She glanced hopefully for a back entrance. There was none. Her heart sank. The only way out of the store was through the front door.
Kosta examined his torn sleeve once more. “They actually laid hands on me…”
Vexed, Emma rolled her eyes. “Could you please concentrate on finding a way out of this? We have stumbled into a dead-end and I don’t believe the people out there will leave very soon.”
Kosta glanced at her. His black eyes flickered with anger. “This is all your fault. If you had not insisted upon having your way and visiting the town hall, we would not be here.”
“I underestimated them,” Emma admitted. “I had no idea they felt so strongly about…about, well, all of it! Why do they feel threatened by me, Kosta? It is such a small thing I want to do.”
“They will slaughter us both.” Kosta watched the people pressing up against the window, slapping their hands and knocking their knuckles against the glass. “They will break the window and we will be done for.”
Emma tried to tuck back a lock of hair which had escaped its pin. Her fingers trembled too much. She couldn’t think well, knowing the people outside were so riled by her simple ambition, they would actually hurt her.
“This is completely my own doing,” she said softly, as she traced back the small, seemingly inconsequential decisions she had made throughout the year. “I put myself in this position…and I brought you to this place, too, Kosta. I am sorry about that.”
His black eyes met hers. He stopped fussing with his torn sleeve and gave a small shrug. “I did try to warn you,” he said grimly.
She rolled her eyes. “That is not helpful.”
“At least they’ve stopped banging on the glass,” Kosta said, lifting his chin toward the window.
They had also stopped hammering on the door. Through the window, Emma could see they had turned away from peering inside to find her. The angry shouting had diminished.
Was something else happening out there?
The door suddenly shuddered in its frame as someone beat heavily on the oak. “Emma! Let me in!”
Emma gasped. “Morgan!”
“Emma! Open the door!”
Kosta grimaced. “Finally. Rescue.” He moved to the door and lifted the bar out of its brackets and rested it against the wall beside the door.
The door wavered open under Morgan’s hammering. Morgan and Will stepped in. Will leaned against the door, keeping it closed. His hair was mussed and his tie askew, although he looked cheerful.
Morgan strode over to Emma and gripped her shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “What are you doing here?” she breathed. “I thought you and Will did not intend to vote until later today?”
“As soon as you and Kosta left, Morgan got uneasy and nagged me into following you into town,” Will said, from the door. “Just as well, too,” he added, glancing through the window.
Morgan’s gaze roamed her face.
“There is no back door,” Emma said. “We’re trapped here.”
Morgan shook his head. “No. We will leave by the front door. There is four of us, now.” He paused. “Are you up to this, Emma?”
“Would it not be easier to wait for everyone to give up and leave?” Emma asked.
“You do intend to vote some time today, do you not?”
Her heart thudded as she stared at Morgan. She felt as though the floor had dropped out from beneath her feet and she was falling. “Vote?” she repeated, her lips numb.
“Are you crazy, Davies?” Kosta cried. “The only direction those people will let us go is away from here.”
Morgan’s fingers tightened on her shoulders. “You wanted to do this alone. Now you can see that you cannot. Let me help, Emma. Your vote still counts, even if you do need an escort to the doors of the town hall itself in order to do it.”
Emma shivered. “You will…you will help me vote?”
“You are mad,” Kosta breathed. “They will tear her apart.”
“I won’t allow it,” Morgan said flatly.
“Nor I,” Will added. He pushed up his sleeves. “They’ve annoyed me, now.”
“Never get a Williams man angry,” Morgan breathed.
“Or a Davies man,” Emma added. She realized she was smiling.
“What will it be, Emma?” Morgan asked. “Vote, or go home?”
She drew in a breath. “I came here to vote. If I can do that without anyone getting hurt, then I will.”
“I won’t guarantee not to hurt anyone,” Will muttered. “If they’re in my way, I’ll move them, no matter what it takes.”
