Claiming His Defiant Miss

Sinclair grumbled, ‘Two and a half. These are fine carrots, the best in the village, and the last fresh you’re likely to get until spring.’ It was hard to argue with that. Sinclair’s produce was always reliable. The carrots were likely worth two and a half this late into autumn, but May didn’t like losing. At anything. Now that she’d engaged in battle she couldn’t back down.

‘Two.’ Sinclair would lord it over her if she gave in too easily and so would Bea when she told her. Bea would laugh and that was worth something. These last few weeks had been hard on Bea. She was in the last month of her pregnancy, large and constantly uncomfortable. She was unable to walk as far as the market these days without her feet swelling. ‘Two. For Beatrice and the baby,’ May added for pathos.

That did the trick. ‘Two,’ Sinclair agreed. ‘Tell Mistress Fields I send my regards.’ He handed her the orange bunch and she tucked them victoriously into her market basket. But it was only a partial win and Sinclair knew it as well as she did. Bea would have got a better price without haggling. Everyone in the village liked Beatrice. It wasn’t that they didn’t like her, it was possible to like more than one person at a time. Liking wasn’t exclusive, but they were definitely wary of her.

The carrots were the last of the items on her list. It was time to head home. She didn’t like being away from Beatrice for too long with the baby due soon and she had letters to read—one in particular from her brother that she was eager to read. She knew Bea would be eager for it, too. News from home was sparse these days. The other was from her parents, which she was less eager to read. That one, she would read in private later. Besides, without Bea at the market, her own socialising opportunities were more ‘limited’.

May understood quite plainly she was tolerated because of Bea and she understood why. She was too blunt for some of the ladies and too pretty for some of the wives who worried she’d steal their men. If only they understood she wasn’t interested in men. She’d come here to escape them. So far, that part was working out splendidly. The men hadn’t any more idea what to do with her forthright behaviour than the women did. No one knew what to make of her, no one ever had, except Beatrice and Claire and Evie.

Her friends had never tried to make her fit a mould. They’d simply accepted her as she was, something her own parents had not succeeded in doing. Instead, they’d threatened to marry her off to the local vicar back home if she didn’t find a husband by next spring. She didn’t really think they’d do it, they were just trying so hard to make sure she was betrothed before spring. She highly suspected the second letter in her basket was a long-distance attempt to reintroduce the theme as they had done this past summer.

They’d made countless attempts, some subtle, some less so, during the Season to throw eligible men her direction. She’d thrown them all back and her parents were definitely frustrated. One more Season had passed and she still hadn’t become the dutiful daughter. Here she was, nearly twenty-two, with three Seasons behind her and no suitor in sight, all because of one man.

She’d loved deeply once, although she’d been warned against it. She was too young, he was too ‘dangerous’ in the way unsuitable men are for well-bred girls who are restless and fresh out of the schoolroom. But she had done it anyway and now she was paying. She couldn’t have him. Their harsh parting had seen to that. There could be no going back from the words and betrayal they’d flung at one other. But that didn’t stop her from measuring all others against him and no one could possibly measure up. Her father called it disobedient, outright rebellious. Her mother called it a shame.

Perhaps they were right. Maybe she was rebellious. Maybe she was a shame to the family. There was certainly argument for that. For all outward appearances, she had everything a successful debutante could want: she was pretty, her family was respectable, her father the second son of a viscount, a valued member of Parliament, and she had a dowry that more than adequately reflected all that respectability. What was not to like? She should have been an open-and-shut case, a prime piece of merchandise snatched off the marriage mart after two Seasons.

Although, to her benefit, all that parental frustration had probably been the reason her parents had let her accompany Beatrice into Scottish exile while she waited out her pregnancy: the errant daughter would be out of sight, out of mind. Perhaps her parents hoped a few months in Scotland would change her mind, show her what life was like alone and isolated from society. A spinster could expect nothing more.

May smiled to herself and gave a little skip along the dirt road. If that’s what her parents hoped for, they couldn’t be more wrong. She loved it here. Never mind the villagers didn’t know what to make of her. That could change in time. Even if it didn’t, she liked being on her own, just her and Beatrice. She liked doing for herself. She’d discovered she had a talent for cooking, for shopping for their small household, for growing things. She and Bea had the most spectacular greenhouse where they would be able to grow vegetables year-round—not enough to live on, not yet. They would still be reliant on the Farmer Sinclairs of the world for a while. But come spring... That put a stop to her skipping.

