Claiming His Defiant Miss Read online

  ‘We spent time together and, the more time we spent, the more infatuated we became.’ She’d liked the wildness in him. It had matched her own restless, seventeen-year-old spirit, and she had liked the rebellion in him, the idea that he thumbed his nose at society even as he ate off its plates, rode its horses and lived in its fine houses. Much like her. Her debut had been approaching within the year and she’d rather have done anything than give in to the seamstresses and the parties and balls all designed to sell her to the highest bidder. And yet, without all that propping her up, what was she? It was a profound and unsettling question for a girl who had never questioned her identity. That summer, in Liam Casek, she had seen what she thought of as the answer: that she could be whatever she wanted, as long as she was willing to pay the price.

  ‘How infatuated?’ Bea asked when she’d finished.

  ‘Very. I had never met anyone like him,’ May said with a strong hint of finality in her tone.

  ‘You never said a word when you came back,’ Bea mused. ‘Do the others know? Did you tell Evie or Claire?’

  ‘No, Bea. I didn’t tell anyone. What was the point? The summer was over and he was gone.’ May rose, signalling the conversation was over. She wasn’t ready to disclose any more.

  Bea sat up higher against her pillows. ‘Didn’t you see him London? You came out the following year.’ May could see she was searching her memory for any remembrance of Liam from the balls and debuts. If he was Preston’s friend, surely he’d been among the young men Preston had cajoled into dancing with her and her friends.

  ‘No,’ May said quietly. ‘He wasn’t of the right calibre. My father didn’t want him around.’ There were other reasons her father had banished Liam from the high society circles Preston associated with in London, but she didn’t want to go into that tonight.

  Bea seemed to accept her answer. She pulled her blanket up and snuggled in with a pleasant smile on her face. ‘Thank you for telling me. It’s a good story to fall asleep to on a cold winter night: summer love, young love.’ She knit her brow. ‘You’ll have to tell me the ending, though, another time. No sadness tonight.’

  ‘How do you know the ending is sad?’ May was surprised by her own defensiveness.

  Bea laughed. ‘You threw a bowl at him tonight. That isn’t exactly a sign of a happy ending. But...’ She paused. ‘One must always remember that love and hate are merely different sides of the same coin. They’re not that different. Maybe your story isn’t over yet.’

  ‘Good night, Bea.’ May laughed. She didn’t want to contradict her dear friend. She didn’t miss the wistful undertones behind Bea’s words. Bea had never given up on her lover, not even at this late date. If anyone knew about the fine line between love and hate, it was Beatrice. She’d not been able to bring herself to hate him for disappearing and leaving her to face her pregnancy alone.

  ‘May, a good man isn’t always a gentleman.’ Bea’s voice trailed softly after her into the hallway. And a gentleman isn’t always a good man, May thought conversely, as Bea’s case proved. That particular gentleman had left her pregnant and alone. She couldn’t bring herself to disagree with Bea’s line of reasoning. Liam Casek for all his rough background was a good man. That was part of the problem. If he’d been a bounder, she could have dismissed him out of hand and that had made all the difference—a difference that had her hurtling stew bowls at him one moment and kissing him on the kitchen floor the next.

  * * *

  What could possibly go wrong next? Cabot Roan crumpled the note in his hand. May Worth was gone and her elusive brother had not yet surfaced. Neither had the documents. Roan took a swallow of ale, grimaced over its poor quality and sat back in the shadows of the inn to think. What did he know without doubt? What could he only speculate about?

  He started with Preston. The man hadn’t surfaced after being knifed and the wound had been significant. That was fact. What was not fact but likely, was that he’d lost a lot blood. He shouldn’t have been able to travel far. But apparently he’d either been hidden extraordinarily well or he’d crawled under a bush and died, the body yet to be found. If Worth was dead, no one knew it. Roan had scanned the papers looking for obituaries. He wasn’t sure the absence of such news was a sure indicator Worth was alive. There was always the chance the family and the government had chosen to keep that news quiet for the sole purpose of making him sweat. It was a valid strategy. As long as Worth was presumed alive and at large, Roan did have to worry. Just as he was worrying now.

