Page 61 of A Scot Is Not Enough

He glared at the lordling from the ground, blood dripping over one eye. Not an enviable position, but the St. James cricketer slinked away from the circle.

She sat back on her heels. “Why, Mr. Sloane, defending my honor, are you?”

Burton scrambled to his feet. “Since your head is intact, can we get on with the match?”

Miss MacDonald was cleaning her fingers on her ruined shawl.

“Oh, I’m afraid he won’t play, Mr....?” She rose elegantly from the ground.

Alexander reached for his bat, a throb building behind his eyes. “Miss MacDonald, allow me to introduce my friend and an esteemed man of the law, Mr. Peter Burton. Burton, this is Miss MacDonald, an accomplished woman of business and, today, my physic.”

Her curtsey was quick.

“A pleasure, sir.” Her mouth was a moue of distastewhile she examined her ruined shawl. “As I said, Mr. Sloane won’t be able to play.”

“I’m sure he can decide that for himself,” Burton said.

“A head wound is very serious. He should rest and abstain from all excitement.”

Burton bent over and picked up the cricket ball. “This isn’t the first time Sloane’s been knocked on the head. He’ll get over it.”

“A knot is forming.”

“Which will remind him to keep his eye on the ball. We’re already two men short. We cannot afford to lose him.”

“So you said at the tent.” Red silk bunched in Miss MacDonald’s fist. “However, the facts are, a bump is forming and he needs to rest.”

Using his bat, Alexander pushed himself upright. Burton and Miss MacDonald were squaring off like two dogs over a bone. He’d been bloodied and bruised in sport more times than he could count, and it never stopped his play, but there was a man in black watching from the tent. Cold and sinister that man. An unwelcome addition to the day and likely the cause of Miss MacDonald’s upset.

Alexander tucked his bat under his arm and rubbed thickened blood off his eyebrow.

“What Burton means is he’d rather me bleed to death than lose to a cricket club with more arrogance than skill.”

The bickering stopped.

Burton sighed, turning the ball over in his hand. A tear was in the leather. “If you must go, so be it. I suppose you’ll need someone to look after you,though I don’t know where your home is these days—”

“I know where he lives.” Sun glittered on red-paste earbobs and a persuasive smile. “I can look after him.” Miss MacDonald touched Alexander’s sleeve. “Gather your things and come find me by the robin’s egg blue carriage.”

The Scotswoman sped off to the east end of Artillery Ground where carriages waited. Cricketers politely halted their batting in deference to a woman crossing the pitch. Her stride was brisk... almost urgent.

Together, he and Burton walked to a pile of coats and hats near the southern tent.

On the way, Burton tossed the ruined ball up and down. “Whisked away by a woman in a robin’s egg blue carriage.”

Alexander grinned. “Shouldn’t every man?”

“Sheis why you sought tickets to Swynford House.”

“She is.”

Burton gave him the gimlet eye. “And you let me go on about shrill, upright women.”

Alexander collected his hat and coat, a trickle of blood sliding down his forehead. The cut, he guessed, was the size of a thumbprint. It was best he go and not just because of his head. The St. James Club took the pitch, ready for their practice match to begin. Burton, however, lingered, his eye on Miss MacDonald already seated in the carriage.

“A woman like that at a boring entertainment.” Burton scrubbed his jaw. “It begs the question... Why?”

Miss MacDonald poked her head out the window. “Mr. Sloane. We shouldn’t dally.”