Page 15 of For a Scot's Heart Only

Silver spectral eyes beguiled him. He’d seen the color once in nature, north of the North Sea where storm clouds sank into the water. Deep mysteries lived there. So did elusive creatures barely known to man. The same could be said of the dark-haired siren from Scotland. Standing with her was a taste of the exquisite, an unseen tether binding them.Night blurred, a serene watercolor. Neither wanted this to end. He knew that. Miss Fletcher did, too, clutching the bow under her chin, a sable curl floating free—the moment ripe for a kiss.

Except they were on the doorstep of a brothel where men paid easy quid for a great deal more. What irony this was, him working hard for a kiss that would not happen.

“Please, go inside,” she said as though she needed him to walk away.

Despite the cold, damp air, he was stubborn.

“Give me your right hand.”

She balked. “My—”

Bewildered, Miss Fletcher offered him her ungloved appendage.

Water dripping down his cheeks, he folded his hands around her work-worn hand. Racked with something more powerful than lust, he caressed her palm. Crystalline droplets anointed her hood, drawing the eye to her beautiful face. But Miss Fletcher’s hands were her story. Her fingers which he touched. The small white scars which he traced. And the tip of her middle finger stained green from a brass thimble, which he kissed tenderly. Sweetly.

Her lips parted on a fragile gasp.

The sound rang inside him.

Laborers at Howland Great Wet Dock would box a man’s ears for attachingtenderandsweetto anything he did. But it was the truth, and the innocent kiss worth it. She had amused, enlightened, irked, insulted, and surprised him—all in one hour.

What would happen if she gave him the night?

Possibly heaving breasts, hot kisses, and lively conversation with the too-smart-for-her-own-goodcorset maker. He’d have her spouting poetry. Shite, he’d spout some too.

But tonight, he would let her go.

“Good night, Miss Fletcher.” His voice rumbled in the dark.

She hid her hand in velvet folds. “Good night, Mr. West.”

Despite the Herculean resistance inside him, he forced himself to walk back inside as requested. What he did next was a secret between him and those smiling frescoes.

Chapter Four

Slim, structured waists and plump, overflowing breasts were her stock-in-trade. An illusion that she, Mary Fletcher, propagated, and she was quite good at it. Women flocked to her rose-scented shop on White Cross Street to edit what filled their gowns. The journey to fashionable perfection began in a wharf-side warehouse packed with men smelling of brine and tar, and it ended in the back of her shop where she wrangled bones and baleen into practical linen and occasionally decadent silk creations.

Transforming silhouettes was one reason for Fletcher’s House of Corsets and Stays’s success. Mary’s patient listening ear was the other. Thus, her workroom was her sanctuary.

Sometimes a woman needed a little peace and quiet.

She found it in her bolts of rainbow-colored cloth and rows of spindled threads. Her pins and needles, the sturdy worktable, and plain brick walls warmed by a small iron stove—heaven to her. Patrons were rarely admitted to her inner sanctum, except Mrs. Rimsby. The gossipy matron wormed her way intoeverything. At present, she was peeking past the thin opening between the curtain and the door frame, which led to the shop.

“Miss Fletcher, I don’t wish to alarm you,” Mrs. Rimsby said. “But there’s a man in your shop.”

Mary snipped cloth, not bothering to look up.

“Men do, on occasion, bring their custom to me.”

A White Cross Street merchant had recently visited her with concerns about his expanding waistline. Short, well-starched baleen stays were her solution.

Mrs. Rimsby harrumphed. “I daresaythatgentleman does not need a corset.”

“No?”

Mary inspected the linen she’d just cut, but it was hard to concentrate with visions of a scarred pirate in her head. Early that morning, when all was still, she’d searched her spindles for the exact shade of blue-green (or perhaps more green than blue?) to match his eyes. It was the kind of thing a moonstruck maid would do, not a woman on the cusp of her thirtieth birthday. Yet, her gaze often wandered to the vibrant thread perched prominently on the shelf.

Mrs. Rimsby pivoted to Mary like a bloodhound on the scent. “He’s talking to your sister.”