Page 6 of For a Scot's Heart Only
A wealth of secrets must live in Madame Bedwell’s home.Smile, be friendly, and listen, and she would find them. Was subterfuge really that easy?
Laughter leached from the gaming room, shades of lust coming with it. Two footmen in pink-and-white livery headed toward that hallway with serving trays tucked under their arms. One with auburn hair, broad shoulders, and a lovely smile slowed his step to wink at her.
A soft exhale passed her lips. She smiled back.
Had she acquired a taste for adventure?
She idly stroked the high curve of her breast. Perhaps she had. The gaming room was wide open. Only a certain kind of woman would pass through those doors.
For one night she would be that woman.
Chapter Two
Like a moth to a flame, she strode into Madame Bedwell’s gaming room. A pretty blonde in black silk ruled a green baize table. Faro, by the look. Her slender fingers shuffled cards while men crowded her table with fistfuls of money. Behind her a giant ham-faced rogue presided. The director, the room’s overseer. Not a man to cross.
Mary ambled past rows of card tables and games of Hazard mildly disappointed. If Madame Bedwell spared no expense in the ballroom, she was flinty in here. Carpet was thin, paneled walls were scratched, and the harlots’ silk stays were beyond the first gleam. None of those women gave her a second look. They were too busy draping themselves on men. Sea captains, portly bankers, men of quality. None who criedsecret society.
She scrunched her nose. The art of paying attention was not so appealing in here.
Both hands resting in her silk panniers, she slowed her steps and forced herself to absorb the room.
Tables and chairs crammed together. The clamor vulgar. Dice clattering, men guffawing. Paintingsof dubious quality covered the walls. A bland repetition of nude women. Her gaze traveled from one painting to the next. All of them were the same—plump limbs and vacant eyes—except the painting at the end of the room.
Goose bumps pricked her skin. A modestly covered woman lounged in a chair, a red flower in her outstretched palm. She squinted at the flower. Was it a tartan rosette? It was hard to tell with smoke fogging the low-ceilinged room.Men and their cheroots.
But the woman in the painting...
She marched forward until her nose was inches from the red knot. It was a plaid with thin black-and-yellow lines flanking a wider black weave. One had to be close to see the pattern and the small key underneath the rosette. She searched the plain wooden frame.
The scratched brass plate nailed to the wood readbetty burke at rest.
A thrill spiked in her veins. Betty Burke, the identity Charles Stuart took when he dressed like an Irish maid and fled Scotland. One could even say the maid’s features were strikingly masculine, even similar to the pretender.
Someone has a sense of humor.
And she found her first clue.
Chin up, she took a triumphant half step back. At least the woman wore a shift and stays, which was more than the other paintings in the room.
Another step and—
“Shouldn’t you have less clothes on?” a beer-drenched voice called out.
She spun around. A bald sailor was leering at her across a square table.
A white-bearded sea captain close to her hip turned in his chair. “’Course not,” he said. “A man’d miss the pleasure of undressing her.”
Men snickered. Her pannier was bumping the captain’s chair. She brushed the silken mass aside.
“I seem to have disturbed your game. Please forgive me, sir.”
He manacled her wrist with one hand. “You’re a fine piece.” The captain slapped his thigh. “Come join me.”
She was horrified. “On your lap?”
“Best seat in the house.”
She gagged on his whisky-imbued chuckle, but fine manners forbade her from pointing out he had no lap. His belly sagged over most of it.
