by Nancy Butler
“Did he happen to tell you,” she asked archly, “that he was caught stealing from my father?”
Mr. Gable folded his arms over his chest and refused to look abashed. “From what I know of him, that’s a mite hard to swallow. I’ve seen the captain wade into a tavern brawl to save one of his crew, and I’ve seen him lift a spar off a man during a storm, when any second the whole tangle of wood and rigging might come tumbling down on them. He even gave me the money to make a new start here.” He tipped his head toward her. “If there is one thing I know about MacHeath, it’s that he doesn’t have the makings of a thief.”
“Only of a smuggler,” Alexa retorted.
Mrs. Gable quickly interjected, “The Brethren have their own code, most of them. My husband is as honest as a parson, miss.”
“The fact remains, MacHeath was caught robbing my father’s safe. He struck my cousin and bloodied his head. Fortunately, Quincy was able to knock him out, and then call for help.”
Mr. Gable spat, earning a look of reproof from his wife. “Might that be the same cousin MacHeath told me about, the one who set those ruffians on you? Begging your pardon, miss, he’s hardly someone whose word I would take on face value.”
Alexa chewed at her lower lip. Mr. Gable’s testimony echoed her own instincts about Simeon Hastings. “If MacHeath is so honest, so upright,” she said at last, “why, then, hasn’t he revealed his true identity to me?”
“I suggest you ask him that yourself,” Mr. Gable replied. “I would guess it tickled him that you didn’t recognize him. He always had a rare humor and was not above a joke or two in the old days.”
Alexa got to her feet and stood there wavering with indecision. Mrs. Gable spied Alexa’s bare toes beneath her gown and quickly fetched her a pair of clogs.
“You go off into the barn now and have it out with him,” she said, wrapping her own woolen shawl over Alexa’s shoulders. “That’s always the best way with men.” She cast a pointed look at her husband. “You’ll never get a straight answer unless you ask a straight question. Trust me.”
Chapter 7
MacHeath felt a blessed relief the instant he unstrapped the damned contraption from his arm. This was the longest he’d gone without removing it since the doctor in Edinburgh had fitted it on him. He rubbed at the red marks the leather harness had left on his arm and kept his eyes averted from the stump where wrist and hand should have been. At least there was no one here but the horses to observe this pitiful lack.
He set about rubbing the false hand with the neat’s-foot oil he kept in his saddlebag. It had gotten wet when he pulled Alexa out of the river, and he knew the delicate joints that allowed the fingers to flex would rust if they were not well oiled. While he worked, he chewed over Alexa’s behavior just now, the strange start she’d taken. Her eyes had stared at him in blank shock, as though she were seeing a ghost.
The possibility that she had finally determined his real identity occurred to him. And was then immediately discarded. If she hadn’t placed him that first morning, when she saw him in full daylight, she was never going to. Not that it had surprised him when she hadn’t—the face that looked back at him in his shaving mirror bore little resemblance to the young man he’d been ten years ago. Gone were the smooth brow, the relaxed mouth, and the unsullied complexion of his youth; they’d been replaced by a gaunt, weathered facade.
No, it was unlikely she’d have a revelation this late in the game. Still, something had shaken her composure. Perhaps it was, as she’d said, merely the aftershock of her encounter with Quincy’s men. But then why the devil had she sent him away? Had he so frightened her last night, with his pretense of seduction, that she feared to seek comfort from him now?
The notion disturbed him. It also disturbed him, looking back to their encounter at the inn, that his pretense had lasted all of ten seconds. As soon as he’d taken her in his arms, the instant he’d breathed in her sweet, heady scent, a hunger for her had risen up unbidden and completely overwhelmed him.
He couldn’t imagine why he had let himself touch her. Maybe it had been the wine he’d drunk, or the spark of desire he’d felt and instantly tamped down when he’d held her in the alley. Or maybe it was the notion that they were playing at honeymooning, and he knew with bitter certainty that he’d never again be with a woman like Alexa.
That he’d been able to move away from her, leave her with her own fledgling hunger written on her lovely face, had been a miracle. Somehow he had been able to muster a grin and a quip even though his body had been screaming with need.
Such a convincing performance was surely worthy of the London stage.
He put Alexa, with her indomitable spirit and her ripe, untried body, out of his mind, and set his thoughts to outwitting their adversaries. They were still out there, he knew, and not far away. They’d need time to clean up Finch’s wound and to regroup.
And then they would be back.
He had a thought to take Eb Gable and ride out in search of them, let the hunters become the hunted for a change. But he had no way of knowing in which direction they’d ridden. He and Eb could be away from the house when the two men came back for Alexa, leaving the women and the little boy at their mercy.
What he really needed was time, enough time to get a decent head start. If Alexa hadn’t been nearly frozen by the river water, they could ride off right now, while the coast was relatively clear. But he’d seen the toll the episode on the bridge had taken on her; she wouldn’t be fit to ride for hours, not until nightfall at least.
Another plan began to form in his head. If it worked, it would guarantee that he and Alexa would have an hour or more to get clear of Rumpley. They’d each be riding their own horses for a change—Eb had offered him a lanky chestnut mare for Alexa to ride, one he swore could keep up with the big hunter.
