“Da!” Sharky said excitedly, his hands and face half in the carpetbag he’d just hauled out of the saddlebag. “There’s a heap here! What we wanted and then some!”
“Then all’s plummy,” his father said, starting to back away. “Lemme get a glim. Aye!” he said after a quick look into the bag Sharky held open wide. “That’ll do. We’ll take it and go, and sorry for your inconvenience, sir. Give you good day, Miss Corbet, it were a treat meetin’ you. You’re a lady to the bone, that I will say.”
“Wait!” Alsdair said. “How do you know I don’t have my men waiting outside?”
“They wasn’t none there, nor down the road a minute past. I looked. But it makes no never mind ’cause I got ’nother way out. ’Tis a risky business, but it be my livelihood. Now, good day.”
“One thing,” Alasdair said. “You can take the money and be damned, but one thing I must know. If you don’t tell me, I promise you I’ll track you to the four corners of the earth to find out. Who sent you to do this piece of business?”
“Close the bag, boy!’ the man said, and then shook his head as Sharky pulled the bag together. “Sorry, but that be part of my job. Can’t tell nothin’ to no one, and that’s a fact.”
“I think you had better tell me,” Alasdair said in a flat, menacing voice.
The man stared. Alasdair no longer held Kate’s hand. Instead, he had another pistol—pointed at Sharky, who froze where he was, bent over the carpetbag. Alasdair nodded. “Yes. Stay where you are, lad, don’t even breathe.”
Alasdair was a big man who loomed even larger dressed as he was in a great cloak, but he didn’t need extra bulk to make their relative positions clearer. He towered over the skinny boy, and the pistol in his big hand didn’t waver.
Alasdair glanced at the boy’s father, who stood, stricken, in place. “The money caught your eye for a second too long,” Alasdair said harshly. “You forget a man may have tricks up his sleeve. Literally.”
“Don’t hurt him!” Kate gasped. “He’s only a boy!”
“To be sure,” Alasdair agreed. “But one who helped abduct you.”
“Aw, he be but a boy,” the man repeated nervously.
“Yes, and so a good bargaining chip, you’ll agree?” Alasdair asked. “But I can shoot you, if you prefer.” He angled his wrist so the man could get a better look at the pistol, though it remained pointed at the boy. “Or I can get you both, it’s an over and under, you see, and does a neat job for one or two. You have only the one shot. Either way you won’t be getting this pistol without a fight, and it’s one I believe you’ll lose.”
The room was very still. They all could hear the boy swallow hard, but he didn’t stir.
“Now we’re at an impasse,” Alasdair said conversationally. “Either way there’ll be blood shed. Or we can settle this with no fuss. Tell me who sent you and you can walk with the money, if only because you didn’t hurt Miss Corbet, and it seems she’s taken an unaccountable liking to your boy. Don’t tell me, and there’ll be death today. My affection for Miss Corbet won’t change that. I’m a man who holds grudges. Speaking of which, in case you haven’t heard, Lolly has already gone on to his reward. Rosie told me he’d seen to it.”
That startled the man. His hand shook.
“But if you say Lolly was responsible for this mess just because he’s dead and can’t argue the point, I will find out,” Alasdair cautioned. “And I’ll pursue you relentlessly. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. The stories you’ve heard about me are all true. So. The real story please. And fast. Was it Lolly? Or perhaps someone more highly placed? The name Scalby is not unknown to me either.”
The man backed a step, deathly pale. “Aye, so the lass mentioned. They be her relatives, she said. Listen. We ain’t mixed up with the likes of them! Nor would we be. They be bad business. It were a simple job o’ work for Lolly. He was that angry about your showin’ him up at the gin house, see? He sent us to nab the mort, and we was goin’ to get half the ready for it. Just to vex you, he said. That be all! We got too much sense to scrag no one. Nor to deal with the likes of the Scalbys! They’re way above our touch.”
