Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
MORRIGAN
To wait for Sir Rupert Burney would mean the end of two lives. His and hers.
The ruffians in suits he had with him trailed a few steps behind. They sensed no threat. Just two women in a garden. As he approached, she could see he was curious. His gaze was fixed on her. But she had no doubt the mention of her name would be catastrophic.
Morrigan thought of all the blood that had been shed because of this man. The arrests. The abuse of prisoners. All the people who’d suffered. The pain that Fiona and her children had endured.
At the Infirmary Street house in Edinburgh, she’d seen the carts bringing those who were injured after protests.
She’d helped her father try to bring some relief to the people broken by torture at this man’s command.
The attack on the clinic last April had been ordered by the Home Office.
Archibald Drummond was cut down in his own surgery.
Dead at the hand of a hussar as he tried to save the lives of his wounded patients.
An assassin most assuredly directed to their home by this man.
Morrigan was there. She witnessed the tragedy, watched the blood pour from her father’s body while Isabella tried desperately to save him.
Later, as Isabella forced her from the chaos, Morrigan was already planning her revenge. She would find and kill the person responsible for the horrors of that day.
She watched Sir Rupert as he drew closer.
Isabella, Maisie, and Morrigan had escaped through a back door with the aid of their housekeeper. In the alleyway behind the house, Morrigan killed a man to save Maisie’s life. But there’d been no premeditation involved. It was a matter of kill or be killed.
Today was different. She’d been planning this moment for months.
A touch on her arm startled her.
“Why are you standing here?” Madame Laborde’s face had grown pale, her eyes wide with concern. “Pay no attention to what I said before. You’re young. You have a future that awaits you. Go!”
“You have nothing to fear. My business with Sir Rupert is personal.”
“I don’t fear for myself,” she said with growing urgency. “Do not be fooled by the appearance of age. He is a fox, as keen and cunning as he is ruthless. He wears his age like a cloak. He is a true predator.”
“And these are your friends?” Morrigan asked, her voice cutting.
“Not a friend,” the artist admitted. “I have few choices in this world.”
Burney slowed his steps and said something to one of his entourage.
“You see? He already senses danger. He won’t kill you here. He’ll take you to use for his own purposes. Think of your family. Is this what you want?”
Madame Laborde’s words slapped her with the reality of her situation.
Morrigan met the woman’s eyes. She might be able to kill him, but what if she failed?
She’d nearly been bested by Aidan in the alley near Maggot Green.
He hadn’t expected her to fight, however.
She couldn’t be sure about this man. Or the bruisers accompanying him.
She wasn’t invincible. What if they did took her prisoner?
“Come with me,” Morrigan said to the artist.
“Not now. I’m delivering new drawings to him today. He’ll be on us in a moment if we both try to run. Neither of us will have a chance.” She hesitated and then whispered, “I’ll delay him. Come back for me later. Go now.”
Twenty yards separated them.
“Please let me know, Madame, what you decide about the tutoring,” Morrigan said loudly. With a quick curtsy, she turned and walked down the path to the gate at the bottom of the garden. Inverness and freedom lay beyond, if the artist could stall Sir Rupert.
She had no option about which direction to go. The Mackintosh men were waiting for her by the stables, but she had no way to get back to them. To reach the house, she’d have needed to pass the villain and his men.
She went through the gate and glanced back. Sir Rupert was standing with Madame Laborde. The woman was waving her hands as she talked. His eyes locked on Morrigan as he snapped an order at his men. Three of them immediately started down along the garden path after her.
Morrigan began to run.
This was exactly what Isabella had warned her about, keeping her wits about her. But she’d nearly committed an act that would have had disastrous repercussions. She’d nearly failed all of them. And she wasn’t clear of the danger yet.
Morrigan lifted her skirts and ran hard.
The cattle market lay directly ahead. As she reached the crowd, a shout came from behind her to stop.
She ignored it. The open market was busier and noisier than when they passed through it earlier.
She thanked the stars. She crossed through, mingling with the throng of buyers, sellers, and drovers herding their animals into and out of pens.
She cut around a dozen men inspecting an enormous bull and darted around the corner of a shed.
