Claiming His Defiant Miss

by Bronwyn Scott

  Liam nodded. His own thoughts had been running in that direction. Knowing that his enemies would be hunting him, too, Roan would be doubly hard to find. It was part of the man’s success that he was able to make himself invisible, and fast. The man could slip a trap with the cunning of a fox. ‘I’ll comb every inch of the city.’ And likely beyond. Unless Roan was more desperate and prone to more carelessness than his usual cautionary behaviour, Roan wasn’t likely in Edinburgh proper. Illegal arms dealers didn’t exactly hide in New Town and walk the high street at the crowded hours.

  Worth turned his attention to his son, his hard gaze growing in some measure softer with fondness and concern. ‘Are you certain you are strong enough to travel? Those pages need to be in London but not in lieu of your strength. I can take them.’ The profound depths of Worth’s devotion to his children was mirrored in those four words. He would take them, he would take Preston’s place and all the risks that might be incumbent in doing so for the sake of his son’s safety. In that honest moment, Liam thought he might forgive Worth anything. His heart ached at the idea of having such a father, such a family. It was no wonder May was reluctant to part with it and no wonder it held such sway in her decisions. He wished Preston would take the offer, but Preston was as stubborn as his father.

  ‘No, sir. I will take the pages. This is my assignment and I will finish it.’ Preston rose and shook his father’s hand, very formally. For all the silent affection the Worths held for one another, they never touched. ‘I will be back in ten days. We will all be together for Christmas and, with luck, this whole episode will be behind us.’

  He turned to Liam and Liam refused to stand on the same ceremony as father and son. Liam embraced his friend. ‘Godspeed, Preston. Be safe.’

  ‘You, too. Take care of May for me. Don’t let her do anything foolish.’ Preston smiled. ‘I expect you’ll be here when I get back.’ In other words, Liam wasn’t supposed to let the family chase him off, or May for that matter.

  ‘I can manage a few critical days.’ Liam grinned and hoped he was right.

  * * *

  The next few days would be critical. Cabot Roan set up his headquarters at an inn in Leith. He didn’t dare go into Edinburgh on a more permanent basis. Headquarters was a relatively exaggerated term for the private parlour and the rooms he’d take upstairs, but this would be his hub, the place in which he assembled his orders and designed his actions, and from which he was forced to use others as his eyes and ears.

  He was in a foul mood this afternoon. The morning ferry had been delayed and it was already one o’clock. He’d hoped to be in town much earlier. Despite the delay, his group was still the first to arrive. The other group, on the road, wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow. The one bright spot was that his men did have confirmation the Worth chit and Casek had come this way. A quiet inn up a few streets reported a couple taking rooms late last night and leaving early this morning, although the couple did not say where they were going.

  Roan tapped his finger on the rough table surface in thought. Not knowing where they were worried him. Had they gone on? Perhaps to London? Had they simply moved into Edinburgh once it was light? And why would they do that? Did Casek have help here? If so, he had to be doubly on guard. He didn’t want the Edinburgh Watch on the lookout for him—another reason he didn’t want to go into town unless he had to and another reason he wanted to stay close to the port. He felt better knowing the Sweet Mary was bobbing at anchor, waiting to spirit him away if need be. It felt like the whole world was after him at present.

  He drew a breath, counselling himself to be patient. His men were out looking for signs of May Worth. He could do nothing until then. But when it was time to act, he would do so swiftly, dividing and conquering. Preston Worth was a devoted brother. Roan did not think he’d let his sister suffer over a few ledger pages. If he was still alive.

  Chapter Twenty

  Divide and conquer. Her parents’ strategy was painfully obvious before the fish course was on the Balforth dinner table. May had not seen Liam since the awkward morning tea in the drawing room. Her mother had kept her busy going through gowns and trying on new ones. Preston had left and her father had disappeared into his study. Liam wasn’t with the outriders and footmen her father had assigned to escort them across town to the party. When asked why in the carriage, her mother had merely cooed, ‘He’d just have to eat downstairs with the servants. We couldn’t possibly ask Lady Balforth to upset her table with an extra man.’ Then her mother had taken her arm with a glance to her father and a conspiratorial smile. ‘There’s someone we want you to meet tonight. Alfred Dunbarton, Viscount Haverly’s son, dashing young man. Not the heir, of course, but Haverly has him overseeing the family interests up here. They have an estate not far from town and he’s expected to inherit something of his own from his mother’s side, his maternal grandmother thinks highly of him and she’s over eighty. Likely to die any day.’

