Page 94 of For a Scot's Heart Only

Mellow light drew his eye to the black knight on the table between them. He picked up the chess piece. His favorite, damaged yet polished. Like him.

“I don’t have a heart. And your quips, however warranted, are wearing thin.”

He was deadly serious.

His guest sat up, alert, her troubled gaze shooting between him and Ilsa blowing gently on tinder flaring to life in the fireplace. If he took Miss Fletcher’s pulse, it’d bang hard at the intrusion of his testing finger. He had himself to thank for that. But to woo her to his purpose, certain explanations were inevitable.

“I can give a loose accounting of the gold once it crossed the border,” he said. “It’s all right there.”

“I recognize some of the names.” She propped the open book on the table’s edge. “It says here Donald Macpherson of Breachachie moved the gold to the Scottish border for the sum of six hundred pounds.”

“A grubby Jacobite.”

By her pinched smile, she agreed. “From there it was stored in a barn belonging to the Selby family.”

“English Catholics sympathetic to the Stuart cause,” he confirmed. “They refused payment.”

“But you don’t say how much gold crossed the border. For an accounting book, the entries are deplorable.”

He stroked the trim on his wide cuff. “Accounting—not one of my strengths.”

She skimmed the page with a hurried finger. “There’s only a column of payments. A small amount to a Major Kennedy, seventeen hundred gold livres to a shipping partnership of which Lady Denton is the receiver, and the last entry”—her breath snagged—“paid to Charles Stuart, September, 1750.”

“Major Kennedy took the money from the Selby’s barn and delivered it to Lady Pink here in London. You know her as the Countess of Denton, my cousin. She brought the gold to Charles Selby’s bank where it remained in safe keeping.”

Miss Fletcher massaged her forehead. “You’re telling me six thousand pounds... that’s the last of the treasure?”

“Evidence points to this. My cousin, however, has a different opinion.”

Miss Fletcher glanced up from the book. “That’s why she’s in Scotland, chasing rumors of gold.”

His cousin, the Countess of Denton to the world, Lady Pink to the secret society, was the foul fish in this stew.

He was pensive, thumbing the chess piece. “Of all people, she’s the one you have to watch out for.”

Miss Fletcher cocked her head. “Warning me off?”

“For you and your kin? Yes. Exacting vengeance is her pastime.”

“But the gold,” she insisted.

“Forget the gold,” he said, fisting the chess piece.

Outside, rain pattered the window, pleasant enough to chase London’s finest citizens indoors. Custom would thrive tonight at Maison Bedwell. Only one visitor mattered—the corset maker who’d stumbled on a hornet’s nest. She had to understand this.

He held up his damaged finger.

“Ancilla—my cousin—did this years ago at my family’s country home. I was on my knees, hunting insects by the garden stairs. My hand was on the edge of the middle step.” He leaned forward all the better for her to see the twisted scar. “My cousin appeared out of nowhere and ground her heel onto my finger. I’ve no doubt she stalked me. Of course, I screamed and passed out from horrendous pain. When I awoke later, the tip of my finger was gone. The physician told my mother the damage was too severe. He couldn’t save it.”

Miss Fletcher’s jaw dropped. “But... you must’ve been a little boy.”

“I was five,” he said, cold and precise. “And my dear cousin was twelve or thirteen. After the shock wore off, I told my mother what Ancilla said before I passed out. ‘That’s what you get for being a tattle.’ My mother begged me not to say a word to anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because she wanted to protect me. She always has.Ancilla is abominable and her father, more so. There would’ve been retribution—from Ancilla, I’m sure.”

“I don’t understand.” Miss Fletcher was wispy voiced. “She was cruel for—for the sake of being cruel?”