After furtive glances around, their heads bent near, her friends followed her.
A rickle-a-bones, sharp-faced dame abruptly excused herself from a conversation, and after signaling to Lady Stewart, the pair met by the doorway. Ah, the Egyptian was the widow, Mrs. Jonston, and Lady Stewart, her gentle, rotund mother. The women exchanged a few covert words amid several fretful glances down the corridor. Lady Stewart gave a reluctant nod, and they casually linked arms, strolling after the younger women.
What went on here?
Coming to a sudden decision, Coburn escaped onto the terrace once more. Except for a couple clinging to each other by the fountain, no one else was about. Lengthening his stride until he was practically running, he soon stood outside the study.
Wouldn’t Logan raise a mocking brow at his behavior?
Feeling like a thief, he cracked open the door and looked inside. A sedate fire burned in the grate and two double-tapered candelabras flickered atop the glossy wood mantel, but the chamber was empty. He’d started to turn away when the outer handle rattled. He’d barely enough time to slip behind the heavy draperies before feminine footsteps echoed inside.
A female made a tsking noise.
“Did I forget to shut the door?” Arieen asked, her voice oddly hoarse. With swift steps, she crossed the room and pulled the outside door closed. “After this horrid evenin’, ’tis nae wonder I’m a wee befuddled.”
Did she talk to herself often?
The trait ’twas rather endearing.
Why didn’t he reveal himself instead of cowering behind the window coverings like a naughty school boy?
A soft rap echoed across the room before the rustling of skirts and more feminine feet pattered inside.
“Arieen, you’ve been crying, and your father has left without ye,” one woman said.
Coburn edged a couple of inches to his right to where the two panels met and peeked between the folds. He’d been reduced to skulking about like the street urchin he’d once been.
He told himself he hid away to spare Arieen more humiliation, but the truth wasn’t as noble. He couldn’t leave without knowing she was all right. The guilt would plague him endlessly. No saint for certain, he couldn’t abandon her, though what he might do to aid her he couldn’t fathom.
As he’d said to MacKay, he didn’t have his own home, nor had he deep pockets. He could offer her neither a position nor funds.
Revealing himself would be much more awkward and difficult to explain, in any event.
“What did your Father say to you?” The other woman asked.
“That’s what I need to speak with Berget about.” Arieen turned desolate green eyes to them. The fierce, confident woman who’d struggled in his arms had been replaced by a stricken one. “Berget, I...”
Arieen cleared her throat, obviously chagrined and uncomfortable.
“What is it Arieen?” Mrs. Jonston’s kind smile didn’t bely her concerned expression. “You know I’d do anything within my power to help you.”
Arieen curved her mouth whilst twisting her mass of hair into a long rope. “I find myself in an impossible and most humiliating circumstance. Might I stay with you for a few days until I am able to find a position and permanent lodgings?”
Coburn stiffened and must’ve made a sound, because Arieen flashed a puzzled glance in his direction.
What the hell had happened?
’Twas no small matter for a woman to find employment, particularly one of gentle breeding. One whose reputation he’d helped tarnish. She couldn’t very well become a barmaid or a governess. Few—frightfully few—respectable choices remained.
“Arieen, what has happened?” The shepherdess voiced his thoughts as she touched Arieen’s arm.
Arieen dropped her chin to her chest and released a long sigh. Features strained, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and raised her head.
“The short of it is, Emeline, I’m disgraced and have been disowned. Robert Fleming isn’t my father as I’ve believed and no longer feels the need to bear the burden of my care.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and tears brightened her eyes.
“Oh, Arieen. How utterly awful,” Mrs. Jonston said, as she and Emeline embraced her.
The door burst open, and all three women started and exchanged troubled glances as they separated.
The two matrons swished in, and the skinny one with a face like a horse’s hind end demanded in heavily accented French, “Why are you cloistered in here, Emeline?”
“I’m having a private conversation with my friend, Aunt Jeneva. Hence, the shut door.” The shepherdess pushed her hideous bonnet off her forehead.
