Page 5 of Taming the Scot
Strike that—she certainly was.
The only thing saving her from being snatched off the Edinburgh streets already was the slightly overcast sky and the busy hour of that day that kept the crowds packed in around her. This, of course, also delayed her much-needed escape from the men who wanted to do the seizing.
Bronwen lifted the hem of her skirt away from her scuffed boots to maneuver faster through the masses of the wind outside Tanner’s Close, her tenement neighborhood. She dodged a woman pushing a cart full of onions, nearly upending the woman behind her with a basket of half-rotted apples and earning a curse from yet another wielding a barrow of oysters.
“So sorry!” she called after them as they shook their fists.
She whirled to face forward, her attackers only a few dozen paces behind her. Two hounds fighting over a bone tugged their way in front of her, and she hurtled herself over them, the way she’d jumped puddles as a lass. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as agile and smacked right into a lad hawking newspapers.
Papers scattered, floating into the air like the dust from a beaten rug. People shouted, and Bronwen landed with an “Oof” on her arse, right between the two growling hounds. She glanced left and right, smacking and slobbering jaws ready to clamp onto her flesh.
The lad yanked her to her feet, away from the danger, with a sweaty palm to her own. With a hasty, “Thank ye,” Bronwen scuttled on her way.
Not the exact way she wanted to start her morning, to be sure. She rounded the corner and into the second alleyway she came across. Hiding behind a pile of rubbish, she bent over, hands on her knees and taking in several deep breaths, praying the men searching for her hadn’t seen her duck into the alley.
How was she going to go home now?
Five minutes before the fiasco on the street, she’d been coming back from the market with bread and a well-past-ripe apple for her breakfast when she’d recognized the two burly, mean-looking men pounding on the door that had once belonged to her parents. Both her mother and father were gone now, leaving her heavily in debt.
Bronwen was certain they were the henchmen to the gambling hell come to collect. There was no other reason that men the likes of those should be pounding down her door—and not for the first time.
She’d been caught late at night by the same brutes before—they were easy to recognize with their tightly shaved beards sporting a letter T shaved into the side, a wicked scar across the throat of one, and a scrollwork tattoo around the right eye of the other. She didn’t doubt they’d been sent by Prince—owner of The Trojan gambling hell—who’d dispatched the others. When caught unawares before, they’d threatened to return if she didn’t pay back what her parents owed. And when she couldn’t, they’d threatened a lot more than a heavy fist the next time they saw her.
A fate worse than death was what they’d promised.
After her first encounter with them had given her a bloodied lip and a chipped tooth, she didn’t know what they had in mind for the future, but her imagination had run wild, keeping her up most nights. Before bed, she’d pile furniture in front of the door so they couldn’t break in while she was sleeping, and she’d taken to keeping a paring knife in her boot, which had also subsequently scratched up her ankle.
Bronwen had never been in a position before that she had to protect herself from such threats. And now, the amount she owed on her parents’ behalf might as well have been a ransom for her own life. For indeed, that was what Prince wanted—her soul.
Since her parents had died, she’d been working odd jobs, but it had been hard to find steady employment and nothing that was going to pay down what was owed. Nothing that was going to keep her from that devil’s clutches.
When she’d been a lass, her parents had been almost respectable. Or least that was always the impression she’d had of them. They had owned a small shop that sold things people didn’t want anymore to those who did. But what Bronwen had slowly discovered as she’d aged was that the shop wasn’t their only business. Nay, the Holmes had a not-so-lucrative gambling hell addiction, which is how they ended up so heavily in debt. Borrowing and borrowing until she suspected they had met their end, leaving her with the fall out of their mistakes.
Bronwen was never going to be able to pay back their debt, no matter how many odd jobs she took, or if she became of all the absurd things, a bloody lady’s maid. As much as she hoped and as hard as she worked, she was never going to be able to pay those men. A fact which Prince had made clear through his men on their last visit.
They were going to abduct her and force her into whatever fate they had in mind before murdering her in some grisly fashion, she was sure. Her future was so dire and bleak at this exact moment that perhaps it would be in her best interest if she found the nearest puddle and drowned herself in it.
Bronwen sank to the grimy cobbles, leaning her head against the gritty brick edifice of whatever building this was, and tucked her knees close. A crinkle of paper beneath her shoe caught her attention, and she snatched it off, ready to chuck it when the bold words caught her attention.
Lady Edinburgh.
If there was one thing she could be grateful for, it was that her parents had deemed it necessary for her to learn to read and write and do maths. Even if their intentions were so she could keep up their books for the shop, and the log of what they owed Prince, it was a skill few women in her position boasted.
Not sure what possessed her, she flipped through the stupid articles. People, whining about this and that. The editors, trying to glorify the arrival of society to Edinburgh. If she had her way, Bronwen would tell them all to leave off and she’d do it in a not so polite way.
She crumpled the paper and tossed it into a pile of rubbish. With a breath she could barely manage from all the despair she felt, she pushed herself to her feet. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She’d not seen her cousins Emilia and Anastasia in a while, and perhaps it was high time she went down to the docks and visited them. Begged them for a night of sleep where she might feel safe, and then she’d get out of their hair. Maybe she’d even ask them for a bath and a change of clothes.
The cousins had never been close. Their mothers were sisters, but Aunt Sarah had not thought it appropriate for her two girls to associate with Bronwen, especially after she’d heard about the gambling debt. So, Bronwen had watched Emilia and Anastasia grow up from afar. Not too long ago, she’d heard something about the two of them working for Andrewson Shipping Company, one of the biggest shipping companies in Scotland—owned by a duchess. As much as Bronwen was nervous at the prospect of approaching her cousins, what other choice did she have?
“Lord, I hope they’re no’ as snotty as the pearls coming in from London,” she muttered.
“What?” The pile of rubbish at her feet moved, and a man missing most of his teeth sat up and sneered at her. “Get out of ‘ere. This is my spot.”
“Pardon me, sir. I did no’ mean to disturb ye. I’m going,” she said softly, tossing him the bread she’d procured that morning.
His attitude changed as he grasped onto it, then looked at her suspiciously. “I can no’ pay for it.”
“Your silence is all the payment I require.”
