Page 111 of For a Scot's Heart Only

Thomas, Cecelia, Jenny, and Aunt Maude crowded her, their frantic, fear-pitched voices spearing her with questions.

“Where could she be?” Cecelia asked.

“Do you think she ran off with a young man?” was Jenny.

“Are you sure she’s not at the shop?” was Aunt Maude.

Above the fray was Thomas. His voice was the iron thread she grabbed.

“Does this have anything to do with your hunt for Jacobite gold?” which silenced the room.

He towered over everyone and stood outside the cluster of worried women crowding Mary. If they turned to him, she wouldn’t know. She was cold... so very, very cold.

Sweet Margaret, her one responsibility in this life, was gone. Taken.

Only one name came to mind—Lord Ranleigh. The cur.

Was his threat to Thomas not enough? Did he think taking Margaret would bring her to heel? Fury reached up through her knees and made her stand straight, a steely, fortified anger, infusing her spine and setting her course. Ranleigh was messing with the wrong woman.

She looked to the maid. “Jenny, my cloak, if you please.” To Cecelia, “Have you a pistol I may use?”

“No, but Alexander does. Two of them. I’ll load them for you.”

Mary watched her race upstairs. It was gratifying, Cecelia’s quick support, no questions asked. Thomas was an obelisk in the background, his mouth grim. One message from him prevailed—Iam with you.

She felt it in the marrow of her bones.

“Pistols?” Worry clouded Aunt Maude’s face. “What are you going tae do, dear?”

“I’m going to bring Margaret home.”

Chapter Thirty

Margaret is missing.

Words to prod Mary when she charged the front door of Maison Bedwell, the pistol in hand hidden in her cloak. She rued the day she crossed paths with the brothel’s owner.

“Mary,” Thomas soothed. “Please, exercise caution.”

She turned a sharp chin at him. “I said you could accompany me as long as you stayed out of my way.”

Her calm resolve formed in Cecelia’s cozy entry had crumbled. She badly needed it again. The black lacquer door was her River Styx. Once she crossed it, she would become unbeatable or face her own death. Either way, there’d be no going back.

“Please give me the pistol,” he said.

Thomas already had the second pistol tucked in his breeches at the small of his back. And he wanted hers?

“No.” To emphasize her point, she pounded the butt on the door. “This isn’t the time for half measures. Either I have your full support or none at all.”

His green-blue eyes were fathomless.

“You know you have it.”

Tension uncoiled a small degree. She wanted to weep. She wasn’t alone. His word was as solid as oak and his presence more so. Considering Thomas’s profound offer, she ought to give something in return.

“You have my word—I won’t shoot to kill,” she said, mollified.

“Glad to hear it. The day’s too lovely for prison.”