Page 56 of For a Scot's Heart Only
“You will teach me the business of corsets and stays, Thursday next. Then I’ll hie off to some place lovely like Bath and set up my own shop.”
Mary laughed in disbelief. “You can’t learn how to make corsets and stays in one day.”
“You misunderstood me. I want basic instructions, not an apprenticeship. I’ll find a desperate seamstress and get her to do the hard work.” Miss Mitchell returned to the painted silk on the table. “Of course, you’ll gift me with thread, cloth, supplies, and such... like this bit of prettiness.”
She held up the glossy blue-gray cloth, light sheening on its painted-on birds and flowers.
“You want me to simply give you all my goods?” Mary asked.
“Not all your goods. One chest full will do.”
“And I’m to do this,” Mary scoffed, “because of a token you found on the floor?”
Miss Mitchell dropped the silk and dug into her petticoat pocket. “No, you’ll do it because of the valuable information I am going to give you.”
The harlot set the Charles Stuart token on the worktable, her jaw set and her eyes shards of determination.
“Icanhelp you,” Miss Mitchell said in an exacting tone. “But only if you help me.”
Mary exhaled as though she’d been holding her breath for years. Seven years, in fact, since the Uprising ended—perhaps longer. She needed the coin. Miss Mitchell had to know this. The harlot, however, was not so forthcoming with what else she knew. This interview required a deft hand. Mary began to pace the room slowly. When it came to the league, she’d made her share of independent decisions, but this arrangement pushed a dodgy boundary. A harlot bargaining for a new life was just short of desperate.
Miss Mitchell planted half her bottom on the worktable, dangling a foot and a tempting question.“Would it help if I told you what I know about the Jacobite treasure?”
Mary stopped, a dangerous thrill jumping in her veins.
“The treasure?”
“The one the French left on a beach in Scotland. Grub Street writes about it now and then.” Miss Mitchell sniffed. “I can read, you know.”
Mary eyed her suspiciously. Finding the last of the gold was an act of devotion for the clan that took her and Margaret in years ago. If she could deliver it...
“And you’ve somehow connected that treasure with me? On the basis of a common token?”
Miss Mitchell examined a seam on her glove, bored. “Miss Fletcher, are you really going to play coy with me? We both know that coin gets you into certain clandestine meetings.”
Mary pinched a bow on her stomacher. She worked the edge of the fabric, twisting it. Playing coy had crossed her mind, but she wasn’t very good at it. Not when well-aimed directness sliced through needless shilly-shallying.
“You, I collect, have knowledge of these particular meetings.”
“I am the only harlot who’s worked every one of their gatherings.” Her moue was worthy of a Frenchwoman. “I hear things. About Charles Stuart, and the gold, who moved it from place to place, and who got paid for their efforts.” She glanced at Mary, cool and casual. “Lord Ranleigh keeps two ledgers. One for tracking the society’s tasks, and the other, an account book for the gold. That one’ll tell you where your Jacobite treasure is hidden.”
Mary blinked at the floor, appreciating MissMitchell’s silence. The harlot understood information like this was a shock that needed sorting—in particular, knowledge of Lord Ranleigh. The dark lord, a Jacobite sympathizer? It defied logic. In the stillness, she categorized explosive facts to the background of women laughing and talking in her shop beyond her doorway curtain.
One fact poked at her logical mind.
She narrowed her vision on Miss Mitchell. “If you know where the ledger is, why haven’t you taken it? Taking the gold would set you up nicely.”
“Because those are people I choose not to cross.” Miss Mitchell was deadly serious.
“But you’ll throw me to the lions?”
“They can’t bite if they don’t catch you.”
Which told Mary this wasn’t the first time the harlot had flirted with danger.
“What if something goes wrong? Someone could make a connection to you.”
“I’ll be long gone by the time they figure that out.” Miss Mitchell stood up, plumping her panniers. “Besides... they’d have you.”