Would they still be here in the spring? She hoped so, but Beatrice’s parents might call her home after the baby was born. Her own parents certainly would want her back at some point. This had become an anxiety point for both of them over the last few weeks. The baby coming changed everything and ‘everything’ was uncertain. Beatrice feared someone would come and take the baby away. She was unwed after all, never mind that the village called her Mistress Fields and thought Mr Fields was a small merchant explorer away at sea, a fiction they had liberally borrowed and enhanced from one of Bea’s favourite romance novels. The truth was, Beatrice had been indiscreet last winter and now she was paying for it. When this was over, Beatrice didn’t want to go home any more than May did.

‘We simply won’t go.’ May had told her just last night when Bea had been up worrying again. ‘They can’t make us.’ That was only partly true. Their parents could make them. Their parents could cut off the allowance that let them keep the spacious cottage and buy food. Maybe Preston would stand up for them. Preston always did. He was the best of brothers. He was what May missed most about being away from home.

But she couldn’t rely on Preston for this. This was her decision alone to make, hers and Bea’s. They had to rely on themselves. They were already saving part of their allowances in case they were cut off. They had the greenhouse. They’d have their garden in the spring, they could make preserves, maybe enough to sell in the market or to trade. They had the clothes they’d come with and the horses too, although horses needed hay. If they economised, they could be countrywomen in truth. It was a daring plan to be sure and not without some risk. They would be giving up life as they knew it, but they would have their freedom in exchange.

Nothing changed until you did. That was the motto of the Left Behind Girls Club, of which there remained only two members now, her and Bea. Claire and Evie had both married. She’d gone to Evie’s wedding in October. Evie had been a radiant autumn bride, proud to stand beside her handsome husband, a royal prince of Kuban who’d given up his title for her and become a country gentleman in Sussex. If Dimitri Petrovich could do it, perhaps she and Bea could do it, too. They had to be the agents of their own change. They had to stand up for what they wanted, even if they had to fight for it.

The heavy weight in May’s skirt pocket reminded her of how literal that fight might be. Promise me you won’t let anyone take the baby, Beatrice had pleaded tearfully with her. If anyone came, they wouldn’t stop at an argument, something May could win. They would resort to physical force. It was a sad truth that men could simply overpower women to take what they wanted when reason failed, but guns were great equalisers; Preston had taught her that. She had one now in her skirt pocket, just in case. She’d promised Bea no one would take the baby as long as she had one good shot. A Worth’s word was golden.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she approached their cottage. Usually the sight of their neat brick home with its steep slate roof brought her a sense of comfort. Today, she felt unease. Perhaps all this thinking about someone taking the baby had put her imagination on edge. The baby wasn’t even born yet. May tried to talk herself out of the premonition. Her mind was playing games. But it was no use. Something was wrong. There was mud tracked up the porch steps to the door, the way boots tracked mud. Boots meant men. Men meant trouble. It was market day, no one would make a special trip out. If there was business to be dealt with, she would have taken care of it in town.

May set down her basket and scanned the yard, her eye catching the anomaly. There! A horse, not one of their own; an animal too sleek to be a farmer’s. This was the kind of horse owned by someone who rode. Horses meant money and this one looked vaguely familiar. Her mouth went dry. Had Bea’s family come already? May slipped her hand into her pocket and slowly pulled out the pistol, letting calm slide over her. Just think about the next step. It was a trick Preston had taught her, something he’d learned from his work for the government.

Through the window, she could see the top of a man’s head. Someone was sitting in the front parlour’s spare chair. Good. Whoever it was couldn’t see her. Take them by surprise. Don’t give them a chance to think. The only one thinking should be you. Preston had taught her that, too. She’d know where to turn once she came through the door; she’d know where to aim her gun. She wouldn’t waste a moment learning the layout of the room and who was where.

May drew a breath and threw open the front door with her shoulder, using more force than necessary. It banged against the wall, making noise and startling the room’s occupants. She whirled towards the chair at the window, the pistol trained on the man. The light from the window might obscure the details of his face, but she could see enough to hit him. She would aim for his shoulder. ‘Get out, we don’t want you here.’ She let the ominous cock of the pistol fill the stunned silence of the room, a silence that didn’t last nearly as long as it should have.