Coburn couldn’t suppress a grin at her spirited retort.
The aunt elevated her nose. “Non. After tonight’s dramatics, you are not permitted to associate with Miss Fleming. Zut, you are the granddaughter of a count. Your reputation will suffer, and then how will you find a worthy husband?”
“Aunt. You forget yourself.” Emeline thumped the floor with her staff. “Arieen is one of my dearest friends and will remain so.”
“Non, if you wish to continue to live with moi.” The aunt’s pointy chin jerked a couple of inches higher.
What was with these people threatening to turn their relatives out?
“As I have nae wish for my friends to witness me at my worst, we will finish this discussion privately.” Clearly peeved at her domineering relative, Emeline pressed her lips together.
Her aunt’s triumphant expression slipped a notch.
“Berget, your father wishes to depart.” Lady Stewart avoided looking directly at Arieen.
At only half-past ten?
No, Lady Stewart was taking the coward’s way out and fleeing.
Her smile sympathetic, but firm, she extended her palm toward Berget. “Come along, dear. You know your father doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
An elbow linked with Arieen’s, Berget ignored her mother’s hand. “Arieen is coming home with us.”
Well done ye, Mrs. Jonston.
Arieen’s friends did her credit.
Sighing, Lady Stewart dropped her plump hand to her side, where she fiddled with her fan. She glanced at Arieen for a second before her guilty gaze scooted away. “I fear she cannot, my dear. It won’t do. We’ve already endured so much scandal...”
Her voice trailed off at Mrs. Jonston’s affronted expression and inarticulate objection.
Coburn recalled there’d been chatter when Mrs. Jonston’s husband died, but he couldn’t remember what exactly. Unlike several of the ponces prancing about the ballroom, when in Edinburgh, he didn’t sit in upper salons, sipping tea, and begging for an earful of the latest tattle.
“Scandal, if you will recall, Mother, was not of my making.” Pulling her spine straight, Mrs. Jonston looked her mother down. “Arieen is my friend, and she needs me. This is what friends and family do. They help each other when no one else will.”
Expression contrite, Lady Stewart shook her head, causing the feather on her mask to bob like a fat goose’s tail feathers.
Make that a fat running goose’s tail feathers.
“I regret you find yourself in a difficult situation, Miss Fleming. I truly do,” Lady Stewart said, giving Arieen a transparent look of pity. “However, this very afternoon, my husband met with your father regarding an important business venture. Lord Stewart would be most upset if the offer were withdrawn.”
Business venture or a loan?
Her regard switched to her daughter and a steely—or mayhap desperate—note seeped into her tone. “It’s imperative ’tis not, Berget.”
Loan then.
Was Stewart, like many of the peerage, in debt up to his noble forehead and on the cusp of ruin? And Lady Stewart was far too accustomed to her luxuries to let something as frivolous as common decency stand in the way of maintaining her privileged way of life.
Coburn eyed Mrs. Jonston.
Hadn’t her father offered her as
a tantalizing prize, much the same way as Fleming had offered Arieen? Devil it, why couldn’t he remember the particulars?
“I understand, Lady Stewart.” Arieen said. “I’d not want my presence to cause you and Lord Stewart angst.”
Mrs. Jonston snorted her disagreement, and Arieen offered a brave, if tremulous smile.
Coburn wanted to both shout his admiration for her pluck and sweep her into his arms and assure her all would be set right someway.
He didn’t know how yet.
Perhaps Logan might be able to find her a position. Not easily done since she’d been disgraced. Pure idiocy that a single kiss could compromise a young woman.
“I shall not yield on this, Mother.” Mrs. Jonston looped her elbow through Arieen’s and smiled at her friend. “Arieen, you will stay with us. For tonight, at least.”
“That’s kind, Berget, but what happens tomorrow?” Arieen asked, her voice the merest shred of a sound.
