Georgina couldn’t help it. She gawked at the tall, black-haired man who stepped up to Mac, the most handsome, blue-eyed devil she’d ever seen. In her mind it registered that he had to be one of the “lairds” Mac had tried to tell her about, and that this was not exactly the image she harbored of such creatures. There was nothing foppish about this gentleman. His clothes were obviously of the best quality, but understated; no loud satins or bold velvets here. If not for the excessively fashionable cravat, he was done up as any one of her brothers might be when they chose to turn themselves out elegantly.
All of that registered in her mind, but it didn’t stop her nervousness from doubling, for there wasn’t anything friendly in the man’s demeanor. There was in fact an anger about him that seemed just barely held in check, and it seemed to be directed solely at Mac.
“Cameron?” the man asked Mac in a quiet tone.
“The name’s MacDonell, mon, Ian MacDonell.”
“You’re lying.”
Georgina’s jaw dropped when she heard that growled accusation, then she gasped as the man jerked Mac forward by his lapels and lifted, until the two men were glowering at each other, their faces only inches apart, Mac’s smoky-gray eyes blazing with indignation. She couldn’t let them fight, for God’s sake. Mac might love a brawl as well as any sailor, but devil take it, that wasn’t what they were here for. And they couldn’t afford the attention it would draw—at least she couldn’t.
Without considering the fact that she didn’t know how to wield it, Georgina slipped the knife from her sleeve. She wasn’t actually going to use the thing, just quietly threaten the elegant gentleman into backing off. But before she could get a good grip on the knife with her oversized gloves, it was knocked out of her hand.
She really panicked then, remembering too late that Mac’s accoster wasn’t alone. She didn’t know why they had chosen her and Mac to pick on when there was a whole room full of tough customers if they were merely looking for some sport. But she had heard of such things, how the arrogant lords liked to throw their weight around, intimidating the lower classes with their rank and the power behind it. But she wasn’t going to just stand there and be abused. Oh, no. The fact that she was supposed to remain inconspicuous went right out of her mind at the injustice of this unprovoked attack, like the injustice that had lost her Malcolm.
She turned and attacked, blindly, furiously, with all the bitterness and resentment built up over the last six years toward the English and their aristocrats in particular, kicking and hitting, but, unfortunately, doing nothing more than hurting her fists and toes. The blasted fellow felt like a brick wall. But that only made her so furious she didn’t have sense enough to stop.
This might have gone on indefinitely if the brick wall hadn’t decided he’d had enough. Georgina was suddenly flipped about and hefted off her feet without the least bit of effort, and horror of horrors, the hand holding her up was clamped to her breast.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the dark-haired gent still holding Mac suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice, “Good God, he’s a woman!”
“I know,” the brick wall replied, and Georgina recognized an amused tone when she heard it.
“Now you’ve done it, you miserable curs!” she snarled at them both, well aware that her disguise had just become useless. “Mac, do something!”
Mac attempted to, but the arm he pulled back and swung at the dark-haired gent was caught by his fist and slammed down on the bar.
“There’s no need for that, MacDonell,” the dark one said. “I made a mistake. Wrong color eyes. I apologize.”
Mac was disconcerted at how easily he had been outmaneuvered. He wasn’t that much smaller than the Englishman, yet he couldn’t raise his fist off the bar to save his soul. And he had the feeling that even if he could, it wouldn’t do him much good.
Prudently, he nodded his acceptance of the apology and gained his release by doing so. But Georgina was still held tight by the other rogue, the blond one Mac had felt instinctively was the more dangerous of the two when he’d first seen them.
“Ye’ll be letting go, mon, if ye ken what’s good fer ye. I canna let ye monhandle—”
“Be easy, MacDonell,” the dark one interjected in a hushed tone. “He means the lass no harm. Perhaps you’ll let us accompany you outside?”
“There’s nae need—”
“Look around you, dear fellow,” the blond one interrupted him. “There appears to be every need, thanks to my brother’s loud blunder.”
