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 interfer
ing 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.
G
eorgina 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.”
“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.
H
endon 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.
She’d be reunited with him today, within a matter of minutes. She was so excited now she could barely stand it. She had spent more time getting ready this morning than it had taken them to get here, more time actually than she ever had before, her appearance usually not a matter of particular importance to her. Her buttercup-yellow gown with its short, matching spencer, was the best of the outfits she had brought with her, and was only slightly mussed from the ride. Her thick brown curls were tucked securely under her silk bonnet, also yellow, the short wisps of hair across her brow and framing her cheeks the more becoming for being windblown. Her cheeks were blooming with color, her lips chewed a bright pink.
She’d been turning heads all morning, perched so prettily on the old nag, intriguing gentlemen in passing carriages and the townsfolk in Hampstead, through which they’d ridden, but only Mac took notice. Georgina was too busy daydreaming, drawing
forth her memories of Malcolm, pitifully few actually, but precious for all that.
The day she’d met Malcolm Cameron, she had been dumped over the side of Warren’s ship when he’d had enough of her sisterly pestering, and six dockhands had jumped into the harbor to save her. Half of them couldn’t swim nearly as well as she could, but Malcolm had been on the wharf with his father and had thought to play the hero, too. As it happened, Georgina pulled herself out of the water, while Malcolm had to be saved. But she had been duly impressed with his intention, and thoroughly infatuated. He was all of fourteen and she twelve, and she decided then and there that he was the handsomest, most wonderful boy in the world.