Unlacing the Innocent Miss. Margaret McPhee

      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