Unlacing the Innocent Miss

Rosalind glanced around the empty yard nervously, eyes searching through the dim lantern light to find the man her new employer had sent to collect her. She was unsure of what to do, whether to wait here outside alone, or follow the other man into the inn. A voice sounded, male, not Scottish like those she had grown accustomed to hearing for the past days in Edinburgh, but rather with an accent that had a strong Yorkshire vein.

‘Miss Meadowfield?’

She started, and glanced round.

A tall man wearing a long dark riding coat stood by the yard’s entrance. The brim of his hat kept his face shadowed and invisible. There was something about the figure, so dark and dangerous and predatory, that her heart seemed to cease beating and the breath caught in her throat. She thought in that moment that, despite all that she had done to escape him, Evedon had found her. And then, sense and reasoning kicked in and she told herself that, of course, he was Hunter’s man sent to fetch her.

‘You are from Mr Stewart of Benmore House?’ she asked tentatively.

The man gave a nod. ‘Come to collect the new housekeeper, ma’am.’

She smiled her relief and walked across the yard towards him. ‘That is welcome news indeed, sir.’ She was here at last. Only a few miles now lay between Rosalind and the start of her new life running the household of Mr Stewart at Benmore House on Munnoch Moor—far, far away from London and Lord Evedon.

He took the travelling bag from her hand. ‘Allow me, ma’am.’

‘Thank you.’

He turned and began to walk out of the inn’s yard. ‘We had best get a move on.’

‘Of course.’ She followed after him.

Outside the yard, the moonlight revealed the presence of a cart with a single horse parked at the road’s side, a small inconsequential vehicle almost unnoticed against the dark edge of the trees. She wondered why he had travelled in a cart rather than a gig.

The man was tall, with long legs and a big stride. Rosalind quickened her pace to stay with him.

He dumped her bag in the back of the cart and climbed up to the seat at the front, before turning and reaching a hand down towards Rosalind.

The moon was behind him, rendering his face shadowed and the features invisible. Rosalind hesitated, an inexplicable shiver running down her spine. Overhead, the night sky hung like a canopy of rich black velvet studded with the brilliance of diamond stars. The moon was half full, a white opalescent semicircle that shone with an ethereal brilliance to light the road behind Mr Stewart’s servant.

‘Miss Meadowfield,’ he urged in a tone that was hard and clipped.

And just for a moment she had the urge to turn where she was and run. She quelled the thought, telling herself not to be foolish, that what had happened at Evedon House was making her too fearful, too suspicious. London and Lord Evedon were close to five hundred miles away. She was safe here. She looked at the strong, long, blunt-tipped fingers extended towards her and, without further hesitation, reached her own hand to his.

His grasp was warm even through the fine leather of her glove, and strong. Again she was aware of that frisson of sensation that tingled through her. But she could think no more on it, for he was pulling her up to sit on the small wooden bench beside him.

He twitched the reins within his fingers and the cart began to roll forward, making Rosalind grab for the edge of the seat.

She felt, rather than saw, the way his head turned to look at her hands clutched so tightly and the uneasy way she sat forward, staring with trepidation at the horse before her. She could see the smoky condensation of the horse’s breath against the darkness of the night, could hear its soft breathing and smell its strong scent. She inhaled deeply and slowly, releasing the breath even more slowly and loosening the tight grip of her fingers to something more reasonable.

He made no comment, yet even so, Rosalind felt the flush of warmth in her cheeks. Embarrassment made her seek something—anything—to say, desperately searching for a diversion from her awkwardness.

‘It is a cold night for the time of year.’ She looked round at him, and attempted to sit back more comfortably on the seat.

The man gave no response, just manipulated the reins, and made soft clicking noises to steer them round so that the horse and cart were ready to trot down a smaller road to the side. As they changed direction, the moon lit his face so that Rosalind saw him for the first time. He was not as old as she had expected; indeed, she estimated that he could not be so very much older than her own twenty-five years.

