William glanced out a window along the far wall of the shop. A low whistle escaped him “You might want to take a look out back.”
James stalked over to the window, which looked out on an alley behind the shop. The view here was far different from the pristine white counters where most of Moraig purchased their cuts of meat. Out back, he could see barrels of offal and buzzing flies, and everywhere he looked there was dried blood and bits of hair. His stomach churned like a spinning top, threatening to purge itself from the visual violence.
If Caesar had been here, there was no evidence he still lived.
William peered out at a split carcass that was hanging from a chain across the narrow alley. “Does that look equine in origin?” he asked, squinting at the shape of it.
“Bovine.” James closed his eyes to the red muscle and white cartilage outlined in the shape of ribs. He willed it to be true. Please God, let it be true.
A shadow fell across them, and James whirled to find the butcher’s rotund shape outlined in the door frame.
“MacRory,” he said slowly.
“MacKenzie.” The butcher stepped inside his shop, moving from backlit sun to shadows, each footfall more menacing than the last. His mouth parted, revealing the red-rimmed space his front teeth had so recently occupied. The sight brought a spasm of guilt to James’s chest.
He had knocked out MacRory’s teeth last night. He had forgotten that part in his concern over Caesar. He supposed an apology was in order. Instead, he swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, and forced himself to ask the question he had come for. “My horse has gone missing. Do you know anything about him?”
MacRory’s eyes narrowed. He made a great show of scratching his whiskered chin. “Well now, I see a lot of horses. Which one was yours again?”
Was. The man had said “was.”
Worry for Caesar surged through him. “He’s a chestnut stallion with a white blaze, socks on his hind feet. Stands just over seventeen hands.” James risked a peek out the nausea-inducing window again. “A bit too-fine boned to make a good steak,” he added.
“I don’t sell horse meat.” The butcher sounded offended. “And I don’t like customers looking out in the alley behind my shop. ’Tis bad for business.”
James returned his gaze to the glowering butcher. He supposed he could see the logic in that. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to touch a nice cut of beef again after witnessing the carnage that lay just beyond the plate glass.
“I’m here because David Cameron sold you a black mare. He’s got no cause to lie about it. So if you don’t deal in horses . . .”
The butcher interrupted him with a snort. “I didn’t say I don’t deal in them, just that I don’t carve them up.”
James took in the man’s soiled apron, the dirt and less mentionable filth that lay beneath MacRory’s fingernails like a storefront sign. He raised a brow. The man was a butcher. There were not a lot of other options here.
MacRory flushed under the scrutiny. “I admit I purchased a black mare from Cameron. But I bought her with an eye toward her value as a broodmare, not as dog meat.” He leaned in, his lips curving upward beneath his disgusting beard. “Don’t tell the magistrate that, though. He gave me the mare at a bang-up price.”
“Well, how did I end up with her if you bought her?” James asked in irritation. It seemed he was no closer to finding Caesar than he had been on storming in here, and while he was happy not to find his horse in pieces, he still had no idea where the stallion was.
The butcher shrugged. “How the devil should I know?” He grinned then, the atrocity of his ruined mouth front and center. “I didn’t keep her more than a day. Sold her right quick, and at a profit to boot.”
James grabbed on to the one meager clue. “Who bought the mare?” If he could find the end buyer, intuition told him he would also find Caesar. Although how these damnable pieces of the puzzle all fit together was becoming impossible to imagine, much less sort out.
MacRory shuffled his feet a moment, hands fluttering about his hips. “Can’t rightly remember. If it wasn’t you, guess it could have been Hillston, down on the south side of town. Or maybe McDougal. I do a fair bit of this sort of thing, though I’ll thank you not to spread it around. It’s hard to keep it all straight.”
James struggled against his mounting impatience. Each new clue, each lead, just seemed to lead him further into a quagmire of confusion. Caesar was still missing. Lady Thorold was still hiding. And apparently, the butcher was a discriminating connoisseur of horseflesh, but not horse meat. He stared at his brother, thinking hard. What should they do next?
Head off and ask every horse trader in Moraig if they had seen Caesar?
Or, now that he at least knew the horse wasn’t bound for someone’s dinner table, did he return his focus to the more pressing issue of finding the woman he had married last night?
William, for his part, appeared to have something different in mind. He cleared his throat, and tossed a narrow-eyed glance toward James. “My brother has something he wants to tell you.”
“I do?”
“Yes.” William nodded toward the butcher. “Go on with it.” When James did no more than stand there stupidly, he jerked his chin encouragingly, spreading his hands palms-up in a universal symbol of apology.
James slumped in defeat. Damned if his brother wasn’t right. Damned if his brother wasn’t always right.
“I’m sorry about your teeth,” James offered, knowing it was true, knowing that an apology was the only thing that might convince MacRory not to spread and expand upon the tale about what had happened last night. “I was not thinking clearly, and, well . . . suffice it to say, I wish it hadn’t happened.”
The butcher’s bushy brows shot up. “Oh, I’d say you were thinking plenty clear. And I don’t blame you a bit. Why, if I had just gotten married and you tried to kiss my pretty new wife, I’d have aimed a bit lower than your teeth.”
