Chapter 17
“Oi. Dee! Are you even listening?” Tristan smacked her on the arm.
“Ouch! What?”
It had been like this all morning—all week, if she were honest. Deidre couldn’t keep her thoughts on the task at hand. They were stuck in a loop of her and Ewan’s whirlwind of lovemaking. It was embarrassing enough when they were at the castle, but it was the worst kind of dangerous when they were working. Like they were right now.
“I said, ‘Isn’t that our man?’” Tristan pointed to a stout little man disappearing down an alley. “Bloody hell, you’ve got it bad. Get yourself together.”
Deidre shook off her reverie and followed the man. Tristan trailed a few feet behind her. When she entered the alley, he stayed to keep an eye out.
“Excuse me,” she said as her quarry was unlocking the back door of a shop that let out into the alley. “I need a moment of your time.”
“I’m sorry. The shop’s nae open yet,” he said over his shoulder.
“I know. It’s not the sort of thing I want to discuss with witnesses.”
He looked around the alley, then looked her over. He sidled closer, licking his lips. “Isnae it . . . a bit early for that sort of thing?”
For God’s sake. She slapped his reaching hand away. “Not that sort of business.”
“Oh.” His disappointment was blatant. “Well, then I’m afraid the shop’s nae—”
“I hear you’re the man to see about offloading black market goods.” She didn’t want to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary next to this cretin.
“I dinnae ken what yer talking about.”
“Please don’t try to play the fool with me, suited though you may be to the role. I haven’t the patience.”
“What my sister means to say,” Tris said, swooping in with a glare in her direction. “Is that we completely understand why a man in your position would need to maintain discretion. But we have a mutual friend who assures us you’re the man to see.”
The shopkeeper looked around again, trying to ascertain where Tristan had come from.
“Around the corner, you imbe—”
“Dee, why don’t you take a walk while I handle this?”
She nodded. What the hell was wrong with her? She was barely out of the alley when she realized the answer. It was Ewan. Before Ewan, letting unscrupulous perverts put their hands on her had been just another part of the job. It was part of her value as the bait and in negotiations. Now, she didn’t just crave Ewan’s touched. She abhorred anyone else’s.
Deidre leaned against a wall, desperately trying to convince herself it wasn’t true. If it was, it was a career-ending problem. She was still smart and quick with her hands, but if she couldn’t pretend she was at least indifferent when men showed interest, she would be completely ineffective. It was a serious problem.
So was the voice that came from behind her. “’Ello, poppet.”
Deidre looked for possible escapes. There were a few, but she couldn’t leave Tristan behind. She turned. “Teller. What brings you this far north?”
“Playing coy now, eh? I told ye before—‘e wants to see ye.” Teller grabbed her arm hard enough to hurt.
She dug her heels in. “Where are you taking me?”
“Nae far.” He leaned in close. “Are ye gonna struggle, Dee? I wouldnae mind a bit of a tussle. I owe ye at least one for Wick.”
She barely heard his threat. The implication of not far . . . Blind panic flashed through Deidre. He couldn’t be here. “Alastair doesn’t leave Glasgow.”
“For Lady Dee, apparently he does.”
She was numb as she let Teller pull her down the street toward a rundown inn at the end of town. They had escaped. They were free of him. Alastair hated leaving Glasgow—hated leaving his network of thugs and sycophants. Coming this far north should have been enough.
Teller pulled her through a door and up a set of back stairs. They passed a handful of familiar faces from Alastair’s gang in Glasgow loitering intermittently on the way. Two turns down a narrow hallway and she was being shoved again, through the door to a cramped room above the taproom. She could tell because of the noise drifting through the floorboards. The same noise that would ensure no one heard anything coming from the room they were in.
There was a chair by the window, and in it sat Alastair. Every strand of his hair was perfectly in place. His face held the same boyish grin it always did, but as usual, it didn’t meet his eyes. Those pale blue orbs were cold as they ran the length of her.
