Page 127 of A Scot Is Not Enough

The door at the end of the hall squeaked. “Sir, yer five minutes are done.”

“Another minute. We hardly got our pleasantries out,” MacLeod shot back, then said under his breath, “Half a guinea doesna buy what it used to.”

The cell’s cot cricked. Cecelia forgot about Lilly. She glanced over her shoulder and found Lilly sitting cross-legged on her cot, cheeks bulging as she munched bread. Hair tucked behind her ears, Lilly’s earbobs spangled brightly in snarled locks as she ate.

MacLeod grabbed the bars and leaned in. “The countess is getting desperate, and I want to know why.”

“What do you mean?” Cecelia pressed her cheeks against rusted iron.

“I keep going over our conversation the night she shot me, and the daftest thing stands out. She was angry about the stolen gold, but that’s not what really vexed her.” He scowled at the floor. “She asked if you and the others had information.”

“About what?”

“The lady wouldn’t say. She asked me to keep my ears open about what might’ve been read the night the gold was stolen.”

Cecelia sagged against the bars, her vision hazing. Did Lady Denton keep treasonous documents in her Wilkes Lock safe? Papers which revealed the countess as Lady Pink and her connection to Charles Stuart? It defied logic. Why keep an incriminating file?

“Sir...” the warder’s voice echoed.

MacLeod pointed at her. “Something in that safe has Lady Denton on edge, and I mean to find out what it is.”

When night fell, Cecelia fell asleep tucked in a corner, her head and knees slumped against the wall. Hugging herself couldn’t chase away the cold. Damp chill soaked her bottom and made sleep fitful until torchlight washed over her.

“Get up,” a voice said.

She squinted at the intrusion, her limbs stiff and uncooperative.

A cudgel struck iron bars.Bang, bang, bang!She jolted off the wall. Lilly poked her head out from her blanket.

“Aw, ’iggins, whot’s got yer smalls in a bunch,” a voice groused.

“Let us sleep, man!” another yelled.

A voice in the darkness said, “I didn’t pay you to awaken all of Gatehouse.”

Fear crawled down Cecelia’s spine. Lady Denton was here.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, milady.”

A metallic flavor splashed Cecelia’s tongue. Fight and fright were a matched pair. They tasted the same as blasting a hole in a warehouse door and jumping into a stormy midnight river. She’d emerged from those events unscathed; she’d emerge from this one too. Cecelia brushed hair off her face and stared at the shadowed form by the torch.

“What brings you to Gatehouse at this hour? Looking at your future accommodations?”

Low laughter rolled from the countess. “You are a bold creature.”

“Do I amuse you... Lady Pink?”

The jibe struck home. Taffeta swished and a black gloved hand grabbed the torch from the warder.

“Leave us.”

The warder scurried down the hall and shut the door with a firmthud. Cecelia twirled a loose silk thread from a green bow dangling over her knee.Lilly would fancy this bow.The poor woman’s eyes were frightened orbs peering out from the edge of her blanket. Cecelia was of a mind to rip each bow off and give them to Lilly as a remembrance of her.

“Are you going to come here?” the countess asked.

“Why should I when I’m trying hard to forget you exist.”

“I am disappointed. Of the women in your league, I thought you possessed a fighting spirit.”