A Scandalous Winter Wedding

His question caused her to pause. When she spoke again, her tone was conciliatory. ‘I take many factors into consideration before agreeing to take on a new client. I was merely trying to establish what sort of man I would be dealing with.’

‘An honest one. A desperate one, as you must know,’ Cameron replied tersely. ‘Else I would not have sought you out.’

‘You have told no one about this meeting? Not even your wife…’

‘I have no wife. I have spoken to no one,’ Cameron replied, becoming impatient. ‘You are not the only one who desires the utmost discretion.’

‘You may trust in mine, Mr Dunbar.’

‘So I’ve heard. You must not take it amiss if I tell you that I prefer to make my own mind up about that.’

‘You are perfectly at liberty to do so. Though I would remind you that you came to me for help, not the other way around.’

‘As a last resort. I am not a man who trusts anyone but himself with his affairs, but I cannot see a way to resolve this matter on my own. I desperately need your help.’

Her silence spoke for her. He must abandon his reservations, must throw caution to the wind and confide in this woman, no matter how much it went against the grain, else he would fail. The consequences of failure could not be contemplated.

‘You must believe me when I tell you I do not exaggerate,’ Cameron said. ‘This could well be a matter of life and death.’

* * *

Many of the people who sought The Procurer’s help thought the same, but there was a raw emotion in Cameron Dunbar’s voice that gave Kirstin pause. Hearing his voice, knowing that the man who had quite literally changed the course of her life was just inches away, had been more overwhelming than she could ever have imagined.

The urge to throw back the door of the confessional, to confront him face-to-face, was almost irresistible. She had not expected the visceral reaction of her body to his voice, as if her skin and her muscles remembered him, and the memory triggered a longing to know him again.

She was frustrated by the grille which kept her identity concealed, for it kept him safe too, from her scrutiny. Images flashed into her mind when he spoke, vivid, shocking images of that night that brought colour flooding to her cheeks, for the woman in those images was a wanton who bore no relation to the woman she was now. This had been a mistake. She could not help Cameron Dunbar, yet she could not force herself to walk away.

‘I will listen,’ she found herself saying. ‘Though I make no promises, I will hear you out.’

And so she did, with a growing sense of horror, as Cameron Dunbar told his story.

When he came to the end of it, Kirstin spoke without hesitation. ‘I will find someone suitable who will assist you. Tell me where you may be reached.’

Chapter One

Handing her portmanteau to the hackney cab driver, Kirstin gave the address of the hotel where Cameron Dunbar had taken up residence. It was by no means the grandest establishment in London but it was, she knew, formidably expensive, not least because it had a reputation for offering the utmost discretion, which suited certain well-heeled guests. She wondered how Cameron had come to know of it. The friend he had mentioned, Max, who had recommended The Procurer’s services, no doubt. She remembered Max. A difficult, but ultimately satisfying case, and the first one in which Marianne had been involved.

The cab rattled through the crowded streets and Kirstin’s heart raced along with it. It was not too late to turn back, but she knew she would not. Her farewells had been said.

‘We’ll be fine,’ Marianne had told her with a reassuring smile, and Kirstin hadn’t doubted it, having come to trust her completely over the years in both business and personal terms. But it had been a painful parting all the same, astonishingly difficult to pin a smile to her face, to keep the tears from her eyes. ‘Go,’ Marianne had said, shooing her out through the door, ‘and don’t fret. Concentrate on completing this case, which sounds as if it will require all of even your considerable powers. It will be good for me to have the opportunity to be in charge, stand on my own two feet.’

Marianne, discreet as ever, had refrained from asking why Kirstin was taking on this case personally, something she had never done before, though it was Marianne who had, albeit inadvertently, put the idea into Kirstin’s head, when she had pointed out that Kirstin possessed exactly the attributes the client had specified.

As The Procurer, Kirstin could have found another suitable female, she always did, but it would have taken time, and Cameron had none to spare. It therefore made perfect, logical sense for her to make the momentous decision to step into the breach, she told herself as the cab neared her destination. It was clear to her, from the sketchy information Cameron had provided, that the situation, though not necessarily a matter of life and death at present, could, if unresolved, easily become one.