James was startled. “You tried to kiss her?” His mind flew faster, wrapped wider around the memory the man’s words conjured. The butcher lifting the blond-haired sprite up in a big bear hug, her squeak of protest, and then his fists, swinging of their own accord.
The butcher’s cheeks turned ruddy at the question. “Well, she was a right sweet thing, and it is a tradition. Kiss the bride and all.”
James managed to grind out, “She’s not my bride.” And she wasn’t. His own memory disowned it, and Cameron had confirmed it.
So why did part of him still squeeze tight at the thought?
MacRory perked up at that. “She’s not? Well, that’s a fine bit of luck then.” He licked his lips, and his eyes took on a predatory gleam. “Does that mean she’s still available?”
All thoughts of apology promptly became tangled up in James’s ears. It occurred to him it would be only a little more trouble to aim for the man’s back molars. His fists were halfway to attention when William grabbed his shoulders and shuffled him out of the shop, calling out a chorus of “thank-yous” and “sorrys” behind them.
His brother gave him a hard shove, sending James stumbling out onto the busy street. “You just got through saying you were sorry to the man, and there you go, about to do it again! MacRory is only having a bit of sport with you.” William poked James in the shoulder with a self-righteous finger. “This woman has you tied up in knots. You have to decide: either you want her or you don’t. This flipping back and forth is going to make you cross-eyed and annoy everyone who is trying to help you.”
James took a deep breath. He didn’t need his brother’s reminder to realize he was acting like a fool. What was it about this girl that simultaneously aroused his anger and his protective instincts? His fists resisted his commands to unfurl, and he concentrated on loosening his fingers in slow, deliberate steps. He had become adept at controlling his unruly temper with the sawdust-fi
lled bag he kept in his kitchen, spent hours each day throwing punches until his lungs burned and his knuckles cracked and bled.
But there was no sawdust effigy here. There was only William, with his crooked nose and congenial smile and damnably right words. William, and a gathering crowd of curious onlookers.
James’s hands dropped to his waist. His brother was right. He had forgotten what was important, neglected to consider that no matter what damage he had done last night, he still had a responsibility to Moraig’s citizens—and to himself—to conduct his affairs with dignity. Knocking out more of MacRory’s teeth or picking a fight with his well-meaning sibling was not going to help the town’s residents trust his legal advice. And neither would milling about the streets like a love-struck swain, searching for his missing paramour in every hole and crevice.
Just as he was taking the deep breath necessary to restore himself to calm, he was nearly bowled over by someone who darted from the crowd, moving like the wind. He felt the impact of the knife rather than the pain of it, a blow to his chest that snagged a second on muscle and bone before sliding southward. He shoved hard against his attacker, caught the slightest glimpse of white-blond hair and a slim build before the figure was off and running, trouser-clad legs stirring up clouds of dust on Moraig’s dry streets.
And then his assailant was gone.
James lifted an incredulous hand to his chest. His fingers came away sticky with blood.
William’s strangled gasp came louder, closer, and then, finally, James felt the grasp of his brother’s fingers on his arm. “That bastard stabbed you!” William exclaimed. “Can you stand?”
“Aye. It did not go deep.” His legs, oddly enough, felt steady beneath him. He edged his fingers around the periphery of the wound. Although it bled, it was reassuringly shallow. “ ’Tis a scratch,” he clarified. “I would not even tolerate one of Patrick’s sorry bandages on it.”
His gaze fell to the street. A knife lay there, coated with his blood. He bent down and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. No, not a knife . . . some sort of instrument. It was curved and had a folding blade, but that was where the similarity ended. A sharp implement would have been cleaner, quicker.
Deadlier.
“Bloody hell, that’s the second time someone tried to kill you today,” William growled, shaking his head at the discovery. “First the girl tries to kill you with a chamber pot, and now this.”
James wiped the blade on his coat and nodded grimly as he slipped it into his pocket. The pain, momentarily delayed, became a slicing want in need of attention, but he ignored it as he turned over the facts in his mind. Yes, it was the second time he had been attacked today.
And only the second time in his life, as well.
“Do you think this could be related to the business with Lady Thorold?” William asked, his voice a hard rumble.
His brother’s palpable anger made James feel better for some reason. He nodded again and lifted his eyes to the crowd, searching. There. Moving north, past the milliner’s shop. A towheaded figure wove its way in between the crowd. The figure was dressed like a man. That much he had ascertained during the attack. But wearing trousers did not make one male, any more than wearing a dress made one a lady.
The figure who had careened into him had been bone-thin, with a pale shock of hair barely visible under a cap. James’s earlier anger returned tenfold then, burning an empty hole inside him. Had she just tried to kill him? His feet had already started moving before he figured out what came next.
What had William said in the moments before he was attacked? He needed to decide what he wanted. This little incident had just helped him make up his mind.
He did want her.
He wanted to see her pay.
Chapter 13
IT TOOK NEARLY the entire rest of the meal for Georgette to shake off the unsettled feeling that plagued her following the conversation with Reverend Ramsey. Her sandwich tasted like sawdust, the tea like warm river water. Her mind felt as numb as her taste buds.