  It was shocking how her mother could sit there and tally up poor Alfred Dunbarton as if he was nothing more than the embodiment of a column of figures, then dismiss his grandmother. For that matter, how could her mother dismiss her as someone who would be impressed with only those qualities? ‘I’m not marrying him,’ May said firmly. She wondered what her mother would say if she pointed out the similarities between her and Liam. Her mother had found Liam’s crass price assessment offensive in the extreme. But her own habit was not much different, only worse because it was done with people instead of objects.

  Her mother laughed. ‘Not tonight. You haven’t even met.’

  ‘Not ever,’ May said staunchly. Her mother patted her hand and sighed.

  ‘Just meet him, May, and please be polite. These are your father’s friends.’

  That was her mother’s mantra the next night and the night after that. These are your father’s friends. Translation: These are the sorts of men who are worthy of you. They had money and they had prestige. There was Phillip Lacey to meet, heir to a shipping industry and looking to marry up to the peerage in some way, and Robert Quinsey, royal barrister, also looking to marry up, and another round with Alfred Dunbarton hanging on her arm. They were decently attractive, well-mannered men raised in the best traditions of their stations. Not one of them could match Liam Casek.

  May knew what her mother saw in them. Here were acceptable men who were willing to take a non-virginal bride to get what they wanted. Another girl would be desperately pleased with their attentions, thrilled to be mentioned in the society pages as the festive season’s loveliest girl, but not this girl; the girl who’d seen her friend through a difficult pregnancy and delivered a baby, who had learned to cook and liked it, who walked to market and did her own shopping, who was just as comfortable in warm wool skirts and sturdy half-boots as she was in the rich brocades and winter velvets she wore to dinner. It didn’t help that that girl had also lain beside Liam Casek, giving and receiving true passion. It was impossible to imagine exploring those passions with any of the gentlemen. There was a knock on her bedroom door and May tightened the sash on her dressing gown, preparing herself for battle. A glance at the little clock on her vanity told her who it was before the door opened.

  Her mother glided in, ready for the evening in a deep burgundy velvet. She smiled, but May wasn’t fooled. This was just the beginning. ‘You’re not dressed! Did your maid not come to help you?’

  ‘I sent her away. I’m not going out tonight.’ It was time to take a stand. She wasn’t going out unless she got what she wanted.

  Her mother gave her a patronising smile and started towards the wardrobe. ‘You haven’t worn the blue velvet yet and there’s that gorgeous white ermine fur to go with it.’ She laughed over her shoulder. ‘Furs are the best thing about winter, don’t you think?’

  This was her mother’s way. When met with opposition, Mrs Worth just ploughed right over it, ignoring its existence.
May stood and repeated her argument. ‘I am not going out tonight. I am not going to meet any more eligible men and, when this is over, I am going back to be with Beatrice.’

  ‘I know the men are not heirs to titles,’ her mother offered consolingly. ‘But they are wealthy and well placed in their own right. I think you would agree it’s the best we can hope for given your circumstances. Fortunately, you’re still young, very pretty, very well connected and have a substantial dowry. Second sons are happy to forgive a youthful indiscretion in light of that.’

  ‘Liam Casek was not a youthful indiscretion. I love him.’ May’s temper burned. Her mother had never spoken so bluntly about the loss of her virginity before. It was as offensive to May as her categorisation of the suitors. Was everything to be classified and bartered as goods? Liam was rubbing off on her.

  ‘Do you love him still? Really? After all he’s done to you? He left you and now he’s back because your brother ordered it. It should be obvious to you that after five years, he had no intention of coming back for you at all. He only did it for your brother. If anything has occurred between you in these last weeks, it’s only because you’re convenient to him.’ Her mother was positively vituperative. ‘Good heavens, May. Didn’t I raise you to be smarter than that?’

