.” Not even his Scots burr could blunt the steel edging each and every word.
Flummoxed, Claudia dropped her hand and backed up beneath his glowering gaze, sorting through the recent chaos for what she might have said or done to offend. Other than that unfortunate quip about open mouths admitting flies, which had seemed harmless enough at the time, she could think of nothing. Nonetheless, the past seven years as Phillippe du Marmac’s mistress had taught her to heed a man’s anger before the storm broke forth.
Accordingly, edging her gaze up to that lean, strong-boned face, she made sure to paint on the small, sultry half-smile that had charmed Phillippe from his temper a time or two. “Mocked? Mais non, monsieur, why do you say such a thing? And no one sent me. I only wish to thank you for your gallantry, first in rescuing me from that man most horrible and then in securing me a room. Why, monsieur, you are kindness itself.”
“And you are?”
A blood red beam from the dying sun struck his crown, and Claudia saw that what passed for red hair in the dimly lit taproom was in fact copper threaded with rich, brilliant gold. In the midst of her plotting, she found herself imagining what it would be like to feather her fingers through those soft, sun-kissed strands.
Reminded that he awaited her answer, she held out her hand. “Claudia Valemont. Mademoiselle Claudia Valemont. Miss, as you say in English.”
He showed no sign of taking either her offered hand or the broad hint but instead stared down to her other hand, weighted with the portmanteau. “What more do ye want with me, Mistress Valemont? Is the room no to your liking?” Sensing it was too soon, she withdrew her hand and opened her mouth to demur, but he silenced her with a look that seared through pretense to her soul’s truth. “Oh aye, ye want something, dinna trouble yourself to deny it, for I’m no such a wee fool as to believe ye left behind food and fire only to thank me.”
She shook her head, biting back a wince as pain sang through her temples. “It is true that I
wish to thank you but also I come to beg of you a bienfait…a boon. I must find my way to Linlithgow. It lies just west of—”
“I ken it. What I dinna ken is why you canna wait upon the mail coach. Is it no good enough for ye?”
For a brief moment she actually considered confessing what had just transpired in the taproom, but then thought better of it. Given his present mood, were she to admit to being accosted by a second man in as many hours, he would be all too likely to conclude that the fault must lie with her.
Mind working to formulate the lie that would satisfy his logic and engage his sympathies, she wet her lips and anchored her gaze on his face. The fading light showed his eyes to be amber, not brown, and rimmed in long, thick lashes that any woman would envy. Tipped in dusky gold, they brushed the strong, high planes of his Viking cheeks, a startling contrast to the rawboned masculinity of his features. What a beautiful man, she thought, and despite the biting air, she felt the lavalike heat of desire pool into her lower belly.
At length she gathered herself to reply, “A position, monsieur, in a dressmaker’s shop. I was expected a week ago. If I do not arrive soon, I fear it will be given to another.” Unnerved by his steely stare, her shoulders and neck already aching with the effort of looking up to him, she asked, “If not to Linlithgow, will you escort me so far as Edinburgh?”
He looked her up and down, a slow, steady perusal that made her painfully aware of the dusty footprint fronting her shabby cloak and the too tight gown bodice beneath it. Though she hadn’t blushed since the age of twelve, when she’d walked in upon her mother and Maman’s latest lover en flagrante delicto on the satin sheets, Claudia felt shame’s heat sparking her cheeks. It is the burn of the wind, she told herself, but deep inside she knew the cause to be the Scotsman. Accustomed though she was to male attention, to poets lauding the sweetness of her angel face and the perfection of her rose-tipped breasts, Monsieur Ketch’s steely stare made her limbs tremble and her breath catch.
The pity of it was that, unlike her, he did not seem to greatly care for what he saw. Even her breasts, which earlier she’d caught him ogling in the taproom, now merited little more than a cool glance.
At length he asked, “And why should I do that, mistress?”
It was, she had to admit if only to herself, a perfectly reasonable question. Cheeks burning, she fixed her shamefaced gaze on his chest, or rather on the vee of golden hair peeking out from the neck of his collarless shirt, and admitted, “I have no money to pay, but I am willing…if you should want…my body. Monsieur, until we reach the end of our journey, you may use me as you wish.”
Monsieur Ketch heaved a heavy breath and then slowly blew it out, stretching the fabric of his linen shirt to its limit as it fought to cover a rippling sea of muscle from pectorals to abdomen. “Nay, I willna.”
Thin and disheveled though she was, it had never occurred to her that he might refuse. Closer to outrage than to shame, she shot her gaze back to his face. “Non! But why…why not?”
He gave a sharp shake of his head. “I’ve no taste for further travel and no liking for your terms.” Hatless as he was, he touched his forelock in the briefest of salutes. “I bid you good eve, mistress.” He tugged the horse’s reins and whistled for his dog, who’d dallied from the path to chase after a squirrel.
Panic plowed into Claudia’s empty stomach with the force of a man’s fist. She’d thought in relinquishing the contents of her jewelry chest to the smuggler who’d born her away from France that she’d shed the last of her pride, but she’d been wrong, so very wrong.
Hating the desperate, craven creature she’d become, she nonetheless caught at his arm. “I beg of you, monsieur, do not leave me alone in this desolate place.”
His high brow folded into a frown but the eyes beneath were shot with pain. “My name’s Campbell, no Ketch. Jack Campbell.” Above his open shirt collar his Adam’s apple rose and fell as he pulled a hard swallow, bringing into prominence the cording of muscle that bridged neck and shoulder. “And mark me when I say that I’ll no be taking you to Linlithgow or Edinburgh…or anywhere else.”
