Page 123 of A Scot Is Not Enough

Breath sawed painfully in and out of Cecelia’s lungs. The countess eyed her like a pitiful insect she was about to squash under her shoe. Cecelia blinked fast, a scream grabbing her throat. She searched the crowd frantically. Where was Alexander? But she already knew. He was abovestairs in the ballroom, waiting for her as they’d agreed.

Her heart plummeted to her knees.

Angry tears wet her eyes. “No! You can’t do this.”

The countess stepped aside. “Take her away.”

MacDaniel and Berry hauled her off the bookshelfso hard she stumbled. They held on to her, their hands vise grips on her arms. She’d have a bracelet of bruises to be sure. Terse voices rose in the crowd. Shock melted her joints. She could barely walk, which didn’t bother MacDaniel and Berry. The men half marched, half dragged her to the entry where more revelers watched, talking excitedly behind fans, their eyes hotly accusing.

“Alexander!” She called for him, her cry lost in the noise of violins and the crowd.

Shame crushed her. The accusing stares grime on her skin. The thief takers marched onward, her own feet barely able to keep up. Past the front door, cool night shivered over her skin. Carriages waited.Mary.Was she in the crowd? She turned her head and searched but found only coachmen and footmen milling, their faces curious and no less charitable.

One figure dressed in black leaned against a tree lit with miniature candle lamps. His long blade whittled wood, the shavings falling around his feet. Mr. Wortley. His hard-as-musket-ball eyes held no pity as MacDaniel crammed her into a plain carriage that smelled of piss and vomit.

She pressed her nose against the window, ridiculously hoping Alexander would suddenly save her. He didn’t. Only one man was watching her. Mr. Wortley. He shook his head and tossed the wood aside. Cold, numbing fear wanted to eat her alive. The cutthroat had warned her:Go back to Scotland.

Her chance to flee was gone. She couldn’t save herself. No one could.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Cecelia wasn’t alone in her cell. A hardscrabble woman paced the cold confines, her yellow hems as dirty as her feet. Cecelia huddled on the floor, dank cold nipping the marrow of her bones. No matter how hard she hugged her knees to her chest, she couldn’t get warm. Light rain spattered bent bars, the opening to the street below.

The restless yellow hems stopped. “Why’d they put the jewelry on you?”

Cecelia raised her head. “Jewelry?”

“The chains,” the woman said as if any idiot would know. “You’re a scrawny little thing. You couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Flies, no. But a certain countess? I’d rip the hair off her head and scratch her eyes out if given the chance.”

“That bad?” the woman cooed, stretching her arms through the bars. Rain dripped over her skin, and grime slicked her arms in various shades. “A prison bath. The only one you’ll get.”

“Where are we?”

“Gatehouse, and not the ecclesiastical side.” The woman smirked while scrubbing her arms.

Gatehouse was a shoddy pile, once the church’s prison. It had held famous men and women who ran afoul of the law. Newspapers reported stones falling on prisoners’ heads, floors flooding in storms, and bars badly rusted. At the moment, Cecelia’s bottom was planted next to a puddle on the floor. Citizens called for the ancient prison to be torn down, but crime outpaced good intentions, and Gatehouse was conveniently close to the Old Bailey.

“Got any family who’ll bring you food?” the woman asked.

“No family,” she said.

“Friends?”

Alexander came to mind. The league, certainly. But her heart and mind shoved the others aside to plant his adoring eyes and beautiful smile. Visions of Alexander asking her to marry him danced in her head. Her knight in shining armor. Why didn’t she answer him right then? She loved him. Ferociously. Desperately.

A salty tear stung her eyes. She cuffed the wetness with the back of her hand.

“I have plenty of friends but none of them know I’m here.”

“That’s too bad. Food is scarce at Gatehouse.” A cleanT-brand scar showed through grime on the woman’s thumb. Satisfied with her rudimentary bath, the woman in yellow flicked excess water off her fingers. “Name’s Lilly, by the by.”

“Cecelia MacDonald.”

Lilly plopped onto the lone cot in the cell. “I heard MacDaniel and Berry working you over. Damn shame what they did to your gown.”

Eyes shuttering, Cecelia tipped her head against the wall. Bile crawled up her throat. Not one hour ago, both men had pinned her to a wall. Their harsh hands scraped up and down her legs, ripping her stomacher and digging in her panniers for a knife that wasn’t there. Cruelty had lit MacDaniel’s and Berry’s eyes. They’d mocked her and called her all manner of vile things.