Page 44 of A Scot Is Not Enough

“You brought me to one of the king’s orchards to tell me this?”

A breeze batted her curly wisps. “Not the king’s orchard. It belongs to a league of Scotswomen—a small league, mind you... women who vowed to restore their clan.”

Hairs on his nape prickled. The coded Jacobite ledger flashed in his mind.

“A league?”

“We grow the apples and give them to Scots living in Tenter Ground by Snow’s Fields. My four years in London, and that’s one of the things we do.” Eyes sage and sharp, she added, “Perhaps you can reportthatnefarious activity to Fielding.”

He smarted, the root of guilt running deep. He, likeFielding, had assumed the worst of her: a demirep who lived by her sensual nature on one hand, a Jacobite sympathizer possibly stirring up trouble on the other. Miss MacDonald wasn’t fomenting rebellion; she was feeding homeless Scots.

Arguments rose and died in him: to say Fielding championed the poor, though the magistrate favored strict societal structure; to say Fielding wanted justice and order, though his quill had dripped poison when he wrote about Jacobites; or to say that he, Alexander Sloane, cared about all Londoners, though his conscience needled him that he conveniently stayed on the other side of the river. Thus, he kept his mouth shut when Miss MacDonald pointed southward with her apple-holding hand.

“See there? Those empty warehouses? Beyond them is Cross Keys Alley. There’s an abandoned tannery”—she wrinkled her nose—“you’d know the place by the smell.”

He took another bite and listened.

“The old tannery... it’s one of the places Mr. John Berry and Mr. Stephen MacDaniel hide stolen goods.”

He swallowed fast. “Two of Bow Street’s thief takers.” Two of the toughest and most successful thief takers, in fact.

“They recruit men, sometimes boys,” she said, her syllables sharp. “To steal things. Pewter dishes, blacksmith tools... it doesn’t matter. Then Mr. Berry and Mr. MacDaniel haul in the fools they duped into thievery and collect a reward from the crown.”

“The same crimes Mr. Berry and Mr. MacDaniel were accused of in ’47.”

“Exactly. When all is quiet, they sell the goods.”She pointed southeastward. “Sometimes they take their goods to the shipyards, there.”

“To smugglers?”

“I don’t know.” Arm dropping to her side, she squinted toward those distant shipyards. “What I do know is that Mr. MacDaniel and Mr. Berry have been sniffing around Tenter Ground of late.”

His first month serving the Duke of Newcastle, Alexander had been tasked to organize old reports which had followed the June of ’47 Act of Indemnity, the law that freed the last of the rebels. The bowels of prison hulks had been emptied of almost a thousand rebel Scots. Men with no prospects, and the rebellion too fresh for Londoners to welcome Highlanders with open arms. Few of them found employment. Fewer found a way out. Untold numbers died of neglect. Others took to a life of crime.

“If you take me to this abandoned tannery on Cross Keys Alley, will I find stolen goods inside?” he asked.

“Not now. Mr. Berry and Mr. MacDaniel are smart. They don’t store their goods in the same place, and they spread out their crimes. Sometimes several months apart.”

His apple eaten, he tossed the core. “I can’t use it.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were acquitted in ’47. To accuse them of the same crime, I had better have iron-clad evidence.”

She blinked at him, incredulous. “Does that mean you won’t do anything?”

He was parsing the facts as one did in legal matters. Grub Street readers adored dramatic tales of crime and punishment. In stories, the scales of justiceweighed right from wrong, but the courts weighed evidence. Without proof, his hands were tied.

“I can’t. Not without solid evidence.”

“You won’t even investigate it?”

“I’m not a thief taker.”

“But you could right this injustice. If ever there was a man in a position to—to—do something, it’s you.”

He sucked in a deep breath of forbearance. A millstone of expectation weighed on his back. Hers, in fact. Miss MacDonald’s eyes glimmered with hope. She wanted him to save the day, and God help him, he wanted to be that man.

“You understand, to bring the same charges against Mr. Berry and Mr. MacDaniel, the evidence must be indisputable. Anything less would warn them off.”