by Riley Moreno
With a held-in breath she opened the door, and couldn't help but gasp subtly as she saw him standing there; he seemed, in the dusky light, even more attractive than he had the previous day. It seemed as if his eyes were aglow, like those of a wild carnivore of some sort, and when he smiled, his teeth glowed white against the dying light.
“Good evening, Susan,” he said in his deep, husky voice. “May I come in?”
“Please do,” she said, hoping that he hadn't noticed how intently she was staring at him.
She led him through the store, which was dark and unlit at this time, and up the stairs to the living area. There, in her kitchen, where she and her father usually ate dinner, there was a small table and two chairs, and there they sat down to discuss matters.
“Would you like anything to drink, Robert?” she asked.
“Whiskey if you've got any, my lady.”
She laughed as she stood up to fetch him a drink.
“It's 'Susan', silly!”
He shot her a shy smile.
“Alright... Susan.”
She poured a generous serving of whiskey into a steel pitcher and handed it to him. He smiled again, and took a long and deep draft of the drink.
“So,” he probed, “what have you got to tell me?”
She poured herself some whiskey and had a swig, grimacing at the harsh taste. However, as the warm liquid spread through her body, she felt a calming and relaxing influence, and felt that speaking about such serious matters would be a bit easier. She took one more sip and then sat down.
“When you told me that you'd borrowed money from Lord MacNally, which was subsequently stolen, I immediately became suspicious.”
“How do you know of Lord MacNally? His estate is very far from Edinburgh. That's in my part of the country.”
“My ex-fiancé grew up with him. They're very close friends... And both are cut from the same cloth, if you know what I mean.”
Robert's face grew dark.
“Both are scoundrels, then...”
Susan nodded gravely.
“Seamas McSwiggan, my ex-fiancé, he had me duped for a long time before I found out what kind of person he really was.”
Robert raised an eyebrow.
“Hang on... Did you just say your ex is named 'Seamas McSwiggan'? He isn't a tall, exceedingly handsome dandy, is he?”
Susan nodded, surprised that Robert somehow knew him.
“I saw him last night at the inn where I'm staying. He was throwing gold coins around as if they were nothing but acorns. The bartender told me he's got a reputation for somewhat fishy dealings.”
Susan nodded.
“I don't have any proof of such things, unfortunately, but I know that when he and I were together, he always had plenty of gold. Way more than his father gave him for his monthly allowance, and he didn't do an honest day's work in his whole life.”
“'Allowance'? He didn't work, at all?”
“He, like Lord MacNally, is a blue-blooded aristocrat. He's never had to work; his father, who owns a tobacco company in the Indies, is wealthy beyond measure. Still, he's a fair man and tried to encourage Seamas to work for a living. Seamas, however, is far too fond of idleness, and he refuses to do anything. His father is a soft-hearted man, so even though his son is a lazy parasite, he still gives him a monthly allowance on which to live. However, he certainly manages to get gold some other way. There's no way he can afford all those fancy clothes and parties on what his father gives him.”
Robert nodded grimly.
“Lord MacNally as well has been expanding his lands far greater than what I believe his actual wealth would allow him to.”
“I think,” said Susan, breathing out a deep sigh, “that something is very, very suspicious here. When exactly was the money stolen from your house?”
“The very night after I'd received it from Lord MacNally.”
Susan shook her head and narrowed her eyes.
“He must have taken it. Think about it! He lends you money, against which you sign your lands as surety. Then, the same night that he gives you the loan, someone steals the money. You have no way to repay him, since you haven't even had time to get your business off the ground – which is why you had to take the loan in the first place – so, with no other option available, you have to give him your land. If he sent a thief to steal his money back from you, then he's essentially keeping his gold and getting your land for free!”
Robert sat bolt upright in his chair. His face first went pale, and then his cheeks became flushed with a red, glowing rage. He slammed a heavy fist down on the table and jumped up to his feet.
“That bastard!” he roared. “That lying, cheating, thieving bastard!”
