Wasn’t this a bit extreme to make his point?
He pressed his fingertips into her arm. “Do ye understand, lass?”
“Aye.”
An eerie atmosphere hovered in the air, and fear heightened her awareness. Mouth dry, the muscles in her shoulders and back so tight they ached, she licked her lower lip. How did people live like this? Constantly afraid?
“Watch yer step,” he softly cautioned, nimbly stepping over a dead rat.
From beneath her lashes, she scrutinized their surroundings. Irregularly-shaped, coal-blackened buildings several stories high surrounded them. Gutters on either side of the wynd overflowed with all manner of foulness. Though ’twas past eleven of the clock, young children and toddlers peeked at them from the tenements’ grimy windows and shadowy doorways.
Speaking low, he led her down a narrow alley. “Many of these urchins are on their own. Likely, their mothers were prostitutes who died from disease or abuse or were murdered. Or they abandoned them.”
She jerked her head up, searching his face in horrified disbelief. “How could they?”
“Desperation causes people to do the unthinkable.” Alert, his tension apparent in the tight grip on her arm, he continually scanned their surroundings. A few feet farther along, he motioned to two boys huddled beneath a cart. “They sleep wherever they can find a bit of protection from the elements, and they frequently go days without eatin’.”
“Poor darlings.” She glanced at him to find him observing her, his expression inscrutable. “Can nothing be done?”
He rolled a shoulder. “The Church and a few other charities sponsored by wealthy patrons help.”
A girl, not more than eight years old, wearing a filthy tattered gown and sporting a greenish-yellow bruise on her cheek ventured forth. Two smaller lasses, holding hands and huddled together, warily followed her with their haunted gazes.
“Please, sir.” The girl held out a grimy palm. “Can ye spare a coin? Me sisters be hungry.”
Coburn dug in his pocket and pulled a small coin bag out. He gave her one. Other children scrambled from their hidey-holes, begging for money.
Face grim, he parceled out all he had.
Another shudder raked across Arieen’s shoulders, from raw emotion and cold. How did these ragamuffins survive the winter months? Why wasn’t more being done to lessen their suffering?
In the half-light, she examined the waifs’ smudged, tired faces. Faces too old and defeated for their small forms. If Robert hadn’t married her mother, she might’ve been one of these urchins. Bittersweet gratitude stabbed her for what she’d been spared, and she hugged her shoulders.
Several guttersnipes yet jockeyed to get close to Coburn, begging for money.
“I dinna have anymore. I’m sorry.” He held the bag upside down and shook it.
The children’s disappointed cries shredded Arieen’s heart, as she and Coburn turned to leave.
His bearing guarded, he guided her toward the hack. “If they aren’t already, those lasses—and aye, the lads too—will be sellin’ their bodies for a scrap of bread.”
“Dear God,” she choked. Her boot tip caught on an uneven cobble, and she stumbled. The tears blurring her eyes might be to blame for her clumsiness.
He tightened his grip and steadied her. “Careful.”
She stared over her shoulder from whence they’d come. “It’s awful and wrong and unfair. And I feel completely and utterly helpless.”
As they emerged onto the main road, she stifled a dismayed cry.
The hack was gone. How were they to get to their destination now?
Walk Edinburgh’s most treacherous roads this time of night? Aye, likely their only option since Coburn had given the urchins his last coin.
Grasping her shoulders, he pivoted her to face him. His expression intense and unyielding, he searched her eyes.
“If ye dinna marry me, ye’ll find yerself like their mothers, Arieen.” He made a subtle gesture to a harlot engaged in an intimate act against a shoddy building. “Like her.”
Arieen dropped her gaze, humiliated for the poor woman. “I...” Sickening realization swamped her, and she closed her eyes against the unholy images his words conjured.
“Ye’ll be set upon. Violated. Beaten. Abused hundreds of times.” He gave her a gentle shake. “Look at me.”
Reluctance weighting her eyelids, she raised them, staring straight into his eyes, glittering with raw emotion.
“Maybe ye think ye can avoid that life, or mayhap endure it”—nae, I cannae—“but what if ye have bairns?” He jerked his strong jaw in the direction they’d come.
