by Hope Tarr
But now he had Claudia to consider. She’d fallen asleep an hour before they reached the city. Glancing down at her dark head resting on his shoulder, he tried again to reconcile the urge to take her with him to the tollbooth with the equally strong urge to shield her from any experience that might bring up past horrors. Although the night terrors were coming fewer and farther in between, she still sometimes awoke screaming, muttering snippets of phrases in French and English that, pieced together, painted an ugly picture of her final days in Paris.
Tucked into the old medieval quarter of the city, the Rose and Thistle Inn on Blackfriars Street seemed the perfect compromise, but a brisk walk to the prison and yet far enough that Claudia need never so much as glimpse the iron gates. True to its era, the façade featured an outside staircase, overhanging upper stories and crow-stepped gables. A thatch of ivy blanketed one side of the age-mellowed stones and swinging from a chain above the door was a small painted sign depicting a rose and thistle and the accompanying English words. She’ll be safe here, he told himself, and willed himself to believe it.
He reined in at the cobbled courtyard. Claudia raised her head from his shoulder and cast him a sleepy smile. “We are arrived?”
He turned to regard her. Hair mussed and violet eyes still heavy with sleep, she looked young and soft and vulnerable. The sight of her made his heart ache for what could never be.
“Aye,” he said, resisting the urge to touch her smooth cheek, “I didna want to wake you.”
“And what of you?” Sitting upright, she busied herself with smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her cloak and gown. “You have driven all day without once stopping to rest.”
Her tone was almost…wifely. It left him flummoxed but pleased, too, warmth radiating from his chest so that he scarcely noticed the chill air. Though he acknowledged that nothing could ever come of it, that she might care for him even a little left him feeling light-headed in a way that had nothing to do with fatigue.
Hoping not to make too great an ass of himself, he reached back to where Luicas lay curled up about Elf, boy and beast fast asleep amidst the baggage. The lad had given in to fatigue roughly an hour before and, after hitching his mare alongside the bay, had climbed inside to get some rest.
Nudging the lad’s shoulder, he said, “Wake up, wee Luicas, for we’re here.”
The boy bolted upright, dull gaze sharpening as he took in his surroundings. Less enthused was Elf, who promptly laid her head back down on the coil of rope and closed her eyes.
“Look sharp, lad,” Jack said with a laugh, already starting down. “There’ll be time aplenty to explore later, but for now you’d best get busy with the bags, aye?”
He handed over the reins to the waiting ostler and then turned to lift Claudia down. The feel of her slender waist beneath his hands brought back potent memories, and it was only through force of will that he managed to set her down and take a shaky step back to safety.
The smell of beeswax was strong when they stepped inside the inn’s oak-paneled foyer. The innkeeper, who introduced himself only as Tweedie, greeted them warmly as did his wife, a pie-faced matron of middling years who wore her salt-and-pepper hair tucked beneath a neat white cap.
Jack doffed his tricorne and stepped forward. “We’re in need of a room. Have ye one to let?”
The innkeeper opened his mouth to reply but his wife answered for him, “Oh aye, that we do. We were full up the night past but we’ve several vacancies as of this morning and even if we hadna we wouldna think of turning away such a bonny couple and at such an hour, would we, Tweedie?”
On the words, “bonny couple,” Claudia let out a little gasp. Casting her a warning glance, Jack wondered if perhaps he should have prepared her for the fact that, during their short stay, they would be posing as husband and wife. The Rose and Thistle was, after all, a proper tavern, which was why he’d brought Claudia to it in the first place. But along with the guarantee that the bed linens would be fresh and the washing water changed once a day, “proper” meant that no “lewdness” or “mischief” was tolerated within the sanctity of its whitewashed walls. An unmarried man and woman sharing a single bedchamber would violate both counts.
Dark eyes bright, Mistress Tweedie sallied over to Claudia, on whose delicate cheekbones patches of pink had already begun to appear. “Och, but yer wife’s a bonny thing, Master Campbell,” she announced, as though Claudia were not standing beneath her very nose. “Foreign looking, but a beauty all the same.”