His were strong features, harsh and lean…and handsome. High cheekbones and a chiselled jawline, a straight manly nose and a hard uncompromising mouth that did not smile. A small pale scar slashed across the skin of his cheek beneath his right eye. And his face held a slightly mocking expression. But it was none of these things that caused the breath to catch in Rosalind’s throat. Within the cool moonlight, the man’s eyes seemed almost silver, and he was looking at her with an expression so cold as to freeze her.

The shock of it made her rapidly avert her gaze, and when she glanced again, his face was looking forward and in shadow once more. She wondered if she had been mistaken. And the thought occurred to her that perhaps he knew that she was lying to Mr Stewart and that she had come from Evedon House. Perhaps he even knew her real identity. It was impossible, of course. They had hanged her father twenty years ago. And as for the rest—Evedon and his accusations—she had been careful: writing her application from Louisa’s in Edinburgh, lying about what she had been doing for the last years, erasing any hint of a connection with the dowager Lady Evedon.

The man was probably just irritated at being dragged from his bed in the middle of the night to fetch her. She was safe. She was going to Benmore House and everything would be fine. She took a deep breath and tried to convince herself of that.

‘You have the advantage of me, sir. I do not know your name.’ Small talk, something plucked from the air to break the uneasy silence that lay between them.

Within the quiet of the night, the horse’s iron-shod hooves were loud against the compacted surface of the road. Rosalind deliberately kept her gaze averted from the horse, glancing round at Hunter’s man instead. There was only the noise of the horse’s hooves, and she thought that he would not answer her, but eventually he spoke.

‘Wolversley, but they call me Wolf.’ The silver eyes flicked down to meet hers once more.

Wolf. The skin on the nape of Rosalind’s neck prickled, and not just at the name. There was an intensity in that single silver glance that shook her.

The reins twitched beneath his fingers and the horse began to pick up its pace. She could not help but grip again at the seat.

‘Is the pace too fast for you, ma’am?’ She thought she heard an edge of mockery in his words, but whether it was there in truth or was just a product of her own guilty imagination, she did not know.

‘No, sir. The pace is perfectly fine.’ Rosalind had no intention of admitting her fear to anyone at the Hunter residence. One more secret to be kept amidst many. ‘Perhaps you could tell me something of Benmore House.’

‘Best just to wait and see for yourself,’ he replied. A moment’s pause before he added, ‘But happen you could tell me of Benmore’s new housekeeper. We have been curious as to Miss Meadowfield.’

Not a question that Rosalind wished to answer, yet she knew that she would have to do so time and again within her new position, and she supposed that now was as good a time as any to start. ‘There is little to tell, Mr Wolversley.’

‘Wolf,’ he corrected.

And again that strange sensation whispered down her spine. ‘Where did you work prior to taking up this position? Mr Stewart said it was Edinburgh.’

‘I did indeed work for a household in Edinburgh.’

‘Anyone we would have heard of?’

‘No one you would have heard of,’ she replied quickly, not wishing to drag her old school friend and her family into this any more than was necessary. It had been good of Louisa to take her in after her flight from London, especially given that she knew the truth of Rosalind’s father. It had also been Louisa’s idea to say that Rosalind had spent the last years as her housekeeper and to write her a glowing character in response to the advertisement that she had taken from Lady Evedon’s chamber that terrible night. Even so, she had not told Louisa the truth of that night, just that there had been a disagreement and she wished to find paid employment.

‘Where exactly did you work, ma’am, if you do not mind me asking?’

Rosalind’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Oh.’ She forced a smile and tried to sound as if everything was perfectly normal. ‘Ainslie Place. A fairly small household.’

‘Ainslie Place?’ Wolf turned his face to hers and she was struck anew at its strength and harsh handsomeness, and the cold cynical light in his eyes that he made no pretence of disguising. ‘Interesting.’

And the thought that pulsed in her brain was that this Wolf might prove to be a very dangerous man to her, although in quite what way she did not know. ‘I am glad that you think so,’ she said with careful politeness and glanced away, desperate to think of some way of steering him on to a safer topic.

‘What made you wish to leave?’

‘I read Mr Stewart’s advertisement in The Times and thought the position exactly suited to my purposes.’ That much, at least, was true.

‘You were not happy where you were?’