Mac did look and swore under his breath. Just about every eye in the room was gazing with speculation at the lass, who had been transferred to the big gent’s hip, one thick arm holding her there like a sack of grain as he carried her toward the door. And, miracle of miracles, she wasn’t voicing any complaints at this crude handling, at least not that Mac could notice, for her protest had swiftly died with a tight squeeze about the ribs. So Mac wisely held his tongue, too, and followed, realizing that if it weren’t such a menacing-looking fellow who was carrying her, they wouldn’t get very far.
Georgina had also come to the realization that she was in deep trouble if she didn’t get out of there fast, which was their fault, but didn’t change the fact. And if the brick wall could get her outside without incident, then she’d let him, even if he was doing it in a way that was absolutely mortifying. This kept her temper simmering impotently.
As it happened, though, they were stopped, but by a pretty barmaid who suddenly appeared and latched possessively onto her toter’s free arm. “’Ere now, ye’re not leavin’, are ye?”
Georgina pulled her cap back enough to see just how lovely the girl really was, and to hear the brick wall reply, “I’ll be back later, my dear.”
The barmaid brightened, not even bothering to look at Georgina, and she realized with amazement that the girl was actually desirous of this caveman’s company. There was just no accounting for some people’s taste, she supposed.
“I finish work at two,” the barmaid told him.
“Then two it is.”
“Two’s one too many, I’m thinking.” This from a brawny sailor who had stood up and was now blocking their path to the door.
Georgina groaned inwardly. This really was a bruiser, as Boyd, who was an admirer of pugilists, would have called him. And although the brick wall was a brick wall, she hadn’t really gotten a look at him, didn’t know if he might be much smaller than this sailor. But she was forgetting the other lord who had called him brother.
He came up to stand next to them now, and she heard his sigh before he said, “I don’t suppose you’d care to put her down and take care of this, James.”
“Not particularly.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Stay out of this, mate,” the sailor warned the brother. “He’s got no right coming in here and stealing not one but two of our women.”
“Two? Is this little ragamuffin yours?” The brother glanced at Georgina, who was looking back with murder in her eyes. Perhaps that was why he hesitated before asking, “Are you his, sweetheart?”
Oh, how she’d like to say yes. If she thought she could escape while the two arrogant lords were being pulverized, she would. But she couldn’t take that kind of chance. She might be furious at these two interfering aristocrats, and especially with the one called James who was manhandling her, but she was forced by circumstance to tamp down her anger and give a negative shake of her head.
“I believe that settles it, doesn’t it.” It was not a question by any means. “Now be a good chap and move out of the way.”
Surprisingly, the sailor stood firm. “He’s not taking her out of here.”
“Oh, bloody hell,” the lord said wearily just before his fist flattened on the fellow’s jaw.
The sailor landed several feet away from them, out cold. The man he had been sitting with rose from their table with a growl, but not soon enough. A short jab, and he fell back in his chair, his hand flying up to staunch the
blood now seeping from his nose.
The lord turned around slowly, one black brow arched questioningly. “Any more comers?”
Mac was grinning behind him, realizing now how fortunate he had been not to take on the Englishman. Not another man in the room made a move to accept the challenge. It had happened too quickly. They recognized a skilled pugilist when they saw one.
“Very nicely done, dear boy,” James congratulated his brother. “Now can we quit this place?”
Anthony bowed low, coming up with a grin. “After you, old man.”
Outside, James set the girl on her feet in front of him. She got her first good look at him then in the glow of the tavern lamp above the door, enough to make her hesitate a hairbreadth before she kicked him in the shin and bolted down the street. He swore violently and started after her, but stopped after a few feet, seeing that it was useless. She was already out of sight on the darkened street.
He turned back, swearing again when he saw that MacDonell had disappeared as well. “Now where the bloody hell did the Scot go?”
Anthony was too busy laughing to have heard him. “What’s that?”
James smiled tightly. “The Scot. He’s gone.”
Anthony sobered, turning around. “Well, that’s gratitude for you. I wanted to ask him why they both turned when they heard the name Cameron.”
