Chapter Nine
“Iam going to beat that man to within an inch of life!”
“Ian, ye need to calm down,” Ramsay said, keeping pace beside him. “Ye know what happens when ye get all riled up.”
Ignoring his friend’s warning, Ian turned onto Tivoli Street.
“We’re already taking a great risk just by coming here again,” Ramsay continued, “Edward’s spies are likely keeping a closer watch on Drummond.
For pity’s sake, MacLemore may not even be there.
Ye should have heeded my advice. We could have broken into his house and strung him up by his toes and... ”
Fury coursed through Ian’s veins, blazing red-hot at the mere mention of MacLemore’s name. “We don’t know where the devil lives!”
“A trivial point easily remedied had ye but given me a few hours to find out...”
“We haven’t time,” Ian snarled. “’Tis the lass I need to find, and he’s our only tie to her.” He thundered toward Jo’s door, heedless of the consequences.
“Calmly,” Ramsay called out, but Ian was in no mood to be calm.
He kicked the door open. MacLemore looked up with wide eyes from where he sat at Jo’s table adding coins to an already full purse.
The man’s gaze darted from Ian to Ramsay, then back to his task.
“You two again. What do you want?” he said, his voice gruff.
“Where is the lass who used to rent this space?”
“I already told ye when ye came by here two days ago,” the landlord answered without looking up. “She moved out.”
Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “She told me that ye threw her out!”
MacLemore’s eyes flashed with anger. He stood up. “That I did and good riddance. I don’t rent to whores!”
In a flash, Ian seized the dirk from his boot, lunged forward, and pressed his weapon to the blackguard’s neck. “Where is she?”
“I’m not her keeper,” the man gritted out.
Ian shifted the tip of his knife from MacLemore’s throat to his most prized appendage. “Tell me what ye know about her before I make yer long-suffering wife a very happy woman.”
Sweat beaded up on the man’s brow. “Her...her father was a weaver from London, taught her the trade. He’s...he’s dead. Her mother is ill. The old bitty’s days are numbered by the sounds of it. That’s where ye’ll likely find her. She’ll be at the Durham priory with her mother.”
Ian released his hold on MacLemore and turned to Ramsay. “Yer hammer, please.”
Ramsay reached behind his back and withdrew his hammer. “Are ye going to break his legs?”
“I’m still thinking about it,” Ian replied.
MacLemore crumpled to the ground. “Don’t hurt me. Please, I’m begging ye!”
Ian clasped the hammer, glowering down at the squirming coward from his great height. Of course, he wasn’t going to break the legs of an unarmed man. Instead, Ian looked up. With a few swings of the hammer, he busted through the recent patch before handing the blacksmith back his tool.
“Feel better?” Ramsay asked.
“A wee bit,” Ian replied. Then he looked down at the man still groveling at his feet. “Stand up!”
MacLemore scrambled upright. “Please, I need my legs and my prick.”
Ian snaked out his hand, seized the coward’s throat, and shoved him into the wall. “We’ll be watching ye,” he said, his voice deadly soft. “Treat yer tenants better. Next time, I’ll not be so merciful.”
Ian snatched the heavy purse off the table. “I’ll see this returned to its rightful owner.”
Ramsay followed him out the door. “I thought for sure ye were going to kill him.”
Ian took a deep breath, his hands shaking with restrained fury. “So did I.”
“What happened? What held ye back?”
“My honor.” Ian motioned to the tavern across the way. “Come on. I need a drink.”
JO RAN HER SLEEVE ACROSS her forehead, wiping at the beads of sweat before they could sting her eyes. Between the fire, keeping the pottage hot for those wanting a meal, and the dozens of hulky, sweaty male bodies, Lorna’s tavern felt like the inside of a brazier.
Her forearm on the bar, she laid her head on the crook of her elbow and shut her eyes, trying to block out the surrounding din, for a moment, a breath, but then she felt a hand on her back. She jerked upright and locked eyes with her new boss.
“Oh, it’s you, Lorna,” Jo said, relieved that she had not been touched by one of the drunken revelers.