“True,” Alasdair said, and the man relaxed. Until Alasdair added, “But I believe there’s more. What were you going to do with Miss Corbet?”
The man’s eyelashes lowered for a second. He stayed silent.
“Tell him, Da!” Sharky pleaded. “’Cause you’d changed your mind, you said so!”
“So I said,” the man muttered, then looked at Alasdair. “You know too much to lie to,” he said in a defeated voice, watching Alasdair’s hand on the pistol. It never moved. “The truth’s that we was to turn her over to Lolly and never look back. But like the lad said, we decided to let her go and make for…” He caught himself and said, “…another place, by our lone-somes. London’s too crowded and too warm for us—’specially if we took all the loot and not just our share. Which we was goin’ to do. See, we keeps our word, but lately Lolly weren’t good to work for, he’d a way of makin’ sure nobody could prove what he done. All that money woulda greased our way to a new line o’ work. Healthier for me and the boy.”
He saw Alasdair’s expression, his voice grew rough. “We woulda let her go. Can’t prove it, o’ course. Who else could swear to it? No one, and that’s a fact. Who else would know? The boy would lie to His Majesty hisself for me—or for anyone,” he added with a gruff laugh, “and don’t I know it. He’s a natty lad and no mistake. But what I said’s the Gawd’s honest truth, believe it or don’t.
“The lad din’t want no harm to come to her, and it weren’t no skin off our noses if she went free—after we got the money. So I was goin’ to oblige the lad. We was goin’ to get word to Lolly she cut and run, and we was goin’ to do the same. Who’d know it was a lie but her? And if we asked her to keep it mum, I believe she would of. She’s solid as oak. And what would it matter by then? We’d of been gone, good as dead to them in London Town. ’N’ if we done that, and stayed, we woulda been,” he added with a cough of a laugh.
“So that’s truth.” The man shrugged. “I din’t know what Lolly had planned for her, but I could guess. Can’t say one good word about the departed. He was a sad dog even for the likes of us to know, and we wished her well ’cause for all she’s a lady she’s a rum mort and no mistake.”
“Agreed,” Alasdair said. He paused, looked at the boy, and then glanced at the man. The boy stayed locked in place, watching him through slitted eyes. The father held his breath. Alasdair saw Kate’s expression from the corner of his eye, and could hear her quick and nervous breathing. He gestured with his pistol again.
“So, go,” Alasdair told the man. “And fast.”
“Thankin’ you kindly,” the man said. And in a blur of movement, he pocketed his pistol, spun and grabbed Sharky by the shoulder, hauled the carpetbag from the floor, and before Alasdair lowered his pistol, the pair were out the back door and gone.
The room was very still.
Kate’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, Lord. It’s over? I’m safe? They’re gone, and it’s all over?”
Alasdair was already at the window. “They had horses tied out back. They’re on them and off…going through the fields, now into the twilight…I can’t see so much as a tail in the distance now. They’re gone. It’s over,” he said a second later, from her side. “Poor Kate. I’m sorry.” He turned her around and took her in his arms and let her rest against his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“What for?” she murmured, feeling his breath in her curls as his big hand stroked her back.
“They wouldn’t have touched you in the first place if it weren’t for me,” he said bleakly. “They wouldn’t have known you existed, or cared. I was the one who endangered you, I contaminated you simply by my presence in your life. I honestly didn’t think Lolly would try for revenge, though there were others who might for deeds done long ago. Still, I thought our bargain would be a benign thing. No,” he muttered, “that’s a damned lie. I
didn’t care then, I only cared about my own devices. You were the means to the ending I wanted. I’m responsible for your being terrified, being put upon. I put your life, and more, in danger. My God, Kate, you can’t know how sorry I am for that. You are all right?” he asked suddenly, looking down into her face. “They didn’t touch you?”