Though had it been any man other than Cameron Dunbar who had come seeking her help would she have acted in a similar fashion? No. Kirstin’s habit of being brutally honest with everyone, including herself, was ingrained. She would have moved heaven and earth to find a suitable female candidate, but she would not have dreamed of offering her own services. She was here to help Cameron Dunbar resolve his terrible predicament, but she was also here for her own reasons.

It meant depriving another woman of the opportunity to make a fresh start for herself, but after their wholly unsatisfactory meeting the day before yesterday, Kirstin had been forced to acknowledge that she too needed a fresh start. Far from letting her close the door on the man, it had merely served to let him stride through. She had to know more about him, and she had a very legitimate reason for needing to do so. The time would come when she could no longer field questions with feigned ignorance, and it was not in her nature to lie.

More than six years ago she had taken the decision to be true to herself, to live her life in her chosen way, independent of everyone, answerable to no one. In order to continue to do so she must reassure herself that her decision was the correct one, which meant excising Cameron Dunbar from the equation.

And keeping him completely in the dark while she did so.

Kirstin smiled grimly to herself. It was hardly a difficult task for one who made a living from extracting information while offering none in exchange. She must assume that Cameron would remember Kirstin Blair, but he would have no idea that she and The Procurer were one and the same. The Procurer’s own unbreakable rules that no questions could be asked, no personal history need be revealed, would protect her, and the notion that she would ever confide in him of her own free will—it was ludicrous. Kirstin, as Marianne had once said, could give lessons in discretion to clams.

Reassured, confident in her decision, as the cab came to a halt and the hotel porter rushed to open the door, she turned her mind to the coming reunion, telling herself that her nerves were everything to do with her determination to prevent the matter becoming one of life and death, and nothing at all to do with the man she was going to be working with in close proximity.

* * *

In accordance with the letter from The Procurer, which had arrived yesterday, Cameron had reserved a suite of rooms in the name of Mrs Collins. He had instructed the Head Porter to inform him when this lady, whom he was to claim as an old acquaintance, arrived, and to issue her with an invitation to take tea with him.

His own suite overlooked the front of the hotel. Unable to concentrate on the stack of business letters which had been forwarded from his Glasgow office, Cameron had spent the last two hours gazing out of the window, monitoring every arrival.

He had no idea what to expect of Mrs Collins, though he had formed a picture in his head of a smart, middle-aged woman with faded hair, a high brow, intelligent eyes. The relic of a man of the church, perhaps, who had worked in London’s slums, or with London’s fallen women, and was therefore no stranger to the city’s seamy underbelly, but who had also solicited London’s society for alms. At ease with the full gamut of society, Mrs Collins would be tough but compassionate, not easily shocked. The type of woman who could be trusted with confidences and who would not judge. Since her husband had died, she would have been continuing with his good works, saving lost souls, but she’d be finding her widowed state confining, he reckoned, and since she’d always had a penchant for charades, which they’d played in the vicarage every Christmas, the need to assume various disguises would appeal to her.

Cameron nodded with satisfaction. An unusual combination of skills, no doubt about it, which made it all the more surprising that The Procurer had found someone to suit his requirements so quickly.

He leant his head against the glass of the tall window, impatient for her to arrive. The ancient female dressed in a sickly shade of green matching the parrot she carried in a cage, whom he had watched half an hour ago emerge from a post-chaise, could not be her. Nor could this fashionable young lady arriving with her maid, one of those ridiculous little dogs that looked like a powder puff clutched in her arms. A hackney cab pulled up next, and a slim female figure emerged, dressed in a white gown with a red spencer. She had her back to him as she waited for her luggage to be removed, yet he had the impression of elegance, could see from the respect she commanded from the driver and from the porter rushing to meet her, the assurance with which she walked, that she was a woman of consequence.

Intriguing, but clearly not his Mrs Collins.

Cameron turned his back on the window, inspecting his pocket watch, debating with himself on whether to order a pot of coffee. A rap on the door made him throw it open impatiently, thinking it was the arrival of yet more business papers.

‘I’ve been sent to tell you that your acquaintance has arrived,’ the messenger boy said. ‘She’s happy to hear that you are staying in the hotel, she says, and she would be delighted to join you for tea.’

