“Perhaps it’s not too late for you to save those savages you so boldly claim as your kin, Miss Kincaid. With a willing and eager bride to warm my bed, I’d have far less time to devote to their extinction.”
Then he was gone, the sprightly tap of his walking stick on the parquet floor mocking her dread. Catriona collapsed against the door. She didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until it escaped her in a ragged rush. She nearly jumped out of her skin when something warm and fluffy brushed against her leg.
She glanced down just as Robert the Bruce butted her in the ankle with his enormous head, nearly knocking her off her feet.
“Why, there you are, you cheeky little rogue!” she exclaimed, bending down and hefting the cat into her arms. His rumbling purr reminded her that there was no longer anything
little
about him. “Just where were you a few minutes ago when I could have used a stout-hearted gentleman to defend me?”
Catriona caught a glimpse of their reflection in the gilt-framed oval mirror hanging on the opposite wall. She rested her chin on Robert the Bruce’s broad head, savoring his solid warmth and remembering how she had once held him in exactly the same manner while standing in a stable door and watching a handsome young man ride off to do battle with the world. Her gray eyes were no longer misted with tears, but flashing with the steel of crossed swords.
“Uncle Ross is wrong, isn’t he, Robert? We don’t need a husband. What we need is a hero.” She watched her lips curve into a determined smile. “And I know
exactly
where to find one.”
S
omewhere within the dank walls of Newgate Prison was housed every manner of rogue and miscreant who had ever plagued the broad thoroughfares and narrow alleys of London. Murderers, rapists, thieves, kidnappers, debtors and scoundrels of every stripe crowded the prison’s long, narrow cells, all contributing to the miasma of misery and squalor that seemed to hang over the place.
The gallows stood in the courtyard directly outside the prison windows, their forbidding shadow a stark reminder that many imprisoned behind those walls would only make their escape at the end of an executioner’s rope.
Catriona gingerly followed the gaoler down a dank brick tunnel, struggling to keep the scalloped hem of her redingote from brushing the filthy straw that littered the floor without losing her grip on the handkerchief pressed to her nose. She could only be thankful that she had sprinkled the lace-trimmed scrap of linen with lavender water earlier that morning. The floral scent helped to block out the stench of unwashed flesh and other, even more unthinkable insults to her delicate nostrils.
The gaoler lurched to a halt and swung around. The lantern gripped in his bony hand cast a sallow arc of light over his broken nose and rotting teeth. Sparse strands of ginger hair clung to his misshapen skull. “Are you sure you want to do this, miss? Newgate is no place for a lady. If you was my sister, I’d want you safe at home darning my stockings in front o’ the fire, not traipsing ’round ’ere with a bunch o’ sodomites and cutthroats.”
Catriona lowered the handkerchief and cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, fearing a sodomite was about to spring out of the shadows to cut her throat. “I appreciate your concern, sir, but I feel it my Christian duty to seek out my wayward brother and offer him what comfort I can give.”
The gaoler snorted. “Suit yourself, miss. But the only comfort most of these rotters is lookin’ for can be found in the bottom of a gin bottle or under a doxy’s skirts.”
Still shaking his head, he proceeded down the tunnel, whistling a tuneless melody through the gap in his remaining teeth. Catriona might have joined him had she believed it would bolster her faltering courage. The tunnel soon opened up into a broader corridor, flanked on one side by the bars of a long common room almost too large to be called a cell. It would have appeared even larger if every inch of available space hadn’t been occupied by the most motley-looking horde of men Catriona had ever encountered.
Some were slumped on wooden benches, while others milled restlessly about or sprawled in the straw like barnyard animals. A handkerchief soaked in lavender water for an entire night couldn’t have masked their stench.
A chorus of hoots and catcalls greeted her appearance. Catriona kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, steadfastly feigning deafness.
“Why, look there, Charlie!” one of the men shouted. “It’s a lady come to call! Or is it your wife lookin’ for a
real
man to warm ’er bed?”