  Roan tapped his fingers on the rough surface of the table. It was killing him that he couldn’t go charging into London and see the situation for himself.

  The other man. His men had reported a second fighter in the road, a man who’d been with Worth before the ambush. The man had been skilled with a knife. Those two clues didn’t create fact, but a fairly stable assumption. Roan would bet half his fortune the second man was Liam Casek, Worth’s long-time friend and sometimes partner. Worth hunted down the crime. Casek disposed of the perpetrator.

  Roan swallowed hard at the thought, his hand reflexively massaging his throat as if he could already feel the rough hemp burn of a noose. There was nothing like facing one’s own mortality. Perhaps he should be honoured the government had sent Casek. It would be a simple elimination: no trial, no public scandal, no waiting around for days, weeks, months in a cell building false hope, none of the indignities of publicly dangling from a rope.

  Sending Casek might mean something else, though. Maybe the government was unsure of its proof. Maybe they weren’t sure of winning a charge of treason? After all, a private businessman is just that—private. He could conduct business with whomever he liked. Roan smiled. That was conjecture only.

  The other consideration was that Casek wasn’t after him at all, that he’d merely been with Worth out of friendship. Casek was dog-loyal to Worth and Worth trusted Casek with his life.

  Apparently with his sister’s life, too. Roan stopped drumming, another scenario taking shape. Who better to have at one’s side when wounded than a best friend? Who better to entrust the original ledger pages to than a best friend? That wasn’t too big a leap of logic. If Casek had been with Worth, Worth was alive and well hidden as he recovered. That made reasonable sense. Find Casek, find the originals. The larger leap of logic was this: May Worth wasn’t in London, although her parents were, his men had seen them on several occasions leaving the town house for the evening. Was it possible that she was with Casek in an undisclosed location?

  Roan worked through the probability. Who better to protect one’s sister than Liam Casek, a man known for his successful protection of key individuals during critical times, as well as his ability to eliminate those who disturbed the great balance of British power? It was like a giant chess game, a game he happened to play very well. But he couldn’t take the next step until he had a location. All the suppositions in the world wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in London. She wasn’t in Sussex. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But he’d found harder men than one pretty, outspoken debutante.

  The door of the inn opened and two of his foxes entered, shaking droplets of rain off the shoulders of their coats. He smiled expansively at them and gestured them over. He tried to gauge the quality of their news by the speed of their stride. They were walking quickly, it might be good news at last.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted without preamble.

  ‘We know where the girl is,’ the taller one began. Good news indeed. This was going well. He could finally take some action.

  ‘Where?’ The hesitancy that followed dimmed his sense of relief.

  ‘She’s in Scotland, sir.’

  Roan narrowed his eyes. ‘Where in Scotland? It’s a rather big country.’ Somewhat undeveloped, too. There were a lot places someone could hide and be unnoticed.

  Their eyes dropped.
‘The best we can gather is a village near the Firth of Forth.’ This was both good news and bad. The bad was that it would take time to make the journey. He could reach the border in three days and then who knew how long it would take to reach the firth and comb the villages. The task was not impossible, but it would take time and that was something of a dubious commodity. He didn’t know how much time he had. The good news was that a rich debutante would stand out. People would know if she was among them. Scotland wasn’t for those used to soft town living.

  Roan nodded, taking it all in. He would go after the girl himself. He might be safer in Scotland than hiding out on the outskirts of London anyway. The sooner he had the girl, the sooner he could draw Worth out of hiding and continue this rather elaborate chess game. He slapped a palm on the table, decision made. ‘All right. Pack your bags, gentlemen, and find five men to bring with you. We leave this afternoon.’