‘Are you sure? When did she get here?’

But the boy shook his head. ‘Nobody tells me nuffin’, save me message. Head Porter says to expect her with the tea directly,’ he said. ‘If there’s nuffin’ else…?’ He waited expectantly.

Cameron sighed and handed over a shilling. He must have missed Mrs Collins’s arrival. Or perhaps there was a side entrance.

A few minutes later there was another soft tap on the door. He opened the door to be confronted with the elegant woman who had emerged from the hackney cab.

His jaw dropped, his stomach flipped, for he recognised her immediately.

‘Kirstin.’

He blinked, but she was still there, not a ghost from his past but a real woman, flesh and blood and even more beautiful than he remembered.

‘Kirstin,’ Cameron repeated, his shock apparent in his voice. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I wondered if you’d recognise me after all this time. May I come in?’

Her tone was cool. She was not at all surprised to see him. As she stepped past him into the room, and a servant appeared behind her with a tea tray, he realised that she must be the woman sent to him by The Procurer. Stunned, Cameron watched in silence as the tea tray was set down, reaching automatically into his pocket to tip the servant as Kirstin busied herself, warming the pot and setting out the cups. He tried to reconcile the dazzling vision before him with Mrs Collins, but the vicar’s wife of his imagination had already vanished, never to be seen again.

Still quite dazed, he sat down opposite her. She had opened the tea caddy, was taking a delicate sniff of the leaves, her finely arched brows rising in what seemed to be surprised approval. Her face, framed by her bonnet, was breathtaking in its flawlessness. Alabaster skin. Blue-black hair. Heavy-lidded eyes that were a smoky, blue-grey. A generous mouth with a full bottom lip, the colour of almost ripe raspberries.

Yet, he remembered, it had not been the perfection of her face which had drawn him to her all those years ago, it had been the intelligence slumbering beneath those heavy lids, the ironic twist to her smile when their eyes met in that crowded carriage, and that air she still exuded, of aloofness, almost haughtiness, that was both intimidating and alluring. He had suspected fire lay beneath that cool exterior, and he hadn’t been disappointed.

A vision of that extraordinary night over six years ago flooded his mind. There had been other women since, though none of late, and never another night like that one. He had come to think of it as a half-remembered dream, a fantasy, the product of extreme circumstances that he would never experience again.

He wasn’t at all sure what he thought of Kirstin walking so calmly back into his life, especially when he was in the midst of a crisis. Were they to pretend that they had no history? It had been such a fleeting moment in time, with no bearing on the years after, save for the unsettling, incomparable memory. Cameron supposed that it ought to be possible to pretend it had not happened, but as he looked at her, appalled to discover the stirrings of desire that the memories evoked, he knew he was deluding himself.

‘Cream or lemon?’ Kirstin asked.

‘Lemon,’ he answered, though he habitually drank his tea black and well stewed, a legacy of his early days on-board ship.

He held out his hand for the saucer, but instead she placed it on the table in front of him, drawing an invisible line between them and bringing him to his senses. Whether they acknowledged their history or not, it had no bearing on the reason she was here now.

‘Are you really the woman chosen for me by this infamous Procurer? Do you know what it is I need from you? What has she told you of me? The matter—’

‘Is one of life and death, you believe,’ Kirstin answered gravely. ‘To answer your questions in order. Yes, I am here at the behest of The Procurer. She has outlined your situation, though I will need to hear the details from you. I know nothing of your circumstances, save what you have told her.’

‘She has told me nothing at all of you. Is Collins your married name?’

‘My name is what it has always been. Kirstin Blair.’

‘You’re not married?’ Cameron asked. It was hardly relevant, yet when she shook her head he was unaccountably pleased as well as surprised. Because it would be impossible for them to proceed if there was a husband in the background, or worse in the foreground, he told himself. ‘I’m not married either,’ he said.

She nodded casually at that. Because she already knew from The Procurer? Or because she had deduced as much from his appearance? Or because she was indifferent? This last option, Cameron discovered, was the least palatable.

He began to be irked by her impassive exterior. ‘You do remember me, I take it?’ he demanded. ‘That night…’

The faintest tinge of colour stole over her cheeks. She did not flinch, but he saw the movement at her throat as she swallowed. ‘This is hardly the time to reminisce.’