“I'm so sorry,” said Susan softly. “But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.”
Robert nodded, his face still a stormy mask of rage.
“Aye lass, it does. It makes absolute sense. And it's just the sort of trick that dodgy Lord MacNally would pull. In fact, I'm sure I'm not the only victim of his. This 'loan and steal' operation must be how he's managing to expand his land empire so quickly.”
“The problem, Robert, is that we have no way to prove this. The theory makes perfect sense, but without proof, we are powerless to act against MacNally and Seamas.”
“Then what we need is proof, right?”
“Right.”
“But... how?”
They both sat in silence at the table for a while, thinking about this. Then, a realization began to dawn on Susan. She did have a way to get some sort of proof, but she didn't like what it would involve. However, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like it would be the only way to find out the truth of the matter. She took one more sip of whiskey before she shot an intense gaze directly into Robert's eyes.
“There is one way that I can get proof. It's not guaranteed to work... And it's going to involve me doing something I really, really don't want to do... But for the cause of justice and righteousness, I'm prepared to do it.”
Robert sat down and locked his eyes into hers.
“You're a brave lass, Susan. And I'll owe you a greater debt than I can ever repay if you can help me get my land back. Let's hear your plan.”
With that, Susan began to explain what she was going to do.
CHAPTER 4
The bartender stood slumped over in the corner, half-asleep on his feet. He had no idea what time it was; all that he cared about was going to sleep – but he couldn't yet, not with Seamas McSwiggan and all his friends carousing and carrying on with no signs of slowing down. One of them had found bagpipes, and another had retrieved a drum, and now they were dancing around the tavern and making a terrible noise. Still, their gold was good, and they weren't shy about throwing it around. This night, as painful as it was, would make him more than his tavern usually made in two weeks.
Eventually, the song faded out, and with much mirth and laughter Seamas and his friends retired to their tables to continue drinking. Most of them were well-inebriated now, and glassy-eyed from the drink. Seamas, however, could handle his drink with the strength of an ogre; it seemed he could consume three times as much alcohol as any other man and still remain standing. He sauntered up to the bar, swaggering with arrogance.
“Barkeep!” he shouted, rousing the chubby old fellow from his half-slumber, “I need more whiskey, and I need it now! On your feet, grandpa! My friends and I are both thirsty and impatient!”
Tonight he had a fresh girl hanging on his arm; this one was a platinum blonde with alabaster-pale skin and light blue eyes, and she looked no older than seventeen. Seamas's taste in women seemed to be verging on those of a younger and younger age these days. It was apparent that this girl had never had alcohol before; she was beyond the point of inebriation, and could hardly stand without swaying and lurching and mumbling incoherently, but still Seamas kept plying her with drink, staring at her body, which was barely-concealed beneath a thin, flimsy dress, all the while with hi
s hungry wolf-eyes.
“Johnny, strike those drums! Strike 'em loud!” shouted Seamas to his friend with the drum. “David, the bagpipes! Come on man, come on! I want to dance! Make more music!”
The bartender rubbed his eyes as he did his best to wake up, shuffling around behind the bar to find fresh pitchers and unopened bottles of whiskey.
But as he started pouring the next round of drinks, a loud and aggressive voice cut through the din.
“Stop pouring those drinks!”
Everyone looked up and paused what they were doing. A huge, broad-shouldered man in a British Navy officer's uniform was standing at the foot of the stairwell that lead up to the inn, and his wide, brutal-looking face was a mask of sheer rage. In his meaty hand he gripped his navy-issue razor sharp saber. Behind him stood a host of other angry looking people, in various states of dress; some in pajamas, some half-dressed.
“I've been trying to sleep for the last five hours, yet the awful din from down here has just been getting worse and worse! It's now almost four in the morning, and I haven't had a wink of bloody sleep! Now all of you lot, clear out of here! And you, barkeep, you stop serving these wretches, let them go elsewhere! May I remind you that we too are paying customers of your establishment?! We're paying for sleep, but that's an impossibility with these selfish louts screaming and shouting all hours of the night!”
