by Julia Kelly
“You’re probably right,” said Lavinia, pulling a chair out from the little table where she took her meals when she had only a few moments between appointments.
“Hari doesn’t mind the cold,” Anika continued, sitting down and spreading her hands before the stove. “He never complains about it.”
“Scotland’s in his bones,” said Lavinia with a shrug.
Anika snorted. “He’s a little boy who never stops moving. That’s why he’s never cold. But I didn’t come to talk about the weather.”
“No?” asked Lavinia, pulling down stoneware mugs for their tea.
“What happened at Mr. Wark’s house?” Anika asked.
“He gave us dinner.”
“There must be more than that,” said Anika. “Were any of your clients there? Perhaps someone recognized you and there’s set to be a terrible scandal.”
“Why do you sound so thrilled at the idea of any of those things happening?” asked Lavinia.
This time it was her friend who shrugged. “A little scandal would liven the street up. All Mrs. Gantry ever wants to gossip about is that Mr. McGregor on Chambers Street sneaks weights onto the scales when he’s measuring out meat.”
“As though the butcher hasn’t been doing that for as long as I’ve been in this shop,” said Lavinia.
“Exactly. No good gossip.”
She cast a glance to the open door that revealed the stairs leading up to the workshop. Unwise though it might be, she wanted to tell someone what had happened yesterday. She was practically bursting with her excitement that after all of these years she and Andrew were as explosive as ever—maybe more so. That was the sort of thing a woman should share with her closest friend.
“After the supper I saw Andrew,” she said.
Anika’s eyes widened. “Captain Colter? Where?”
“His office.” Lavinia paused and took a deep breath. “And his rooms.”
“And I assume you didn’t spend that time discussing innocent childhood memories,” said her friend.
“We did some of that, but after.”
Anika threw her head back with a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” asked Lavinia, heat rising in her cheeks. She hadn’t worried that Anika would call her names or threaten to ruin her, but she hadn’t exactly expected to become a source of amusement either.
“Nothing,” said Anika, slowing to a chuckle. “I was just thinking about what that fool Wark would think if he were to ever find out.”
“He can’t know, Anika. No one can,” said Lavinia in a rush.
Her friend waved her hand in front of her. “You’ve nothing to worry about from me. I couldn’t care less if you let half the Royal Navy make love to you.”
Lavinia squirmed at the phrase “make love,” loaded as it was with meaning. It had been so long since she’d felt the sort of physical intimacy and emotional connection that she had with Andrew. This had been a rational, logical decision made by two unattached adults with a shared past. Nothing like half the Royal Navy.
She shook her head. This had happened because he was Andrew and she’d wanted him. Plain and simple.
“It seems as though neither of us never really let go despite everything that happened,” she said. “Do you think me terribly wicked?”
“I’d think you a fool if you had. The man is more handsome than anyone has a right to be.”
Lavinia laughed. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I think you do,” said her friend with a sparkle in her eye.
“Anika, you’re a happily married woman,” said Lavinia, pretending shock.
“I’m married, not dead, and I have two eyes that work perfectly well. I can see the way that man looks at you. And before you start to worry, I don’t think he has a single idea that you look at him the same way.”
Lavinia blushed. “It’s only natural that a woman who has slept with a man before should want to do it again.”
“Only if it’s enjoyable,” said Anika as the kettle began to whistle. “From the dark circles under your eyes, I’m going to guess that it was.”
“It was,” said Lavinia. More than she’d ever known it would be.
The bells over the shop’s front door jangled. Lavinia was prepared to ignore them, knowing that Fiona would be at her station behind the counter, ready to help her customer. A few seconds later, however, Fiona came tumbling through the kitchen door.
“Mr. Wark is here to see you, Mrs. Parkem,” said Fiona, bobbing a curtsy Lavinia had long ago told her wasn’t necessary.
