Page 74 of A Scot Is Not Enough
“As one does.”
Mary was amused, crossing one leg over the other and smoothing wool over her knee.
Cecelia bristled. “I have no emotions about the man.”
The lie sank like a millstone in her chest.
“No feelings at all?”
“None save minor frustration and the minutest flare of attraction. He is a means to an end. At least he was,” she said miserably. “I left a note telling him I must never see him again.”
Repeating the lie that Mr. Alexander Sloane was of no consequence would make it true. Wouldn’t it? The dismal lump camped on her heart said differently.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were more upset about severing your connection with Mr. Sloane than Mr. Wortley following you.”
She rested an elbow on the table as if the thing would hold her up. Four years of the league’s business and her dual life had exhausted her. The rose-scented shop had become a second home, and the league her family. But Mr. Sloane with his perceptive eyes and wickedly kissable mouth was a luxury she couldn’t indulge.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Mary was the soul of gentleness, watching her.
Perhaps she, too, felt the strain of their four-year hunt.
“Mr. Sloane’s brother came to the White Hart for a surprise visit. He knocked on the door when we were in the throes of this...”
She waved a hand over her ruined stomacher.
Mary’s lips twitched. “When you were tending Mr. Sloane’s wound.”
Cecelia’s mouth curved slightly.
“I couldn’t meet his brother in a state of dishabille, so I hid in his bedchamber and put my ear to the door.”
“And what did you learn when you eavesdropped?”
“That Mr. Alexander Sloane,” she said slowly, “is a good moral man.”
A man who deserved a woman of sterling character, not a demirep tainted with Jacobite sympathies.
Misery pressed down on her, nearly eight years’ worth. The Uprising and its aftermath, her home burned, her father on a prison hulk. Within each heartache were secrets upon secrets. She’d nevermeant to be part of this league. Anne had asked, and she’d refused. Her resolve changed the day two of Cumberland’s men dragged her behind her half-burned house. They’d clawed at her gown, their breath stinking, their laughter cruel. She’d kicked and screamed as they tried to do their worst. Anne had saved her, pistol-whipping one man, knifing the other.
She’d clambered to her feet that day, a different woman. Barely nineteen yet aged by war and sorrow. There, standing beside two dead good-for-nothing soldiers, Anne had asked her again to join the league.
Her fate had been sealed then, as it was now.
“I didn’t come here to discuss Mr. Sloane.” Cecelia passed the drawing to Mary.
“You’re still going after thesgian-dubh?”
“Yes. To do it, I’ll need that costume by Wednesday.”
Mary studied the page. “This isn’t a costume.”
“It’s a maid’s costume. I’m attending Swynford’s ball as Betty Burke.”
Mary’s inhale was sharp and scandalized. Betty Burke was Charles Stuart’s fictious name when he dressed up like an Irish maid and escaped Scotland after Culloden.
Mary examined the drawing more closely. “Cecelia, the petticoat, is it—”
“Clanranald MacDonald’s plaid? Yes, but it must be painted silk.”