Before he could think the impulse through or concoct all sorts of logical reasons why what he was about to do was insane, impractical, and plain numpty, Coburn stepped from behind the draperies, causing a collective gasp.
“Ye’ll marry me.”
Amid creaks and groans, the hired hack swiftly rounded a gloomy corner. Stifling a gasp, Arieen clutched at her seat. This miserable—smelly—equipage was a far cry from the well-sprung coach she’d grown accustomed to.
Once certain she wasn’t going to tumble onto the floor, she relaxed her grip.
“My answer is still no, Mr. Wallace.”
Coburn didn’t respond right away.
She’d learned one thing about him tonight other than that he was gallant. He listened and carefully considered his replies.
“I appreciate the noble gesture. I truly do, but we are strangers,” she said. “We might be”—most probably were—“wholly unsuitable for each other. I know less about you than I do Quartermain.”
Except, she’d discovered Coburn Wallace kissed divinely. The viscount on the other hand, had never offered as much as a peck on her cheek. He’d also never have considered rescuing a compromised woman by suggesting they marry, even if the idea was barely this side of dafty.
For whatever illogical reason, Arieen trusted Coburn.
That explained why, at this late hour and despite the impropriety, she found herself in a rocking vehicle reeking of yeast, rank cheese, and God only knew what else.
Maybe ’twas because he’d championed her in front of everyone that she’d agreed to accompany him. Or perhaps, her plight was so pitiable and desperate that she hadn’t anything else to lose by going with him to see whatever he was positive would change her mind.
It wouldn’t, of course.
She’d have to be off her head to marry him, but that left her in a conundrum of monumental proportions.
The offer to stay at Berget’s tonight remained open. Berget had made that perfectly clear before nearly dragging her gaping mother from the study.
Arieen intended to accept the one night’s hospitality, though it only delayed the inevitable. Perchance, if they put their heads together, she and Berget could concoct a reasonable plan before tomorrow. More likely, however, no ready solution was available.
Renewed panic zipped along Arieen’s spine, and rubbing her hands over her elbows, she shuddered. She’d jumped straight from the boiling pot into the hot coals. Had she known it would come to this, would she have finagled this hard to have the wedding called off?
Aye. She would have. At least now, she could anticipate a change in her circumstances. Someday. If God and several saints smiled upon her. Marriage to the viscount would’ve stripped her of the possibility.
Better a morsel of hope than none at all.
“I think it’s time to turn around, Mr. Wallace. I’ve already inconvenienced the Stewarts, and their generosity was not freely given but commandeered by Berget, as you no doubt heard.”
Arms folded, Coburn towed his attention from the lane and slanted a skeptical brow.
She thought he did anyway.
Unlike the vehicles she was accustomed to, the cab had no interior lamps.
“Ye agreed to see what I mean to show ye, lass, before ye made a decision.”
Reluctantly and imprudently, she had.
Arieen had managed to maintain her composure until her curious friends and their mothers had filed from the room. Before Coburn’s appearance, Lady Stewart and Mademoiselle LeClaire couldn’t wait to leave the study, but once he’d popped out from behind the draperies, their pace had slowed to such a degree, a snail might’ve whisked passed them.
Neither Berget nor Emiline were wont to wag their tongues. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of their mothers. News of this imprudent jaunt, as well as Coburn’s impromptu proposal, had likely swept through the assembly at McCullough’s swifter than fire through a hay field in late summer.
In fact, he’d used that argument in his attempt to sway her to his position and accept his impulsive, pity-driven, impossible offer for her hand.
His reasoning hadn’t swayed her.
She’d not add entrapping Coburn Wallace into marriage to her list of impetuous idiocies this evening. Except, the truth of it was, she hadn’t been impulsive. She’d planned to disgrace herself if it would force Quartermain to call off their union.
Her guilt lay in not considering what harm and inconvenience her actions would cause the man who aided—willingly or naïvely—in compromising her. True, she’d no way of knowing Robert Fleming wasn’t her father, or that her actions would set into motion a series of ill-fated events she had no control over.
