Page 70 of The Scot Who Loved Me
“Fine goods, but not as solid or long lasting.” Miss Fletcher’s smile was feline. “Bone is far more satisfactory. It is considerablyharder.”
“Indeed.” Mr. West grinned, his arms falling loose at his sides.
“Have you found a suitable replacement?” Will asked.
Mr. West eyed him, the flirtatious spell fading. Life was intervening.
“Not yet.”
“I have a warehouse, Mr. West. At Gun Wharf.” Anne was solemn, turning from the window. “You are welcome to it.” She looked at Will, an unspoken invitation for him to use her warehouse as a bargaining chip. “Will can tell you all about it.”
“Have you a trade card, Mrs. Neville?” West asked.
“Unfortunately, not with me. You can find me at Neville Warehouse on Gun Wharf in Southwark most days, or seek my cousin.” She finished by linking arms with Mary Fletcher. “She can help you find it.”
“Cousins, you say?”
Footsteps thumped the stairs and the door flew open. “Mr. MacDonald! Welcome back, sir.”
Jemmy Brown, the long-armed and knobby-kneed apprentice, launched himself at Will, his heels sliding to a stop just short of a hug. The lad whipped off his black wool Dutch cap and stretched out his arm, fingers splayed. Will clasped young Mr. Brown’s hand and pumped it in friendship. The lad had won the tenderest spot in his heart with his hard work and eager spirit. Nothing could sink the buoyant young man.
Jemmy’s eyes shined. “Thank God you are alive, sir. We thought you dead.”
Will tousled the boy’s wind-lashed hair. “I’m no’ in the ground yet, Mr. Brown.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Will and Mr. West stood side by side at the office window, following the trio’s progress. Jemmy burst with pride, pointing at the winch and pulley used to careen a ship. The cap he wore barely corralled straw-blond hair. Tar etched his fingernails and hands which splayed with excitement. The women were an astute audience, standing at the dry dock’s edge, looking up and down theMathildewith timber angled into her sides. Mary Fletcher cast a careful eye at the blacksmith’s shop.
Were they anxious? Or did Anne and Miss Fletcher want the yard cleared to have a go at the forge? They had to wait until the work was done. A woman in the forge would draw curious eyes. A woman smithing a silver key would draw curious questions.
The office’s wall clock claimed the hour was well past three o’clock. More than an hour to go. West stared out the window, blissfully unaffected by time, whereas Will was a slave to it.
Atonement was messy business, especiallywith an ardent woman constantly sacrificing on behalf of others. Anne, who had married into the clan, had done more for Clanranald MacDonald than most women born to it. Surely, she would see reason? See that she’d amply made up for losses from the rebellion.
A life with him in the colonies would be a fresh start. No war, no loss... just them and a new path. And West was but one more step on this path.
He cringed inside at his mercenary heart.
“Do these women have anything to do with your drunken August ritual?” West asked.
Will weighed his answer. He’d chewed on what to say and how to say it on the ride that went all too fast from Bermondsey Wall to Howland Great Wet Dock. He’d asked Mr. Baines to let him have a hand at the oars. Together, they rowed a blistering ride downstream. Will needed to put his back into something. Laboring with his hands freed him to think.
“Out with it, man,” West coaxed. “But fair warning. If you tell me the intriguing Miss Fletcher has caught your eye, I shall drown you in the River Thames.”
He chuckled. “She has not, but have a care. Miss Fletcher is a woman of sterling reputation.”
West snorted. “No matchmaker said finer words.”
They were quiet, drinking in rows of ships tamely moored. Mr. West was the canny sort who knew how to let silence breathe. West would give the necessary room for him to assemble his tale. His former employer understood the nineteenth of August was a difficult day. An IOU of the soul.
One side of his debt was the Uprising, due each year.
A green-eyed lass was on the other.
He stood before the open window and gripped where wood and glass usually met. He wouldn’t tell another soul he loved Anne. Those hallowed words belonged to her and no one else. But his knuckles, white on the frame, might betray him. He wanted to tell her, to shout it from the window of West and Sons Shipping (as inglorious as that sounded).
Words weren’t enough. There were things he needed to lay at her feet.