‘I was very happy, but I am a little tired of the city. Benmore House’s rural location attracted me greatly.’ Indeed, it was Benmore’s isolated location and distance from London as well as Mr Stewart’s self-confessed hermit tendencies that had made it the perfect place for Rosalind. She could remain hidden in the safety of such obscurity and earn a living.

‘What of you, sir?’ she said, determined to draw him away from pursuing the matter any further. ‘Yours does not sound to be a local accent.’

‘I am a Yorkshire man.’ There was a ruggedness to his voice.

‘And have you worked at Benmore House for long?’

‘Long enough,’ he said and glanced round at her with that harsh unsmiling demeanour, and again she felt the faint shimmer of something ripple down her spine, something that she could not quite place. A warning—or excitement. More like foolishness and fatigue, she told herself firmly.

‘Come straight over from Edinburgh have you?’

She gave a small nod of her head.

The man Wolf gave no comment, and Rosalind made no further attempt at conversation with a man who was more interested in asking his own questions rather than answering hers. Better an awkward silence than another awkward question, she thought. Perhaps this was going to be harder than she had anticipated. Perhaps her own lies would trip herself up in the first week. She closed her eyes against the thought. It was late and she was tired. Everything would be better once she reached Benmore House.

The horse’s hooves clattered against the road’s surface, the cart wheels rumbled as they turned, and all around was the whisper of the cool night breeze through the leaves of hedges and trees. They turned off the main road, taking first one country track before criss-crossing to another and another, until Rosalind lost all sense of direction. On and on, for what seemed like miles; Rosalind thought they would never reach their destination. Mr Stewart’s advertisement had described Benmore House as a country house with a staff of twenty servants situated on the moorland some few miles from the Blairadie inn. To Rosalind, who was both nervous and weary, a few miles had never seemed so long.

Eventually he guided the horse and cart off the track, to follow a narrow path into some woodland. Through the trees to where they were heading, Rosalind saw a spiral of smoke curling pale against the darkness of the night sky. Benmore House, she thought, and a spurt of both relief and excitement surged through her. Soon she would be safe from Evedon. Soon she would start her new life. The horse rounded a corner, and she saw from where the smoke was coming.

A tiny woodsman’s cottage stood in a clearing; two horses were tethered in its small lean-to stable.

Rosalind stared as the man brought the cart to a stop before it. She turned to him in confusion and looked up into his face.

‘But this is not Benmore House.’

‘No, it is not,’ he said.

‘I do not understand.’

‘You will soon enough.’ His lips curved ever so slightly emphasizing the mockery in his face.

Realization hit her hard, landing like a punch in her stomach. She reacted quickly, springing to her feet, ready to leap the distance to the ground, but a strong arm hooked around her, pulling her back against him.

‘Oh, no, you do not,’ he growled. He held her firm. ‘Do not think to try to escape me, Miss Rosalind Meadowfield. I would fetch you back in the blink of an eye, and tan your backside, lady or not. Do I make myself clear?’

Her heart was thumping, fit to leap from within her ribcage.

‘I did not hear your answer, miss,’ he said in a voice that, for all its quietness, was unmistakable in its threat.

She swallowed hard and, not daring to look round at him, gave a small nod.

‘I am glad we understand each other.’

Chapter Two

Rosalind’s gaze moved to the cottage door as it creaked open. Two men, both dressed in jackets and loose working trousers, came out.

‘You’re back then?’ said the bigger man of the two, in a broad Scottish accent.

From Wolf’s knowledge of her name, Rosalind knew that this was no opportunistic spur of the moment abduction, but one that had been planned.

Her eyes flicked over the smaller man in the background and her stomach jolted. A planned abduction indeed, for Rosalind recognized the man as Pete Kempster, one of Lord Evedon’s footmen.

Wolf lowered her from the edge of the cart. Even before her feet touched the ground, the big man was there before her, his hand firm around her elbow as he led her towards the cottage.

She tried to resist, pulling against the insistence of his grip and kicking out at him, but the man laughed at her attempts and moved his hands to hold her by both arms.

‘Quite the wee wildcat.’ He was so big that he merely lifted her through the doorway that waited open to the interior of the cottage.