The angry-looking patrons mumbled their agreement at this.
The barman looked embarrassed, and he stopped pouring.
“I, er, I apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for this disruption, I'm er-, I'm very sorry-”
“Don't apologize, damn you! Just get them out of here, right now!” shouted the navy officer.
Seamas stood up, and stared at the Navy officer with a cocky grin on his face.
“What if we don't want to go elsewhere, sir? We quite like it here, and this party is only getting started. I suggest you and your friends go back to sleep, Englishman. Put some cotton wool in your ears, and you'll soon be sleeping like a baby! Haha!”
The officer glared at Seamas.
“You inconsiderate, selfish dandy!” he shouted. “Some people have to work tomorrow! How do you expect them to do that without a wink of sleep?! There are plenty of places in this town where you can go and drink until dawn without disturbing other people. If you know what's good for you, you'll leave this place and go to one of those!”
Seamas stroked his chin mockingly, mumbling to himself.
“'If I know what's good for me'... 'If I know what's good for me'. I do know what's good for me, Englishman... More whiskey! Now bartender, hurry up and finish pouring those drinks. Johnny, David, get the music up and going! These old farts can go back upstairs and stuff some cotton wool in their ears, they'll be fine!”
“How dare you?!” shouted the officer as he stepped down off the stairs onto the floor of the tavern. “You arrogant little shit! I ought to show you a thing or two!”
Suddenly a look of aggression flashed with the speed of veined lightning across Seamas's eyes, and he spun around on his feet to face the officer. He wore a sword at his side – a thin, light rapier – and in one swift and fluid movement he whipped the sword out and pointed its needle-like point at the man.
“Well, sir,” he sneered, “perhaps I ought to show you a thing or two.”
The man laughed slowly and humorlessly, and swung his saber loosely in his hands.
“Are you threatening me?! I'm warning you boy, this blade has tasted blood in battle many times. Put that toy you're holding away, and you might walk away from this with your ears and nose still attached to your pretty-boy face.”
Seamas stared with arrogant cool at the officer, and he shifted into an en-garde stance on his feet.
“I'm most definitely threatening you, Englishman. Come on... Bring your saber. I feel like doing a different kind of dance now.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” stammered the hapless barkeeper. “I don't want fighting in my bar, please, there must be a way to solve this without violence, I-”
“Shut up!” snarled the officer. “If you won't do anything about this awful fellow, I will! Come on then, dandy! Come on!”
Seamas's friends stepped back to clear out a space so that the two men could duel. The bartender kept pleading for both of them to stop, but neither man took any notice; both were too riled up and bristling with aggression to stop now.
The Navy officer also adopted an en-garde stance, and stood with his side facing Seamas, who suddenly switched stances, opening himself up to attack, it would seem. The officer wasted no time; he darted in with a speed that belied his size, going straight for Seamas's unguarded, wide-open torso.
But that was exactly what Seamas had wanted him to do; with almost superhuman speed he sidestepped the attack and with a flurry of hyper-speed blows, he forced the navy officer into a stumbling retreat; the man was only barely able to fend off the expertly-struck cuts, slashes and lunges.
Now the big man's face took on an altogether different air; fear showed plainly on his face, where only anger had glowed before. Seamas, however, was in his element. He bent his knees, pointed the tip of his rapier at the officer and then made a mocking 'come here' gesture with his fingers.
This little touch served to heat up the man's blood, and a flush of wrath once again reddened his broad face. With a curse he lunged forward, slashing viciously with his heavy sabre, first horizontally, then vertically, but with the grace of a feline Seamas was able to duck and sidestep past the attacks – and then he landed one of his own, which struck home; a lightning-fast flick of his wrist whipped the tip of his sword across the officer's cheek, opening up a wide cut from which blood immediately started dribbling.
“You'll feel that in the morning!” laughed Seamas as the wounded officer stumbled back.