For once stunned beyond words, Claudia slackened her grip on Monsieur Campbell’s sleeve, and then her hand fell away altogether. There was a charged moment when time seemed to grind to a standstill and they stared at each other as if one or both of them meant to say more but were at a loss as to what “more” might be. And then the invisible clock resumed its ticking, and Monsieur Campbell yanked on his horse’s reins and turned abruptly about. Watching him lead the bay onto the rutted road, wolf dog trotting in tow, Claudia could only wonder if she hadn’t imagined that he’d ever hesitated at all.
For some reason that prospect depressed her almost as much as his leaving and for the first time since setting foot on foreign soil, she surrendered to the hot press of tears. Drop by drop, the warm saline splashed her face as earlier the rain had done, drowning her vision of both man and beasts in one large, fathomless pool.
Standing weeping by the roadside suddenly struck her as too pathetic to be borne and so she hiked up her skirts and started walking. Somehow she found herself on the path branching back to the stable. It seemed as good or as poor a course as any; hungry and tired though she was, she couldn’t bear going back inside the inn just yet, not with the evidence of her distress marking her cheeks and swelling her eyes. Coming up on the stable, she sagged against its stone façade. Her back against the damp stones, she turned teary eyes heavenward to watch the setting of the sun, already reduced to a demilune on the horizon. A moment more and then the last sliver of amber orb fell into the murky bank of encroaching night. For some morose reason that golden yellow brought to mind Monsieur Campbell’s eyes. Like the sun, he had disappeared beyond her reach but unlike that guidepost, he’d not be returning to greet her on the morrow.
She shivered at the thought and pulled her still damp cloak more tightly about her. The wind had kicked up since she’d left the shelter of the inn. Perhaps she really ought to go back inside, brave the passage through the taproom one last time and have a hot supper and then an even hotter bath. Afterward she could tuck herself in between the warming pan-treated sheets and, for the night at least, indulge in the luxury of forgetting all her woes.
She was on the verge of doing so, of admitting defeat, when the beautiful simplicity of it struck her—the structure at her back was a stable. And not just any stable but one belonging to a coaching inn. As such, it housed not only the guests’ horses but also those that would serve as fresh teams for the sundry coaches that passed through. And how glad Claudia would have been to bide here for the night and then, rested and refreshed, set out on the next northbound passenger coach, for to continue on with the mail coach had become unthinkable.
But though thanks to Jack Campbell she had a night’s food and lodging paid for and waiting, she still hadn’t a copper to her name. On the morrow, she would find herself stranded and alone. Unless…
The broad-backed bay she’d seen Monsieur Ketch—Campbell—lead away a few moments before had looked sturdy and surefooted. Surely more such able-bodied creatures were to be found within? Resolve renewed, she sniffed back the last of her tears, shoved away from the wall and marched up to the planked stable door.
Yes, she was still prepared to walk to Linlithgow if she must…but she’d really much rather ride.
Chapter Four
Idjut. Gomeral. Clot-head.
Too fidgety to sit in the saddle, too busy berating himself to mind the wetness splashing up from the rutted bog of a road onto his legs, Jack walked his horse the two miles or so home, Elf keeping pace beside him. A bachelor though he was and always would be, still he’d built his cottage to be more than a place to hang his hat or lay his head. Bordered by a small copse on one side and a trickle of a stream on the other with a backdrop of softly rolling hills just beyond, it was his haven from the world’s madness. Most days all it took was one glimpse of the thatched roof and beloved whitewashed walls, of th
e cobblestone path that wound through the boxwood-bordered front yard to the welcoming arch of scrubbed oak door, for him to feel his soul ease and his demons fade into oblivion.
But not this night, he allowed, opening the gate and leading Beelzebub across the wet grass to the small, sloped-roof byre backing the house. Once inside, not even giving the horse a thorough rubdown, his failsafe for settling an unquiet mind, could salve his conscience’s stinging censure nor put to bed the tormenting inner voice that proclaimed in no uncertain terms: Ye’ve done wrong.
French and only just arrived from the bloody tumult of a toppled monarchy, the lass, Mistress Valemont, would have had no notion that calling him “Ketch” amounted to lobbing the foulest of insults. To her the moniker must have sounded as good a Scots surname as Campbell or any other. Surely she’d no be so foolish as to purposely insult him and then ask him to take her to Linlithgow.
My body, monsieur, until we reach the end of our journey, you may use me as you wish.
Puir wee lassie, whatever it was that drew her to Linlithgow—and he wasn’t convinced that a position in a dressmaker’s shop was the whole of it—she must be desperate indeed to offer up her lovely self in order to get there. That for the span of a heartbeat he’d actually been tempted—sorely tempted—to take her up on it was certain to be a sin but hardly the most grievous wrong he’d done her. Far worse, he felt sure, was giving in to his hurt pride and abandoning her at the inn gate. Defenseless, alone and fair near to fainting, she would be an easy mark for the likes of Callum or anyone else who meant to use her ill. He could only hope—pray—that she’d seen sense and gone back inside before any harm could befall her.
As for himself, surely the Lord Jesus and Mother Mary and the whole heavenly host of angels and archangels, martyrs and saints must be frowning down upon him even now, shaking their haloed heads in celestial contempt at not only his sinning thoughts but also his unforgivable lack of gallantry. But nothing they could say or do could begin to compete with the very real loathing he felt for himself.