She was so frightened, so determined to escape, that she turned her face and tried to bite one the hands that restrained her.

The big man avoided her teeth and shouted at Wolf, ‘I thought you said she was a lady.’

She heard Wolf laugh somewhere behind her. ‘My mistake, Struan.’

The cottage comprised a single room. Wooden shutters were closed across the narrow windows, one in each of the front and back walls of the cottage. A fire burned on the hearth, casting dancing golden lights around the room and throwing out a warmth to chase away the night’s dampness. Beneath the rear window, there was a small square wooden table under which were tucked three stools. In front of the fire were three large wooden spindle chairs with a wooden box in between that served as a table.

‘You found her?’ Kempster asked as the big man released her into the room. She heard the faint hint of surprise that edged his words.

‘Is it her? Is she the lassie that we’re after?’ the man Wolf had called Struan said.

Kempster nodded.

Rosalind met his gaze across the room, knowing that the last time they had met, circumstances had been very different. He had been one of the servants gathered outside Lord Evedon’s study that fateful night.

She did not know Pete Kempster well, even though she had seen him often enough around Evedon House. But his presence explained much. Wolf was not Hunter’s man after all, he was Evedon’s, and she cursed herself that she had not listened to the warning shiver that his presence elicited.

‘Miss Meadowfield,’ Kempster said formally, the expression on his handsome face unreadable.

‘Mr Kempster,’ she replied.

In the background, the big Scotsman picked up a tin mug from where it sat upon the small makeshift table and sipped from it, relaxing into one of the spindle chairs, while Wolf walked back into the room carrying his saddle.

She watched him place the saddle on the floor beside the others, before removing his hat and hanging it on one of the row of pegs fixed to the wall close by the door. His long dark leather greatcoat followed, to hang next to it, revealing a rather shabby brown jacket beneath. Her eyes moved down to take in the faded brown leather trousers that ran the long length of his legs and ended with a pair of scuffed boots covered in dried mud splashes.

He moved over to the fire and threw another log on to the blaze. ‘Where’s the food?’

Struan Campbell nodded towards the little table. ‘Cooked ham, and cheese. We’ve already eaten. Bread’s a bit stale but the ale’s tolerable enough.’

Wolf helped himself to a plate of food and a bottle of ale. He worked in silence, not looking once at the woman although he was conscious of her attention fixed upon him. He did not need to look at her again to know every inch of her appearance. Wolf had both an eye and memory for detail. It had served him well during his time in the Army; it served him even better in his current occupation.

She looked nothing as he had expected. Her hair was escaping in long thick dark brown waves from the few pins that struggled to hold it in place. From his limited glimpses of her eyes through the moonlight or firelight, it was difficult to see their precise colour although he thought them to be brown. She appeared to be neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Her features were not of outstanding beauty, yet she was not uncomely. Miss Rosalind Meadowfield was a woman who would easily blend unnoticed into whatever background she was placed—an ideal attribute for a ladies’ companion…and a thief.

She stood at the other side of the room, totally silent and motionless as if she were hoping that they would forget about her.

‘Sit down and eat,’ Wolf directed.

She eyed the table dubiously and made no move. ‘Who are you, sir, and why have you abducted me?’

‘You already know the answers to both of those questions, Miss Meadowfield,’ he said and did not even look up from his ale.

‘You are from Lord Evedon.’

‘You see, you do know, after all.’ He looked at her and smiled cynically.

‘I am surmising that, from Mr Kempster’s presence.’

‘Then you surmise correctly, miss.’

She met his gaze and he could see the suspicion and fear in her eyes. ‘Why has he sent you?’

Wolf raised an eyebrow. ‘Yet another question to which you already know the answer.’

She swallowed hard and gave a small shake of her head. ‘I beg to differ, sir. What is his intention?’

She knew. He was sure of it, yet he told her bluntly. ‘Unsurprisingly, his intention is the capture of the woman who stole his mother’s jewels.’

She made a small sound that was something between a laugh and a sigh of disbelief. ‘And he has sent you to fetch me back to him?’

‘You did not think that he would let you go free after stealing from him, did you?’ Wolf watched her closely.