“What is he doing here?” she groaned. She knew Wark was still her responsibility, and her discoveries the previous evening had made her even more inclined to help Andrew figure out the man’s plans. But she wasn’t yet prepared to deal with her landlord while the bloom of her evening with Andrew was still fresh.
“Shall I tell him to come another time?” Fiona asked, her voice trembling.
“No,” said Lavinia, knowing the young girl didn’t like dealing with the domineering landlord. “I’ll see him. Anika, if you’d like tea—”
When she turned, she found her friend was already on her feet, shaking out the pleats of her orange and yellow sari. “And miss this?”
With a sigh, Lavinia nodded, removed the kettle from the stove, and led their little band of three out to the front room.
“Mr. Wark,” she said brightly, clasping her hands in front of her, “what can I do for you this morning?”
The man looked from Lavinia to Anika and back again. “I had hoped to speak to Mrs. Parkem in private.”
Not on your life. She was willing to do quite a bit in the name of stopping this man and his plans, but intentionally being alone with him—even in the safety of her store—was not one of them.
“I’m afraid it’s such a busy morning,” she said. “Fiona is restocking the shop and Mrs. Pawar has been helping me fill orders. We’ve made so many dresses for the prince’s ball that it’s a wonder we haven’t run out of cloth entirely.”
“Not a single tailor in the city seems to be well supplied,” he said.
“Did you have a new suit of evening clothes made just for the ball?” Anika asked, a teasing twinkle Lavinia knew Wark would hate sparkling in her eye.
“My tailor is in London,” he said.
Lavinia’s brow furrowed. London? If Wark’s clothes were made in London, why did he have payments to an Edinburgh tailor in his ledger?
He cleared his throat. “I hope you enjoyed your time at dinner yesterday.”
She stared a moment before remembering the role she was supposed to play here and rushed to nod. “Very much. I must apologize again for fainting.”
Anika looked at her sharply, but she gave a little shake of her head.
“Ladies are delicate creatures,” he said. “It’s only surprising it doesn’t happen more often.”
No one in her life had ever described Lavinia as delicate—not with her generous hips and breasts—but if that was the way Wark wanted to think of her, fine. With any luck, he’d be languishing in jail in less than two weeks.
“It’s that delicacy that sometimes makes me wonder that you should want to run this shop,” he said, assessing the neatly stacked bolts of cloth and little drawers filled with buttons.
“I very much like having something of my own that I’ve grown. Rather like you did with your business,” she said.
He laughed. “I own mills and export thousands of tons of wool every year. It’s hardly anything like a dressmaker’s shop.”
Anika coughed, and Lavinia’s hands squeezed into fists. Was the man deliberately trying to enrage her?
“Besides,” Wark continued, “I’ve always believed that cultivating ambition in a woman is misguided. It’s far better for them to marry.”
Lavinia had always thought “to bite one’s tongue” was a ridiculous expression—why would that ever keep someone from saying something imprudent?—but that was exactly what she did now. The sting of pain
as her teeth pressed on the muscle kept her from saying exactly what Wark could do with his opinion about ambitious women.
“That’s all very enlightening,” she said slowly through gritted teeth.
With his back to her, Wark couldn’t see the horror on Anika’s face as Lavinia placated the man, but Lavinia could. One of these days, she was going to sit Anika down and tell her every little bit of what had been going on during this conversation.
“Well, I can’t stay long, so I will reach the reason for my visit,” said Wark. “I should be very honored if you would reconsider my offer and agree to accompany me to the prince’s ball.”
Lavinia stilled. The prince’s ball. Andrew wasn’t entirely convinced, but to her it seemed like the one place where Wark seemed the most likely to strike. If his goal was to assassinate the prince—which she was increasingly convinced it was—then where better for her to be than at the side of the man running the entire operation? With Wark, she’d know whom he spoke to and where he went. She might even be able to stop him.
Andrew wouldn’t like this at all, but she could stand to incur a little more of his ire in the name of this cause.
