A Dark and Brooding Gentleman. Margaret McPhee

with next? You have a think about that, Miss Allardyce.’

      The man’s words made her blood run cold, but she did not look back, just ran up the remaining steps and through the porch to the front door of the gaol.

      ‘Everything all right, miss?’ the door guard enquired.

      ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said as she slipped inside to the large square hallway. ‘If I could just have a moment to gather myself?’

      The guard nodded.

      Her hands were trembling as she stood aside a little to let the other visitors pass. She took several deep breaths, leaned her back against one of the great stone columns and calmed her thoughts. It was an idle threat, that was all. The villain could not truly hurt her father within the security of a prison as tough and rigorous as the Tolbooth. The man was a villain, a thief, trying to frighten her into stealing for him. And Phoebe had no intention of being blackmailed. She tucked some stray strands of hair beneath her bonnet, and smoothed a hand over the top of her skirts. And only when she was sure that her papa would not notice anything amiss did she make her way through the doorway that led to the prison cells. Once through that door she passed the guard her basket for checking.

      He removed the cover and gave the contents a quick glance. ‘Raspberries this week, is it?’ With her weekly visits over the last six months Phoebe was on friendly terms with most of the guards and turnkeys.

      ‘They are my papa’s favourite.’

      ‘Sir Henry’ll fair enjoy them.’

      ‘I hope so.’ She smiled and followed him up the narrow staircase all the way up to the debtors’ cells on the third floor in which her father was held.

      But the smile fled her face and the raspberries were forgotten the moment she entered the cell.

      ‘Papa!’ She placed the basket down on the small wooden table and ran to him. ‘Oh, my word! What ever has happened to you?’ She guided him to stand in the narrow shaft of sunlight that shone down into the cell through the bars of the small high window. And there in the light she could see that the skin around Sir Henry’s left eye was dark with bruising and so swollen as to partially conceal the bloodshot eye beneath. The bruising extended over the whole left side of his face, from his temple to his chin, and even on that side of his mouth his lower lip was swollen and cut.

      ‘Now, child, do not fuss so. It is nothing but the result of my own foolish clumsiness.’

      But the man’s words were ringing in her head again. Dangerous place is the Tolbooth. All sorts of unsavoury characters, the sort your pa ain’t got a chance against.

      ‘Who did this to you?’ she demanded; she did not realise her grip had tightened and her knuckles shone white with the strain of it. ‘Who?’ Her eyes roved over his poor battered face.

      ‘I tripped and fell, Phoebe. Nothing more. Calm yourself.’ ‘Papa—’

      ‘Phoebe,’ her father said, and she recognised that tone in his voice. He would tell her nothing. He did not want to worry her, not when he thought there was nothing she could do.

      Her gaze scanned the cell. ‘Where is the other man, your cellmate?’

      ‘Released,’ pronounced her father. ‘His debt was paid off.’ Sir Henry nodded philosophically. ‘He was interesting company.’

       Who knows who he’ll be sharing a cell with next?

      Phoebe felt her stomach clench and a wave of nausea rise up.

      ‘You are white as a sheet, child. Perhaps this travelling up from Blackloch Hall is too much for you.’

      ‘No. Really.’ She forced herself to smile at him brightly, so that he would not be concerned. ‘I have been taking very great care to keep my complexion fair. A difficult proposition with red hair and the summer sun. I do not wish to end up with freckles!’ She pretended to tease and managed an accompanying grin.

      He chuckled. ‘You have your mother’s colouring, and she never had a freckle in her life, God rest her soul.’

      Her eyes lingered momentarily on his bruising and she thought for one dreadful minute she might weep. It was such a struggle to maintain the façade, but she knew she had to for his sake. The smile was still stretched across her mouth as she took his arm in her own and led him back to the little table they had managed to save from the bailiffs. Her blood was cold and thick and slow as she pulled off the basket’s cover to reveal the punnet of raspberries within.

      ‘Oh, Phoebe, well done,’ he said and picked out the largest and juiciest berry and slipped it into his mouth. ‘So, tell me all about Blackloch Hall and the moor … and Hunter.’

      ‘Oh, I have rarely seen Mr Hunter.’ It was not a lie. ‘But he seems to be a gentleman of honour, if a little cold in manner perhaps.’ She thought of how Hunter had rescued her from the highwaymen and his discretion over the same matter.

      ‘Do not be fooled, Phoebe. From all accounts the words honour and Sebastian Hunter do not go together in the same sentence. Why do you think his mother has disowned him?’

      ‘I did not realise there was such …’ she hesitated ‘… bad feeling between them,’ she finished as she thought of the one interaction she had witnessed between Hunter and his mother. ‘What is the cause of it, I wonder?’

      ‘Who can know for sure?’ Her father gave a shrug, but there was something in his manner that suggested that he knew more of the matter.

      ‘But you must have heard something?’

      ‘Nothing to be repeated to such innocent ears, child.’ She saw the slight wince before he could disguise it. He eased himself to a more comfortable position upon the wooden stool and she saw the strain and pain that he was trying to hide.

      She pressed him no further on the matter, but tried to distract him with descriptions of the Gothic style of the house and the expansive ruggedness of the moor. And all the while she was conscious of the raw soreness of her father’s injuries. By the time she kissed her father’s undamaged cheek and made her way down the narrow staircase, her heart was thudding hard with the coldness of her purpose and there was a fury in her eyes.

      The man was leaning against the outside of the gaol, waiting for her.

      He pulled off his hat again as he came towards her. ‘Miss Allar—’ he started to say, but she cut him off, her voice hard as she hid the emotion beneath it. She looked at him and would have run the villain through with a sword had she one to hand.

      ‘I will do it, on the proviso that no further harm comes to my father.’

      There was a fleeting surprise in those narrow shifty eyes as if he had not thought her to agree so quickly.

      ‘What is it that you want me to steal?’

      And he leaned his face closer and whispered the words softly into her ear.

      She nodded.

      ‘We have been told Hunter keeps it in his study—in his desk. Bring it here with you when you visit next Tuesday. And keep your lips sealed over this, Miss Allardyce. One word to Mrs Hunter or her son and your old pa gets it.’ He drew his finger across his throat like a knife blade to emphasise his point. ‘Do you understand?’

      ‘I understand perfectly,’ she said and as the crowd hurried past, someone jostled her and when she looked round at the man again he was gone.

      Her heart was aching for the hurts her father had suffered and her blood was surging with fury at the men who had hurt him. She knew she must not weaken, must not weep, not here, not now. She straightened her shoulders, held her head up and walked with purpose the small distance to the Tontine Hotel to wait for the mail coach that would deliver her to the moor.

       Chapter Three

      The moor was bathed golden and hazy in the late