She glanced away but not before he had seen the guilt in her eyes. ‘Lord Evedon is mistaken. I am no thief.’ Her hand fluttered nervously to her mouth.

She was lying, and Wolf knew all about lying and the ways in which people gave themselves away.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘and I suppose that is why he is paying such a generous sum for the recovery of you and the emeralds.’

‘I have already told you sir, I did not steal the emeralds.’

‘Just the diamonds that were found within your chamber.’

‘I have no knowledge of how the diamonds came to be so hidden. Some other hand must have placed them there.’

‘That is what they all say.’

‘It is the truth.’ She held her head high as if she were innocent, acting every inch a lady wronged. It irritated Wolf.

‘Stealing from the dowager while you were acting as her companion.’ He made a tut-tut sound. ‘Such behaviour is to be expected from low-class riffraff such as myself, but better is expected of the likes of you. All your pa’s money not enough for you, Miss Meadowfield, that you had to rob Evedon’s old sick mam? No wonder he’s mad at you.’

Normally by now they were trying to bargain with him, swearing their very souls to the devil and offering Wolf the world if they thought it would win their freedom. But Wolf had never retrieved a lady before. He wondered what Rosalind Meadowfield would offer him. Her rich father’s money, or something else? He let his eyes range over the shapeless cloak that hid the figure beneath. Not that he would accept her offer, of course; he never did. Wolf hated the idea of being bought as much as he hated women like Miss Meadowfield.

‘I am innocent.’

Wolf gave a dry humourless laugh. ‘Of course, you are.’ He placed a slice of ham upon a piece of bread and, watching her surreptitiously as if he had not the slightest interest, began to eat.

The colour had drained from the woman’s face to render it pale as she leaned back against the whitewashed wall as though to merge into it and disappear, her eyes staring into the fire.

‘Mr Stewart is expecting me. He shall enquire as to my absence.’

‘Mr Stewart has been informed of your situation,’ said Wolf coldly.

‘What did you tell him?’ Her expression was pained.

‘I told him nothing.’ Wolf chewed at his bread. ‘Evedon has taken care of Hunter.’

She seemed to sag slightly against the wall. ‘As he means to take care of me.’ Her gaze was distant and her words were whispered so quietly that he only just heard them.

Wolf did not allow himself to soften. She had made her bed, and now she must lie in it, he thought. He had finished his food before she spoke again.

‘How did you find me?’

‘You left behind the newspaper. It was not difficult to discover which advertisement you had torn from it.’

She closed her eyes at that and was silent. When she opened them again she asked, ‘Who are you Mr Wolversley? What are you? A Bow Street runner?’

‘Nothing so official. Just a man that Evedon is paying to deliver you back to him.’ He noticed how Kempster watched her.

Campbell sipped from the battered mug, an amused expression upon his face. ‘Ocht, he’s just being modest. We’re in the retrieval business, so to speak, and we’re mighty good at retrieving. Some might call us thief-takers, Miss Meadowfield.’

‘Do not take me back to him…please.’ She spoke the words quietly.

The Scotsman gave her a contrite smile. ‘I’m afraid that’s our job, lassie.’

‘Save your pleading for Evedon, Miss Meadow-field,’ said Wolf. ‘It is most assuredly wasted upon us.’

Campbell glanced away, an expression of awkwardness on his face.

Wolf took another sip of his ale. Her greed would cost her dear, he thought, but that was not his or Struan’s problem to worry over, besides her type deserved to pay the price. He glanced round at the woman.

‘Our journey starts at first light. You are returning to London come what may, Miss Meadowfield. I care not whether you eat, but be warned that starving yourself into a faint shall not delay our progress. I’ll tie you across my saddle if I have to.’

Wolf said nothing more, just turned his attention to Campbell and Kempster, conversing with them in low tones, while the woman made her way hesitantly across the room to sit down upon a stool at the table and eat a little of the remaining bread, ham and cheese, all the while keeping a cautious eye on her captors.

Rosalind watched uneasily while the men made up makeshift blanket beds, rolling out four grey blankets side by side over the bare wooden floorboards before the fireplace. Her eyes measured the distance between her stool and the cottage door.