“I’m disappointed in you, Deidre.” His voice sent a shiver of fear through her.
She’d been attracted to that smooth timbre once. It had a way of lulling the senses into complacency—a dangerous thing to become with a man who could order his dogs to dismember someone without ever changing his tone.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” His cheek twitched, just beneath his eye. He’d expected her to respond. Beg his forgiveness perhaps?
“What are you doing here?” she asked, feigning nonchalance as she leaned against the dresser.
It twitched again. “Did you think I would just let you go?”
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t. I’m on a job.”
His eyes slid to Teller, hard as granite. “A job?”
“She’s lying. She’s shacked up with that big redheaded cove wot’ busted up me an’ Wick.”
Alastair returned his gaze to Deidre with a raised eyebrow.
“Like I said—a job.”
He stood, closing the distance between himself and Deidre. Alastair ran the edge of his finger along her chin, tipping it up so her eyes met his. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Deidre?”
She was playing a very dangerous game, but the only thing to do was keep playing. She steeled her nerves and leaned closer, until their lips were a breath apart. “I’m a bit more intelligent than that, don’t you think?”
Whether it was being away from the city or his unusual attachment to her, there were chinks in the armor of control he prided himself on. He closed the distance, crushing her mouth in a bruising kiss. Knowing what he wanted from her, Deidre forced herself to respond in kind. She kissed him back with ferocity.
He pulled away, touching his lip where her teeth had broken skin. His satisfaction was evident. “Sometimes I wonder.”
Teller glared daggers at her from his post by the door.
“So tell me, what’s this job?” Alastair asked, sitting back in his chair.
***
Sunlight streamed through the window of the castle’s large kitchen, illuminating the flour particles that hung in the air. Ewan buried his hands in the dough, sending another burst upward. He whistled while he kneaded, unable to keep silent in his present mood.
Things were going well with Deidre. When he’d brought her to climax this morning, it seemed like she’d been on the verge of saying she loved him. It wouldn’t have counted—when she finally confessed it, Ewan would allow no question in either of their minds if she’d meant it—but it was definitely a step in the right direction.
He shaped the loaf, setting it to rise, and started on the next one.
Darrow came into the kitchen, stopping short.
“Darrow.”
“Your lordship,” he said with a bob of his head. “We having a party?”
“No, why?”
Tom smiled. “You’re making enough bread to feed an army.”
Ewan looked around. Every available surface was covered in regimented rows of dough. “I like bread.”
“Sensible. Nothing wrong with a fresh-baked loaf. Or twenty.”
“I may have made a bit more dough than I planned,” Ewan admitted. “I’m nae used to baking.”
“Why would you be? You’re not a baker.”
“Exactly, but Deidre said she missed—” Ewan stopped talking.
Darrow smiled again. “The lass wants bread?”
“Aye.” Ewan felt his face heat with embarrassment. He’d wanted to surprise her with fresh-baked bread, but then there’d been so much dough. You couldn’t just leave it, could you? Better to make it all. He was sure they’d find a use for it.
“You could make different kinds, maybe,” Tom said, considering the loaves.
It was a good idea. Ewan started pulling down things they could use to flavor them.
Tom set a basket of sweet herbs on a stool in lieu of the filled table. He hesitated, before saying “She cares for you as well.”
Ewan didn’t answer, choosing instead to start grinding cinnamon sticks into powder.
“Not that there’s any reason she wouldn’t. You’re an earl, after all. It’s just . . .” Tom trailed off, letting the silence fill the kitchen.
“She’s a complicated woman,” Ewan finished.
“Exactly.”
“I dinnae mind the complicated so much,” Ewan confessed. “But it would be nice to ken for certain what she was thinking sometimes.”
What was he doing? He didn’t want to unburden his soul to Darrow. He realized he did need to unburden it to someone. Not telling Deidre how he felt was taking a toll on him—and their larder, if his current undertaking was any indication.