  ‘You raised me to think for myself.’

  ‘Well, that’s obviously a highly overrated skill. Young ladies who think for themselves end up like Beatrice Penrose. Not even a second son will have her. She’s ruined beyond repair.’

  May saw with a flash of insight that this was about so much more than Liam. Certainly, he was a large part of it. Her mother was using this visit as a chance to put her beyond Liam’s reach for good with a marriage that suited her family, but her mother was also using this as a chance to break off her friendship with Beatrice and to end her independent living. She sat down on the bed. Her fears were coming true. There would be no going back to the cottage.

  She’d known this was what would happen. It had been the biggest reason she had decided to ignore the summons in the first place. If Roan hadn’t flushed them out, she would still be there, baking in her warm kitchen, braving the cold weather for the laundry, rocking Baby Matthew by the fire, knowing Liam was just outside, chopping wood and watching the road.

  Her mother picked up the dress again. ‘What do you think will happen when this is over, May? When Roan is caught and the mission is complete. Do you think you will marry Casek? That we would allow such a thing? That the granddaughter of an Earl would marry an Irish street rat?’

  ‘He’s not from the streets any more,’ May said quietly.

  ‘He’ll always be from the streets, May. Nothing can change that.’

  May glared and reached for the dress. ‘Invite him to dinner and I’ll come. Let him speak for himself, let him prove he’s risen above the streets.’

  ‘The table is already set,’ her mother protested. ‘Guests will be arriving in an hour.’

  May put down the dress, every inch as stubborn as her mother. ‘It seems I’ve developed a headache.’

  ‘Oh, very well. We’ll invite him to dinner and perhaps then you’ll see, when he’s shoulder to shoulder with Alfred Dunbarton and Robert Quinsey, just how lacking he is.’ She waved a hand at the well-appointed bedroom. ‘This is your world, May, and he’ll never fit into it.’

  * * *

  The dinner coat was never going to fit, not comfortably any way. Preston was narrower enough through the shoulders to make a difference, an uncomfortable difference. If he stood straight and didn’t move too quickly, no one would notice. They’d chalk the tightness up to ‘good’ tailoring. Tight coats for gentlemen were all the rage this year. It was ridiculous, really. A man couldn’t pull a gun from this jacket, or even hide one in it. If Roan came through the front door tonight, Liam would be at a disadvantage.

  Fortunately, he and Preston were nearly the same height. Trousers weren’t a problem, except for the fact that Preston was also slimmer through the hip. He turned in front of the long pier glass, trying to get a glimpse of his backside. The trousers felt tight. He hoped they weren’t obscene. At least the long tail of the dinner jacket would hide his backside. As long as he didn’t bend over or eat enough to pop a fragile button on the snug ice-blue paisley-silk waistcoat, he would manage. He wouldn’t embarrass May and that was what he suspected was at stake tonight—the game within the game. She had arranged this for some reason.

  Liam tugged at the waistcoat one last time, watching the buttons sparkle. Sweet heavens, were those diamonds? Probably. He couldn’t imagine Lady Worth allowing a fake imitation. On the road with Preston, staying at inns, many of which were not high quality, and risking their necks to bring a smuggler in, one tended to forget the life Preston really led. It nearly boggled his mind to think what he could do with one diamond button. People from his part of the world would work their entire lives to afford one such button—yet another reminder of whose world he was in now.

  As if he needed that reminder. The Worths did nothing by halves. The reminders were everywhere. Even the rented town house was the height of elegance and good taste, the servants as solicitous and careful as if they’d worked for the Worths their entire careers.

  He’d been ‘here’ before; the summer at the lake when he and Preston had tried to pass him off as a gentleman’s son from Oxford, and later his work when he’d returned from Serbia. It wasn’t always dingy inns and dirty smugglers. Smuggling had its elite circles, too, and anyone who worked with Preston Worth at the Home Office often had to report to other lords at fine dinner tables or over brandies at London clubs. He could put on the clothes and say the words, he could pick up the right fork and sip the wine instead of swigging it down. But it wasn’t him. Deep down, the ‘clothes’ were always too tight.

