What Happens in Scotland

by Jennifer McQuiston

  “Neither, I tell you!” Anger reared its curious, misshapen head. She pushed against his chest, sucking in a breath as he winced in response to the press of her palm. There was scarcely an inch of him she could touch without hurting him in some way. “I left, damn you, but you left me first.”

  He leaned back, giving her an inch more room in which to find air. “Where did you go?”

  “I went . . .” She swallowed, not wanting to give voice to the illogical thoughts that had driven her on her ill-considered flight out the window. “I went to gather my things. At the hunter’s cottage.”

  His face darkened. “Why?”

  She cursed under her breath, one of Elsie’s choicest words. This, then, was James MacKenzie, solicitor. Tossing out questions, demanding answers. Thinking the worst of her.

  Only she might deserve this bit that was coming.

  “I was going to return to London, on the morning coach.” Her voice cracked, though she lifted her chin in defiance.

  Her words scraped at James’s already raw heart. “You were leaving me? Without shoes?” The thought she had planned to leave him, without even a word of good-bye, hurt as much as the thought that she might have a hand in his attempted murder.

  “Yes.” She straightened her shoulders. “But not without shoes. That was what I went to the cottage to fetch.”

  “Why would you do something so stupid?” he demanded.

  She raised a brow, a gesture at once infuriating and heart-warming. “London is a filthy place. Shoes are not optional for the journey.”

  “You could have waited for my return,” he pointed out.

  “It was no more than you deserved, locking me in the library, stealing my things. That is no way to treat someone you claim to care about. I would have treated you far better, had the situation been reversed.”

  His already confused feelings scattered like ashes tossed into the wind. It was difficult to trust his ears, much less his instincts. “You . . . care about me?”

  Georgette nodded, swiping at a lone tear with the back of her hand. “Clearly, I am not thinking straight.”

  James leaned back, resting his hands on his thighs and staring at the lamp beside the bed. “Clearly, neither am I.” He felt as if she had picked him up and tossed him against a wall. He wanted to believe her. Desperately. But the facts were rather damning.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Georgette’s voice wound its way around the cracks in his heart, honing his thoughts back to his original purpose.

  “Cameron found me and showed me your note. He said he had left you here, so it was the first place we looked.” His chest felt squeezed in a too-tight belt, and the air seemed trapped in his lungs. “How did you know I had been shot?”

  She released a long, shuddering breath. “Randolph came upon me in the cottage, brandishing a rifle. He told me he had killed you. I was terrified for you, afraid to listen to him. But then, when I found a pool of blood and your money purse along the road, I realized Randolph had been telling the truth. I found the magistrate and wrote the note to aid his search. But I did not do this thing you are accusing me of. I would never hurt you.”

  James no longer knew what to believe. He only knew that the thought of Georgette meeting her cousin, alone and unprotected, sent his pulse into a mad gallop. “Did Burton hurt you?” His voice came out hoarse, as if someone had put a hand to his throat and squeezed.

  “I am untouched,” she told him, a smile flirting about her lips. “I cannot say the same about my cousin. I took care of him.”

  A noise came out of him then, something strangled and desperate. He regarded her a long, wide-eyed moment. “Christ, Georgette, you don’t do anything by halves. Where did you leave the body?” He held up a hand as she opened her mouth. “No, don’t tell me. As your solicitor, I think it’s best if I don’t know. We’ll claim you acted in self-defense, and—”

  “I did not kill him,” she interrupted. “I may have knocked him in the head with a fireplace poker. Left a fearsome imprint, that bit of iron did.” She nibbled on her lower lip. “And I may have threatened to kill him if he harmed you.”

  James looked at her, admiration breaking through the former bleak plains of his mind. It was not evidence, not anywhere close. But it was an explanation that made sense. He found himself grasping on to it as if it was flotsam and he was a drowning man. She knew he had been shot because she had confronted Randolph. There was no conspiracy on her part, no plot to kill him or blackmail his family.

  She cared about him.

  This was the truth he wanted to believe.

  He ran an awkward hand through his hair and offered her a slantwise glance. “It takes a strong woman to handle herself so well.”

  “Does this mean you forgive me for leaving?” Her eyes were wide. Beseeching.

  “I don’t know what to think,” he told her. His eyes skipped across her face, settled in the vicinity of her mouth. The truth he wanted clicked into place as irrefutable fact.

  “Actually, I do,” he clarified, the comprehension of his feelings like a warm iron held up to his skin. “I think I might love you.”

  GEORGETTE’S WORLD, WHICH had been sliding south only minutes before, ground to a halt.

  How could he love her? They had known each other for all of a day. She had been contrary and disheveled for most of it, two of the very things that had so vexed her first husband. How had she done such an impossible thing as to earn this man’s love?

  And most important, what was she going to do about it?

  She took his face between her hands and splayed her fingers over the angle of his cheekbones, taking care to avoid his injured jaw. “I love you too.” There was not the slightest hesitation in offering those words back. It did not matter if their acquaintance was counted in hours instead of months. She had known what she felt since the moment her cousin told her James was dead.

  “But I don’t know if I trust you,” he said.