Another prisoner shoved his grime-encrusted hand through the bars, crooking his finger at her. “Maybe she’s one o’ them there missionaries. Come over ’ere, luv, and I’ll give you a reason to get on your knees.”
Both Catriona and the prisoner flinched as the gaoler slammed his wooden truncheon into the bars, missing the prisoner’s fingers by a hair’s breadth. “Mind your tongue in front o’ the lady, Jack, or I’ll be forced to come in there and teach you some proper manners.”
Although the men’s bawdy taunts quickly subsided to sullen mutters, Catriona could still feel their hungry gazes burning their way through the sturdy scarlet wool of her redingote. By the time she followed the gaoler through the far door, it was all she could do not to collapse in relief. But her relief was short-lived. The tunnel sloping down into the shadows was even danker and narrower than the one that had come before it.
She cleared her throat to mask the faint quaver in her voice. “Is this where you lock away the most incorrigible prisoners?”
The gaoler cast her a sly glance over his shoulder. “There’s some that might say that.”
By the time they reached the thick oak door at the foot of the tunnel, Catriona was beginning to question anew the wisdom of her quest. An iron grate was set high in the door, too high for her to peep through even if she stood on her tiptoes.
She reached into her reticule with shaking hands and handed the gaoler her crumpled permit. “I was promised an hour alone with my brother.”
Holding the permit upside down, the gaoler squinted at it, his lips moving as he pretended to read. Catriona slipped a guinea from her reticule and waved it in front of his eyes, confident that its universal language would be understood.
He beamed at her, pocketed the coin, then unhooked a clanking loop of iron keys from his belt and slid the largest, most forbidding-looking one into the keyhole. As the door creaked outward on its massive hinges, Catriona drew in a deep breath, steeling herself for the worst.
That breath escaped her in a disbelieving puff as her gaze swept the interior of the cell. If it could indeed be called a cell. The room might not possess all the comforts of home, but it certainly possessed all the comforts of a lavishly decorated bawdy house. Or at least the comforts Catriona imagined a bawdy house might possess, having never visited such an establishment.
The dank walls had been draped with scarlet and gold embroidered scarves that were both gauzy and gaudy. An Oriental carpet in glowing emerald and ruby tones warmed the stone floor. A pair of half-naked plaster nymphs cast Catriona coy glances from their mismatched pedestals set in the far corners of the cell. The statues might be chipped and the carpet a tad threadbare, but a trio of oil lamps hanging from wooden pegs set into the wall cast their cozy glow over the entire scene, giving it the enticing allure of a sultan’s tent.
There was no bed in the chamber, but the overstuffed settee would doubtlessly serve just as well. As was proved by its current occupant. All Catriona could see from the doorway was a pair of shiny black Hessians crossed at the ankle and a graceful curlicue of smoke drifting up to join the faint cloud hovering near the ceiling.
“That you, Barney?” the settee’s occupant drawled without even bothering to uncross his boots, much less rise to greet his guests. “Did Mrs. Terwilliger send over that girl I requested? You can’t begin to imagine how bloody lonely it gets in here with nothing but your imagination to keep you company.”
The gaoler scratched his head, giving Catriona an abashed look. “I’m afraid not, sir. But I
’ave brought you some company to ease your loneliness. It’s your dear sister, come to bring you a dose o’ Christian comfort.”
The boots didn’t budge. A thoughtful puff of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. Just as Catriona was seriously considering bolting and taking her chances with the men in the common cell, the prisoner sat up and swung his long, muscled legs over the edge of the settee.
As he came into full view, Catriona barely managed to swallow her gasp.
Simon Wescott was no longer a pretty boy.
His hair was in desperate want of a cut, spilling to a spot just past his shoulders. It was a shade darker than the honeyed hue she remembered, as if those silken strands had seen more of midnight than sunlight in the past five years. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his jaw, accentuating its strong cut and the Slavic hollows beneath his high cheekbones.
