Page 86 of The Scot Who Loved Me
To which his head cocked and he watched her with a discerning gaze. If she wasn’t careful, Will would see through her. Every flaw, every error and misstep.
“I’ll see you at dinner.” She fled his bedchamber and shut the door behind her. Its wood panels supported her back while she gathered her wits.
Be it through prison or the war, Will had gained the gift of understanding. Seeing more, doing more, living a good and decent life, despite bad decisions. It made him a better man. She, however, was crumbling inside, a castle built of sand assaulted by waves.
She was falling apart bit by bit.
But the fuse she’d lit with Will? Unfinished.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ancilla rolled her wrist, a lethargic effort to power her fan. The toil was hardly worth it. Her carriage baked in a shaft of sunlight, stalled as it were. Departing Southwark’s narrow, labyrinthine streets required the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon. The roads were abominable, a fair number too narrow for a modern carriage to pass. Buildings leaned liked old drunks, lathe and plaster timbered relics in poor repair. Stuart kings were at fault. They lacked foresight. Many a man did.
And the odor... Appalling.
Clean streets?Is that too much to ask?
She winced when bad onions passed inches from her open window (she had a costermonger to thank for that). If the ramble-and-halt rhythm of her carriage didn’t give her amal de tête, the stench surely would. She mashed a perfume-drenched handkerchief over her nose. Reveling in victory might help. Her meeting with Mrs. Neville was a success by any measure.
The woman had been properly shocked.
Rich employment. The chance to make her name as a woman of business because she would be generous and encourage Mrs. Neville to seek her own custom . . . as long as it didn’t interfere withherempire. When the time was right and trust ran deep, she would reveal just how intricate her trade ran.
All in good time—if she could get out of this forsaken part of the City. Her carriage lurched to a halt again, and a footman appeared outside her window.
“My lady, there appears to be several barrels in the road ahead. A few broken by the looks. Men are cleaning them up, but it may be several minutes afore we can move on.”
Afore.His brogue sent a delectable shiver over sticky skin.
“Of course,” she said, waving him off with her cotton handkerchief.
He bowed and took his place again at the back of her carriage. She did have a weakness for Scotsmen, highlanders in particular, and their supposed wild, uncouth manners. Some were dull as bricks with barnyard habits. Will MacDonald was the exception. He was the diamond in the rough, eyes like ancient amber and a body made for sin.
His curious mind and tender soul had burrowed deep inside her. He’d won a piece of her admittedly closed heart when he helped with her son. Normally she kept a wide berth between her private footmen and James. But Will sensed her frustration and offered to help. Therewas only so much a mother could do for her son. Boys needed a man to guide them.
James had been a gangly youth, his voice cracking, his confidence faltering. Her husband, the late Earl of Denton, never gave two figs about his son and heir. Will did. The two took to each other, thick as thieves, fishing, swimming, riding on her estates. Will taught her son to shoot, how to clean a fish, and shoot a bow and arrow.
For James, the sun rose and set on Will.
There had only ever been one man in her heart—her son, now at university.
Will had found a way in too.
His first days serving her, she found him in her library. He marveled at her wealth of books. He’d only ever read two. Their first months together, he’d read twenty.
She lavished gifts on him, which he refused, unlike other men who’d played the role of her private footman. Leeches, most of them, who quickly became tiresome. Not Will. His pride was horribly offended when she offered to purchase a house for him.
She’d thought it a step up. He’d thought it the worst hell.
A man kept by a woman.
Why? It worked well for thousands of women. But men could be particular.
She’d wanted a family. Will had never broached the subject of marriage. It was impossible. Her rank, his lack of it. Will had grown restless. She could see it in his faraway stares, and he didn’t approve of some of the men she’d hired. But inquiet moments, she knew. There had to be another woman, someone in his past, but her investigators could find no such woman. Between the war and Will’s clan scattered to the wind, reliable resources were hard to find. Few highlanders wanted to talk to her English agents anyway.
But there was a woman. She knew it in her bones. Will pined for her.
If she could find her, she would crush the woman. Find a way to make her disappear. She had resources. Will, however, didn’t seek the woman.
