Wild Conquest. Hannah Howell

let her sister sink into the mire she had concocted. Unfortunately, that mire could touch their whole family. What she did not wish to do she would be forced to do to protect her family from scandal. She had herself to consider too. Her own future was at risk.

      “And you did not ask Master O’Duine for the return of this gift?” Pleasance asked, fighting and failing to keep the fury from her voice.

      “Aye, I asked him. I explained that I had been overcome by a generous impulse. I also explained that the impulse had been in error. He said I was indeed generous, that it was a fine gift he would long appreciate. As for the error in giving him such a gift, he simply remarked that I seemed to be making a great many errors of late. He hoped I would soon have a better turn of luck, then he literally pushed me out the door. The man is impossible.” As Letitia spoke she rose to her feet and strode back to her chair to flop down in it, renewed anger evident in her every gesture.

      “Oh, nay, Letitia. Master O’Duine is not the impossible one. ’Tis you. You insisted he was the man you wanted, even forced me to reject him. You flirted shamelessly with the man. He stayed on in Worcester far longer than he had planned because you gave him reason to believe that his interest was returned in full measure. Then you blithely cast him aside for John. You wrote Master O’Duine love letters. Now you want them back. You gave Master O’Duine a lavish gift which was not yours to dispense with, and now you wish that back as well. It would all make a fine comedy save that our family would be the butt of all the jests.”

      “So you mean to give me no help?”

      “I am sorely tempted to let you fall, face first, into the mire you have stirred up.”

      “Pleasance, you cannot do that to me!” Letitia wailed.

      “Nay, sadly, I cannot.” Pleasance shook her head in a weary gesture of utter disgust, with herself as much as with Letitia. “I find John a very dull stick of a man, but he and his kin have been friends of this family for many years. You have set the stage for a monstrous scandal which would surely touch John as well. He does not deserve that.”

      “’Tis not all my fault.”

      “Then there is our own family to consider,” Pleasance continued, ignoring Letitia’s truculent interruption. “You seem to have thought little of them in your recent foolhardiness, Letitia. Mother would be destroyed. She could neither bear the ill talk which would result nor the estrangement from society that such scandal always brings. I dare not even think how Papa would react. Then there are our brothers. They would feel honor-bound to defend each slur aimed at us, and I do not have to tell you what tragedy could result.”

      “So you will do it?” Letitia said. “You are, after all, the only one who knows how to get into Tearlach’s locked room.”

      “I truly regret the strange, unasked-for skills that I possess,” Pleasance muttered.

      “If you had not been such a bad child, you would not have been locked in the attic so much. You learned to pick locks so that you could sneak out. I have never told Mama and Papa about the times you did so. Nor have I told them about the times you picked the locks on the pantry to steal food after they had ordered you to fast.” She looked at Pleasance meaningfully.

      Pleasance ignored her sister’s subtle threat of blackmail. “If I did not have the skill, I would not be in the middle of all this trouble you have brewed. Instead I must now put myself at risk because you acted without thought.

      “Nay,” she added when Letitia opened her mouth again. “I do not wish to hear any more excuses or explanations. Here is what you must do. Invite Master O’Duine to a little tête à tête in the garden for tomorrow night. Use any ploy you want but get him here and hold him here for at least two hours.”

      “What if he will not stay?”

      “Make him. If you do not then I shall be caught and we shall both be plunged into scandal. Now, just tell me all you know of where Master O’Duine is staying and where that cursed tankard might be.”

      Well hidden beneath the voluminous folds of a large black cloak, Pleasance crept along the night-shrouded streets of town. The cloak was too warm, but it helped her blend into the shadows. She was already trembling with fright and the inn was only just now coming into view. With each hushed step she took, the urge to turn back grew stronger. She prayed she would be able to accomplish her goal before that urge to flee overcame familial responsibility. This was no time for cowardice. Letitia’s folly could ruin them all.

      She slipped down an alley that ran alongside the large wooden two-story inn to which Letitia had directed her. Her heart was beating so hard and fast she feared the sound was echoing off the walls of the narrow passageway. Her palms were sweating and she wiped her unsteady hands on her skirts. She knew she had to conquer her fear or she would fail. If she did not stop shaking she would not be able to pick open the lock on the door to Tearlach’s room.

      Pausing at the rear of the inn, Pleasance looked up the steep back stairs. She had crept in and out of the inn unseen once before when she had helped her brother Nathan play a jest upon his old friend Chadwick. That had been fun, with no threat of dangerous consequences if she were caught. The seriousness of what she was doing now seemed to add weights to her feet and she found it difficult to ascend the first step.

      As Pleasance inched up the wooden outer stairway she became painfully aware of every creak, every groan. She had taken little notice of the inn’s state of disrepair before. Now it threatened her with discovery at every turn.

      Another thing that slowed her advance was the knowledge of whom she would be stealing from. Tearlach O’Duine had received shabby treatment from her family. Letitia had toyed with him. She herself had rudely snubbed him, painfully reluctant though the snub had been. Her brothers had been indifferent—unintentionally so on Nathan’s part, but it was a slight nonetheless. Her mother and father, on the other hand, had made it abundantly clear that they hoped nothing would come of Letitia’s fascination with the man. All in all, Tearlach O’Duine had every reason to loathe the lot of them. Pleasance hated to give him yet another reason to feel ill treated.

      She also hated to consider the implications of Letitia’s familiarity with Tearlach’s room at the inn. Pleasance dreaded finding out exactly how often her sister had been there, and why. She knew Letitia was far too free with her favors, but she loathed the thought that Master O’Duine was one of the many men who had taken advantage of her sister’s lack of moral rectitude.

      Finally Pleasance reached the top of the stairs. After taking several deep breaths, she withdrew a long thin lockpick Nathan had had made for her and inserted it in the lock. Her first try resulted in utter failure. She cursed. Leaning against the clapboard wall, she forced herself to calm down. It took several more tries, but eventually she was successful. Slowly she opened the heavy iron-trimmed door, cursing every tiny creak it made. The minute there was enough room, she slipped inside and shut the door behind her. To her relief, the hall was empty, dimly lit by only a few wall sconces.

      As Pleasance tiptoed down to Master O’Duine’s room, she firmly cleared her mind of all thoughts save that of getting the job done and returning home. Letitia had sworn to keep Tearlach away from his room by luring him to their mother’s garden, perhaps even attempting a little seduction, but Pleasance had little confidence in her sister’s ability to keep her promise. Although Letitia was an expert at keeping men beguiled, Pleasance doubted that Master O’Duine was in any mood to be trifled with. In fact, after all that had happened, she felt sure he would view any such attempt with extreme suspicion. She was surprised he had even agreed to Letitia’s pleas to talk. It would be gratifying to see her sister fail to hold a man’s attention, but Pleasance decided she preferred to savor that defeat from a safer distance.

      Finding the door to O’Duine’s room securely locked, Pleasance cursed softly and set to work. In only a moment she had sprung the latch and was slipping into the room. She felt the usual twinge of pride tainted with guilt at her unusual criminal skill. Quickly but silently, she shut the door behind her, eager to leave the hallway where anyone might chance upon her. She crouched low and lit the shuttered lantern which one of Nathan’s