“I’m fine now,” she said. “They didn’t touch a hair on my head.” She resting against him, reveling in the closeness of his embrace. She felt safe for the first time in days, and in absolutely the right place for the first time in her life.
“I didn’t mean for anything like this to happen,” Alasdair said. “My God! How could I have guessed it? But the truth is I didn’t care—then.” His arms tightened around her. “By the time I knew how much I cared, it was too late. I didn’t want to give up the pleasure I found in your company…no. Damn!” he said violently, causing her to pull back and look up at him. “When will I stop lying to you and myself!”
He looked dark as the storm clouds that had just blown over. Kate wasn’t afraid of him, only worried for him, because he looked as troubled as angry, and none of his rage was directed at her. “Kate,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, holding her gently but firmly away from him, “listen.”
His voice was gentler, if no less bitter, and he searched her expression for her reactions as he spoke. “I was using you for my own purposes. I wasn’t aiming for respectability, I wanted revenge on a pair of people who had ruined my life, and you were the key and the lure and the bait to bring them to their reward. God help me, Kate, but it was your cousins the Scalbys I was after, and nothing else, no matter what lies I told you.”
He spoke desperately, his eyes blazing. “They ruined my father and tried to ruin me, they caused his suicide and almost caused my own. I lived only to destroy them, that’s all I’ve wanted these many years. I’ve finally enough evidence of their wrongdoing to disgrace them publicly, and they know it. They’re hiding, waiting for me to strike. Maybe they’re waiting for me to bargain with them, they always want something, they probably think I do, too. But all I want is their ruin.
“The waiting is part of my revenge. I wanted them to think I was getting involved with you so I could worry them even more. I didn’t know you and told myself no harm would come to you. And yes, since you were their relative, I thought bedamned to you, too, if that turned out not to be so. That’s what I thought then. I promise that’s not what I feel or want, or need now.”
“What do you want now?” she asked, and held her breath.
He smiled, a bitter smile with no real humor in it. But he looked in her eyes and what she saw in his took her breath away.
“What do I want?” he said. “You need to ask?”
21
Alasdair continued to hold Kate in his arms, but lightly, so she could move away if she chose. He hoped she wouldn’t, it was bliss to hold her safe and close after all his wild imaginings about what harm might have come to her. It was bliss mixed with balked desire simply to hold her close and not be able to do more. They were alone in the taproom of a deserted inn at the edge of a heath in the middle of nowhere. She was pliant, fragrant and docile, yet he merely held her because it wasn’t the time to do more. And still, he felt at peace. It couldn’t last, he knew that. She’d asked him a question. He thought he’d answered, and now he waited for her response in words or actions.
When she did speak, it was to his cravat, because she kept her head down. “You answer my question with another? No, Alasdair, that won’t do. I’m tired of polite games. I’ve been abducted. I’ve been terrified. I feared for my life and my honor and didn’t know which I was more afraid of losing. It turned out that my kidnappers were as kind as they could be to me under the circumstances, but I never really knew what they intended for me. I don’t think they knew themselves. I almost escaped once. I didn’t break down either…well, not often. I think I was very brave.” She paused and then said quickly, “I’ll be even braver now.”
She dared look up, straight into his eyes. “You just admitted you’ve lied to me all along. You said you used me to get at my relatives. You say you’re sorry for it. I asked you what you wanted of me, and you play word games with me! Games, with me? After all that?” Her eyes blazed. “Oh, damn and blast—and I don’t care what you think of me for saying that, either! How dare you?”
“It was either word games or physical ones, and I wanted to give you the choice,” he said gently.
She took in a breath and glanced away.
“You’ve been through a lot, Kate,” he went on. “I didn’t want to add my bit to your distress. You kissed me. Don’t think I’ll ever forget it, don’t imagine for a moment I don’t want more. But you were wild with relief then. A man’s responses under fire are unthinking ones, as are a woman’s. They can be forced by events. When you come into my arms for more than shelter, I’ll be more than happy to take advantage of you.”