Nevertheless, she’d politely listened to Coburn’s convincing rational, how he was his cousin’s second-in-command at Lockelieth Keep and could provide her a humble but comfortable life, for another fifteen minutes before shaking her head.
As they careened around another corner, she lifted a hand, pointing her forefinger beyond the grimy window.
“You mean to show me Edinburgh’s seedier side, gambling my fears will persuade me where your reasoning could not. Yes? The filth and decay? The streetwalkers and pickpockets? The drunkards and beggars?”
She closed her eyes for a moment against their hardened, defeated, street-wise features.
“It’s not the first time I’ve seen those wretches, Mr. Wallace, nor pitied their lot.” True, but not this close or in this particular section of Edinburgh. “But my answer is the same. I shan’t marry you.”
Arieen never ever considered she’d be facing the same predicament as the unfortunates outside. She mightn’t have been coddled or doted upon, but to Robert Fleming’s credit, she’d never wanted for anything—save affection—until this moment.
Now destitute, she admitted to being utterly terrified about her future.
Inhaling a shuddery breath, she tried to formulate a shred of a plan.
She wasn’t wearing jewelry she could pawn, although, she might get a few coins from selling the sword, blunderbuss, and dirk.
Searching for a solution, she absently watched the rubbish-littered wynds pass by.
Where could she find employment?
Of more import, in the meanwhile, who would take her in? Edinburgh was notoriously overcrowded, housing was scarce, and she hadn’t many connections she could approach about a position or a place to live.
’Twas possible—probable—word of her fall from grace might make it impossible to find work here. Perhaps she should look in London? How could she possibly travel there without money?
What was fast becoming familiar dread sent hopelessness throttling up her throat.
She drew her focus to the brawny man sprawled on the seat across from her. Even in the midst of this crisis, merely glancing at him made her stomach flop. Ruggedly handsome, dangerously charming, and possessing a devastating smile, she wasn’t immune to him, rapscallion or not.
Och, ’twasn’t that Coburn’s offer didn’t tempt—didn’t provide an answer to her di
re quandary. It did both. She was honest enough to acknowledge he’d stirred a passion in her she hadn’t known she possessed. But to marry a complete stranger?
Which fate was worse?
The streets? Or him?
At first glance, the streets, obviously. Nevertheless, each choice had her balancing on a precipice’s perilous edge.
A few hours ago, she’d only faced an unwanted marriage. Now homeless, without means, and her heart shattered by the only father she’d ever known, her future loomed abysmal.
How could Da—Robert—have harbored so much animosity toward me, and I never kent?
It would be a long while before that wound healed.
Her musings migrated to Morag and the bairn. How were they? How could she find out how they fared? Concern for them still weighed heavily upon her.
“Nae, that’s not what I want ye to see, Arieen. Only a wee bit farther.” Coburn’s denial pulled her from her reverie.
He returned his contemplation to the tenement slums all around them.
A few minutes later, the carriage shuddered to a stop. Peeking from the window, Arieen pinched her lips together as two rats dashed across the road. Not only did she have no idea where she was, she’d never seen such blatant poverty.
Coburn climbed out, and after handing her down, tossed a coin to the jarvey. “Wait for us. We shan’t be long.”
The driver gave a grudging nod as he hunched further into his coat’s raised collar. “Dinna dawdle. My missus disna like it when I stays out late.”
“Ye’ll be well-compensated,” Coburn said, “and I’m sure yer missus willna mind the extra coin.”
Arieen pressed the back of her hand to her nose. “The air is positively fetid. What’s that horrid smell?”
“Raw waste, rubbish, offal, dead rodents.” His bearing alert and watchful, Coburn searched the road. “Ye eventually get used to the stench.”
Coburn took her dirk and tucked it into his waistband. “I ken how to use this better than ye, and we may have need of it.
She gave a slight, trepid nod, and he cupped her elbow.
“Keep yer head down, and dinna speak to anyone,” he said under his breath.
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