“To hell with that,” James snapped. “How am I going to find her again when I don’t know who she is?”
“Find her?” Anthony was chuckling once more. “Gad, you’re a glutton for punishment, brother. What do you want with a wench who insists on damaging your person when you have another one counting the minutes until you return?”
The barmaid James had arranged to meet much later when she finished work no longer interested him quite so much. “She intrigued me,” James replied simply, then shrugged. “But I suppose you’re right. The little barmaid will do just as well even though she spent nearly as much time on your lap as she did on mine.” Yet he glanced down the empty street again before they headed toward the waiting carriage.
Chapter Four
Georgina sat shivering at the bottom of a stairway that led down to someone’s basement. No light penetrated the deep shadows on the last few steps where she hid. The building, whatever it was, was quiet and dark. Quiet, too, was the street this far away from the tavern.
She wasn’t exactly cold. It was summer after all, and the weather here was very like that of her own New England. The shivering must be from shock, delayed reaction—a result of too much anger all at once, too much fear, and one too many surprises. But who would have thought the brick wall would have looked like that?
She could still see his eyes staring down at her from that patrician face, hard eyes, curious, crystal clear, and the color was green, not dark, not pale, but brilliant all the same, and so…so…Intimidating was the word that came to mind, though she wasn’t sure why. They were the kind of eyes that could strike fear in a man, let alone a woman. Direct, fearless, ruthless. She shivered again.
She was letting her imagination run away with her. His eyes had only been curious as he looked at her…No, not only that. There had been something else there that she wasn’t familiar with, or experienced enough to name, something undeniably disturbing. What?
Oh, what did it matter? What was she doing, anyway, trying to analyze him? She’d never see him again and thanked God for that. And as soon as her toes stopped throbbing from that last kick she’d gotten in, she would stop thinking about him, too.
Was James his first name or last? She didn’t care. Those shoulders, God, how wide they’d been. Brick wall was apt, a large brick wall, but lovely bricks. Lovely? She giggled. All right, handsome bricks, very handsome bricks. No, no, what was she thinking? He was a big ape with interesting features, that was all. He was also an Englishman, too old for her, and one of the hated nobles besides, and probably rich, with the wherewithal to buy whatever he wanted and the temerity to do whatever he wanted. Rules would mean nothing to such a man. Hadn’t he abused her outrageously? The rogue, the wretch…
“Georgie?”
The whisper floated down to her, not very close. She didn’t bother to whisper as she called back, “Down here, Mac!”
A few moments passed while she heard Mac’s footsteps approaching, then saw his shadow at the top of the stairs. “Ye can come up now, lass. The street’s empty.”
“I could hear it was empty,” Georgina grumbled as she climbed the stairs. “What took you so long? Did they detain you?”
“Nae, I was waiting aside the tavern tae be sure they’d no’ be following ye. I was afeared the yellow-haired one was of a mind tae, but his brother was laughing sae much at his expense, he thought better of it.”
“As if he could have caught me, great lumbering ox that he was.” Georgina snorted.
“Be glad ye didna have tae be putting it tae the testing,” Mac said as he led her off down the street. “And maybe next time ye’ll be listening tae me—”
“So help me, Mac, if you say I told you so, I won’t speak to you for a week.”
“Well, now, I’m thinking that might just be a blessing.”
“All right, all right, I was wrong. I admit it. You won’t catch me within fifty feet of another tavern other than the one we’re forced to lodge in, and there I will only use the back stairs as we agreed. Am I forgiven for almost getting you pulverized?”
“Ye dinna have tae apologize fer what wasna yer fault, lass. It was me those two lairds were mistaking fer someone else, and that had nothing tae do wi’ ye.”
‘But they were looking for a Cameron. What if it’s Malcolm?”
“Nae, how could it be? They thought I was Cameron from the look of me. Now I ask ye, do I look at all like the lad?”