  She was so close she could almost feel the puff of air that came from his mouth on the word “trust.” So close, his words hit her like an uppercut. “I . . . I beg your pardon?”

  “Trust.” He pulled away from her touch. “That part is the hardest for me. I do not know if I can trust you, Georgette. With my heart, my life, my money purse, any of it.”

  “Your money purse is sitting on the bedside table. Perhaps next time you will listen to me when I suggest it would be safer stashed in an inside pocket.” That part was easily solved. But she swallowed against the fear that rose up in her throat over the rest of it. “I suppose, on the matter of your heart, I don’t blame you for not trusting me. I am not sure I trust myself, or these feelings you conjure in me.” She stared down at the coverlet, picked at an idle threat. “Perhaps it will come. Surely trust takes longer than a day to build.”

  She heard him draw a deep breath. “I would have said the same thing about love only yesterday, but here we are.”

  “Where, exactly, are we?” Georgette lifted her eyes.

  He held out his hand, and for a moment she thought he would take her own up. Instead, he offered her his palm, face up. “Might I have my ring back, Lady Thorold?”

  Her world tumbled then, straight off the edge of reason. He wanted his ring back?

  Her heart should have been pounding in her chest. Instead, it fell quiescent, as if it did not quite trust her either. She slipped the signet ring off her finger and handed it to him. He put it on his own hand. It did not spin around, loose, as it had on her own finger. He had to work it over one knuckle, and then push to seat it home.

  It fit him like it was supposed to, that ring.

  Like it was never meant to be hers.

  Behind James’s head, the door to the room flung open. Georgette sensed the danger before she saw it, leaped to her feet, coiled and ready to run or fight or whatever was needed. R
andolph, disheveled and clearly out of his head, stepped into the room.

  And all she could think as he advanced on James was that he might as well kill them both.

  Chapter 31

  THERE WAS NO prelude, no dancing around words or threats.

  Randolph leaped toward James without provocation or preamble. Her cousin sported a bruise on his temple in the perfect shape of a fireplace poker, but it did not appear to slow him down at all. How he had gotten free of his bindings she could not determine, but she could imagine.

  Unlike dancing, knot tying was not something she was qualified to teach anyone.

  As Randolph advanced on the man who loved her, but could not trust her, she felt utterly useless. Except for one small thing. She knew how to scream.

  “James!” she shouted, her heart finding its lost rhythm. “Watch out!”

  But he had already heard the danger, was whirling before the words were even out of her mouth. He met Randolph’s attack with an upturned arm, then repaid the man’s uncoordinated attempts to hit him with a single blow to the nose. Incredibly, Randolph did not go down. He stood there, blood gushing from his nose, a howl of rage on his lips. Georgette could see that his pupils were dilated, and from something more than the heat of battle.

  Had her cousin taken some of the same herbs he so freely forced on others?

  Feet pounded in the corridor outside the room. William and the magistrate pushed their way inside, followed by a tall, thin man Georgette did not recognize. The room seemed to shrink beneath the size and menace of so many bristling men.

  “Do you need our help?” William growled, cracking his knuckles and taking a menacing step in Georgette’s direction.

  James shook his head and stayed his brother with an upheld palm. “I prefer the chance to take care of Burton myself.”

  “Burton?” William spit out. “So this is the blighter who tried to kill you?”

  “Aye.” James wiped a sleeve across his jaw, smearing blood where one of the sutures had pulled free. Georgette’s eyes focused on that bright crimson line. He was bleeding. Injured. He was in no condition to fight off a drug-addled man, even one as slight and awkward as Randolph.

  James seemed to either ignore or not notice the blood. He crouched at the knees and lifted his fists, beckoning to Randolph have another go. In another time, or another place, the gesture would have seemed almost playful.

  This was not that time or place.

  “ ’Tis not a fair fight!” Georgette protested. James was injured, every inch of him, while Randolph was crazed and bolstered by the rush of drugs in his veins. Surely the knocked-out dog sleeping on her cousin’s hearth had a better chance of winning this fight than James.

  Randolph sneered in her direction. “Thank you for keeping him busy here until I could finish him off.”

  Georgette gasped. She had just worked so hard to convince James she had nothing to do with Randolph’s plot. That her cousin could appear out of nowhere and destroy that small step toward trust with a single, well-timed lie brought her near to despair.

  “I did no such thing!” she cried, wanting to hit him herself.

  But Randolph was beyond listening, to her or anyone else. He advanced on James, swinging.

  Georgette turned to William in fury. “Do something!” she hissed.

  He did. James’s brother crossed his arms. He smiled at her, amusement and warning colliding in a practiced grin. “He does not want our help.”

  The sound of someone’s fist hitting soft flesh spurred her to action. She didn’t know who was getting pummeled, but she was not going to let Randolph hurt James. Not again, not while she did no more than stand by, helpless. She looked around for the nearest thing she could find. Not the chamber pot this time, but something equally deadly.

  The water pitcher stood at the ready.

  She seized it up and tossed the water aside, then similarly threw herself into the melee. She pushed her way between the paired-off fighters, looking for a clear shot at her cousin.

