The Allure of Attraction

by Julia Kelly

  “Actually, you’re interrupting a rather important conversation,” Wark threw over his shoulder without bothering to turn.

  Lavinia’s fingers gripped the scissors so hard that she wouldn’t have been surprised to find them a twisted wreck in her hands.

  This is not happening.

  With a weather-beaten face and hair more sun-bleached then she’d ever seen it, Andrew stood before her, not as she’d last seen him in the modest dress of a sailor waiting for his next voyage, but as a man of comfortable affluence. He’d always been tall and rangy, but now he seemed to fill the entire front room of her shop. He was forcing her to pay attention to him. To notice the way his jacket stretched over well-muscled shoulders. To fight a blush that spread as her eyes raked over his body, taking all of him in and finding him—despite her better judgment—just as attractive as the last time she’d seen him.

  More.

  “Why are you here?” she choked out.

  “You know this man?” Wark asked, putting his body between Andrew and her.

  She pushed out a breath as though she’d been forced underwater and only just allowed to bob to the surface. “I do.”

  “Has he been bothering you?” asked Wark.

  Of all the times for this impolite, inappropriate ass to play the gentleman . . .

  “No. I haven’t seen him in—”

  “Weeks,” said Andrew with a laugh. It was passable enough to the casual observer, but she could hear the brittleness in it. “I was on a buying trip and I’ve been remiss in paying my best customer a visit.”

  “A buying trip?” Wark asked at the same time as the word “customer” formed in silent question on her lips.

  “I’m one of Mrs. Parkem’s suppliers.” He nodded a bow. “Andrew Colter, purveyor of fine buttons, ribbons, and notions for ladies’ fine garments.”

  She squinted at him hard. It had finally happened. The salt water he loved so much had washed all of the sense out of his rock-hard skull and left him a stark raving lunatic.

  But then Andrew folded his arms so that his right arm lay across the front of his chest. He tucked his thumb, ring, and pinky fingers behind his others, making a discreet two.

  A lump of unexpected emotion formed in Lavinia’s throat. It was a sign—their sign—they’d used when they were children whenever one of their mothers tried to scold them for getting up to no good on the dusty streets or rocky shores of Eyemouth.

  The two of us, we’ll never tell.

  “Mr. Colter, you must read minds, for I’m nearly out of mother-of-pearl buttons,” she said, swallowing down the slight prick of tears that threatened at the unexpected memory.

  “We can’t have that,” said Andrew with a nod.

  The door to the shop swung open, and Moira hurried in, shaking rain off the double cape of her coat.

  “It’s blowing a gale outside, Lavinia,” the lady sang out before clapping eyes on Andrew. “Oh, hello.”

  “Madam,” said Andrew with a respectful bow.

  “Mrs. Moira Sullivan,” her friend said, making no effort to hide her examination of Andrew from head to toe. Lavinia squeezed her eyes shut. Love her though Lavinia did, Moira would certainly sense the crackle of tension in the room, and then Lavinia would be forced to answer questions. Many questions.

  “Mrs. Sullivan, Mr. Andrew Colter,” she gritted out. “He keeps me in buttons.”

  “Would that we all were so lucky,” said Moira with a wry tone that told Lavinia that the older woman saw straight through the lie.

  A fierce blush crept up the back of Lavinia’s neck, but she forced herself to keep her chin up. This was her shop, and she was not going to stand for this absurdity.

  Lifting the counter flap, she marched out, catching a glimpse of Fiona peeking out from the door that led to the salons. “Moira, if you’ll follow Fiona, she’ll show you to your room.”

  Fiona’s eyes widened, but she nodded. With one last glance at Andrew, the lady followed.

  “Now, Mr. Wark,” said Lavinia, opening the shop door, “I trust that you will have a good day. Please tell your mother I will have her dress ready for her fitting Friday.”

  Wark’s eyes narrowed, and he scowled at Andrew again. For a moment, Lavinia thought he might protest and try to act the savior again, but for once he did as he was told, bowing and murmuring his good-byes.

