Page 13 of The Scot Who Loved Me
Shock muted him. He sat up, needing to digest this, but Anne brimmed with excitement.
“And we want you to help us steal it!”
He dragged both hands over his scalp.After all these years, Anne sought him for theft. Not his heart nor his body. How lowering, to sit naked in his former love’s kitchen, battling lustful longings, while she asked him to commit a crime. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of. Thievery was never one of them. He’d been the clan chief’s enforcer, for goodness sake, the one to keep law and order. But the Jacobite treasure had been found, and highlanders were going to take it.
Steal their own gold?
Justice was a devious wench.
The Government would see the matter differently, which shined a light on something he couldn’t ignore. Dr. Cameron’s mysterious visitor was no English spy sent to trick the prisoner. If the Government had gotten their hands on a single rebel livre, they would’ve gloated about it in every newspaper from Plymouth to Aberdeen. Their silence could mean only one thing.
Anne had another rival for the gold—someone worse than King George.
Water dripped coldly down his neck. Whoever bribed their way into that prison cell was wealthy, powerful, and unafraid of the crown. And a highland league crossing them? Easily crushed.
Chapter Three
Smalls landed on his bed—clean, patched, and thankfully his. Morning’s first greeting was followed by more garments flying through the air. Breeches,plop. Waistcoat, shirt, burgundy coat.Plop, plop, plop.His unstarched neck cloth was a well-aimed streamer falling silently on the jumbled pile. A sylph in green petticoats roamed his bedchamber, her hem tapping slender ankles while she went about her business. Dishes clinked. Water splashed. Drapes were snapped properly open.
He winced at teeth-jarring daylight shocking his body.
“I am glad you have seen fit to greet the day.” Anne tied back the drapes, a blur of feminine efficiency to his sleep-hazed eyes.
He scooted upright and scratched his chest, a nearly sated man. One should never underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep to set a body right. It was almost as satisfying as sex.
Almost.
“Good morn to you,” he rumbled, entertained by his morning visitor.
“You mean good afternoon. It is a quarter past one.”
“Is it?” He wrestled a sheet from the bed, tied it around his waist, and padded to the window to see for himself.
Gray skies beckoned the brave to crawl atop St. Paul’s Cathedral and touch heaven. A peaceful place above the sprawl. The rest of the world was not so disposed. Wherries, light boats delivering passengers, beetled the river’s surface. A pleasure barge sliced a path near the bridge, the oarsmen working as one. In the distance, docks were a hive. Barrels rolled and stacked. Fat merchants and customs men scuttling around dockers, warehousemen, and clerks. All paid homage to London’s other cathedral, the Custom House.
Worship of the almighty coin. The City’s lifeblood.
Money’s fever plagued the best of men. Would he be counted among them?
His breath fogged cold glass. He could almost feel Anne’s breathing. The quiet, the steadiness. A soldier in silk, she betrayed nothing of what beat within. Did her heart flutter over Jacobite gold in London? He’d fallen asleep to that refrain. Last night’s tempting offer of passage paid and a fat purse would set him up nicely in the colonies. Or he could leave Anne’s house an honest man and shed the last vestiges of the rebellion.
It meant going hat in hand to his employer, Mr. Thomas West. Being four days gone without somuch as a by-your-leave didn’t put him in good stead. Five years of honorable service and solid friendship might. He’d earned his keep and then some, laboring for Mr. West’s modest whaling concern. Now, all that good will was probably lost.
His world was out of sorts... because of a woman.
“With your hair uncombed and that sheet around your hips,” she said, “you look like a foreign prince in those tales Aunt Flora reads in theGentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer.”
“Yet, my comforts are far from princely.” His voice scraped low.
Anne’s stare skimmed his navel, and the tingle on his skin reminded himYou are naked under this sheet. Her eyes were fascinated by the place where skin and bedsheet met. The mystery wasn’t in what was behind the linen, but how that landscape of skin might’ve changed—if at all. He’d wondered the same about flesh hidden under swishing green skirts.
Their past was a third person in the room, a reckless visitor stoking a fire that had no business burning. Anne had to sense it.
“I hope you will feel at home here for the duration of your stay.” She looked at the world outside. “However long that might be.”
He drank in the sight of her. Midnight was for shadows and secrets, daytime for honest folk. Different intimacy. Especially those with shared history. Daylight christened Anne a fine lady in a lace-trimmed gown and fat garnets swayingfrom peach-soft earlobes. Her attention was on the road, the corner of her mouth curling up.
“You’re staring at me, which means you must be deep in thought and have forgotten where you’re looking because we both know you’re not a besotted man.”