Lorna hoisted herself onto one of the stools and reached into her bountiful décolletage, withdrawing a handkerchief from the bosom of her tunic, and dabbed at the sweat glistening on her powdered face.
Her brassy hair was piled on top of her head with loose tendrils framing her round face.
Smiling, she patted Jo’s hand. “Working upstairs with the other girls isn’t nearly as hard as serving ale down here.
The men are kind. They know I don’t tolerate mistreatment of my girls.
And you’ll earn upstairs with one quick romp what will take ye a fortnight to earn down here. ”
“No thank you,” Jo said simply.
Anger flashed in Lorna’s eyes. “So, you think you’re better than the lot upstairs, do you?”
Jo shook her head fervently. “No...I...I.” She didn’t know what to say.
She certainly did not think ill of Lorna and the other women.
They welcomed men into their beds to use their soft, pliant bodies, but what their customers did not realize was that the women were soldiers—fighting for their very lives.
Without husbands or fathers to provide for them, their choices were few.
Jo did not blame them. Still, she wanted no part of it.
Lorna shrugged, and once again patted Jo’s hand. “Well, it’s not for everyone, but as lovely as you are, you could fill your purse faster than you ever dreamed possible. Especially your first time. Virgins are highly prized.” She leaned closer, her gaze probing. “Are you a virgin?”
Jo’s mouth fell open in shock. Blushing, she tried to think of how she was to respond. Of course she was a virgin, but that was, in no way, Lorna’s business? Still, she needed the job and didn’t want to push Lorna too far.
Suddenly, Conrad, Lorna’s muscular and perpetually angry barkeep, slammed four tankards down in front of her.
“Get these over to those louts in the corner, compliments of me before they start punching each other out.” Veins strained against the skin of his thick neck, which he bent first to one side, then the other.
“Do it now, before I go over there and shut them up with my fists.”
Relieved for the sudden distraction, Jo seized two tankards in each hand. “Sorry, Lorna,” she said quickly and turned about, scanning the busy tavern.
Four men occupied one of the corner tables. They were all speaking at the same time and wildly gesticulating. She noted their empty drinking vessels had already been overturned on the table, waylaid no doubt by the action of their impassioned hands.
She glanced back at Conrad and dared ask, “Are ye certain they need more ale?”
“Better their hands be occupied gripping the handle of a tankard, than fisted and pummeling each other in the face,” the barkeep explained. “Now, get on with ye!”
The air was thick with potential conflict as Jo rushed forward, careful not to slosh ale on the floor.
She couldn’t help but doubt Conrad’s logic.
More drink just meant drunker men, but what did she know?
She was just a lady who had become a weaver and now a barmaid, trying desperately to survive with both feet on the ground.
Jo slammed the tankards on the table. Four sets of eyes looked at her.
“Compliments of Conrad.”
The men glanced over at the mighty barkeep, whose brow furrowed deeply while he crossed his thick, muscular arms across his chest. Looking properly contrite, the men each took up a tankard and raised them in thanks to Conrad.
Jo chuckled as she turned.
Well played, Conrad.
She certainly had no experience dealing with hordes of intoxicated men, although the last two days she’d spent shuffling drinks across the room, she had learned a thing or two: How to spin away from groping hands before they found her arse.
How to maneuver through the room without getting knocked into or run over.
Luckily for her, she was trim and nimble and could find her way as a stream winds around clusters of rocks.
Looking about the room at the dull gazes and hearing the cacophony of slurred speech, she decided rocks was an apt description for the tavern’s patronage. They were all as dense as stone.
She cleared several plates off a table. One had a small piece of grizzle, which she claimed before setting the wooden vessels into the water bucket behind the bar to soak.
“I have to take a quick break,” she told Conrad, wanting to run out back to the outer kitchen where Lorna had let her roll out a pallet in the corner of the pantry.
Ruby was waiting for her there and would, no doubt, enjoy the morsel she had hidden in her hand.
“Not now,” he barked. “Two more customers just arrived.
She turned around. Familiar blue eyes locked with hers.