Most people took guns seriously. Not the man in the chair. He laughed! The sound of it sent a shudder of recognition down her spine as he drawled, ‘Hello, Maylark. It’s nice to see you, too.’ With those words, the element of surprise was neatly turned on her.

May froze. Liam Casek was here? She blinked against the light from the window, against the improbability, trying to digest the reality. Liam Casek—her brother’s work partner, her one great moment of foolishness, the man against whom she measured all other men and found them lacking—was sitting in her front parlour in the middle-of-nowhere Scotland, the last person she’d ever have expected to see. In truth, he was the last person she wanted to see here. He could only bring her trouble as he’d so aptly demonstrated on earlier occasions. How would she ever explain him to Beatrice? She lowered the gun, her arm suddenly heavy from the weight, and his eyes flickered towards the motion.

‘How like you to greet gentlemen with pistols.’ It was an insult if ever there was one. The last time she’d seen him had been five years ago, a mere seventeen-year-old girl. She was far more grown up now. She should say something witty, one of her famed biting retorts, but all she could do was stare.

He was much as she remembered him: blue Irish eyes that sparkled in the face of danger—she didn’t know many men who would take a pistol aimed at them sitting down—untrimmed hair falling over his shoulders in a tangle of dark waves that rebelled against any attempt at convention, a body that dwarfed anything in a room. Tall and lean, Liam Casek had always known how to take up space, only there was so much more of him now. There were new things about him, too: the tiny curving scar high on his cheek near his left eye, the long, refined cheekbones that gave his face its sharpness. Its shrewd intelligence was new, too—signs of the man that had been carved from the boy she’d once known.

But, oh, his mouth was the same. He had the mouth of a gentleman; thin on top and falsely hinting at aristocracy, full on the bottom suggesting sensuality. That mouth was the merest suggestion of softness set above the square jut of a rugged chin, to remind a woman that any pretence to tenderness was illusion only. That mouth knew how to tease a woman, to lead her on, intimating that other mysteries might lurk beneath the rugged façade should that woman dare to look. She’d been that bold once, that naïve. She’d thought to discover those mysteries once upon a time. Back then, she’d been on the brink of womanhood, and he on the brink of manhood at twenty-one, still not quite full come into the man who now stood before her. They had been reckless, she most of all. He was not for her. They both knew it with a certainty which made it inconceivable that he was sitting before her now.

May’s mind started to work again. ‘What are you doing here?’ He wasn’t here for her. They’d parted badly. But if not for her, then who? Preston? No! Her thoughts became a whirlwind driven by not a little panic. The letter she’d picked up at the market! It was at the bottom of her basket.

May darted to the yard where she’d dropped the basket, her mind working at full speed. She grabbed the letter and raced back inside, firing off questions. ‘What’s happened to Preston? Where is he? Is he with you?’ It wasn’t beyond possibility he had come with Liam, and was off on an errand. She tore into the letter. Two loose pages fell out. She was not interested in them, only in the bold scrawl of Preston’s handwriting. She scanned the letter, trying to assimilate the information. May glared at Liam. ‘Tell me. What, exactly, has happened to my brother?’

‘He’s been stabbed, May,’ Liam began evenly, perhaps in the hope of not panicking her. But there was no way the word ‘stabbed’ could be received with bland reaction. There was a gasp behind her, a reminder that Bea was still in the room, silently watching this unexpected reunion play out.

May took a step backwards and sank next to Bea on the little sofa, vaguely aware of Bea taking her hand in support. She would not panic. She would not go to pieces in front of him. ‘When did this happen? Tell me everything.’

‘Six days ago.’ Liam flicked a questioning glance Beatrice’s way and May’s stomach knotted. He would only tell her part of the truth without knowing Beatrice’s full measure. It worried her greatly if Liam was considering mincing words. What needed to be hidden? May picked up the papers from the floor. She studied the sheets. She could see now that they were ledger pages recording expenditures and funds received. There were names and amounts, very condemning proof indeed for whatever had happened and Preston had sent it to her. It spoke volumes about his injury. ‘Is he going to pull through?’ They were hard words to utter. She had to presume the wound had been dangerous enough to warrant Liam coming to her. For the sake of her own sanity, she had to also assume Preston was alive, at least six days ago. Bea’s grip tightened around her hand and she was grateful for her friend’s support.

