Page 76 of The Scot Who Loved Me

“I cleaned the key.” Mary swept into the salon, smiling proudly and her hand open.

The silver Wilkes Locke key rested innocently in her palm. The key, still cast in wax, had gone home with Mary after their interesting sojourn at West and Sons Shipping. Will and Mr. West had taken Mr. West’s small boat and seen Mary delivered to Billingsgate Stairs, and the sun had just set when they delivered her to Bermondsey Wall’s beach.

Mary’s hand inched closer. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

She did. The metal was warm. Mary must have kept a firm grip on it all the way from White Cross Street. Silver twisted a pretty tangle on the bowhead, a nice recreation despite the fire having melted part of the wax.

Mary hovered near, hands clasped, her head cocked as if she sensed something was amiss.

Anne cleared her throat and closed her fingers around the seditious key. “Thank you.”

“Are you well?” Mary asked.

“Will didna come home last night.” Aunt Maude tossed out that information.

Mary mouthed a silentO.

Anne shifted irritably. “Heisa guest.” Which everyone ignored when a beaming Aunt Flora set a tray on the low table by the settee.

Will MacDonald was only a few days in their fold, but he’d won a permanent place in their hearts. Why shouldn’t he? The man had knowledge of the key’s whereabouts, had sneaked into ahouse where he dreaded to return, and imprinted the key in wax. If these feats weren’t enough, he produced a forge—a forge!—for Mary to use when all seemed lost.

The man was a miracle worker. He should be an honorary league member.

She was happy calling him Hades. His absence was bedeviling.

Aunt Maude set aside her basket of market goods. Plain wood chairs were brought over to encircle the low table. The Fletcher sisters and Aunt Maude and Aunt Flora chattered on, balancing small Lambethware plates in one hand, while selecting from the luncheon offering of fruit slices and palm-sized slices of meat and potato pie. Cecelia quietly gathered the newspapers she’d brought, and Anne tucked the Wilkes Lock key into her petticoat pocket.

Life was a cheerful prospect for most of the league. Anne wanted to keep it that way.

“Anne, aren’t you going tae eat?” Aunt Flora asked.

Cecelia put a flaky triangle on her plate and poked a fork at its gold-baked edge.

Anne checked the clock. Twenty minutes past noon. “I can’t. I must leave in ten minutes.”

“She’s meeting Lady Denton at one o’clock,” Aunt Maude said.

Cecelia stopped torturing her meat pie. “The witch of Grosvenor Square plagues you?”

“Such scorn, delivered with perfect manners.” Mary smiled and elegantly wiped the corner of her mouth where a crumb sat. “It’s why you are dear to me, Cecelia.”

Hand over her heart, Cecelia bowed from her seat. “I do try.”

Cecelia passed a fledgling smile to Anne. Jacobite gold wasn’t their only binding tie.

“Lady Denton sent word yesterday. A letter calling for us to renew our negotiations for the warehouse,” Anne explained. “Will thinks she knows something.”

“She probably does.” Cecelia set down her plate, her attempt at eating done.

“You think so?”

Cecelia curled one foot under her bottom and lounged as best a woman could in a whalebone corset. “You’re good with ciphering, Anne. What is the outcome when you have a woman with tremendous resources and the morals of a snake?”

She didn’t have to answer. Her league had done the math and come up with the answer.

“We’ve known the odds were against us since afore we left Scotland,” Aunt Maude said.

There was a rustle of agreement. This small group of women was ready to change their part of the world, and not the crown nor a powerful, ennobled woman could stop them. Unfortunately, they’d labored unnoticed for so long that anonymity had become a warm blanket they’d taken for granted. But too many unfortunate intersections were colliding of late, intersections that could not be ignored. A change was needed.