Page 73 of The Scot Who Loved Me
She’d never been one to dither about men. She liked them. They had their uses, certainly. Nor had she ever been the heartless variety of woman out to conquer every man who crossed her path. A rude return to her father’s Edinburgh house at fifteen had taught her a thing or two about men. Her grandmother’s staid, gentle home was one version of love. Another version existed with her brothers; theirs was a rough-and-tumble camaraderie thrown awry when she reappeared afteryears gone. To them, she was a foreign species. A sister.
She developed a backbone, as one does in a household of men. Steeled by order, primed with love.
It was all for the day she opened the door on Lothian Street and found a handsome, kilted highlander. Brash, broody, with a charm all his own, Will MacDonald was a gift. The harbinger of wide-open land and freedom.
He made her heart sing, and at the moment, he made numbers swim before her eyes.
Tiredness could be the issue. She’d stayed up late, a candle in the window, waiting. She’d kept her hands busy with mending. It was good for the soul, as Aunt Flora would say. It gave a woman hours to think.
At the moment, her thoughts ran to giving Will a sound drubbing.
She worried over him, big lug that he was with a brawny back and caber-tossing thighs. He was at heart a gentle soul, which made the numbers swim again. A foreign drop of wetness plopped indignantly on the page. She swallowed, or tried to. It was confusing, this dampness in her eyes and dryness in her throat. Her body demanded she acknowledge a simple fact: Will still owned her heart.
A pained howl wanted out. Venting wouldn’t matter.
The man destined to seek his father in Virginia was destined to leave her behind. He had grand plans (not that he’d shared them). She wasn’t in them. For the moment, her greatest task wasto thwart the Countess of Denton. Throw the woman off from any hint of what Will and the league were going to do.
She wiped her eyes, free to concentrate on important tasks that didn’t include wondering where Will MacDonald slept last night. Wondering if he had hit his head and fallen in the street. Or wondering if he’d availed himself to Red Bess’s tender mercies.
She was free to ask important questions such as what color should a woman wear when meeting her nemesis? The question tumbled around Anne’s mind all morning. She’d already changed twice. It was exhausting, taking as much focus preparing to meet an artful enemy as an assignation with a cherished man. Funny about that. Will had never cared what she wore as long asshewas in the gown. When he was randy, her out of her gown was even better.
“Stop,” she said under her breath.
“What’s that, dear?” Aunt Flora hemmed an apron in the great chair by the window. The sunlight helped her stitching.
“It’s nothing.”
She was careful not to turn fully around. Aunt Flora might be across the salon and her eyesight dimming, but she had a talent for sniffing out emotions and demanding a body confess.
“I’m finishing the Neville Warehouse ledger... for my meeting with the countess.”
“Excellent, dear.” The needle wound in and out of pristine muslin. “I feared you might fash yourself over Will no’ coming home last night.”
“I’m not,” she said tersely. “He’s a grown man who can do what he wants.”
Aunt Flora shifted in her seat, daylight shining on black petticoats. Her smile was beatific. “I seem tae recall saying the same tae Will—” the needle’s hypnotic rhythm stopped “—about you.”
She rolled her pencil. “This isn’t his home. He is a guest. We should remember that.”
“Of course, dear.”
Anne scribbled on foolscap beside the ledger. It was her place to check her sums and draw aimless but satisfying pictures and shapes. Nothing of consequence. A rose, a swirl, a shape that morphed into a mess. She should concentrate. Will had stolen most of her night. He would not steal her day. There were things to do, such as deciding if wearing her garnets to the warehouse would be too much.To do what? Impress the Countess of Denton?
The garnets were out of the question. She’d worn them when the countess came home early, and she would wear them again the night of the art salon. They were her only display of wealth, save her three gold rings. She made a fist and rubbed them. Pretty, scrawny things that once belonged to her mother. They reminded her of a Romancaestus, fighters’ gloves. Except these rings were too flat to be harmful and too thin for a show of wealth.
Confidence was all she had. She’d array herself in it. Armed with her ledger, proof she was a competent woman of business. She’d wear the plum fustian petticoats she wore when setting Will free from Marshalsea.
And seeing to his bath.
That made her smile.
Yes. The plum fustian with the stomacher and plain outer robe, all in the same unembellished fabric... save lacey elbows, all the better to hide her knife.
Another reason to smile. She could take care of herself.
She glanced at Mr. Neville’s plain weight-driven wall clock. Half past eleven. Enough time to change from another version of yesterday’s gray gown. This one had small red flowers painted on the fabric. She was scratching one little flower when a soft, metallic whine sounded. Her front door was opened.
Her pulse leaped. She sprang up from her chair and ran to the salon door.