  Chapter Nine

  By the next afternoon, May could add slapping to the list of things she wanted to do to Liam Casek. Liam had managed to turn going into the village into a social occasion with his insistence on meeting everyone. ‘I thought we wanted to keep a low profile,’ May scolded as they exited the little dry goods shop, leaving a gaggle of interested women behind them, although a few of the more intrepid sorts discreetly followed them out into the street.

  ‘It’s easier to know who is out of place if you know everyone,’ Liam replied with a seriousness that reminded her sharply how dedicated he was to his job, to his protection of her. It reminded her, too, that in order to acquire these skills, he’d been to dark places, perhaps done dark things. What experiences had taught him such vigilance? ‘I want to know everyone. Men especially in this case.’

  ‘Men? It was hard to tell in there. The women seem interested enough though.’ May slid a sly glance his way. The women had been ogling him since he’d stepped into the shop. And why wouldn’t they? He was exactly their type: a strong, rugged man unafraid of hard work. He was dressed like them, too, decent, clean clothes, nothing near fancy enough for London. No one would guess he had the ability to run in higher circles. Perhaps Preston’s game years ago had been a success. After all, that had been the point of it—to create a man who could pass himself off as a beggar or a gentleman depending on what the circumstances required.

  ‘Anyone catch your eye? I could make an introduction.’ It was a cold joke designed to prove to him that last night had affected her not at all, merely a lapse in judgement caused by heightened emotions. Never mind it was a blatant lie. It had affected her.

  ‘I’ll make my own introductions to the ladies if I need anything.’ His own terse reply suggested he didn’t find the issue amusing.

  ‘Would you?’ May felt an unbidden twinge of jealousy. She didn’t want to think of Liam with any of these women. She had no claim on him. He was perfectly able to seek out any company he liked. Or was he? A horrible thought came to her. ‘Or are you committed elsewhere?’ Surely there’d been women over the years. He wasn’t the sort to embrace celibacy. A man of his intensity would need an outlet for all that emotion. Besides, celibacy wasn’t required of him, certainly not by her.

  He gave her a harsh look, his voice dropping. ‘Do you think I would kiss you if my affections were engaged elsewhere? Is that the kind of man you think I am?’

  ‘I think you’re a man who takes what he wants. You always have been.’ They were fighting words the moment they left her mouth.

  * * *

  ‘I did not take anything you weren’t willing to give,’ Liam growled, herding her away from his growing trail of admirers. May was spoiling for a fight and he damn well wasn’t going to give it to her here in the middle of the street with an audience. But restraint was hardly May’s strong suit. He steered her into a side street. ‘Even a cat knows when to retract her claws. You’re lucky I can’t haul you into an alley and spank some sense into you.’

  It was a poor choice of words, evidenced by the furious blush racing up May’s cheeks, proof that his threat had not conjured up images of corporal discipline, but images that ran akin to his rather wayward mind: of her across his lap, her skirts up, her bottom displayed, bare and white, and deliciously round.

  ‘How dare you!’ May spat, but she wasn’t mad, not really.

  ‘How dare you? You insult my honour by suggesting I would take liberties with you while committed to another.’ His body was close to her now, close enough to smell the scent of rosewater on her skin, the scent of a lady. It was one of the first things he’d ever noticed about her since the moment he’d bent over her hand in the drawing room. She knew how to take care of herself. He’d never known women like that until he’d met May. Once, he’d been easily impressed by the cheap perfume of the St Giles whores, but May had changed that. May, who always kept herself neat and clean, had shown him even at seventeen what a real woman could be.