She backed a step. He dropped his arms at once, and felt he’d lost much more than one small woman from his grasp.
But she faced him squarely. “What is it you want of me now, Alasdair? Do you want anything more of me at all? I suppose the Scalbys know about our arrangement by now. It may be I’ve answered your purposes, and there’s an end to our association. Is it? Please tell me with no roundabout. We should let the poor innkeeper and his wife up from the cellars, but they’ve been there so long another minute or two won’t matter. It will matter to us. Soon as they’re here, we’ll be back to all the nonsense and manners of polite society again. For once, for now, we can talk honestly.
“…And,”—she looked down, then up, and blurted—“you also said your revenge on the Scalbys wasn’t what you felt or needed or wanted now. So what do you want and need and feel? I know flirtation is considered clever, and sincerity isn’t fashionable, but I’m so tired of playing games with you. I was tired of it before Sharky and his father nabbed me. I’m doubly so now.”
“Triply so, I should think,” he said quietly. He stayed still, brooding on some inner argument. Just when she thought she should let it go, shrug, or laugh, suggest they let the innkeeper out of his prison now and worry about it later, Alasdair spoke at last.
“Kate,” he said, fixing her with a steady stare, so dark she couldn’t read the emotions there, “my mother died when I was thirteen, and my father ran wild with grief. He was a good man, but I never realized how much of that good was her influence, because he was absolutely lost without her. He had few personal friends. Those he had were really her friends, and they dropped away when she was gone. The estate was prosperous, his estate agent honest and diligent, the house ran itself. He had few interests outside of my mother, she made his home and was his life.”
Kate saw some hint of emotion besides sorrow passing over his face as he added, “I was their only child and away at school, so he didn’t even have a family to occupy his time.”
“Surely you don’t blame yourself for that?” she asked, startled to realize that fleeting emotion she’d seen had been guilt. He shrugged. “I was their first and last child, she couldn’t have others after I was born, as though I broke the mold and slammed the gate closed after me.”
“That’s nonsense!” she said with some heat.
“Of course,” he said with a sad quirk of a smile, cutting her off. “But we all believe some kind of nonsense or other, don’t we? At any rate, there was my father, rudderless, alone, and beside himself with who knows what other nonsensical guilt? He was her husband, after all, he probably had more to believe he should blame himself for.
“Whatever the reasons for his inconsolable grief,” Alasdair went on, “he went to London to cure himself. By God, I wish he’d gone to some spa, here or abroad! Sharpers flourish in those places, but they’d only have taken his money, and only to make a profit. Instead, he met the Scalbys in London, and they took his money and his life for the sheer pleasure of it.”
His expression was bleak, his voice becoming mo
notone. “They befriended him and succeeded in diverting him. They were famous for their mindless entertainments, and that was what he was after. He went to their parties, invested in their schemes, sank himself in their debaucheries. But something else was happening, too. Time went by, and as it did, it began to heal him, just as everyone said it would. His numbed senses came alive again, and so did his conscience. He found himself deeply regretting what he’d been doing with his life. I know, because he told me so when I came home from school and met the Scalbys at last.
“You see, I’d passed my vacations with friends for some time. Motherless boys get all sorts of kind invitations, Leigh’s house was one of my favorite places for Christmas. But finally, when I was sixteen, Father said I could come home again. I’d written to ask him to please let me see him and our home once more. He wrote back to say yes, come home. I did, and was surprised, because the Scalbys were staying there along with a huge party. I was appalled and fascinated by them and their friends and excesses. That helped wake my father to his responsibilities again.”
He smiled at her expression of indignation. “Yes, I blame myself for that, too, and I know it’s folly. But if I hadn’t come home, my father mightn’t have wanted to free himself of the Scalbys just then, and maybe everything would have been different. As it was…”
Alasdair turned his head to look out the windows. Kate realized he wasn’t seeing anything there, or in the present.
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