“French,” Jack answered when he glimpsed the telltale flash of fire in his “wife’s” narrowed violet eyes.
“Well, doesna that explain it,” she gabbled on and, just as Jack was wondering what the devil she might mean, she burst out, “It maun be a love match, then. Dinna be shy, dearie,” she added, shooting Claudia a broad wink. “Ye’ll no be the first blushing bride I’ve clapped eyes on nor the last, God willing.” Glancing back to her husband, standing silent as a post, she confided, “Tweedie says I can sniff out newlyweds a mile away.”
Jack heartily doubted that Master Tweedie ever got the chance to say much at all, but he summoned a noncommittal smile all the same. “Ah well, about that room…” he prodded, still hopeful of getting Claudia behind closed doors before the explosion.
Reminded of her duty, Mistress Tweedie clapped her chubby hands. “Dinna stand about, husband, but show them up. The green room, I should think, for it has a bonny view o’ the courtyard and a cunning little dressing room tucked into the one side—the verra thing for a blushing bride,” she confided to Jack, with a sharp stab of her elbow. “I’ll send Lettie up wi’ a tray after ye’re settled, for I’ll wager ye’ll be wantin’ tae sup alone.”
Claudia’s and Jack’s repeated attempts to assure her that such extravagant generosity was appreciated but unnecessary—they would gladly take their supper in the dining room with the other guests—fell on deaf ears. Too weary to argue further, Jack said that supper in their room would be grand. Ignoring the violet daggers Claudia aimed at him, he gestured for her to follow the innkeeper up the carpeted stairs.
The green room was aptly named. Green velvet drapery swathed both the bed and window, and a stencil of ivy festooned the border between wall and ceiling. As soon as Tweedie left them alone, closing the chamber door behind him, Claudia rounded on Jack. All traces of sleep had vanished from her eyes, which now looked to be as sharp as tacks and more than fit for piercing straight through him.
“You allowed her to think we were wed!”
The outraged look she lanced him wasn’t verra flattering. Seeing it raised his hackles as well as resurrected the hurt. He wasn’t good enough for her—he kent that well enough and yet must she rub his nose in it?
“She supposed we were and I wasna about to gainsay her. ’Tis a proper tavern, Claudia, no like Alistair’s. Were I to tell her the truth, we’d soon find ourselves tossed out into the street.”
“But in France—”
“This is Scotland,” he said through set teeth and then stalked off to the far corner under the guise of unpacking his shaving things. “But if ye’d rather, I’m sure I can find you an empty cot in the tollbooth,” he offered, slamming his shaving cup and then his razor down upon the walnut washstand. She looked so crestfallen, so perilously close to tears, that he instantly regretted the harsh words. “Claudia, lass,” he said, leaving the unpacking to come to her side. “Let us no argue. I’ve to leave for the prison directly after supper. Aye,” he said in answer to the surprise in her eyes. “They’ll be keeping a room ready for me.”
Wrenching off her cloak, one arm catching in the lappet, she cut her gaze up to him. “Will not the innkeeper and his wife find that rather odd behavior for a lusty bridegroom?”
“They may,” he allowed, reaching behind her to extricate the tangled limb, “but I’ll no be the first ‘bridegroom’ with business to attend. Forbye I’ll be back for dinner tomorrow afternoon.” Determined to get the rest out before he lost his nerve,
he quickly added, “I thought we might climb to Arthur’s Seat to watch the sunset. That is, if ye’d like.”
“Arthur’s Seat?”
“Aye, ’tis a sort of wee mountain in the park behind Holyroodhouse. ’Tis a steep climb but well worth it for it gives a bonny view of the city and the Crags, too.”
“I…I would like that very much,” she said, and he wondered at the sudden wistful look she sent him before she turned away to hang her cloak in the wardrobe.
“I thought you might wish to do some shopping while I’m—” he hesitated, “—away. There are some bonny shops on Princes Street and along the Royal Mile.” When she only shifted her shoulders, he added, “I mean to leave Luicas behind to see to your needs.”
She blanched at that. “To guard me, you mean?”