He smiled grimly as he focused on oiling his false hand and muttered, “Desperate times, indeed.”
Alexa went quietly through the door that connected the hallway to the side entrance of the livery barn. It was dark inside the cavernous structure—except for where a lantern hung near the end of the center aisle—and it was surprisingly warm. Most of the stalls were occupied; the curious horses gazed at her benignly over their slatted doors as she went toward the light.
The sound of her clogs on the wooden floor must have alerted MacHeath—he looked up abruptly from the grain bin, where he’d been occupied at some task, and took a step back. As she continued toward him, he retreated farther into the shadows.
“Go back to the house,” he called in a voice she had never before heard him use.
She stopped walking and said, “Simeon?”
He breathed a deep sigh. “So it’s out at last. I must say it took you long enough.”
“Weren’t you ever going to tell me?” she said with a catch in her voice. “I feel like the worst sort of fool. I imagine you were laughing at me the whole time for not knowing you were Simeon Hastings.”
“Simeon Hastings is dead,” he said in a monotone. “He died in Exeter jail. There is only MacHeath now. But none of that matters ... you must go back to the house.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she cried softly to his shadowy form. “I trusted you, and now I find that you have deceived and misled me ... oh, about so many things. I dare not leave here alone, but if I am to continue on with you, I must know what it is you are planning once you get to Cudbright. Please, Simeon, tell me what you intend.”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he said with a shrug.
The movement called attention to his right arm, which he was holding behind himself. She spared a moment to wonder if he’d been injured by one of Quincy’s men.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” she asked sharply.
Instead of answering, he backed even closer to the wall, where the darkness all but obscured him. “For the love of God, Alexa, I beg you to go back inside.”
She stood there in the aisle, unable to move forward, for su
ch was the urgency in his voice that she dared not approach him, and yet that same urgency compelled her to stay and discover what had put such fear into his tone.
On the surface of the grain bin before her, there lay an opened tin of neat’s-foot oil and a cotton cloth. Something was hidden beneath the cloth. She assumed he’d been cleaning his pistol, but when she moved up to the bin, MacHeath let out a soft curse.
She twitched the cloth aside and thought at first that the object beneath it was some sort of toy. It was a life-size wooden hand with a leather harness attached to one end, the narrow straps lined with lamb’s wool. It was too finely wrought to be a plaything, however. Whatever could he want with—
Her puzzlement quickly turned to anguish when the truth dawned.
Aware that his eyes were intently focused on her, she carefully replaced the cloth, willing her fingers not to tremble. She had not dared to touch the object. That would have been a gross invasion of his privacy, now that she knew what it signified. Again, she should have seen the signs right from the start.
For such a graceful man, he’d been awkward at certain tasks, such as tightening the saddle girth. He’d never even removed the horse’s bridle—replacing it would have been nearly impossible with only one serviceable hand. He also had never sat down to a proper meal with her, had never opened a bottle or done anything that required two good hands.
The recollections that flooded her, however, were no more than an excuse to keep from facing a horrific conclusion—Simeon Hasting, that vital, athletic young man who had possessed such an amazing ability as a draftsman, was now terribly maimed.
She cast him one brief look that was fraught with misery before she turned and scurried away down the stable aisle. She was nearly at the side door, before the inner voice she so rarely heeded made itself known to her in no uncertain terms.
What did it matter that he had lost a hand? He was still strong and brave and so very capable. He’d shot that wretched Bully Finch in the neck, and she doubted there was another man in the kingdom who could have made such a clean shot over the saddle of a fretful horse. It shouldn’t matter to her that he was less than whole.
But it did matter, if only because she knew instinctively that such an injury would leave a man feeling set apart, rejected. She was beginning to understand why he had taken refuge in the East End, where the detritus of London mingled in a territory free from Society’s harsh judgments.
The Simeon she had known all those years ago had been so proud—it would have destroyed him to be an object of pity or scorn. Or worst of all, of ridicule. Which explained why he had gone to great lengths to disguise his infirmity.
But did it really matter to her? She wrestled with the question. She had come here to confront him about his past, and now realized she was more concerned with his future ... and whether she might have a place in it. The thought shocked her. Did she really believe she could have any sort of life with a tattered rogue like MacHeath?
She might have shared her life with Simeon Hastings, had things gone differently. Her father would not have stood in her way; there was every chance he would have encouraged her. He’d seen in the young man the bright future of Prescott Shipyard and had voiced that sentiment to her more than once.
Ah, but there was little of Simeon Hastings left in MacHeath. She could almost believe what he’d said just now, that Simeon was dead. All that spark of eagerness, that passion to conquer new worlds, was gone. MacHeath was jaded, doubtless corrupt, and full of bitter humors. The events that had shaped his life from the time he escaped Exeter jail, combined with the injury that had cost him his hand, had conspired to make him an outcast from the world she dwelled in.
Outcast ...
And what was she, then? Exiled from her own home, living a half-life in London with an elderly relative too self-involved to notice Alexa’s discontent, forced to be part of a Society she scorned and who scorned her in return. She was barely a shadow of the free-spirited Alexa Prescott that Simeon had known. Until these past days, she amended, when her fettered soul had once again been set free.