“I should be delighted,” she heard herself say.
A smarmy, wolfish smile spread over Wark’s lips. “Excellent. It should be a most eventful evening.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE FOLLOWING DAY found Andrew discovering a new hatred for the bell that hung over the door of his shop. Word must’ve gotten out that he was supplying Mrs. Parkem’s, because for the past three days all manner of tailors and dressmakers had been visiting Colter’s Fine Notions. Having to pretend that he enjoyed long discussions about horn versus mother-of-pearl and the merits of the different concoctions that could be used to shine brass buttons was beginning to grate on him. It didn’t help that Gillie seemed to enjoy sitting back and watching him fumble his way through the barrage of questions flung at him each day.
However, a job was a job, even if it was a false one, and he was going to do it well.
He put on the same pleasant smile he’d seen Lavinia use and turned to face his customer. Except it wasn’t a customer at all. It was Caleb Malcolm.
“You,” he said.
“It’s been a long time. I wondered if you would recognize me at all,” said Caleb.
Oh, Andrew recognized him. Although the man had grown into his features, he looked essentially the same as he had when he was fifteen, save for a puffiness around his eyes, some bruising, and a slight hunch to his once-proud carriage.
“How could I mistake my childhood best friend for anyone else?” asked Andrew.
Caleb snorted. “Livy always had that title and we both know it.”
There was something about the way that Caleb said Lavinia’s nickname that made Andrew wary. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I don’t suppose you’d stay away from my sister if I asked you to,” Caleb said.
So that was what this was about. Caleb was here to warn him off.
“No,” Andrew said.
“And if I assure you that you are not nearly good enough for her no matter how much you were able to scrape together after all your years at sea?”
This, Andrew thought, was the problem with childhood friends. They knew all of your most closely held vulnerabilities and could prod them at will, except Caleb had this one wrong.
It had taken him years to accept that while most people would say he wasn’t good enough for Lavinia, he had done more than enough to prove himself. He’d sailed the world and acquitted himself bravely. He’d been nearly drowned, shot at, stabbed, slashed, and almost poisoned. He’d served Her Majesty, even if sometimes begrudgingly, and he knew his worth as a man.
Being good enough for Lavinia no longer scared him, but the idea of trusting her once again did. He might have grown into the man he was destined to become, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d scarred him deeply. Intellectually he could understand why she’d married Parkem. He could sympathize with her, knowing now the pressure her family had put her under. Still, the lingering thought niggled at his brain, asking him if it was all true.
Yet it hadn’t stopped him when they’d been alone in his office. He’d been intoxicated first by the anger at seeing her wounded brow and then by the relief of understanding she’d left Wark’s house unmolested. He might’ve been able to control himself and set her aside if she’d been cold and rigid in his arms, but instead she’d returned his kiss with every ounce of passion he’d remembered her to possess. That was when he’d lost his damn mind, taken her back to his rooms, and found solace in her.
That was why he was doing his best to try to stay away, checking the tug of invisible forces that kept tempting him to sprint over to her shop, order her staff out of the building, and lock the two of them away in her bedroom for a fortnight.
“What do you want, Caleb?” he asked.
His old friend shot him a rueful smile. “You two always did whatever it was you wanted, damn everyone else.”
“We were in love.”
There. He said it and he hadn’t even choked on his words. It had been a full day since he’d bid her good-bye at the door of his rooms and that had been roiling around in his mind the entire time. Saying it out loud to himself had been something of a test. He’d known that his heart had hardened if not healed when it no longer hurt to say “I loved Lavinia. I no longer love Lavinia.” But the previous night, the words had no longer had the detached quality he’d come to rely on. Now they were imbued with something entirely new that he knew it was best not to grow too comfortable with.
“I was sitting in her kitchen when she came home,” said Caleb.
“She’s a grown woman. She can do as she pleases,” said Andrew.