  She shut the door firmly behind Wark and then spun around to face her former fiancé.

  “What in God’s good name are you doing here, Andrew?”

  Chapter Three

  THE SMILE SLID off Andrew’s face the moment they were alone.

  “Trust me, I’m asking myself the same thing,” he said.

  “And what is all this tosh about you supplying me with buttons?” she asked.

  “I’ve acquired an appreciation for notions in the last twelve years,” he said.

  She wrenched the front door open. “I have a full book today, and three orders that need to be finished tonight. I have no time for facetiousness and even less patience. Leave.”

  And let me be.

  But instead of moving, he simply stared at her, his mouth twisted into a grimace.

  “Fine.” She let the door go, and for a moment they stared at each other, at a stalemate.

  As a woman, she couldn’t help but appreciate that he’d grown considerably since she’d last seen him, filling out as only a man who uses his body to make his living can. As a business owner, she couldn’t help but be annoyed that there was no possible way she could physically throw him out into the street.

  “You may let yourself out,” she announced.

  Her skirts swung out around her ankles and reclaimed some of the space he seemed to take up as she brushed past him. But she didn’t get far. His hand fell on her arm—not hard, but commandingly enough to make her stop, tiny jolts of awareness pricking up and over her body. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  His fingers burned her skin through the wool sleeve of her dress. His touch had always made her blood pound, and the insanity of long-buried memories set her body aching for him—a response she couldn’t control any more than she could the rising of the sun.

  But then everything had changed.

  How long did it take you to jump into Alistair Parkem’s bed?

  She wrenched her arm away, the sting of his words as fresh as the day he’d said them. She wanted nothing to do with this brand of fire any longer.

  “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it right here,” she said.

  He shook his head, one of his blond curls springing loose from his water-combed hair. “Not here. Not when there’s a risk of being interrupted again.”

  “We’ll be interrupted everywhere. My staff is here, I have a full day of fittings, and my brother is fond of traipsing in at all hours.”

  He stilled. “Caleb is still in Edinburgh?”

  “Where else would he be?” she asked, even though she knew what he must be thinking. Caleb had spoken of London for as long as she could remember, but Andrew should know that ambitions weren’t always realized.

  Or perhaps that was just her experience.

  “Is there anywhere else we can go?” he asked again.

  Even bright and early in the morning when she was her very tallest after a night’s sleep, she barely reached his breastbone. Still, she straightened her spine, not giving an inch. “Why should I give you a moment of my time after what you said the last time I saw you?”

  “Because”—he leaned close enough that she could feel his hot breath caress her cheek and smell the earthiness of his wet wool jacket—“you know that I hate you enough that if I sought you out, it must be very important.”

  She glared up at him. “How fortunate that the feeling is mutual.”

  He took a step back, but it wasn’t the submission of a man relenting under a woman’s angry scrutiny. His own distaste was clear on his face, and even though the last thing she wanted was to care, she could feel her heart crack whe
re it had originally split more than a decade ago.

  Damn him. Damn him for not staying away like he was supposed to. She could’ve happily gone the rest of her days without seeing him again, putting him behind her with the determination of a woman who refuses to be defined by her mistakes. By her betrayals.

  Whatever guilt she held, however, was not as powerful as her desire to see the back of him. He didn’t get to torment her after all these years, passing silent judgment on her when he knew nothing of her life. He could tell her whatever he was there for, and then she could go back to her life, content to never see him again.

  Pulling her shoulders back, she strode to the door that led to the back of the shop and glanced back. “Are you coming or not?”

  Andrew grunted, but she didn’t linger to see if he followed. The clip of his heels was signal enough.

  She walked quickly past the corridor to the salon and the stairs to the workroom and into the kitchen, but she didn’t stop there. Instead, she pushed through to the back door that led to the close connecting the buildings on this block. The downpour that had soaked Moira had subsided to a light mist of early-autumn rain, but she hurried along, not wanting her curly hair to frizz any more than it was wont to do.

  “Where are we going?” Andrew asked from behind her.