Her attention snapped to the dingy alley.
She instinctively closed her eyes and cradled her empty womb in a protective gesture. God above, he was right. In her current circumstances, she mightn’t be able to do much to aid these precious children, but she would not knowingly inflict this impoverished life on a child of hers.
“How can ye condemn yer children to such a fate, Arieen?”
“I was one of those children,” Coburn said, “and I wouldn’t wish that life on my worst enemy.”
He remembered the terror as if it had only been last week. The aching cold and gnawing hunger clawing at his belly. The perverted debauchers trying to bribe him into going with them. He’d never forget running to escape the sods when he’d refused. Or witnessing the abduction of his friends. Or…later, seeing them beaten and broken from the violations they’d been subjected to.
If they returned to the streets at all.
The ebony crescent of Arieen’s lashes slowly lifted, and he read the hopeless resignation in her eyes. Her gaze tormented, she captured her lower lip between her teeth.
A drunkard, holding a whisky bottle and singing off-key, shambled in their direction.
Only a fool lingered in the slums, and although Coburn carried her dirk, they risked robbery or worse by remaining. They were outsiders, and from the not-so-covert looks being sliced toward them, others had noticed.
A scrawny cat darted across the road, a limp mouse clamped in its mouth. Probably taking the rodent to feed her kittens.
“Come, we must move along. We’re drawin’ attention.” He took Arieen’s elbow, and setting a brisk pace, led her away. Logan’s residence was under two miles from here. Not a horrid jaunt in the dead of night, but not a meandering stroll either.
He wouldn’t curse the jarvey for leaving. Coburn had nothing left to pay him with, in any event. He simply hadn’t been able to refuse the children what money he’d carried. Besides, it might do Arieen good to experience a few minutes more of Edinburgh’s unsavory neighborhoods. To see the ugly reality her life could become.
She matched his stride, her long hair swishing across the gentle slope of her bum, their boots clicking on the cobblestones.
“How did you escape that life, Coburn?”
Did she hope she could, if it came to that?
Not unless someone helped her. And right now, she didn’t have anyone except him.
“My uncle, Logan’s father, rescued me. Uncle Artair wasn’t the noblest of men, but when my mother—his sister—died and left me a homeless orphan, he found me and took me to Lockelieth. I dinna ken how he kent, but one day, he showed up. Logan too. I’d never met them before, but Logan looked a great deal like me, and we kent we had to be related.”
Coburn’s mother had been a whore at the end. He’d seen and heard things no child should ever witness. That was how he knew about childbirth. The tenement walls were paper thin.
He eyed Arieen sideways. “I’ve seen the verra worst humankind can do to each other, and though I dinna ken ye, I’d spare ye that misery.”
He may not have caused her situation, but he’d certainly contributed to her difficulty, and he’d marry her to spare her the fate of his mother. Even if it meant relinquishing a secret, impossible dream. At one time, before Logan’s return from abroad, Coburn had considered leaving Lockelieth and taking to the sea. He
wanted to see the world, and a poor man had few options available to do so.
If he married Arieen, he’d never be able to pursue that dream, for he’d not abandon his wife or the children they might produce. Neither would he leave them a burden for Logan to care for. He couldn’t offer her much, merely respectability and a simple life in the Highlands.
He slid her a covert glance. Forehead furrowed and gaze lowered, she appeared deep in thought as they tramped along. He took a huge gamble, of course.
After all, she was—at least had been—the pampered daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Scotland. Chances were, she’d be miserable.
Better unhappy and safe than a pathetic hoore destined to die young.
Coburn was neither rich nor titled, but his position as Laird Rutherford’s second-in-command was secure. She’d never go hungry, want for basic necessities, or have a hand raised against her. That was more than countless women could claim, including nobility.
True, years of neglect by Logan’s father meant the Keep needed restoration, but Lockelieth was the only home Coburn had known. Arieen on the other hand, was accustomed to a more comfortable existence, and she’d undoubtedly find the castle lacking.
