Page 95 of A Scot Is Not Enough

“The kiss... I can do much better.”

His low laugh put butterflies in her stomach.

“I know you can.” He traced her temple. “Why don’t we go home, clean each other up, and find what else we’re good at together?”

Excitement fluttered everywhere. This was gold, a man enamored with a woman even when she has a scarf on her head and coal dust on her face.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

Home.The word had slipped easily into their conversation. She would’ve basked in the cheer of it, except a door creaked open below.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She froze, barely breathing, the air touching her insides before fleeing on a wispy exhale. Only once had she felt this way—the day two of Cumberland’s men circled her, evil pooling in their eyes, when they’d caught her sifting through her charred home. The taste of charcoal on her lips didn’t help.

Fear choked her, and still her ears sharpened to every noise.

“A game of dice wouldn’t hurt ye. Your best of seven against mine,” a booming voice said.

“Not for money,” was the clipped reply. A cold, efficient voice, that one.

“Aw, Wortley, ye took my quid last night. Give me a chance to win some back.”

Wortley!She mouthed the dreaded name to Alexander.

He touched a finger to his lips for quiet (as if she needed the reminder!) and he blew out the candle lamp. Howling wind and the rope whipping the wall outside disguised the lamp’s squeaking glass door.A rivulet of smoke twisted thinly, her hope going with it.

What were they going to do?

Her gaze cast wildly about. The window did not open. The side entry was not an option; they’d have to go down the stairs. That wouldn’t work. Wooden stairs creaked, and Wortley would see them.

Alexander touched her arm and pointed at the door to the loft.

“No,” she whispered in his ear. “They’ll see us.”

“It’s too dark. We’ll be safe if we stick to the wall.”

She grabbed his coat. “What will we do after that?”

Her heart kicked faster than a running rabbit. Voices and movements from below reached her ears, almost painfully crisp. The soft pop of a jar uncorked, a squeaky hinge, male laughter over a shared jest. Alexander crooked a finger at her to follow. They both slinked along on the balls of their feet, careful not to touch the door.

Inside the loft was a treadwheel and a half dozen bales in haphazard order. A wooden deadeye, the tool used for tensioning ropes, sat on the floor. She stepped over its iron tail, sidling the wall in darkness with Alexander. He was leading them to the quayside wall—to a padlocked door.

She gripped his sleeve, her fingernails scoring it.

“What will we do?” she whispered in his ear.

He pulled the file and hairpin from his pocket and held them inches from her nose.

“We go through this door and swing down the crane’s rope to Mr. Baines’s wherry.” His grin dented sideways. “It will be an adventure.”

An adventure? Swinging from a rope off theCountess of Denton’s warehouse did not qualify as fun, adventurous, or anything remotely exciting. Her eyes must’ve sparked with indignance. Alexander caressed her char-dusted cheek.

“Trust me.”

After tonight, their bridge of trust would be iron-clad, if they managed to escape. His calm response soothed her. Her tense shell fractured enough for her to take a deep breath and give a jerky nod.

He removed her hat and kissed her scarf-covered ear. “Watch my back,” was his whisper before he knelt to work the padlock. She pulled her pistol from the back of her breeches. The filigreed butt was cold in her clammy palm, a sense of power slowly coming with it. Irksome tremors faded. She listened to the rope knocking the warehouse wall outside and the two cutthroats below.