  She turned a corner and stopped before the nondescript door of a stone building. “Worried I’ll bludgeon you in the back alley?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said.

  Instead of answering, she rapped twice on the door. It swung open a moment later and a little boy greeted them. He was freshly dressed, his hair damp from a bath. She couldn’t help but smile, knowing that, despite his mother’s best efforts, neither his pale blue cotton kurta nor his white linen trousers would stay dirt-free for long.

  “Hello, Hari. Is your mother in the shop?” she asked.

  “Aai!” Hari shouted, and raced into the shop as quickly as his seven-year-old legs would take him.

  “This way,” said Lavinia, glancing at a frowning Andrew.

  Anika’s shop was laid out much like Lavinia’s, with a kitchen in the back, a set of stairs leading to rooms that served as living quarters above, and a corridor off of which stood Mr. Pawar’s office and a storeroom where the family stocked the beautiful fabrics that were their trade.

  “It’s a little early for chai,” Lavinia’s friend said as she trailed behind Hari, who’d zipped out of the stockroom again like a rocket. Anika stopped short at the sight of Andrew, even as her son bolted up to him.

  “Who are you?” Hari asked, scrutinizing Andrew with open curiosity.

  Andrew’s eyes cut up to Lavinia’s and held for a moment. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

  Hari nodded quickly.

  “I’m supposed to tell you that my name is Mr. Colter, but I’m really Captain Colter,” he said.

  “Why?” asked Hari.

  “For adult reasons. But I can tell you that because I can see you’re the man of the house.”

  Lavinia thought Hari, who was at the age where he peppered everyone in his path with questions, would ask “why?” again, but instead the boy scrunched his nose up. “You don’t look like a captain.”

  “What do captains look like?” Andrew asked, crouching down so that he was at eye level with the boy.

  Hari tipped his head to one side, his black hair falling in his eyes. Then he shrugged. “They have spyglasses. Where’s your spyglass?”

  The corners of Andrew’s mouth lifted a fraction. “I left it on my ship.”

  Hari considered this and then nodded. This was an acceptable explanation.

  “Hari, go play upstairs,” said Anika, brushing his hair back and giving him a little push to send him on his way.

  With the boy gone, Anika glanced between the two of them. “Well, you aren’t here to complain about your brother.”

  “No.” Lavinia shot her a tight smile. “Could we have use of one of your rooms for a few minutes?”

  She knew she wouldn’t have to explain to Anika that there were some conversations a businesswoman didn’t want to have when her staff was in earshot.

  “Mrs. McLean is coming to look at bolts of calico, and Vinat doesn’t like anyone to use his study while he’s gone,” said Anika. “There’s the storeroom . . .”

  “That will be fine,” said Andrew, putting his hand to Lavinia’s back. She jolted forward at the warmth that flooded her body. She remembered what it had meant to be touched by him once. Her first love. Her first kiss. Her first everything. He’d made her heart sing and her body sigh, but he wasn’t that man any longer. Still, he didn’t get to touch her as though it was a matter of no consequence.

  “I’ll be in the front of the shop, Lavinia.” Anika scrutinized Andrew as she adjusted the pallu of her sari to sit higher on her shoulder. “It’s very easy to hear a woman shout from there.”

  “Thank you, Anika,” she said.

  The Pawars’ storeroom was one of Lavinia’s favorite places in the entire city. It was lined with neatly stacked bolts of colorful cloth along all four walls. Raw silk, georgette, taffeta, and chiffon along one long wall, and cottons, calico, and jute on the other. Every one of these bolts could be made into any number of garments, and something about the promise of transformation gave her comfort.

  “This wasn’t what I had in mind, but it will do,” he said, looking around. “Even if you can hear a woman scream from the front shop.”

  “I’m a widow and Anika’s husband goes on long trips back to India to purchase cloth directly from his suppliers. We look after one another,” she said. “Now, what is it that you want to tell me?”

  When he’d walked through her door he’d pretended to be a genial fellow shopkeeper. Then he’d torn off that mask to show his raw anger. Now, another layer fell away and all she could see was the tiredness around his eyes and the tightness of his lips. He looked like a man who had had enough.