  “Now,” James growled at his brother, trying to push her out of the way. “Now I could use a little help.”

  She got in one blow, glancing off Randolph’s shoulder, before strong arms seized her and dragged her away. She kicked backward, swinging the pitcher wildly. It shattered across William MacKenzie’s head.

  He proved harder to fell than his brother had this morning. He blinked at her, his face scarlet.

  And then he pinned her arms to her side.

  “Be still, hellcat.” William’s voice dug into her ear as surely as his strong arms dug into her stomach. Georgette was caught tight, scarcely able to breathe, much less assist James in dispatching Randolph to unconsciousness. She gave up struggling and closed her eyes, sure that with his myriad injuries James could not defend himself against Randolph’s unbalanced zeal.

  She heard a sickening gasp. A thud on the floor.

  And when she peeked open one eye, it was over. James was standing, not even breathing hard. “The human skull is a bit harder than a sawdust bag,” he remarked, shaking his hand.

  “Aye.” William’s voice rumbled behind her ear. “More fun, though.” The band of his arms did not loosen around Georgette in the slightest.

  “How did Burton even know to come up here?” James asked, irritation singing his words.

  “Probably the same way you knew where to find me.” Georgette found her voice then. “I told the innkeeper to send anyone with news up to my room.”

  “I’m surprised the whole bloody public room isn’t crowding in here,” Cameron muttered. He stepped forward and grabbed her unconscious cousin by one limp hand. “A matter for the magistrate, I suppose. Always knew you’d make me clean up one of your mistakes eventually, MacKenzie.” He began to drag Randolph toward the open door. By the scowl on his face, she wondered if he might not drag the body down that endless stairwell, one jolting, insensible step at a time.

  “Where are you taking him?” she asked, her heart straining against her nearly crushed chest.

  “A night in Moraig’s gaol should bring a return to sobriety, if not civility.” Cameron stooped to lift Randolph’s body across one sturdy shoulder. “Although I am not sure I’ll have a chance to check in on him before Monday. ’Tis Bealltainn, after all.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” William’s words were directed at Cameron, but they skittered across the top of her head as if they were meant for her. She was so tightly pinned she could feel the sound being formed in his chest, reverberating against her back.

  Georgette closed her eyes. Thoughts of mice and dark cells and a cold stone for a pillow twisted around in her head. She did not worry overmuch about Randolph. The man deserved whatever was coming to him. No, what made her heart flutter was the surety that she was to be the next one taken into custody.

  Randolph had implicated her in front of these men. Even if it was a lie, he was out cold and unavailable for interrogation.

  And worst of all, James had admitted he did not trust her.

  Mr. Cameron’s voice floated to her, light as air. “I think I can wait to get her statement on Monday.”

  Georgette’s eyes snapped open. “M-Monday?”

  The arms around her loosened, and she found herself actually leaning on them for support. “Aye.” William’s voice tickled warm against her ear. “We’ll need your statement to put him away for good.” His voice dropped to a lower whisper. “And thank you for trying to save my brother. It takes a strong woman to deal with him. I think you’ll do nicely.”

  Georgette slowly straightened, her fingers curved against the steel band of William’s arm. She looked between the men in the room, who were staring at her with bemused expressions.

  James picked something up from the bedside table, which he offered to her like a gift of fine silk. She almost choked on a hysterical laugh as she to
ok the item from his hands.

  Her corset. The man was returning her corset. The one she really should be wearing.

  William’s arms released her, but she scarcely recognized the freedom, so focused was she on disassembling the expression on James’s face. There was an echo of feet, filing out of the tiny room.

  And then she was alone. With James MacKenzie, surrounded by the shattered remains of the water pitcher, glowering at her as if he could not decide whether she was the most daft or precious female he had ever had the pleasure to meet.

  Right back where they started.

  SHE STOOD, HER fists clutching the corset, on the other side of the room. Every foot between them was a regrettable mile. She looked like a fierce fairy, her hair a wild ring about her head, her eyes a smoky gray.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why what?” James took a determined step toward her. He could not sort out what the look on her face meant. She looked . . . confused. He could not blame her. She had seen the worst of him now. He had lost control of his temper and his fists in her presence.

  She swallowed once, a wave of motion that drew his eye to the graceful column of her neck. “Why did you not believe Randolph?” she asked.

  Why hadn’t he believed Burton? He wasn’t sure he knew the answer, only that he had not given the man’s accusation even a moment’s consideration. “There was no evidence to support his claim.”

  “But there is no evidence not supporting it either.”

  James tilted his head, studying her. “Actually, there is,” he admitted with a smile, though the evidence he referred to had not been necessary. His mind had been made up from the moment he told her he loved her. “You left a right smart imprint on the man’s temple with that fireplace poker. Well-done, Georgette.”

  She took a hesitant step in his direction. “But you said you do not trust me.”

  Her pace slowed to a halt. His eager pulse urged her closer. Was she afraid of him? He flexed his fingers, testing the theory in his own mind. It was an abhorrent idea. He had never, in his entire life, so much as considered hitting a woman. Come to think of it, he had never considered hitting anyone who did not deserve it.