“You might think that, but no one else does. She brought down her own station in the world, and I’d like to be sure that she doesn’t fall any farther,” said Caleb.
Andrew stared at the man he was quickly beginning to think of as his former friend. “You don’t actually believe that.”
“It’s a fact, and an indisputable one at that. Lavinia was a merchant’s wife, and now she’s a dressmaker,” said Caleb.
“She married a merchant who left her with nothing but debts and she had the fortitude to pull herself out of that situation and strike out on her own. She deserves your admiration, not your disdain,” Andrew gritted out.
Lavinia’s brother blanched at that. “You don’t know a thing about my admiration for my sister. You haven’t spoken to me in more than a decade. Not one letter. Not one note to tell me that you’d survived. My sister wasn’t the only one who cared what happened to you.”
Andrew shoved a hand through his hair, trying to calm the mixture of anger and shame warring in him. Caleb was right. He hadn’t even bothered to write to his old friend to tell him he was alive. Seeing what he’d thought was Lavinia’s betrayal laid out so clearly for himself that day had wiped all desire to retain any aspect of his old life. He’d stayed away from Eyemouth for years, returning only briefly when his father had fallen ill, and refusing to go into town. He’d cut that part of his life out as though it had meant nothing to him because that had been the easiest thing to do. Not once had he given thought to his old friends. To the people who might care.
“I should’ve told you I was alive,” he said.
Caleb snorted. “Well, that’s at least a start. Do you know how I found out?”
“No.”
“My father wrote me. You might think a woman would be inconsolable after her dead fiancé appeared at her doorstep just two days after she married another man, but not my sister.”
Andrew winced, another little slash across his heart, but Caleb continued. “Instead she fell into a state. She wasn’t sad, she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t anything. She walked around for two months with nothing more than a blank stare, hardly seeing anyone. She wouldn’t talk to anyone. Parkem tried raging at her and begging and sweet-talking her. Nothing
snapped her out of it.
“My father thought I might be able to talk to her, so I came down from Edinburgh for two weeks. Nothing I said did a thing.”
Andrew’s tongue was dry and it hurt to swallow around the emotion building in his throat at the thought of Lavinia with all the light in her dimmed.
“What brought her back?” he asked.
Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently, one morning she woke up and decided to reenter the world. She never told anyone what had happened, but we all know what caused it.”
Him. The things he’d said. Those ugly words. It had felt good saying them and watching her face crumple. He’d wanted to hurt her badly, but now he was a different man. Now he couldn’t imagine anything as cowardly.
“I’m not going to hurt her if that’s what has you worried,” said Andrew.
“You’re a fool if you believe that,” said Caleb.
“It’s the truth.”
His old friend cocked his head to the side and studied him. “It’s too late, you know. You’ve already hurt her just by coming back.”
Caleb’s words twisted, a knife to the gut.
“If you can’t be certain you won’t hurt her again, leave her alone,” Caleb said.
Andrew knew he should be able to promise that. They were just simple words that, with the application of his considerable reserves of willpower, should’ve been easy to execute. But nothing about Lavinia was simple. He’d tasted her again, and his appetite for her had come roaring back. He should be man enough to walk away from her and the inevitability of the mess they would make of their lives if this all went wrong. She was at the center of his mission. He still had to work with her. Protect her.
How are you going to do that when even thinking about Wark looking at her makes you rage?
“You think you know what’s best for your sister?” asked Andrew.
Caleb nodded. “I do, even if she doesn’t want to hear it.”
“And what is that?” asked Andrew.
“She should marry Wark.”
The words hit Andrew like a punch to the gut. Of course Caleb, who knew nothing of Wark’s plot, thought she should marry the man. Wark might be a bore, but he was wealthy and he was clearly infatuated with her, if not outright lustful. Which was why, at the present moment, Andrew wanted to put his fist through a wall just thinking about Lavinia walking down the aisle to meet that man.