Page 27 of A Scot Is Not Enough

“The Countess of Denton hired someone to investigate me.”

A terse line slanted above Mary’s nose. “Because she saw you with Will and Anne the night we took the gold.”

“But the countess doesn’t know about you or your sister.”

“Which doesn’t make me feel better. You’re still in danger,” Mary said miserably. A patient exhale and she asked, “Is it someone from Bow Street?”

“The note didn’t say.”

“Then it could be this Mr. Sloane.”

“Working for the Countess of Denton, Fielding,andthe Duke of Newcastle? I doubt it.”

Dread silence hoisted itself on them. Their work these four years was a tangled web, spinning faster and tighter.

“You’ll have to trust me,” Cecelia said.

“I do trust you. It’s why I did not read aloud the part where Mr. Sloane asked to see you tonight.” Mary’s eyes were the haunted gray of a winter-bound loch. “Please don’t make me regret it.”

Chapter Eight

St. Paul’s Church faced Covent Garden, where sin and sanctity met. King Street carved a broad path between them with the White Hart at the westward end. It was a public house striving to belong. The facade was old brick parapets on a street with newly plastered cornices. Sensible lodging for a barrister serving the realm’s most powerful duke.

Inside the White Hart, one found paneled walls and serving maids with starched aprons. Food steamed deliciously from pewter plates, the patrons staged and boisterous. A tableau of wealth on the rise. More velvet coats than wool, more pretty paste shoe buckles than tarnished tin. Cecelia stopped a mobcapped maid to ask about Mr. Sloane.

She wasn’t surprised when the young woman uttered a polite, “He’s been expecting you, miss. Please follow me.”

The White Hart would oblige anyone if the right amount of money and discretion changed hands.

The maid took her up three flights of stairs to the last door, curtseyed, and sped off. From this height,the public room below was a hub of tasteful noise and Mr. Sloane’s room a quiet place. She knocked thrice, the gentle force nudging the already cracked door. Through the slit, she spied him by a leaping fire engrossed in a piece of paper.

For a few seconds, he was hers. Deep in thought, his elbow on the mantel, a finger touching his lower lip. His regal profile belonged on a coin. Like a Roman senator. Or a minor king. A man who used his formidable skills of persuasion artfully, beguilingly, sensually. A man who righted the wrongs of the world and managed courtly handsomeness while doing it.

She was a tiny bit breathless, anticipating all his persuasive power directed at her.

Mr. Sloane’s splendid bronze eyes found her, their light rising from the page.

“Miss MacDonald. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

She entered his receiving room and shut the door. Saint or sinner, she’d make this meeting hers.

“And miss the chance to thank you in person for your lovely gift? I think not.”

Mr. Sloane advanced, his heel strikes slow.

“I thought you would find humor in it. I spent a good portion of my time and money hunting for the perfect night-robe.”

“As well as you hunted me?” She removed her gloves, her pulse jumping.

“We both know I am not well-practiced in subterfuge.”

Mr. Sloane stopped in the middle of the room. He stuffed the paper in his pocket, his gaze ranging over her from hem to head while she slipped free of hercloak. Anticipating his nearness made her breath heavier, her skin tighter.

“Yet you managed to filch the ugliest night-robe in London. A poor grandmotherly soul will have to wait until Madame Laurent’s seamstresses can craft another one.”

“Did my gift make you smile?”

She touched a hand over her heart. “I giggled like a twelve-year-old girl, Mr. Sloane.”