How had she not seen what her cousin was plotting, what he was capable of? She had thought Randolph’s invitation for a summer visit innocent, an altruistic extension of the fondness they had once shared for each other. It was not the first time she had been wrong about a man.
But that did not make it any easier to digest.
It was disconcerting to realize how narrowly she had escaped her cousin’s plans. Had James MacKenzie helped her in that? Had she turned to him for assistance last night at the Blue Gander, and found him the better man?
There was only one way to discover the truth.
Georgette pushed back from the tea shop’s wrought-iron table, determined to hunt down both men and find some answers. As she gathered her reticule and tucked the kitten up in one hand, a startled shout from the opposite side of the street claimed her attention. She looked up to see some sort of a scuffle taking place in front of a shop across the way. The gathering crowd blocked her view, but she could hear loud voices and pounding feet.
Two figures broke free, running north. Georgette watched them go with an odd, fluttering sensation, just below her rib cage. One had a beard, the other did not. Beyond that, she could not make out any discernible features across the distance that separated them. She could not see whether one of them had straight, white teeth. She could not see either man’s eyes, be they green or blue or even hazel.
But something about both of them seemed familiar.
“Elsie,” she mused, nudging the maid with her elbow in a manner that could never be called ladylike. “Are either of those men . . .”
But the maid was not looking in the direction of the men, who were rapidly falling from view. Her gaze was directed squarely at the remaining crowd. “Oh, I do love a fight!” Elsie said, moving toward the melee, instead of away from it as any sensible girl would do.
“Elsie . . .” When the maid did not slow, Georgette reached deeper. “Elsie!”
The maid turned, hands on her hips. “I’m not deaf, miss. There’s no need to shout.”
“Those men.” Georgette pointed in the direction they had gone. “Do you know them?”
Elsie followed her mistress’s finger, but the men in question had been swallowed by the afternoon crowd, leaving only ordinary townsfolk milling about. “I’ve known a few of them,” came Elsie’s amused response. “Why? Are you looking for an introduction? Here I thought you wanted to be done with men.”
“I thought one of them looked familiar.”
“Like MacKenzie?”
Georgette nodded.
The maid looked again. “Well, I don’t see him now.” Elsie shifted from foot to foot, clearly anxious to keep moving. “You are probably just seeing him in every shadow, looking for him as we are.”
Georgette sighed and stared down at the kitten, which was still sleeping in her left hand. “Perhaps.” She realized, after so many false starts, she would be crushed if they didn’t find him today. Not because she needed to procure an annulment, although that was still a part of it. There was no sense pretending that was the only reason, not anymore.
She wanted to see him because she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She felt sure now this mess was in some way tied up with Randolph’s shocking behavior last night. Had she married MacKenzie for the protection of his name? The bits and pieces of the man being revealed to her suggested he was just the kind of man to help someone in need.
No, she no longer felt ashamed when she thought of how she might have behaved with James MacKenzie the previous evening. She was more ashamed of how she knew she had treated him this morning. He had wanted her, and she had cracked him over the head with a chamber pot.
“We’ll find him, miss.” Elsie took a step away, toward the crowd.
“Of course we will,” Georgette agreed. “As soon as you show me where his office is.”
> “Oh no,” Elsie protested, pulling up short. “Surely that can wait five minutes.” She tilted her chin toward the disturbance across the street. “We’re missing all the fun.”
“Fun?” Georgette eyed the crowd, which had begun to disperse but was still a jumble of voices and jostling elbows. “That does not look like fun to me.”
Elsie huffed. “It’s but a bit of noise. Didn’t bother you overmuch last night at the Gander.” She lifted an agitated hand toward the thinning crowd. “Look. We’re missing it. Have a little backbone, will you?”
But Georgette scarcely heard the maid’s retort. Instead, she stared at a bit of brown and black fur that caught her eye through the dispersing mob. Her mouth fell open, scarcely able to believe it. A cat that looked remarkably like the tiny kitten in her hand was sitting outside a shop across the street, directly under a weathered wooden sign marking the establishment as a butcher’s shop.
Georgette dimly registered the maid’s surprised shout of caution as she crossed the street and dodged a trio of fast-moving carriages, the kitten clutched tightly to her chest. She did not stop until she gained the sidewalk and lowered her bundle to the ground, straight into the welcoming tongue of its mother.
“Oh,” she breathed as the mother cat began to dutifully clean her missing charge. The thing seemed to come alive under the scrape of its dam’s tongue, mewling and moving.
Elsie came up behind her, grumbling about mistresses that changed their minds and didn’t let anyone know what was going on, but Georgette ignored her. She crouched there on the paving stones, frozen by the privilege of witnessing the reunion and trying to ignore the ache in her gut that it brought.
“That’s a pretty scene.”
A disembodied voice floated down to her, and Georgette glanced up to see the man she recognized as the butcher standing in the doorway. He was wearing the same stained apron from this morning, and was just as toothless as he had been several hours ago.
What Happens in Scotland Page 13