He hadn’t missed her grimace of distaste when she’d settled onto the hackney’s seat, but to her credit, she hadn’t complained. Surely life at a medieval Keep, despite its rustic trappings, drafty chambers, and occasional—frequent—leaks was preferable to the poverty and depravation she’d just seen.
They walked in silence for several minutes, gradually leaving the shabbier portions of Edinburgh behind as they descended the Royal Mile.
“Coburn.” Brow knitted, she gave him a considering look as they passed a man pushing an empty cart. “How did you and your mother find yourselves on Edinburgh’s streets?”
“I honestly dinna ken or remember the details.” He shook his head and scratched his neck. “Uncle Artair wouldn’t speak of it, except to say my mother had eloped. The details went with him to his grave.”
“Families like to keep their unsavory secrets hidden,” she said.
No small truth there.
“What say ye, Arieen? Will ye marry me? I leave for Lockelieth in the morn.”
He’d been away for weeks already.
As they marched along, she pressed two fingertips against the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know. I don’t know you, Coburn.” She waved a hand toward him. “Isn’t there another option? I don’t want to marry a stranger, and you cannot desire it any more than I.”
“Och, I’m no’ altogether keen on the notion either, lass. But nae, I can offer ye naught else that’s respectable.” A wave of irritation swept him at her continued reluctance. He’d never planned on marrying, let alone rushing into a union with a woman he’d met but hours ago.
A lass with the sweetest kisses I’ve ever tasted.
He’d not beg her, by Odin’s bones.
Arieen was free to choose her own destiny.
He drew her to a halt before the steps leading up to St. Giles Cathedral. “If yer no’ willin’, I understand. Tell me where ye want to go, and I’ll take ye there. The Stewarts?”
Lord and Lady Stewart lived on the outskirts of Edinburgh. He’d be waking Logan and asking for a few coins after all. ’Twas too far to walk, and he wasn’t riding double with that alluring siren. Arieen hadn’t stopped shivering the past five minutes, and she wasn’t dressed for a night-time ride, in any event.
A scowl pulled Coburn’s lips taut. His cousin would ask questions. Lots of annoying, prying questions. And he’d either laugh until he cried at Coburn’s predicament, or now that he’d finally won Mayra’s heart, lecture Coburn on his foolishness.
Both notions settled on him like a black, dank cloud, and he found himself impatient for Arieen’s decision.
Idiot, he admonished himself.
Had he seriously thought a woman of her background would have the likes of him? Even if she was without other recourse? He should feel relief, not this...nameless, annoying whatever-it-was. Not disappointment exactly—that implied he felt affection for her. And Coburn never permitted sentimental attachments. He loved his lasses, left them smiling and sated, but his emotions weren’t engaged beyond fondness for the fairer sex as a whole.
Head tipped back, three lines creasing her forehead, Arieen examined the church’s impressive architecture.
A pigeon cooed softly, likely snuggled in a cozy nest with its mate somewhere in the crown steeple. Coburn had anticipated spending the night similarly nestled instead of freezing his ballocks off trying to convince a disinclined lass to wed him.
“Could I not go with you to Lockelieth?” she asked, her focus trained on the cathedral.
Coburn had considered taking her with him, but Logan wouldn’t approve. Mayra, his betrothed, even less so. Not because Mayra was the jealous type, but beautiful, unattached women couldn’t dwell in men’s homes they weren’t acquainted with. Not unless they were a servant, and a woman of Arieen’s position didn’t lower herself to that humble status without serious consideration of the consequences. For if she did, she’d likely never rise above that station again.
“I could work there.” Arieen grabbed his forearm, her enthusiasm growing as the idea took root. “Be a chamber or scullery maid. Or a governess? Does your cousin have children?” With an irritated huff, she pushed her hair away from her face. “I can muck stalls or dig weeds. Or do the laundry if need be.”
Not with those soft, white, surprisingly strong hands. The memory of her palm pressing into his back, urging him nearer as they kissed sent a fresh jolt of heat through him. At some point, she’d removed her gloves, and her neatly-trimmed nails and unblemished fingers bespoke a life of being waited upon.
One foot on the St. Giles Cathedral’s bottom riser, Coburn shook his head.