  ‘Sir, it’s time to go downstairs.’ The polite valet who’d helped him dress stepped into the room, a stack of clean, pressed white shirts, all identical, draped across his arms. It still astonished him how many white shirts a gentleman thought he needed.

  ‘Thank you.’ Liam gave him a short nod, the type Preston had taught him to make in between teaching him to read and do basic mathematics.

  Downstairs, the clock chimed seven as he stepped into the drawing room, the Worths already assembled to greet their guests. Lord and Lady Worth were arranged at the fireplace, a large white-marble piece streaked with grey veins to match the peach and grey décor. Lady Worth’s burgundy velvet was a lush contrast to the subtle tones, but it was May who stole his breath.

  She sat alone in the centre of the sofa, a queen on her throne, dressed in a stunning gown of royal blue that brought out the green of her eyes against the cream of her skin and turned her already dark hair darker. A delicate pearl pendant hung at her neck, daring a man to follow that innocent teardrop down a not-so-innocent pathway to the swell of her breasts. He was certain more than one man tonight would take that dare. This was her world. This was where she belonged. How could he ever think muted green and blue wools suited her when she positively sparkled here among the elegance of the room? How could he even think of competing with this? It was one more reminder of the gap between them, of how much a fantasy their days at the cottage had been.

  ‘Liam, come sit with me. I haven’t seen you for days,’ she invited, lifting a hand that already held a glass of ratafia.

  ‘Brandy, wine, ratafia. The list of your vices grow.’ He whispered his censure, ‘Careful, May.’

  ‘I can hold my drink. You needn’t worry,’ May whispered back with a delightfully wicked smile. He felt himself stirring already. He shifted on the sofa. Between the ill-fitting trousers and May, it might be best if he spent the night standing.

  ‘Are your trousers tight?’ May enquired, her tone deceptively innocent.

  ‘And likely to get tighter if you don’t behave yourself.’

  ‘Hmm. That
’s a tempting possibility.’ May’s eyes drifted indelicately downward. He wasn’t going to make it to dinner at this rate before he’d have to excuse himself.

  ‘Be careful, May. Your parents are watching us. I have no desire to be berated by your father as if I were an errant schoolboy. This is all your doing. Care to explain why I’m coming to dinner?’

  ‘I told my mother I wouldn’t come if you didn’t.’ Another time, he would have made a bawdy comment out of her remark, but the Worths’ drawing room was hardly the place for crass entendre.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ May confessed. ‘What have you been doing? Whenever I ask about you I’m told that you are out.’

  ‘I’ve been out looking for Cabot Roan. While he’s hunting you, I’m hunting him. Cautiously, of course. We don’t want him to run.’

  ‘And if you find him? What then?’

  ‘If it were up to me, I’d gut the bastard, May, for what he’s done to you and Preston, what he’s done to the country and who knows how many innocents. But that doesn’t serve the government. I can follow him, I can warn the Watch and you of his next move. I can keep him from running and hope to bring him to justice.’

  Something lit up in her eyes. ‘It’s day five. Preston is safely in London by now. You haven’t found Roan, he hasn’t found me. Perhaps Roan didn’t follow us into the city after all.’

  Liam gave her a polite smile. ‘It’s a nice fantasy, May, but he’s here. I will find him. Sooner or later he has to come up for air and when he does, I’ll hear about it. What about you? What have you been doing?’ He hated talking to her as if she were a stranger with whom he could only make small talk. He wanted to drag her off to the nearest closet, the nearest wall, and take that dress off her, he wanted to pull down the carefully constructed art of her hair until it spilled around her like a dark curtain. She was his and he craved her. He missed her sharp tongue, the way she’d argue with him at the cottage. He missed the warm kitchen, the lavender-pressed sheets, the suspiciously nice mugs of hot drinks, the simple knowledge that she was near and in reach. They were living in the same house, but there might as well be a continent between them—a frigid one from the looks being cast in their direction by her mother.