They had both changed greatly, she realized. His alterations were simply more noticeable. But if he had been able to reanimate her to the point where she felt the wild, adventurous aspects of her nature returning, who was to say she was not having a similar effect on him? What had he said to her last night? I believe I am finding myself.
A wellspring of joy erupted inside her suddenly, and her complex, confusing doubts evaporated. Somehow, by some miracle, this man had been returned to her—it might very well have been from the dead, as he’d said, since he’d felt that lost to her for ten long years. She was an idiot to wonder over his motives or to lament his injury.
She spun around and began walking toward him. She was running full out by the time she reached his dark sanctuary.
“No!” he cried as she pitched into him, knocking him back against the wall.
“I will not turn away from you!” she cried, her fingers seeking for purchase on his shirtfront. “I will not. I cannot.”
He fought her, trying to pull away, but she was determined not to let him go.
“I don’t want your blasted pity,” he said between his teeth.
She forced him to turn in a half circle so that the diffused lantern light shone on her, and then she threw her head back. “Look at me! Is this pity you see in my face?”
But his eyes were closed tight, his own face taut with restrained emotion. “I can’t look at you, Alexa,” he said raggedly.
“Coward,” she taunted him gently. “What are you afraid you will see? A friend who trusts you, an advocate who believes in you?”
MacHeath could not articulate what he feared. It would destroy him to discover even the tiniest trace of maudlin sympathy in her blue eyes. Or worse yet, a stinging look of horrified revulsion.
“Simeon,” she murmured, laying her head against his chest. “I know I ran away from you just now, when I realized what was wrong. This has been an afternoon full of tumult and upsetting discoveries. I no sooner learn your true identity, than I am forced to cope with this unexpected tragedy. So spare me a little consideration, please. And some time to become accustomed to this.”
She ran her hand down his right arm, which was again tucked behind him, and he gasped loudly as her fingers encircled what remained of his wrist.
“Does it pain you?”
Like blazes, he longed to reply. He wondered how she would react if he told her that some nights his missing hand ached so intensely that he would awaken in a cold sweat. Ah, but then she would think he was addled as well as crippled.
“You must go now,” he said. “I will see that you have a proper escort. Gable will take you to Exeter on the mail coach if I ask it of him.”
“Ah, Mr. Gable, your old smuggling mate.”
“He was not to tell you any of that.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have no intention of returning home with anyone but you.”
“There is no point in arguing,” he said as he finally managed to thrust away from her. “You know who I am now ... you know absolutely that my reasons for taking you were less than noble, that I was more concerned with harming Quincy than with aiding you.”
“Yes, I did come to that exact conclusion. See, I do have some ability to reason. I even thought you might do away with me to hurt my father.”
“Your father? Why would I wish him ill? He was kind to me in every instance.”
“Yes, but he also stood by while they carted you off to jail. I was angry at him over that for a long, long time.”
He eyed her with evident surprise. “You believed in my innocence?”
She shook her head. “It was hard to refute what my cousin told us, especially after they found more money hidden in your rooms. But I begged my father to spare you. He could have just let you slip away, and none the wiser.”
MacHeath leaned his head back against the wall and laughed softly to himself. “I wanted to stand
trial,” he said. “You might not believe that, but it is true. I still had some notion that justice would prevail. But once I was inside the jail, I met a great many rogues who also insisted on their innocence. I saw that my voice was not going to carry much weight against a gentleman like Darwin Quincy. So when one of the other prisoners took the opportunity to escape, I was right on his heels.”
She touched his sleeve. “And so MacHeath was born.”
“It was my mother’s family name, I chose it on a whim.” He added grimly, “And I brought dishonor to it.”
“Oh, bosh,” she said. “Names are fleeting things, like a slate that can be wiped clean. My grandfather was Smelly Ned Prescott, the cockle monger. Papa never let that get in the way—he made the name Prescott one to be proud of.”
He gave her a halfhearted grin. “Smelly Ned, eh?”
Her eyes danced. “Worse than the River Exe at low tide, I swear it.”
“Oh, Alexa,” he said with a throb. He couldn’t stop himself from sliding his left arm around her. She stepped into his embrace, wrapping both arms tight around his neck.
“Tell me nothing’s altered between us,” she pleaded softly. “That we can go on from here.”
He said nothing, just gazed at her without trying to disguise the doubt he felt.
“We can go on,” she insisted. “Now that I know who you are ... and what you were. I understand that you suffered a terrible injury, but you seem to have made a good recovery. And how apparent is your loss, really, if I didn’t notice it after three days in your company? How greatly does it impede you if you were able to protect me from two ruthless men?”
“It impedes me enough,” he said gruffly.
He could not begin to convey to her how the loss had affected him. That knowing he could never again go to sea was a blight on his whole existence. Though, in fairness, she was perhaps the one woman who might understand. But he would not tell her. He could not reveal that after he and his crew had been ransomed from the French, he’d gone aboard several merchant ships in London looking for work, and that each time his application had been laughed off as a kind of joke.