Their gazes snagged. He could have sworn, in that moment, that she felt it, the almost physical pull of attraction, that strange empathy that they had both succumbed to that night. Then Kirstin broke the spell.

‘It was more than six years ago,’ she said pointedly.

‘I am perfectly aware of how many years have elapsed,’ Cameron snapped.

He had never disclosed his reasons for having made that journey to anyone. He had been interested only in trying to forget all that he had left behind during the trip south, and he had succeeded too, temporarily losing himself and his pain in Kirstin. He’d thought the mental scar healed.

It had been, until Louise Ferguson had written to him as a last resort, begging for his help in the name of the very ties she’d so vehemently denied before. Compassion for her plight diluted his mixture of anger and disappointment that she should turn to him only in extremis. He was long past imagining they could be anything to each other, but it forced him to acknowledge that he had, albeit unwittingly, been the root cause of her past unhappiness. There was a debt to be paid.

Doing what she asked would salve his conscience and allow him to put the matter to bed once and for all. He wouldn’t get another opportunity, and he needed Kirstin to help him, so he couldn’t afford to allow their brief encounter to get in the way. It was the future which mattered.

Cameron swallowed his tea. It was cold, and far too floral for his taste. He made a mental note to stick to coffee, and set the cup down with a clatter.

‘I recall, now, that your Procurer’s terms specify that there should be no questions asked, either you of me, or me of you. It’s a sensible rule and allows us to concentrate on the matter that brought us both here,’ he said, deliberately brusque as he leaned back in his seat, crossing his ankles. ‘However, I am paying a small fortune for your assistance. I think that gives me the right to ask what it is about yourself that makes The Procurer so certain you will suit my extremely demanding, if not unique, set of requirements.’

* * *

Kirstin poured herself a second cup of tea, deliberately avoiding Cameron’s gaze. It was more taxing than it ought to be to maintain her poise, but she was determined he would not see how much this face-to-face encounter was affecting her. Those eyes of his, such a deep, dark brown. She could feel them on her now, sense his rising impatience. An understandable emotion, in the circumstances. Extremely understandable, she thought guiltily.

Determined to keep her mind focused on the matter at hand, she peeled off her gloves and untied her bonnet. Cameron had every reason to question her suitability. Her first task was to reassure him—which fortunately she could easily do, by telling him the truth.

‘I have worked closely with The Procurer for many years. I know her and her business intimately,’ she said. ‘She requires the utmost discretion from her employees, and has never had the slightest cause to question mine. As her trusted assistant, I have access to her extensive network of contacts. I am required to mix with a most—eclectic, I think would be the best description—range of characters, in a number of guises. I have the facility to win over the most unlikely people, from all walks of life, and extract confidences from them. You could call it the quality of a chameleon.’

She permitted herself a thin smile.

‘Whatever you wish to call it, the net result is that I am expert at finding people who do not wish to be found. I am also, as you requested, a woman of good standing, and so able to enquire after the whereabouts of a young and innocent girl without it being assumed my purpose is nefarious—something you could not do. Though I must ask you, Mr Dunbar, if you have considered the possibility that she has already encountered another with just such nefarious intent?’

Across from her, Cameron was frowning deeply. ‘I have not said as much to the young lady’s mother, but it seems to me, unfortunately, a possibility which must be investigated.’

‘I am relieved to hear that you have not discounted this.’

‘I’m more or less a stranger to London, but I’m a man of the world.’

‘Then we shall deal well together, for I am a woman who prefers that a spade should be called a spade.’

He laughed shortly. ‘Though you look like a woman whose sensibilities are very easily offended.’

‘Precisely my intention when I assumed this guise. I have dressed as a lady of quality, because only a lady of quality would be accepted as a guest in this hotel, Mr Dunbar. One should not judge by appearances, though fortunately, for the success of our mission, many people do.’

‘Do you think we’ll be successful?’

Though he asked her coolly enough, there was just a hint of desperation in his tone. With difficulty, Kirstin resisted the urge to cover his hand, one of the few gestures of sympathy she ever allowed herself to bestow. It was even more difficult to resist the urge to reassure him, but that was one rule she never broke.

