Page 46 of The Scot Who Loved Me
The housekeeper was keen to free her hem. Knees cracking on her descent, she lumbered downward and the front door swung wide.
“He smells awful,” the housekeeper whispered. To Will, she nodded at a passage flanked by ferns. “Go down that hall. You’ll find a narrow plain white door on the right. The kitchen is through it, belowstairs.”
She sniffed at the half-dozen onlookers, people of quality by their dress, people she could scarcely order away.
Will was off, his footsteps echoing on the black-and-white marble floor. Cold and cavernous, Denton House was the height of fashion. Everything was big. Wainscoting panels, the height of the wall. Pedestals with flowing plants. Darting to the left, carpet dulled the sound of his rapid footsteps.
The study was the last door on the left at the end of the hall. He trotted to it, his heart kicking faster.
Sweat dampened his cravat. He turned the familiar brass knob and the ghost of his past came to call. Ancilla’s perfume. The heavy scent, akin to dark red wine, clung everywhere, exquisite and expensive like the complex woman who wore it. It had taken him months of scrubbing whaling ships to blot out the smell. Ancilla, his great sensual mistake. She’d been a means of survival and the plummeting of his pride. They’d sealed their bargain in this room.
Daylight flooded the carpet’s twisting yellow vines. It was second only to the quality sprawled across her bedchamber floor. Walking across it felt like walking on clouds, which he did in a bigamist’s shoes. How out of place he was—then and now.
He sidled between the bookshelf and a satinwood desk, sunshine streaking its polished surface. He faced the cabinets and crouched lower, a desk corner scoring his back. Copper’s tang hit his tongue. He was face-to-face with the gleaming Wilkes Lock. Polished brass, a guardsman etched in metal, his pointer directed at a numbered dial for the owner to count how often it was unlocked.
Jacobite gold sat behind it.
He itched to take it now. A wailing moan trailed down the hall. Mr. Styles giving a warning?
Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He was wasting precious time.
He searched for Dr. Colombo’s book. The countess usually hid it in plain sight on one of these three shelves. Plain black leather, the embossed gold worn with time.
He scanned book titles, and... there it was.Osservazionianatomicheconenfasisull’AmorVeneris, within arm’s reach of the desk.
“You’re getting lazy, Ancilla.”
He snatched it off the shelf and flipped open the book. Inside hollowed-out pages sat the key. A silver filigree bowhead, its teeth a square with defined cutouts and indents, which set it apart from other keys.
From the open door more moaning carried. Louder this time.
He pulled the wax from his pocket and mashed the key inside it. Was the housekeeper getting suspicious?
His mouth was dry and his skin hot. Velvet on a hot day. He should’ve listened to Aunt Flora. She’d cautioned him, silk was better in summer.
He was careful, removing the key by the bow head as Miss Fletcher had advised. He rubbed all vestiges of wax from the filigree too. A wipe to his temple and he returned the key to its nest in the book.
Back it went to the shelf and he trotted out of the study, careful to shut the door.
The hall was still empty and light. His race to the kitchen was quick, the wax lump safe in his pocket. He retrieved a cup of water and climbed back up the short stack of stairs to the ground floor, his heart thumping.
They were nearly done.
He coaxed calmness, his feet flying over the hall’s carpet. Not a drop spilled. Flush with victory he rounded the corner, and a sherry gaze collided with his.
A chill grabbed him by the throat. A slender, elegant woman stood in the doorway, raven haired and ruthless.
“Will?” His former lover’s voice was a shocked wisp.
“Ancilla.”
Chapter Fourteen
Anne’s stomach could be rotating torturously on a medieval spit. The Countess of Denton had taken no notice of anyone else, her visage morphing with stunning speed. And Will... saying her Christian name for all to hear. The tableau was awkward and endless. Afternoon sun beating the road. Crowds gossiping. Impeccable servants waiting. A second later the countess speared Anne, her eyes glittering pools of speculation. Her gaze drew a line. Anne to Will, Will to Anne.
The countess did the math and she did not like the answer.
Lady Denton tossed aside years of breeding, stepped over Mr. Styles, and swept through her marbled entry, a moth to the flame that was Will MacDonald. Never mind her ladyship’s current private footman standing on the steps, the flustered housekeeper kneeling in the doorway, or Anne.