  ‘Your honour—’ May began and he cut her off, stepping back, his hands out to his sides in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘I’m not going to have this discussion with you here in the middle of the village. I did not come here to dredge up the past. We made mistakes. We can’t undo them. Fighting over them can’t fix them or change them. I came to the village to meet people. You came to check your mail. I suggest we do that before one of us says too much.’ Or before the fight turned into a public repeat of last night’s outcome. Quarrelling with May was disturbingly arousing. Even now, he felt the beginnings of want start to stir. He wanted to push her up against the wall and kiss her hard, he wanted to yank up her skirts and finish what his hand had started last night, he wanted to bury his cock in her and hear her scream his name as if those cries alone could shatter the walls between them like the trumpets at Jericho. Oh, yes, all kinds of want were starting to surge through him. ‘I’ll meet you at the gig in a half hour.’ That should be enough time to meet a few more people and get his ‘want’ under control.

  * * *

  A half hour was just long enough. Work had a way of re-establishing his equilibrium. Liam sauntered towards the gig, a whistle on his lips. Aside from quarrelling with May, the afternoon had been a good piece of work. He’d walked the village, studied its layout, met its people. If he couldn’t whisk her away to the protection of a city like Edinburgh with its watch and constables, this village would have to do. It was small and that suited him well. There were few places to hide and escape routes were obvious. Options were limited. There was just one road and the sea. Anyone coming into the village couldn’t help but be noticed.

  Liam ticked off time on his fingers. He’d been here twelve days. Almost two weeks, plus the five days it had taken him to travel here. Seventeen days in total. Preston would, God willing, be on the road to recovery now. More worrisome though was that the window he’d estimated before Roan could reach them had nearly passed. The honeymoon, as it were, was over. If Roan was looking for May, he’d have discovered by now she wasn’t in London. He would have had time to learn where she was and make the journey. He would be flying over the roads once he had the destination. He wouldn’t let early winter roads slow him down when there was lost time to make up. Roan could be here any day.

  He’d done all he could given the circumstances. He’d kept May close, much to her chagrin. He’d worked outside at the cottage to keep an eye on the road. He’d made a reconnoitre of the village and the places she frequented. He’d met the village people, as many as he could. He knew it didn’t account for people living in the countryside. Those he could meet, he’d tried to ingratiate himself with in case the time came when he needed their help. But it wasn’t enough. He was still blind.

  Liam would feel better if he had news. There was so much he didn’t know. Was Preston recovering? Was Roan actually looking for May or were these efforts and worries for nought? Perhaps Preston’s ledger copies had made it safely to London and even now officials had Roan well in ha
nd?

  A lack of information made him feel impotent. Out here, miles from an effective postal service, he was blind. And he was alone. More than ever, he wished he could take May to a city. He felt exposed in their isolation. If Roan did come, there was only himself to stand between May and harm. If they were still safe after Beatrice’s baby was born, he wanted to move May to Edinburgh whether she willed it or not. Perhaps if she understood how much danger she put Beatrice in, she might reconsider. A move to Edinburgh was a good idea. It would keep Roan guessing and it would lead him away from Beatrice. Perhaps by then, the errant Mr Fields would endeavour to make his way home to see his new child. Mr Fields was a long shot, but anything could happen. He knew just how fast a world could change. It only took days, hours, a few words.

  Liam leaned against the gig, watching the little street, his gaze landing on a man coming out of the inn not far from him. Inns were important places to watch and he’d chosen to park the gig there for just that reason. Inns were gathering places for travellers, people passing through. In short, the inn represented people he hadn’t met yet and didn’t know, making all of them potential harbingers of disaster. The stranger leaned against the exterior wall of the inn, eyes giving the street rather alert attention.

  Across from the inn, May came out of a shop, chatting with another woman. The man’s eyes followed her. Liam counted the seconds in his head. One, two, three. The man’s gaze was more than just a casual perusal of something that had caught his attention. His gaze lingered and a finger of fear touched Liam. Was Cabot Roan here already? It wasn’t impossible. May was only twenty-five feet from him, just across the street and walking towards him, but it seemed like a far larger distance with this man suddenly eyeing her. Liam edged closer to the man at the inn wall until just the corner of the building separated them. He wanted to call out to May, but he didn’t dare. The last thing he needed to do was confirm to the man she was indeed May Worth, just in case the man wasn’t sure of his mark.