Kosta muttered something in a low voice. It was the same words as before. Emma wondered if they were curses. He stripped off his ruined jacket and tossed it upon the counter and tackled his cuffs. “Why not?” he asked, sounding dangerously carefree.
Morgan guided Emma to the door. “Stay between us,” he instructed, his voice low. “Along the footpath, Will. We can use the walls to protect one flank.”
“A good plan,” Will said, turning and leaning against the door with his hands, ready to let it swing open. “The crowd will be thinner against the walls. Ready?”
Morgan nodded. He looked at Emma and raised his brow.
She swallowed and nodded, too.
Morgan glanced behind him. Kosta shrugged. “Whenever you are ready.”
“Now, Will.”
Will stepped away from the door and let it swing open. Men had pushed up against it and Will threw himself upon them, shoving with his feet to push them back enough to make way.
Morgan eased Emma through the door and then along the front of the store. She could hear Kosta right behind her, breathing heavily. The three of them formed a shell around her. Their tight little knot moved a step at a time along the wall, as the crowd jeered and shouted and pressed in around them.
Emma flinched, and kept her gaze ahead, to where the pillars of the town hall could be glimpsed over the tops of heads and waving fists.
While Morgan, Will and Kosta shoved and warded off the crowd, they progressed steadily until suddenly, they had arrived. They moved through the wide columns onto the porch and over to the doors of the hall.
Will opened the doors and they filed through.
Everyone inside the hall looked around, their eyes wide.
The sound of the mob outside grew louder.
Emma straightened her dress and tucked a stray hair back into the knot on the back of her head.
“Lord Rothmere!” The man coming toward Will wore a braided and buttoned tunic and had a helmet tucked under his arm. Inspector Phillip Long, of the Inverness Constabulary, frowned at them. “What are you doing here, my Lord?” he asked Will.
“I am here to vote, of course,” Will said. “It has taken some effort to reach here.”
“You shouldn’t have come, my Lord.” Long’s gaze flickered toward Emma. “Not with the lady, leastwise. That mob out there is her doing.”
Emma drew in a breath, squashing her resentment. “I am here to vote, too,” she said, making her voice loud and even. Long was not the only man in the cavernous front hall. The marble floor and stone walls and roof helped her voice carry.
“Ladies do not vote,” Long replied.
“They do if they’re entered on the roll, which I am,” Emma replied. Her heart was hurting, so hard did it beat.
Long raised his brow. He did not seem surprised by her claim. Was there anyone in Inverness who was not aware of her situation? “Is that so?” he said, his tone calm. “Well, let’s see about that, shall we?” He stepped aside and waved them all toward a clerk sitting behind a table, with a big ledger in front of him. Behind him, other Inverness residents stood at three high old-fashioned desks, with their sloping writing surfaces. They had been filling in their own ballot sheets. They turned to watch Emma and the three men confront Inspector Long.
Long walked them over to the clerk, who nervously pushed his spectacles back up his nose. He had mousy s
ideburns and a mole on his cheek. “Name, my Lord?” he asked Will.
Will rolled his eyes. “Rothmere.”
The clerk cleared his throat and flipped through the pages of the ledger. “Ah. Here we are, my Lord.” He spun the ledger, dipped a pen in his inkpot, tapped it off and held it out to Will. He rested his finger against the line in the ledger where Will’s name and address were written in perfect copperplate writing.
Will took the pen and scratched his signature in the space where the clerk was pointing, then handed the pen back.
The clerk gave him another nervous smile, picked up a sheet of paper from the small pile by his elbow and handed it to Will. There was a list of three names on the sheet, printed in blotchy ink. “Circle the name of the candidate you support, then fold the sheet and hand it to Mr. Johnson, over there, my Lord,” the clerk said. He nodded toward a young man who stood beside a wooden box, looking as nervous as the first clerk.
Will took the ballot and moved over to the high desks. The other voters quickly turned and finished their ballots.
