Page 15 of The Scot Who Loved Me
He knew that fact with ale to be true because he’d tried.
And now he and Anne were in an awkward standoff, last night’s progress on shaky ground.
How was it they managed to be honest in the dark and skittish by day?
He was at a disadvantage to answer his ownquestion—hungry, undressed, and facing the one woman who’d ripped his youthful heart to shreds. When his stomach rumbled, she stepped aside to reveal a steaming bowl of porridge on a mahogany table with a single chair facing the window.
“Your breakfast.” Anne announced the meal as if announcing a truce.
He walked to the table, his arm a hair’s breadth from hers. She stiffened. Heat leaped off her body but her mouth pressed a firm line that brooked no compromise.Definitely tetchy.He’d said he’d listen to her league, but he was his own man. Best she understood that.
Grinning, he picked up the bowl and gripped the spoon like an oaf for no other reason than to goad. Anne was a reservoir of control that needed stirring.
“My boots cleaned, my clothes delivered. Are you making my bed next?”
“Make your own bed.”
“You’re sparing with your tender mercies, Mrs. Neville.”
She crossed the chamber, tossing words over her shoulder. “You want tender mercies? Go find Red Bess.”
“But the companionship wouldna be nearly as stimulating.”
Miss Stiff Skirts, indeed.He laughed low and shoveled food into his mouth. Hot porridge dusted with nutmeg and sugar melted on his tongue. Just the way he liked it.
She remembered.
He traced her movements through narrowed eyes, taking one bite after another. Anne was fidgety, adjusting the mantel’s clock just so and wiping her flawless sleeve, twice. Her thoughtfulness gave him something else to chew on. Why the small kindness with his morning meal? She got what she wanted—he was here and he was going to meet her seditious league. Could be the room was making him twitchy. He was certain he’d spent the night in her late husband’s bedchamber. Portraits of sloops and frigates lined the walls, and there was the adjoining door. The brass handle showed the patina of use.
His spoon clinked overloud on porcelain.How often did Mr. Neville pass through that door?
Molars clamping, he didn’t want to know.
Anne fished inside her petticoat pocket and pulled out a black ribbon. She was winding it when her gaze caught his in the mirror above the washstand.
“It’s for you. To club your hair.” Her chin’s tilt set blood-red earbobs swinging.
He took another bite, but the porridge lost its flavor. Years ago, she had wound another black ribbon for his hair—the day she’d promised him,Whereveryou go, I am with you.Anne’s vow to run away with him had soothed his brash heart. Enough to make him believe they’d be together forever.
How wrong he was.
She placed the coiled silk on the washstand. Did she remember that day? Feel the pang of loss? It was hard to say. The woman before himwas supple and confident. A vision of fortitude. Untouchable. Not war nor widowhood or youthful indiscretion had crushed her.
“When you are ready,” she said. “Come find us in the salon.”
Anne quit the room, a whisper of silk and sedition. Belowstairs, muffled voices carried in her house of secrets. Muffled voices with dangerous plans and Anne hosted them.
His porridge forgotten, he stared at the Custom House a good long while. He was no greenhorn to grand hopes and crushing disappointments. What he couldn’t overcome, he made peace with in his way, the blessing of imprisonment. A sharpened mind and stilled spirit were unexpected gifts he found while living with two hundred men in a prison hulk. Watching London’s somber sky, he drank from that well again.
A stubborn creature had indeed hooked its claws in him, a hungry creature climbing to the surface, hunting a single need—the part of his past left undone. He wouldn’t fight it. Since stumbling out of Tilbury Fort, life had been a haze of regrettable decisions and hard labor, all to numb wounds slow to heal. But heal they did, and for the first time in years, he knew what he wanted.
And damn his eyes, he’d sell his soul to get it.
Chapter Four
“Are you good at spotting lies? We can’t presume Will MacDonald’s motives are—shall we say—pure.” Cecelia. With lips painted an intractable shade of carmine red and her character limber, she served the league well.
“I haven’t acquired your particular talents with men. If that’s what you mean,” Anne said.