The entrance of Luicas, with their saddlebags slung over one spindly shoulder and Elf in tow, saved him from answering. Grateful for the reprieve, Jack turned to address the boy. “Luicas, set that down and come hither. I’ve a charge for ye.”
Ever eager to make himself useful, the boy slid the bags from his arm and set them on the bench inside the door before coming forward. “What is it, Master Jack?”
“I’m off to the tollbooth after supper. I’ll need you to stand watch o’er Mistress Valemont until I return on the morrow.”
The lad’s face fell. “I’m tae stay behind, then?” At Jack’s nod, the corners of his wide mouth drooped lower still. “B-but who…who will help you tae test the trap and…and tae stretch out the rope and—”
“I expect I’ll manage on my own this once, lad,” he said, laying a consoling hand on the boy’s shoulder, for it was hard to be young, harder still to be young and yearn to be grown.
Luicas brightened. “Can we no take Mistress Claudia tae the prison wi’ us? She could take tea wi’ the warder’s wife until we’re through?”
Glancing beyond the boy to Claudia’s suddenly ashen face, Jack rushed to say, “Nay, wee Luicas, ’tis best for all concerned that Claudia stay behind and you with her.” At the boy’s crestfallen look, he added, “’Tis a weighty charge I’m giving you, lad. Edinburgh is a large city and full o’ foul and dangerous characters. I’m relying on you to keep her safe for me.”
Squaring his narrow shoulders, Luicas nodded in solemn recognition of the trust. “I’ll no fail ye, Master Jack. The lady shall no leave my sight. I swear it on my da’s grave.”
“There’s a good lad.” He dug into his sporran and counted out a stack of ten-pound notes, which he handed to the boy. “Tomorrow after breakfast, you’re to take Mistress Claudia out to the shops and purchase whatever it is she fancies.” Again that twitch of apprehension, that spine-tingling sense of impending danger. Heeding it, he added, “But mind you keep to Princes Street and the Mile and dinna go wanderin’ off to where you might come to harm.”
Looking resigned if not happy, Luicas pocketed the bills and then announced his intention to go below to see that the horses were being properly cared for.
Claudia had drifted over to the window to gaze out onto the courtyard below. She’d been caught up in lamenting that sunset she and Jack would never see together; it took the door closing behind Luicas to snap her from her sad thoughts.
“Why do you look so sad, Jack?” she asked, torn from her own misery by his wistful look.
“Ah well,” he allowed, coming to join her at the window, “’tis only that I was minded just now of how verra young he is and how in another year or so he’ll have come to see standing watch o’er a beautiful woman as more a pleasure than a duty.”
The compliment, as unexpected as it was unsought, took Claudia unaware. In the salons of Paris, poets had penned sonnets celebrating her beauty and painters had vied for the privilege of capturing her image on canvas, but none of those accolades had meant half so much as did Jack’s simple compliment.
Pretending interest in a jagged fingernail, she attempted to regain her equilibrium. “Thank you,” she murmured, for what more was there to say?
It was Jack’s turn to look away. “You dinna have to thank me for only speaking what is true.”
A knock outside their door put an end to their awkwardness. Jack left her to answer it.
A round-faced young maid stood in the hallway outside, a tray in hand. “Supper, sir,” she chirped, her sloe-eyed gaze looking Jack up and down, or so it seemed to Claudia. “Where shall I set it?”
Jack shrugged. “That wee round table by the fire, I suppose.”
Full hips swaying like a bell, she stepped over the threshold and crossed the patterned carpet to the hearth. She set the tray down and bent to lift the lids off the covered dishes, but shoving away from the window, Claudia waved her off.
“I will serve my husband,” she said very firmly.
Jack reached into his sporran, handed the girl a coin and then held the door for her. “Such a gentleman and sae generous,” she simpered, making a show of slipping the money inside her low bodice. “If ye need anything, anything a-tall, ye’ve only tae ring and ask for Lettie. That’s short for Lettice,” she added with a grating little giggle.
She must have caught Claudia’s withering gaze, for her smile fell and she scurried out into the hallway.