Morgan took Emma’s elbow and guided her forward.
She stepped up to the table. “E. Wardell,” she told the clerk.
The clerk blinked at her, then looked at Inspector Long.
“See if the lady is registered, Baldwin,” Long said.
“Yes sir.” The clerk flipped through the pages, fumbling them, and turning too many, then returning to the front of the ledger and starting again.
Emma drew in a shaking breath, as Baldwin ran his finger down the rows of names, one page after another. More than one hand had written the entries. There was a mix of cursive, ink colors and styles. Some cramped, some flourishing, some sloped.
“You missed it,” Morgan said, his voice low and hard. “It is right there.” He stabbed his finger upon the register.
The clerk pushed his spectacles back up his nose. “Oh dear, yes. I see.” He glanced at Long for guidance once more.
Long nodded.
The clerk turned the ledge with fussy movements, and took his time dipping and tapping the pen. The nib scraped across the thick lip of the inkpot. He held it out with thumb and forefinger, as if the touch of Emma’s hand against his was abhorrent.
She took the pen and bent over the ledger to sign her name where he pointed. She scanned the entry.
E. Wardell. Via Kirkaldy, Inverness.
Emma’s heart slammed against her chest. Her head throbbed. She recognized the writing.
It was Morgan’s.
Emma’s breath came quickly.
“Please sign in the space there,” the clerk said, with a tone that implied he wasn’t certain she was capable of the act.
Emma clawed together her wits, enough to write her name. Her hand shook as she handed the pen back. She turned to Morgan.
His gaze was steady. His expression calm.
Emma didn’t know what to say.
“You must finish your ballot, miss,” Baldwin, the clerk, said, his tone loud.
“Take your voting slip,” Morgan said softly.
Emma glanced at the clerk. She took the sheet he held out to her.
“Now go and vote,” Morgan added. He pushed gently at her shoulder, nudging her toward the high desks.
She moved around the clerk’s table, over to the high desks. Will was folding his sheet, and moved out of the way for her, with a small smile.
A high note sang in her head as Emma dipped the pen and circled the name of her chosen candidate. She couldn’t hear the scratch of the pen.
Morgan had added her name to the register.
How had he managed that? He was in and out of the town hall frequently, on matters of business, registration of lands and buildings and changes of ownership. He knew the mayor, and most of the councilors.
Perhaps someone had turned their back for the necessary number of minutes…
Emma put the pen down and folded the ballot and moved over to where the lad stood beside the crate. The crate was closed, with a nailed-down lid, and a slot where the ballet could be dropped through.
She pushed her folded sheet through the narrow hole.
It was done. She had voted.
Trembling set in.
Morgan’s arm reached past hers. He dropped his sheet into the box, then took her arm once more.
“My Lord, ye’d best be easing out the back door,” Inspector Long said, speaking quietly. “I’ll have a boy tell your driver to pick you up there.”
“Thank you, Long,” Will murmured.
“This way,” Morgan said quietly. “Konstantin?”
“Coming,” Kosta said, from farther away.
They moved across the marble-floored hall, their boots tapping, and into a corridor at the back. Doors lined the corridor, and at the end was another door with brackets on either side, and a bar standing in the corner. The back door.
Will opened the door. They stepped out onto a small platform and moved down a dozen steps to the yard beyond. There were carriage wheels marks and the crescents of horses’ hooves all across the dirt.
Kosta moved over to a cart with no sides, sitting forlornly by the fence, and rested his rear on the edge. “That was…quite the adventure,” he decided.
The sun came out from behind the thinning clouds and Will turned his face up to it. “I’ve a mind to go back out the front way, after all,” he murmured. “That was fun.”
Emma turned to Morgan. She could stay silent no longer. “You added me to the register! And you said nothing!”
“What? Wait…all this business was your doing, Morgan?” Will said, sounding aggrieved.
Morgan pushed his hands into his pockets and gave a small shrug. “I said to give me time.”