Georgina grinned, relieved at least on that score. Malcolm had been a skinny eighteen-year-old when she’d been so thrilled to accept his marriage proposal. Of course he was a man now, had likely filled out some, might even be a little taller. But his coloring would be the same, with black hair and blue eyes very similar to that arrogant Englishman’s, and he was still more than twenty years younger than Mac, too.
“Well, whoever their Cameron is, I have nothing but sympathy for the poor man,” Georgina remarked.
Mac chuckled. “Frightened ye, did he?”
“He? I recall there were two of them.”
“Aye, but I noticed ye only had the one tae deal wi’.”
She wasn’t going to argue about it. “What was it about him that was so…different, Mac? I mean, they were both the same, and yet not the same. Brothers apparently, though you couldn’t prove it by looking at them. And yet there was something else that was different about the one called James…Oh, never mind. I’m not sure what I mean.”
“I’m surprised ye sensed it, hinny.”
“What?”
“That he was the more dangerous of the two. Ye had only tae look at him tae ken it, tae see the way he looked over that room when they first walked in, staring every mon there right in the eye. He’d have taken on that entire room of cutthroats and laughed while doing it. That one, fer all his fine elegance, felt right at home in that rough crowd.”
“All that from the look of him?” She grinned.
“Aye, well, call it instinct, lass, and experience of his kind. Ye felt it, too, sae dinna scoff…and be glad ye’re a fast runner.”
“What’s that suppose to mean? Don’t you think he would have let us go?”
“Me, aye, but yerself, I’m no’ sae sure. The mon held ye, lass, like he dinna want tae be losing ye.”
Her ribs could attest to that, but Georgina merely clicked her tongue. “If he hadn’t held me, I’d have broken his nose.”
“Ye tried that, as I recall, wi’out much luck.”
“You could humor me a little.” Georgina sighed. “I’ve been through a trying time.”
Mac snorted. “Ye’ve been through worse wi’ yer own brothers.”
&nb
sp; “The sport of children, and years ago, I might point out,” she retorted.
“Ye were chasing Boyd through the house just last winter wi’ murder in yer eye.”
“He’s still a child, and a terrible prankster.”
“He’s older than yer Malcolm.”
“That’s it!” Georgina marched off ahead of him, tossing over her shoulder, “You’re as bad as the lot of them, Ian MacDonell.”
“Well, if ye’d wanted sympathy, girl, why did ye no’ say so?” he called after her before he gave in to the laughter he was holding back.
Chapter Five
Hendon was a rural village, seven miles northwest of London Town. The ride there on the two old nags Mac had rented for the day was a pleasant one, a grand concession for Georgina, who still despised everything English. The wooded countryside they rode through was lovely, with valleys and undulating hills offering splendid views, and many shady lanes with pink and white blossoms on hawthorn hedges, wild roses, honeysuckle, and bluebells by the wayside.
Hendon itself was picturesque, with its cluster of cottages, a comparatively new manor house, even a large red brick almshouse. There was a small inn with too much activity in its yard, so Mac elected to avoid it in favor of the old ivy-covered church with its tall stone tower at the north end of the village, where he hoped they could find out where Malcolm’s cottage was.
It had been a surprise to learn Malcolm wasn’t actually living in London. It had taken three long weeks to find that out, to finally locate Mr. Willcocks, Malcolm’s supposed chum, who turned out not to be a chum of his after all. But he had steered them in another direction, and at last they had some luck, or Mac did, in finding someone who actually knew where Malcolm was.
While Mac spent half of each day working to earn their passage money home and the other half searching for Malcolm, Georgina, by his insistence, had spent the three weeks since the night of the tavern fiasco cooped up in her room, reading and rereading the one book she had brought along for the ocean crossing, until she was so sick of it she’d tossed it out her window, hit one of the tavern’s clientele with it as he was leaving, and almost lost her room, the landlord had been so upset. It was the only excitement she’d had, mild as it was, and she’d been about ready to climb the walls, or toss something else out the window to see what would happen, when Mac returned last night with the news that Malcolm was living in Hendon.