Passionately Yours (Hellions of High Street 3)

“Well…” hesitated her mother.

“It will be a lovely time for you,” she assured. And allow me a good deal more freedom to go about my own affairs. “Especially as you feel the water regime is growing a little tiresome.”

“A bit of wine and continental cuisine—the aunts have a very talented French chef in their employ—would not be too bad, would it?” mused her mother. “I have shed a great deal of weight—perhaps too much. Lady Henning remarked just the other day that I was naught but skin and bones.”

Caro coughed on her sip of tea. “Er, yes, I daresay a few cream sauces and glasses of claret would be just the thing.”

“Very well. I shall accept,” said the baroness. “That is, as long as Isobel’s aunt is agreeable to the arrangement.”

Setting down her cup, Caro shot up out of her chair. “I shall go ask while you begin your packing.”

“Well, this seems to leave little doubt,” muttered Alec as he skimmed through a handful of documents.

“No doubt at all, milord,” answered his contact. The man, a clerk at the military headquarters of the Royal Horse Guards, had journeyed from London to bring several military dispatches he had surreptitiously removed from the Scottish dossier. “Thayer is your man. And it seems that Dudley is also involved in the matter.”

“My thanks, McDouglas.” Alec stuffed the incriminating documents into his pocket.

“What will you do with the papers?” said the other man. “You could thank me by putting an end to their perfidy, because clearly the English are not going to mete out any punishment.”

“I shall pass them on through the proper channels in Scotland. We may not be able to make the two of them pay for past crimes, however Thayer will no longer be a threat to the independence movement,” replied Alec. “Indeed, I would guess that he’ll soon be takin

g up permanent residence in some faraway country. He’ll have to know that his life isn’t worth a spit of whisky once this becomes known to our friends in the north.”

“Aye, that is for sure.” McDouglas made a face. “Still, someone may choose to take justice into his own hands. And though I, like you, don’t sanction violence to achieve our ends, it would not upset me overly to hear that the fork-tongued serpent has been sent to answer to his Maker.”

Alec didn’t reply. It went against all his principles to condone murder, yet in this case he couldn’t help but secretly agree.

Turning for his horse, he unwrapped the reins from around a tree branch. “You should have no trouble walking back to town in time to catch the Royal Mail coach back to London.” Setting his boot in the stirrup, he added, “I trust you’ll suffer no consequences for this.”

McDouglas gave a tight smile. “Nay. My copying skills are very finely honed. Even if anyone thinks to look carefully at the replacements I put in the file, they won’t be able to tell that they are forgeries.”

“Godspeed then.”

“And you, milord.” With that, his contact slipped away into the shadows of the trees.

Alec swung up into the saddle. A long ride loomed ahead. It would be dark by the time he arrived back in Bath. Too late to pay a visit to Caro, so it would have to wait until morning.

His mouth curled in a wry smile. At the moment, she was likely madder than a wet hen at his absence, thinking he was deliberately avoiding her. But the meeting with McDouglas had been a last-minute arrangement, and the discovery of military dispatches that detailed Thayer’s misdeeds was too important to pass up.

Now there was no need to plan an elaborate—and perhaps dangerous—trap to ensnare the miscreant. With such tangible proof in hand, he could unmask Thayer as a traitor and make sure that his former friend would never dare show his face in Scotland again.

The threat to Isobel and Caro would be over. Thayer would be too busy trying to save his own skin to make trouble.

Urging his mount into an easy canter, Alec turned his thoughts to triumphing in an even more difficult challenge—winning the hand of the lady he loved.

Perhaps it was just as well that he had hours to go.

A short while later, all arrangements made with Isobel and her aunt, Caro stowed the last of the bandboxes atop the travel trunks and helped her mother into the hired carriage.

“Now, do not cause any mischief for Lady Urquehart,” admonished the baroness as she leaned around her maid and waggled a warning finger. “She is not as used to having several lively spirited girls to watch over as I am, so please do not cause her any heart palpitations.”

“I shall try not to, Mama,” murmured Caro. “Bath is a very staid town, so you have no need to fret.”

“Trouble can rear its head anywhere.”

Her mother occasionally made an astute observation, but Caro refrained from making any reply. Instead she merely gave a cheery wave.

“Have a lovely visit—and try not to lose all your pin money to those two card sharps.”