  “I was sent to find you,” he finally said.

  “I’m not very hard to find. Everyone in Eyemouth knows about my fall in fortune.”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t someone from Eyemouth. It was someone in the War Office.”

  “The War Office? What in heaven’s name would they want with me?”

  He pushed his hand through his hair. It did nothing to tame that one rebellious curl that had sprung loose in her shop. Years ago, it would’ve been the most natural thing in the world for her to brush it back into place, but not now. The easy, comfortable love they’d shared had rotted until there was nothing left.

  “I need your promise that you won’t tell anyone what I say here,” he said.

  She began to laugh. “A promise? Really?”

  “Is that so strange?” he asked.

  “I believe your very last words to me were, ‘I never would’ve thought that a promise would mean so little to you.’ Right after you accused me of being unfaithful. We can’t forget that.”

  A muscle in his jaw flexed. “This is a serious matter, Lavinia. Promise.”

  There was such weight to his voice that after a moment she nodded once, determined to give him only the barest satisfaction regarding her compliance.

  It seemed to be enough to mollify him because he said, “I have reason to believe that someone has been bringing weapons into Edinburgh and stockpiling them.”

  She paused, unsure of what to do with that bit of information. “Why is that any concern of yours?”

  He drew in a breath, and the tiredness was back. “Because for the last twelve years I’ve been working for the War Office in a clandestine way.”

  A long beat of silence stretched between them because Lavinia didn’t know what on earth a woman was meant to say to that.

  Finally, she ventured to ask, “Are you a spy?”

  “People who go around declaring that they’re spies have a tendency to find themselves dead,” he said.

  She crinkled her nose. “Who tells others that they�
��re a spy?”

  “Usually foolish men who are hoping it will make women more inclined to fall into bed with them,” he said.

  Well, there was no chance of that happening with them, even if her body did pulse toward him when he spoke.

  “If you’re not a spy, then what are you?” she asked.

  “In this instance I’m a handler, and my assignment is to recruit you to help the War Office.”

  All the air in her lungs rushed out as she slumped back against the wall of silk. “Why me?”

  “My superiors believe that you’re the person best positioned to win the confidence of the man who owns the warehouse where those weapons were found,” he said.

  “And who would that be?”

  “Harold Wark.”

  She blinked at him twice. “Mr. Wark?”

  “Yes.”

  “The rather jowly, unpleasant man who was just in my shop?”

  “Yes,” he said, his tone clipped.

  She burst out laughing. The very thought that Wark was dealing in anything more dastardly than merino was absurd. “The only person to whom Mr. Wark is a danger is me.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his tone sharp.

  “What you walked into, Andrew, is Wark’s monthly routine. He collects the rent and flirts outrageously. He hasn’t asked me to be his next mistress, but I’m sure he’s working his way up to it. The man is unscrupulous.”

  “What?” he bit out.

  “I’m a widow and a shopkeeper,” she said, leveling him with a look. “Men like Wark feel that gives them the right to make advances.”

  “You weren’t always a shopkeeper.”

  “I wasn’t always a widow either.”

  For a moment, she thought she saw anger flash in his eyes. Good. He should know what it feels like to be here with him. But then the look was gone.

  “Even more reason to help the War Office bring Wark down,” he said.

  “And what exactly do you suspect him of?” she asked.

  “My superiors have reason to believe that he might use the Prince of Wales’s visit as an opportunity to carry out an act of violence.”

  “Why?”

  A tiny, rueful smile touched his lips. “I asked myself the same thing before I read the dossier I was given on the train up from London. Wark has been ordering the movement of large amounts of money out of both his personal and company accounts. At the same time, an intelligence agent out of the field office here intercepted a letter sent from Wark’s house to a railway hotel on Princes Street. It was so blasé it seemed almost cryptic, and we’re certain it’s written in a cypher we haven’t cracked yet. There has also been an increase in the number of Wark’s associates coming and going from his house at all hours.”