Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

She’d been a fool. A stupid, romantic, innocent fool. And he’d been an exceptionally convincing lover. Gillian had been convinced he loved her right up until the moment he took her virginity and stole her cash. Now, she was equally convinced that she was a gullible idiot.

She only hoped that if she did manage to return to London, Papa and Mama would be so glad to see her and be so relieved to find her unharmed that they would welcome her with open arms. She would beg their forgiveness and pray it would be forthcoming. Someday. Papa would be hurt and angry with her for behaving in a disgraceful manner and for leaving his bed and board and eloping with Colin, but she had followed her heart, and Papa would forgive her eventually. Papa would forgive her for anything except causing a scandal.

That was unforgivable. Especially now that Papa had realized his lifelong dream and become the first Baron Davies. He had worked long and hard to get his title and his letters patent and be accepted among the peerage, and he wouldn’t look kindly on having his only daughter dishonor his name.

And Gillian didn’t blame him.

She was his pride and joy and his hope for the future. Papa had had high hopes for a matrimonial alliance between the house of Davies and one of the premier families of the peerage. Papa would never understand or forgive her marrying beneath her. He would never understand her succumbing to the lure of romance in order to become plain

Mrs. Colin Fox when she might have become a baroness or a viscountess or even a countess.

Gillian shook her head. She didn’t question her father’s love. She knew he loved her and that he would forgive her almost anything, but she also understood that some things were beyond his realm of forgiveness. And causing scandal was one of them. It would break his heart, but Papa would never forgive his only child for besmirching his name and reputation or for ruining their chances to advance themselves.

Gillian fought the rush of tears. Only the weak wallowed in self-pity, and she’d never thought of herself as weak, but she was scared, and she didn’t know where to turn. She had no money and no way of leaving the inn. And no one except her missing husband and the innkeepers knew she was there.

So Gillian did the only thing she could do to occupy the time. She waited at the window until she grew too tired or too cold to continue. When she could no longer bear to keep vigil by the window, Gillian retreated to the bed, where she slept for as long as she could. And when she awakened, she began the cycle all over again.

Day after day, night after night, Gillian bided her time, waiting and watching, counting the figures passing beneath her window. She had seen him twice more since that morning—the stranger in the long black cape—moving stealthily through the morning fog and again amid the evening shadows. She watched as he came into view, then vanished out of sight, and wondered what had brought him to Edinburgh. What secret business sent him creeping through the city’s back alleys? Was he a well-dressed young gentleman sampling Edinburgh’s stewpots? Was he a physician called out at all hours to tend his patients? Or a surgeon engaged in the nefarious business of corpse snatching? Or a sorcerer who appeared and disappeared at will? Might he be a soldier stationed with his regiment in the castle at the top of the hill? A ship’s captain making the rounds of the nightly entertainments? Or a city watchman hired to patrol the narrow streets after dark?

Gillian whiled away the hours by imagining who the people passing beneath her window were and what they did to earn a living. She recognized some. The greengrocers, the milkman, the laundresses, and the street vendors who traveled back and forth through the close to the market square in the center of town.

But the mysterious gentleman who appeared in the wee hours before dawn and late at night after darkness had fallen captured her attention most of all. She wondered if he knew she was there. Wondered if he knew she watched him. She pretended to be a princess trapped in her ivory tower and wondered what, in heaven’s name, would become of her if her prince didn’t ride to her rescue?

* * *

What, in heavens name, was he doing? Colin cursed beneath his breath as he stepped up onto an overturned laundry tub. The tub shifted beneath his weight, and Colin’s left foot landed in a puddle that smelled of laundry soap, soaking his boot and splashing his trouser leg. Cursing once again, he heaved himself onto the wooden tub, then pulled himself up and onto the roof of the laundry that stood in the narrow close behind the Blue Bottle Inn.

Bloody hell, but that hurt! The pain in his side increased tenfold as he moved silently over the roof, then reached up and pulled himself over the wall and onto the window ledge. Colin glanced toward his window, gauging the distance, and prayed he could make it. If there was ever a time he wished he could brazen it out and walk in through the front d

oor of the Blue Bottle, tonight was the night. But he’d left the inn’s taproom wearing the clothes of a smuggler and carrying a knapsack. He couldn’t return to his room wearing the formal evening clothes he’d donned in order to gain entrance to the reception at the home of a Scots patriot who had ties to America and to France.

The footpad who had set upon Colin as he left Lord MacMurray’s Prince Street mansion hadn’t been a footpad at all but a paid assassin. Fortunately for Colin, he hadn’t been a very good assassin.

The blade meant to penetrate Colin’s heart had scraped across his ribs. The wound hurt like the very devil, but he had suffered worse. Still, Colin couldn’t rid himself of the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had killed a man tonight. Colin hadn’t known his name, but he had recognized the look on his face and known him for what he was.

But who had paid him? The French agents he’d been following? Or someone else? He knew the agents, and they knew him. They were in the same business: the spying business. And they’d dogged each other off and on for months and infiltrated rival groups of smugglers. Colin had tracked them from Paris to Edinburgh, all the way to the Blue Bottle Inn on several occasions. During their previous encounters, they had played a comfortable game of cat and mouse, but something had happened tonight to change the equation. Tonight, someone had hired an assassin to take Colin out of the game. And Colin had killed him.

He was tired and bloodied, and he had no choice but to climb back in through the window. Changing back into his smuggler’s clothes was impossible, and returning to the tunnels was equally impossible. Colin couldn’t risk another foray through the maze of smugglers’ tunnels running beneath the waterfront where he’d spent the major portion of the evening helping his band of smuggling compatriots unload casks of French wines and bolts of brocades and lace.

Colin had slipped away from the smugglers in order to dress for Lord MacMurray’s midnight reception. He’d thought he’d slipped away undetected, but someone had seen him. Someone had paid an assassin to lie in wait for him, and that meant the other man had either followed him or had known where he was going and why.

All in all, it had been one hell of an evening. The night was still young, and he was lucky to be alive. He hoped he could say the same come sunrise.

Colin inched his way along the ledge, past the first window and on to the second. He was almost there when he heard movement inside his room and realized someone was searching it. Pressing his back to the wall, Colin retraced his steps until he reached the first window.

This morning, he’d wondered how the lady inside that room would feel if he slipped inside her window instead of his own.

Now he’d have the chance to find out.

Retrieving his dirk from beneath his coat, Colin slipped the tip of the blade between the lock and the window casement and carefully eased the window open. He knew he was taking an enormous risk, but he meant the lady no harm. All he wanted was safe shelter from the cold. Colin had cheated death once tonight, and he didn’t fancy a confrontation with the men ransacking his room or a tumble from the ledge to the cobblestones below.

The room was pitch black. Colin thought there would be some light from the fireplace, but if there had been a fire in the grate earlier in the day, it had long since burned itself out. The room was almost as cold as the air outside. Colin crawled over the windowsill and closed and locked the window behind him. Biting his bottom lip to keep his teeth from chattering, Colin made his way across the room to the bed, praying all the while that the lady was alone.

Colin briefly considered spending the night in the chair by the window, but he was freezing, and there was no point in suffering the cold any more than he had to. He glanced at the woman on the bed, decided she wasn’t faring much better, and quickly eased himself onto the bed beside her.

She lay curled in a tight ball with her back to the door and the bed coverings pulled tightly around her. Colin relayed cautiously and sent a prayer of thanks heavenward that she was alone. With luck she would sleep until morning, and he’d be gone before she knew he was there.

But good fortune deserted him.