The breeze blew the cloud covering the half moon away, and a single moonbeam slanted from the heavens, its silvery ray shining on her. Almost as if God had anointed her with His finger.
“Lass, it’s nae my place to retain staff, and if ’twas, I’m guessin’ ye’ve nae experience at menial tasks.”
She turned her head, such supplication in her turned-up eyes, he guessed what she was going to ask. And damn his eyes, he knew his answer too.
“Could you ask him, anyway, Coburn? Please?”
An hour later, ensconced in Logan’s study, Coburn sipped his whisky and lounged in a worn chair before the fire. Usually when he and Logan took their respective seats in here, the conversation was amiable, even jovial.
Not tonight.
Stifling a yawn, Coburn raised his glass. Through the umber liquid, he admired the bright, frolicking flames. Exhaustion settled upon him like a warm, woolen plaid, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. He’d have a devil of a time prying himself from his mattress at dawn.
Having been provided tea and a light repast by a surprisingly chipper Armstrong, the butler, Arieen awaited them in the salon. The last he’d glimpsed her through the cracked doorway, she stared at the opening, her expression hopeful and anxious.
He couldn’t erase her bonnie eyes pleading with him to ask Logan to hire her. Logan hadn’t funds to spare. He was barely keeping Lockelieth afloat. She’d have to work for her food and board.
“Ye mean to tell me, after ye congratulated me on my happy news tonight, ye compromised a lass ye just met and then proposed to her?” Logan stared at Coburn expectantly and gave an impatient jerk of his hand. “Do I have it right?”
Coburn lifted a shoulder. “More or less.”
Logan tossed back his remaining whisky, then looked around rather desperately for the decanter.
As he hitched a leg over the chair’s arm, Coburn pointed to the desk.
Scowling, Logan lifted the crystal topper and aimed it at Coburn. “Ye who swore he’d never take a wife could verra well be wed before I am? Since when did ye become chivalrous and noble?”
Coburn wisely stifled the chuckle rising to his t
hroat. He’d flummoxed his cousin, and right properly. “Logan, the lass disna want to marry me.”
“Smart on her part. I applaud her intelligence,” Logan muttered, cross as a wounded boar.
Canting his head whilst he swung the leg hanging over the chair’s arm, Coburn considered his cousin. What had Logan so peeved?
That he’d been roused from his bed?
That Coburn had proposed to Arieen?
“I’d nae marry ye either, ye womanizin’ rake.” With a harsh clank, Logan topped the decanter.
“Thank ye for yer confidence in me, cousin.”
Coming to stand before Coburn, his banyan rippling around his bare feet and thunder in his face, Logan merely stared.
Evidently, he’d vaulted from his bed, naked as a selkie, when his butler had announced Coburn was at his door at twelve-thirty in the morning with a life-and-death crisis.
Life and death.
Coburn had insisted Armstrong use that precise phrase. Rotten of Coburn since he knew Logan couldn’t ignore something so serious.
’Twasn’t a lie exactly.
Arieen’s life could be in danger, and she might be facing death if she didn’t find a place to live.
The look on Logan’s face after he’d bounded down the stairs and tore into the drawing room, skidding to a halt when he spied Arieen, resulted in a suppressed chuckle now.
Coburn had busted out laughing then too.
“Do leave off yer juvenile snickerin’.” Logan flopped into the other chair, then crossed an ankle over his knee. “Why did ye brin’ her here? Ye didna need my permission to do somethin’ stupid and rash. Ye’ve already done that.”
“This from the mon who pretended to be me and lied to his betrothed about it?” Coburn stretched his legs out, crossed his ankles, and letting his head fall back onto the chair’s high back, exhaled a long breath. Guid, I’m tired. “I dinna think either of us should be pointin’ fingers at the other, cousin.”
“Aye. Yer right.” His glass resting on his thigh, Logan ran his forefinger around the rim. “What do ye need from me?”
Coburn gave into the urge to close his heavy eyelids. “The lass wants to know if ye’ll give her a position at Lockelieth. Her father disowned her after our kiss, and she has nae where else to go.”
To Redeem a Highland Rake Page 7