A muddy lane wound down a short hill and passed between a stone building and a tall fence enclosing a livery yard.
She hurried to the end of the lane. A moment later, she reached the corner at the head of Inverness’s High Street and glanced back.
One of Sir Rupert’s men appeared. He shouted over his shoulder for the others, and then started to sprint after her.
The cobbled street was jammed with pedestrians, carts, and carriages.
As she threaded her way past vendors hawking their wares to small clusters of customers, a gang of ragged children ran past her, two dogs barking and nipping at their heels.
A trio of British officers in scarlet coats stood outside a milliner’s shop, talking with three well-dressed young women.
Their attention turned toward her as she pushed by them.
Moving in the direction of the river, Morrigan kept her eye on the stone spire of the Tolbooth, which housed both the courthouse and the jail.
She prayed that Aidan was still there. If she could elude the men behind her long enough, perhaps she could get word to him, at the very least. Aidan was far too public a figure for Sir Rupert or his men to interfere with.
He could go back to Barn Hill and warn the Mackintosh men waiting there.
Together, they could bring Madame Laborde back.
The block directly across from the Tolbooth was lined with shops.
She stepped into the recessed doorway of stationer’s store.
Peering back up High Street, she saw them.
The three bruisers were moving toward her, one on either side of the street and one in the middle.
They were looking into the shop doors and studying the faces of women walking by.
The stationer’s shop wasn’t large enough to hide in. She could set out on foot and run for the river, but she doubted she could get clear of them. They were drawing closer by the minute.
“Blast,” she murmured. She had no choice.
Keeping her head down, she walked across the street to a small doorway with a stout gate of wood and iron. The entrance to the jail. A smaller door was set into the gate and a guard leaned against it. He tipped his cap as she approached him.
“Help ye, mistress?”
“I was supposed to meet the barrister, Mr. Grant. Is he still here?”
“Aye, that he is.”
“May I wait for him inside?” She glanced meaningfully at a couple of watermen sitting against the building, passing a flask back and forth.
“No better inside, mistress.”
“I’d prefer it, if you don’t mind.”
With a shrug, the guard knocked on the door.
A face appeared at a peep hole, and then a bolt slid on the other side.
The door creaked open. The guard ushered her through and pointed to a bench just inside.
Beyond the entrance, she saw a small dark courtyard surrounded by high walls.
Windows of the courthouse and city offices looked down on the open area.
A gallows sat ominously at one end. Just above the cobblestones on the far wall, a row of tiny, barred windows ran the entire length of the enclosed space.
The sounds of the street were muted here.
The guard explained the situation to the gatekeeper, who bolted the door before disappearing into the building.
“You can sit here and wait, mistress,” the guard said. He went into a small office space beside the gate, and the smell of tobacco immediately drifted into the courtyard.
She didn’t have long to wait. A moment later, Aidan came out of the building with the gatekeeper. His expression upon seeing her inside the jail was murderous. He took her elbow and led her a few feet away. The guard went back out onto the street, and the gatekeeper bolted the door.
Aidan spoke in a hushed voice, but his anger was evident. “Have you lost your mind?”
“They’re outside, looking for me on the street. They chased me down from Barn Hill.”
“Who?” he asked, sending a cautious glance at the gatekeeper. “Who is looking for you?”
“Sir Rupert Burney’s men.”
His grey eyes met hers, and a hand wrapped protectively around her upper arm, leading her a few more feet away. She talked fast and told him everything—from finding out from Mrs. Goddard that the artist was living at Barn Hill to meeting the woman in the gardens.
“Sir Rupert arrived while I was speaking with her.”
She left out her momentary impulse of putting a knife in the heart of the spymaster.
“I had to escape on foot. They came after me, searching in every shop along High Street. This was the only place where I thought they wouldn’t look.”
“No doubt, she told him who you were.”
“She had no choice. She would have come with me if she could. I want to go back for her.”
“You’re going nowhere near Barn Hill,” he ordered. He thought for a moment before leading her to the bench. “Stay here and wait for me. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She didn’t argue. Morrigan watched Aidan approach the gatekeeper. A few words were exchanged before the man opened the door and let him out.