‘I will do everything in my power to help you, but it has been over a week now. You must face the fact that the damage may already have been done.’

The pain in his eyes told her he had already been down that path, far further than even she had. ‘We must succeed,’ he said. ‘Mrs Ferguson is relying on me to find her daughter.’

‘She cannot possibly blame you if you fail.’

‘Believe me, she will, and she won’t give me another chance.’

Kirstin frowned, wondering if she had missed something significant he had said in the confessional two days ago, but her memory was prodigious, she missed nothing. ‘Another chance to do what?’

‘Pay my dues.’ Cameron dug his hands into the pockets of his coat, looking deeply uncomfortable. ‘The woman believes that I owe her, and in all conscience I think she has a point. If I can restore her daughter to her then we can both get on with our lives unencumbered.’

Only now did his mode of address strike her as odd. She should have noticed it before. She tried to recall what Cameron had told The Procurer in the confessional, and realised he’d said nothing at all of his relationship with Mrs Ferguson and her daughter, save to inform her of the blood tie.

‘You don’t know your sister well enough to call her by her first name, yet she turned to you when her daughter disappeared?’

Cameron got to his feet, making for the window, where he leaned his shoulder against the shutter. ‘Mrs Ferguson is only my half-sister, making Philippa my half-niece, if there is such a thing.’

‘You do realise that a failure to disclose salient facts renders your contract with The Procurer null and void?’

He rolled his eyes, but resumed his seat opposite her. ‘It’s a long story, and I can’t see how it’s relevant, but until Philippa disappeared I had met her mother only once. I’ve never set eyes on Philippa myself. This is her.’ He produced a miniature, which depicted an insipid girl with hair the colour of night. ‘There’s no portrait of the maid, but according to Mrs Ferguson she is a pert chit with ginger hair, from which we can infer a pretty redhead.’

‘You think that if you can restore Philippa to her mother, your sister will be grateful enough to—to nullify some previous debt?’

‘It’s not about money.’

No, nothing so simple, Kirstin deduced from the slash of colour in his cheeks. She would have liked to question him further but, like Cameron, she was bound by her own rules. There was a very big difference between history which had a bearing on this case, and bald curiosity.

‘And if you fail?’ she asked carefully.

‘I cannot fail. I’ve never met the girl, but having seen the mother—she’s in a terrible state—I can’t let her down. Can you imagine what she must be feeling, to have her only child disappear like that, from right under her nose?’

A shiver ran down Kirstin’s spine. ‘No,’ she said, catching herself, ‘I do not want to imagine, and nor does it serve any purpose. What we must do is try to put an end to her suffering. That is why I’m here.’

‘I was, as you’ll have noticed, somewhat taken aback when you turned up, but I’m very glad you did, Kirstin—Miss Blair—Mrs Collins. Curse it, I’ve no idea what to call you.’

He smiled at her then. It was a rueful smile. A smile that acknowledged their brief shared history, and acknowledged, too, that it was exactly that. History. Yet that smile, the warmth of it, the way it wrapped itself round her, brought it all back as if it were yesterday…

December 1812, Carlisle

He had boarded, as she had, at the White Hart Inn in the Grassmarket at Edinburgh, jumping into the coach at the last minute, squashing himself into the far corner, apologising to the stout man next to him, though it was he who was overflowing both sides of his allotted seat. The new arrival was swathed in a many-caped greatcoat, which he was forced to gather tightly around him. His legs were encased in a pair of black boots with brown tops, still highly polished, no mean feat having navigated Edinburgh’s filthy streets. When he took off his hat, clasping it on his lap, the woman sitting next to Kirstin gasped. The man looked up—not at the woman whom Kirstin had decided must be a housekeeper en route to a new appointment, but directly at Kirstin. In that brief glimpse, before she dropped her gaze deliberately to her lap, she saw enough to understand the housekeeper’s reaction, but she was irked and no little embarrassed, mortified that he might think the involuntary reaction had emanated from her. He was handsome, far too handsome to be unaware of the fact, and no doubt accustomed to having women of all ages gasping at him. Kirstin wasn’t about to add to their number.