Still, the Englishman was not to be stopped; he pushed forward with one more furious attack, but this time Seamas closed with him quickly, and through a flurry of strokes the navy officer suddenly found the sharp tip of Seamas's sword pressed against his throat.
“It appears I've beaten you, Englishman,” sneered Seamas, locking his eyes mockingly into the officer's. “One more move and I'll skewer your throat, all the way through. Now, can myself and my friends keep drinking and dancing?”
The officer swallowed slowly and then nodded his head.
“Good,” said Seamas. “Good. Now, you and the rest of that half-dressed rabble can go back upstairs, put some cotton wool in your ears and leave us to drink until the sun comes up. How does that sound, boys and girls?!”
Seamas's friends cheered drunkenly, and some shouted insults at the officer and the other patrons on the stairs.
“Go on then!” shouted Seamas as he pushed the officer toward the stairs and planted a mocking kick on his rear. “Off to bed with you! Haha!”
The officer slunk back up the stairs, as did the other people, grumbling quietly as they went.
Seamas's friends came and patted him on the back, crowding around him and congratulating him on yet another dueling victory. He shrugged his shoulders and smirked as he sheathed his sword.
“I've never lost a duel,” he said, “And probably never will. Come my friends! Now is the time to drink and be merry. Johnny! David! The music! Barkeep! The drinks! Hurry up with them, you old fart! That fight's made me thirsty!”
Seamas and his friends resumed their carousing, but after around half an hour, a hooded figure wearing a heavy black cloak walked in, and keeping a low profile, went and took a seat at the far end of the bar and quietly ordered a whiskey. Seamas noticed him, however, and left his young blonde – who had almost passed out from drunkenness – and hurried over to the man in black.
“Seamas,” growled the stranger. “I've got news for you from MacNally.”
“Have you now?” asked Seamas.
“Oh yes. You want more gold, I'm sure?”
Seamas grinned.
“You know me, lad! I can never ge
t enough of it.”
“Good. Because we've got another job for you like the one with the stud farm fool.”
“Ah, excellent! So MacNally has made another loan to a landowner has he? And he needs that loan to 'disappear', yes?”
“He wants his bag of gold back post-haste. After you do that, he gets his land for free, almost anyway, and you get a big sack of gold coins. You in?”
Seamas smiled.
“I'm always in.”
“Good. I'll be back tomorrow night to give you all the information you need to get the job done.”
With that the stranger finished his drink and slunk quietly out of the tavern into the night.
CHAPTER 5
Susan finished explaining what she was going to do in order to help get evidence that Seamas and Lord MacNally had been behind the theft of Robert's money. Robert took a long, slow sip of whiskey, and then set his pitcher down carefully on the table.
“You'd do that for me?” he asked. “Really?”
Susan drank another swig of whiskey herself. She felt its fire working its way through her veins, and she couldn't help feeling somewhat emboldened.
“I'd do a lot of things for you, Robert... Even though I hardly know you. Forgive me for being so bold as to say that, but I... I feel as if I can't help myself.”
Now that the whiskey had worked its passage through her blood, she felt as if a while lot of things that she had bottled up for years were now ready to come tumbling out of the places they had been kept; stuffed and crammed into shadowy places inside her, hidden from the light.
“I'm sorry for being so bold,” she said “I just can’t help myself... it's been so long since I opened up to anyone, anyone at all about my feelings. I’ve been so terribly lonely since... since Seamas, since I broke off the engagement with him. And his betrayal of my trust has left me feeling so broken and empty inside. I really... I’m so sorry to burden you with this, but there's just, there's something in me that I feel I can't keep bottled up any longer. And... And I feel a strong attraction to you, Robert. I know, I know it sounds crazy. We’ve only just met each other, and here I am opening up to you... Oh, part of me feels like a fool, but... But part of me really feels like I can open up to you. That you understand what I feel. I'm sorry if I sound like some crazy person. But... this is how I feel, and I can't help it.”