Yanking off pewter lids and then slamming them back down, Claudia remarked, “I suppose you think she is ‘beautiful’ too?”
Infuriating man, he only rolled his shoulders and said, “Well, I wouldna say she’s ugly.” Coming up on the table, he held out a chair for her.
Reminded that jealousy would only spoil what was to be their final hour together, Claudia sank into the floral-cushioned seat. To cover her gathering tears, she averted her eyes and began assessing the contents of the supper tray. Mrs. Tweedie had, it seemed, thought of everything, down to the chilled bottle of Flemish wine that had just been decanted.
Wishing she were indeed the blushing bride the innkeeper’s wife believed her to be, that she and Jack might have a lifetime of suppers and sunsets ahead of them, she looked up to find him watching her from his chair across the table, an unfathomable expression on his handsome face.
To break the uneasy silence she exclaimed, “Wine, how lovely.” Nerves on edge, she reached for his pewter goblet. “A toast, I think, to the shortest marriage that ever was.”
She’d meant to be amusing but the tightening of Jack’s jaw and the wounded look in his eyes told her she’d been anything but. “I’ll need to keep a clear head for the morrow.”
“Jack, I—”
“And,” he cut in, gaze hard, “I’m minded I work best on an empty stomach.” Removing its cover, he set his plate down on the floor and then whistled to Elf, who bounded over. “If you’ll excuse me…” He pushed away from the table and, to Claudia’s dismay, rose.
Listening to the dog’s gobbling, she looked on in stricken silence as he went over to the washstand where he stripped off his shirt to wash his face, arms and all that lovely expanse of gold-dusted chest.
Hating that they would part forever in anger, she started up. “Jack—”
“Not a word,” he ordered, his glaring expression framed by the shaving mirror.
She watched in stupefied silence as, dressed once more, he gathered up his few things, called a sated Elf to his side and then walked out the chamber door without so much as another word.
The supper wasn’t excellent but it was good. An entire beef roast, jacket potatoes, new peas and a pudding for dessert although Claudia scarcely had the appetite to stomach more than a few bites. Past caring that the wine was Flemish and not French, she poured herself a second glass, finished it and then poured herself another. Not because she wished to become drunk—setting out on the morrow with a heavy, throbbing head would be disastrous—but because she desperately needed to sleep.
And to do so, first she must deaden the pain.
But despite the three glasses of passably decent wine and a mattress and pillow stuffed with feathers instead of dried heather and bracken, Claudia lay
awake to see the sun rise over the spired skyline.
And to weep for all those sunsets that would never be.
His duty discharged, Jack stood before the cracked dresser-top mirror and stared at his hooded self for a long moment before pulling off the cover and tossing it on the scarred dresser top to join his discarded gloves. He ran both hands over his face, scratchy with budding beard and clammy with sweat, and asked himself yet again why it was he should feel so damned bad.
It had been, by everyone’s reckoning, a verra successful morning. Bull-necked and barrel-chested, the condemned had fired through the trap like a shot. Afterward the warder and the guards and even the prison surgeon had complimented Jack on a perfectly executed drop. Once their praise would have meant something to him, but now all he felt was edgy and restless as if his very skin trapped him like an ill-fitting coat, pinching in places, too loose in others.
The highwayman he’d turned off had been a nasty sort and wanted in five counties for nigh on ten years. Jack had met him twice, the night before when he’d come to the condemned cell to take his measurements and then that morning on the scaffold steps. Both times the prisoner had sworn that, though he’d killed before, he’d had nothing to do with the courier’s death, and both times Jack had reminded himself that he was an executioner, not a judge or a jurist and certainly not a priest. And yet if he were honest with himself he’d have to admit that he always felt better when they confessed.
But it was over now. Half of him couldn’t wait to return to the inn and Claudia but the other half dreaded the thought of facing her. She’d lived through the Terror in France, had seen men, women and even children murdered en masse, and because of that experience she painted all executioners with the same broad brush. Useless to point out to her that those he met on the scaffold were condemned not for their birth but for the foulness of their deeds.