Dissipation had taken its toll around his eyes, carving a fine web of lines that gave his face more character than he probably possessed. A jagged white scar bisected his left eyebrow, as if he’d finally been punished for daring to fly too close to the sun by a lightning bolt hurled from the fist of a jealous god.
He stubbed out his thin cigar with deliberate care, then peered at her through the lingering haze of smoke, wariness darkening his eyes to the color of a forest glade in the breathless lull just before a storm breaks.
Catriona was about to open her mouth to stammer something—anything at all—when he spread his arms wide, his lips curving in the dazzling smile that had no doubt charmed countless young women out of their undergarments and into his arms. “Why, hello, sweeting! Why don’t you come over here and let me bounce you on my knee as I used to when you were but a wee poppet?”
Given no choice but to play along with her own charade, Catriona edged toward him, clutching her reticule in white-knuckled hands. “Hello, brother, dear,” she said stiffly. “I do hope they’ve been treating you well.”
“Not as well as you always did, pumpkin,” he replied, reaching around to give her rump a playful swat. Her outraged glare only deepened the sparkle of mischief in his eyes.
“Given your grim circumstances,” she said, “I’m glad to find you in such high spirits.”
Her lips pressed into a rigid pucker, Catriona leaned down to brush a chaste kiss over his cheek. But he turned his head at the last second so that her lips grazed the corner of his mouth instead.
Blushing furiously, she straightened and stepped out of his reach.
Moved by their tender reunion, the grizzled gaoler drew a filthy handkerchief from his pocket and began to dab at his eyes. “Your sister wishes to have some time alone with you, sir, so I’ll let the two o’ you get reacquainted while I take my tea.”
“No!” Realizing that she had made a terrible mistake, Catriona made a frantic lunge for the door. But it was too late. The gaoler had already slipped from the cell and was turning the key from the outside, leaving her locked in the tiger’s cage.
And unless she wanted to become his dinner, she knew she had best try to repair her crumbling composure.
As she slowly turned to face him, Simon rose from the settee. He was taller than she remembered. Broader in the shoulders, leaner in the hips. He wore no coat or waistcoat, just a pair of doeskin trousers and a white lawn shirt with full sleeves laid open at the throat to reveal a wedge of muscular chest lightly sprinkled with golden hair. In her boldest imaginings, she had never dreamed that his charms would grow even more lethal with time, honed by that mysterious masculine alchemy of age and experience.
“I’m a wretched liar,” she confessed.
“I know. That must be why Mummy always loved me best.” At her reproachful look, he cocked his head to the side. “If you’re not another one of my father’s bastards, then why are you here? Did you come to assassinate me or”—his skeptical gaze dipped to the slender waist revealed by the flattering
princesse
-cut of her redingote—“to accuse me of siring your future progeny?”
“Why, I—I—” she sputtered before curiosity got the best of her. “Does that happen frequently?”
He shrugged. “At least once a week. Sometimes twice on Tuesdays.” The wry twist of his lips made it impossible to tell if he was mocking her or his own reputation. “If you’ve come to assassinate me, then I’m afraid I’m at your mercy. I’d offer you my cravat so you could strangle me, but they took it away so I wouldn’t hang myself. Wouldn’t want to deprive the executioner of the pleasure.”
“The last time I checked, getting oneself nearly seven thousand pounds in debt and seducing a magistrate’s daughter wasn’t a hanging offense.”
“You haven’t met the magistrate.” He sank back down on the edge of the settee and reached beneath it.
Half expecting him to whip out a weapon of some sort, Catriona took a nervous step backward. But when his hand reemerged, it was brandishing a half-empty bottle of port.
He whisked two glasses out from under the settee with equal aplomb. “I’ve been remiss in my manners. Would you care to join me?”
“No, thank you.” Watching him pour a generous splash of the ruby liquor into one of the glasses, she said, “I forgot that you were expecting company of a different sort altogether. You must be very disappointed.”
He slanted her an unreadable look from beneath his gilt-tipped lashes. “I wouldn’t say that. Surprised, perhaps, but not disappointed.”