Page 29 of Devil’s Highlander (Clan MacAlpin #1)

“Oh, you have to be careful. Sometimes the lads adopt quite the attitude and need a firm hand to lead them straight.”

Fury wavered Marjorie’s vision, her outrage fueled by the liquor in her veins. She bit her tongue not to lash into all of them.

“The Scottish blood,” someone tsked knowingly.

“But our lad has grown into quite the piece.” The woman smiled proudly. “I daresay, my maid can’t take her eyes from him.”

A disgrace. Marjorie’s mouth opened, then she snapped it back shut again, worrying for a moment that she might’ve accidentally barked her thoughts aloud.

“It’s the tropical air,” someone agreed. “It’s much healthier for them than playing catch as catch can in a filthy alley somewhere.”

Marjorie’s blood pounded until the women’s voices blended together into an amorphous hum.

“Oh, indeed. These lads go from climbing chimneys—”

The hum of conversation translated into a buzzing in her skull. Climbing chimneys.

God help you, Aidan.

Had Cormac’s brother ended up in some man’s field? As the curiously coarse dalliance of some lonely plantation wife?

“So dreadful!”

“Yes, and so many die! But, with us, the lads have their fill of fresh air and sunshine.”

Marjorie put her fingers to her temple. She needed to focus. Aidan was long gone, but not Davie. She could still help Davie. Concentrate. She needed to ask something.

“I . . . I should like to find some help, too,” Marjorie said, her voice cracking.

“Not with that fine cut of meat you came in with!”

The women tittered wildly.

“Cor—?” She caught herself and forced a saucy laugh, sounding tinny in her ears. “Do you mean my Hughie?”

“Hughie?” Adele mimicked, fanning herself. “Don’t be coy, ma chérie . Surely you know the fine specimen your husband to be.”

Fine specimen? Is that how women saw him?

Had he ever taken advantage of what would be women’s obvious interest?

Her jaw clenched, and she adjusted herself on the sofa, attempting to sit straighter in the deep pillows.

“No, I need help of a different sort, for the plantation work. Where does one . . .” Marjorie faltered, unable to bring herself to use the word buy .

She cleared her throat. “Wherever does one secure such a boy?”

Her eyes scanned the room. These women, who’d seemed such exotic birds of paradise, now struck her as merely obscene. To steal children, to make five-year-old boys do their work for them. It was unconscionable.

“Oh my dear, your husband will be the one to set it up for you.”

“Yes, I’m certain Malcolm will help Lord Brodie with all the arrangements,” Adele assured her.

So the bailie was involved. The realization rocked her. She brought her cup to her mouth, then thought better of it, realizing the smell of the rumbullion had gone from sweet to nauseatingly cloying.

And why wouldn’t the bailie be involved? she decided. According to Parliament, procuring slaves wasn’t simply legal, it was encouraged. More workers in the Indies was good for the economy. Less loitering poor was good for the streets.

Just how many people were taken? How many boys stolen from their mothers? Or, God forfend, how many mothers from their children?

Marjorie’s hands began to tremble. She tried to put her cup on a side table, but it slipped through her fingers and tumbled to the floor, falling with a muted thump on a brightly woven carpet. She realized she’d consumed the entire tankard.

Despite the hush that fell over the room, the buzzing in Marjorie’s head grew deafening.

“Are you all right?” someone asked.

The silence broken, a chorus of voices joined in at once. “Are you feeling ill?”

“It’s the drink, I’m sure,” someone said, taking Marjorie’s hand.

She flinched away, not wanting any of these horrid women to touch her. “I’m fine, truly.”

“Adele, lend us your fan.” A woman began fanning her, sending bursts of heavily scented perfume swirling.

The smell disgusted her. They disgusted her. Clutching her stomach, she scooted to the edge of the sofa. “That’s unnecessary, really.”

“Did you see, the poor creature downed the entire thing.”

Marjorie’s stomach roiled, and she swallowed convulsively, her smile feeling like a grimace. “I will be fine, I assure you.”

“Who gave her such a serving?”

“Should we fetch the physician?”

She couldn’t bear the thought of meeting another person that night. “I . . . I’m fine,” Marjorie said, lurching to her feet. Cormac. Cormac was the only one she wanted to see. She needed to get out of there. She needed to find Cormac.

“Are you certain?” the bailie’s wife asked tentatively. “Perhaps I should accompany you.”

The last thing Marjorie wanted was to spend another moment in Adele’s company.

She forced a smile on her lips. “By no means will I allow you to leave your guests. No, I’m afraid .

. . the strain of our travels has finally overcome me.

If you’ll please excuse me. Your company has been most . . . illuminating.”

She reeled from the room, leaning against the wall in the dim hallway. The marble was cool, the tiles and floor appearing as uniform shades of gray in the shadows. It was a relief after such a riot of color and sensation.

There was a moment’s silence, and then the ladies’ chatter resumed almost instantly.

Cormac. She had to find Cormac. She longed to see him, hoped the sight of him would reassure her. She couldn’t have borne being in the same room as those women for a minute longer.

Holding the wall, Marjorie edged along, eager to get away from the roomful of wives, away from their decadent splendor, from their cruel excess.

The sound of men came to her from the end of the corridor, and she headed for it unthinking. Her footsteps slowed as she approached, realizing she didn’t hear the clack of billiard balls or the benignly amicable babble she’d expected. She tiptoed closer. There were just two voices.

One struck her as oddly familiar.

She crept to the doorway, peeking in. The room looked like a small solar, empty now but for two men speaking in earnest.

Marjorie furrowed her brow, not believing her eyes.

A man was speaking furtively with the bailie’s butler.

The butler reached under his coat to a coin purse tied at his waist. There was the clink of coins as money exchanged hands.

The second man took the money, tilting his head as he readjusted his jacket, and the candlelight caught his cheek, illuminating it.

Illuminating his perfectly combed hair to a fine sheen.

Marjorie’s gorge rose.

Betrayal speared her. And then fear, quick on its heels. She and Cormac needed to get out of there before they were recognized.

Because there in the solar was the last man she ever imagined she’d see.