“This is why?” She moved toward him. “Today is what you waited for? Why?”
Morgan’s gaze was steady. His blue eyes, in the suddenly bright sunlight, seemed clear. Warm with an inner glow. “You wanted to vote. You wanted to stand by yourself and be seen to make up your own mind. You can only make such a statement as a single woman. If you were a wife or a fiancé, everyone would assume your husband or intended directed your vote. I am only sorry you could not walk through the front doors of the town hall without male assistance. It diluted your statement…although I think, not enough to negate it. People will talk about today and your vote for many years to come.”
Warmth grew in her middle, even though her trembling grew worse. Emma tried to encompass what Morgan had put in place for her. What he had done for her. Then he had remained silent and…just waited. Patiently.
Give me just a little more time, he had asked her.
“Morgan,” she breathed, her throat tight.
Will swore. “We were nearly torn apart out there, Morgan.” His tone was stroppy.
“Yet Emma voted,” Morgan said calmly. “The rest doesn’t matter.”
Emma reached for him. Her hand shook as she curled her fingers around Morgan’s lapel and gave him a little shake. “Wife?” she whispered.
Morgan picked up a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “This conversation should wait,” he said softly. His gaze shifted over her shoulder.
Kosta.
Appalled, Emma turned to look at Kosta, where he sat with his arms crossed on the side of the cart.
Kosta shaded his eyes with his hand. “You put her on the register, Morgan?”
“That is not something which should become general knowledge,” Morgan said quickly.
“No one will learn it from me,” Kosta replied. His gaze shifted to Emma. “It seems you are not for me, bir tanem. I could not have done this thing for you that Morgan has done. I would not have thought of it, and if I had, I would not have dreamed of actually doing it.”
Emma moved over to him. “Kosta…I am sorry. I do think we would have made each other happy.”
Kosta’s dark eyes were somber. “He will complete you. Him, you could not live without.” His smile was more of a grimace. “You need him.”
/> Behind them, Emma heard the wheels of the Kirkaldy carriage turning into the yard. She sighed. “I do need him,” she told Kosta. “I didn’t know that until just now, but I really do.”
Chapter Seventeen
George pulled the carriage around to the back of the town hall, and everyone climbed in gratefully.
“Home, George, please.” Will dropped onto the seat with a heavy sigh. “This is the first time I have found voting exhausting.”
Emma said nothing. She found herself beside Will and opposite Morgan, which did not help her maintain her composure, for Morgan studied her throughout the journey to Kirkaldy, the heat in his eyes more than evident to her.
There was another surprise waiting for her at Kirkaldy. Bakersfield opened the door for them and said to Morgan: “Mr. Thomsett and Lady Lillian are in the drawing room, Mr. Davies.”
Emma jumped. “Lilly is here?” She swung to look at Morgan accusingly.
“Yes, I asked them to come up,” he said. He looked at Kosta. “For your sake, and for Emma’s, it is time you both spoke to Lilly, behind closed doors.”
Will cleared his throat. “I know when I’m not needed.” He tugged at his tie. “These pins are driving into my neck. I must change.” He charged up the stairs, two and three at a time, shrugging out of his jacket as he went.
Kosta was staring at the drawing room doors.
Emma touched his arm. “We agreed it was probably better not to know,” she told him. “Now, I think it is time to learn the truth, don’t you?”
Kosta glanced at her. “Now the moment is here, I am afraid.”
“Whatever you learn, it is just a fact,” Morgan said in his deep voice. “It will not harm you unless you let it. You have lived all this time with the fact out there in the world, where you could not see it. Now you will, and that is all that will change.”
“We will not change,” Emma added. “We are already who we are.”
Kosta nodded. “Yes. Yes, you are right. Both of you.” He gave Emma a strained smile. “We will still be friends, yes?”
Suddenly, she understood his fear. “No matter what we learn, yes,” she assured him.
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