“What the hell’s going on in here?” Angus asked from the doorway.
Bloody perfect. Angus was the last person he needed witnessing whatever this was.
“We needed bread,” Ewan said lamely.
Angus looked around the kitchen, surveying their efforts. “What are ye doing with the cinnamon?”
“We were going to flavor them,” Tom supplied.
Angus’s face took on a look like he’d swallowed something sour. “Ye cannae just add cinnamon.”
“Why nae?” Ewan had had cinnamon bread before. It seemed simple enough. Take bread, add cinnamon, get cinnamon bread.
“It’s the wrong sort of bread, for starters.” The older man shook his head and started rolling up his sleeves. “And ye add it when yer mixing, nae after, ye idiots.”
Ewan had managed to do pretty well without his help. “What do ye ken about baking bread?”
“A damn sight more than the two of ye, evidently.” He grabbed salt and the herbs from the stool. “Ewan, hand me that bowl.”
***
The ride home was long and silent. Tristan had managed to make the deal on his own, but he was angry with her for botching her end. Deidre’s mind was on Alastair.
He’d believed her—enough to let her go, at any rate—but he knew about Ewan and Broch Murdo. It wasn’t safe for them there anymore. As the horses plodded down the road, she admitted to herself that nowhere was. If Alastair was willing to leave his lair to come find her, was there anywhere she could go to escape him?
Deidre told her story as Teller and Wick unknowingly attacking a lord, and Deidre pulling a quick damsel in distress to keep him from bringing the law down on them all. She needed to keep the ruse up long enough that the alley fight would be the last thing on his mind when she finally disappeared. In the meantime, she was working on making a little money to help pay down Tristan’s debts.
It was close enough to the truth that Alastair had believed her. Teller obviously wanted to leave her body in a ditch somewhere, but he wouldn’t lay a finger to her as long as she still had Alastair’s favor. It had gone as well as it could have, with the exception of a moment at the end.
“Did you let him fuck you?” Alastair asked, almost as an afterthought.
Deidre knew better. “Of course not.”
A perfect eyebrow raised in doubt. “It would be understandable if you had. Noblemen are very big fish to keep on the hook without some kind of incentive.”
“Are you doubting my ability to bait a man?”
“Earls are used to getting more than a nibble.”
“An earl is still just a man,” Deidre had said.
Alastair had always liked the idea that she could play any man, but he was the only one who could actually have her. She’d realized far too late that it was the mark of an ugly jealousy—a possessive need to control every aspect of her life, even other men’s attraction to her.
“Tris,” she asked, breaking the silence. “Do you like Ewan?”
“Not as much as you do, clearly.” He amused himself with his own cleverness.
Deidre was too worried to humor him. “But you like him enough not to want to see him dead?”
“Dead? Christ, Dee. What’s got you all maudlin?”
“Just answer, Tristan.” She shouldn’t push him. If she pushed, he’d realize something was wrong. She couldn’t help it, though—she needed to have this out.
“Obnoxious as it’s been to watch you two falling all over each other lately,” he said pointedly. “No, I don’t want him dead.”
“You know if we ever . . . if Alastair ever heard about Ewan and me, Alastair would have him killed.”
The playfulness drained out of him. “I thought we were staying here for a while.”
“We are.”
“Then why are you—”
“Just in case. If it ever came up, I’d hate for a man to lose his life because you weren’t thinking.”
Tris reined in his horse. “What the hell is going on, Dee?”
“Nothing.” Deidre couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t trust her brother not to run straight back to Alastair.
“Right. Remind me again why people don’t immediately see through your lies?” He didn’t believe her, but at least he was willing to leave it be.
“Sensual allure,” she said, exaggerating a leer at him.
Tristan pretended to retch. “Promise never to make that face again, and I promise to pretend you and Ewan play piquet all night . . . and most of the day.”
“Deal.”