Liam hesitated. ‘I stitched him up as best I could. I took him to a remote farmhouse.’ He answered her next question before she could ask it. He’d always been good at that—knowing her thoughts before she did. It was a damn annoying habit when it wasn’t being useful. ‘Preston wouldn’t let me send for a doctor.’ Of course not. Her brother would be concerned for the safety of anyone he implicated. Whoever the villain in this mission was would seek out doctors in his search to find a wounded man. ‘Preston made me promise to come straight to you.’

‘To me or to the letter?’ May queried, but Preston’s actions already indicated the gravity of the situation. He had sent her information that needed protecting by someone whom her brother would trust with his life.

‘Do you even need to ask?’ Liam scolded her. ‘Your safety was Preston’s first thought as he lay bleeding in the road.’

His words shamed her. She’d known better than to assume otherwise. They also frightened her. She heard the unspoken message. Preston had thought there was the possibility he might die if he’d sent Liam as his proxy. An idea struck her. ‘You can take me to him.’ He would know where Preston was. She half-rose from the sofa, plans coming rapidly. She would pack, they would go by horseback for faster time. ‘We can leave today.’ Within the hour.

That got a literal rise out of him. The very idea of travelling any distance with her accomplished what the explosive end of a pistol had not. Liam was out of his chair in an instant. ‘And take you in to the lion’s den with the very evidence your brother risked his life to get?’ His incredulity was obvious. ‘What kind of fool-brained idea is that? Your brother sent me to protect you, not to expose you.’

Expose her to whom? She wanted details, but she wasn’t going to get them with Beatrice in the room. ‘I can protect myself just fine. I will shoot anyone who crosses that threshold uninvited, as you are very well aware.’

‘It is irrelevant.’ Liam’s reply was sanguine. ‘I am sure you can shoot one man. I recall you have excellent aim. There are men’s lives at stake, shooting one won’t be enough.’ Again the vagaries. She had no choice but to get Liam alone if she wanted more information. ‘If the man in question is caught, he faces treason and the noose. He will not send one man. He did not send one man against your brother and me on the road. He will not send one man against you. He will not care there is a pregnant woman in the house or a baby.’ What had Preston got himself involved in now? She knew his work was more than what it appeared on the surface, but tracking treasonous individuals? That was far more than she’d anticipated.

May tried not to look affected with the dire picture he painted. Her desire for details warred with her concern for Beatrice. She didn’t want Liam upsetting Beatrice who had enough to deal with. ‘Whoever this new enemy is has to find me first.’

‘He’s desperate. He will find you. He’s a man with resources and you were just in Sussex for a friend’s wedding. Your family knows. Presumably they will have mentioned it to someone, perhaps several people. Someone, somewhere, will know you’re here.’

‘Surely you’re not suggesting we leave.’ Suddenly the thought was appalling, although it had been her very thought just moments ago. This cottage, this village, had become her world. This was where she was free. To leave would be to march straight back into society’s silk-and-lace prison. While she would have given up the cottage to go to Preston in his need, she would not give up this cottage on the outside chance she would be discovered. They couldn’t possibly take Beatrice with them in her condition and yet Beatrice couldn’t stay. If anyone was looking for her, the trail would lead here. Beatrice wouldn’t be safe.

Liam leaned back in his chair, hands laced over the flat of his stomach, his eyes skimming hers. ‘Not at all, Maylark. We stay here and wait it out.’

‘You’re going to stay here?’ It was her turn to be incredulous. In this small cottage? With her? Cosy was already becoming cramped. How would they ever manage to share this space?

Liam grinned, an irritatingly devilish smile full of smugness. She hated having risen to the bait. The dratted man had known how much that idea would irk her. ‘That is exactly what I’m suggesting. I can sleep in the barn.’

‘No, we have a spare room.’ Bea put in quickly. ‘The barn is too cold in winter.’ May shot her a hard look. When had Bea turned traitor? Couldn’t Bea see she didn’t want him here? Maybe not, to be fair. Bea didn’t know Liam Casek. May had told no one, not even her close friends, about that summer at the lakes, the summer Jonathon Lashley hadn’t come on holiday with the Worths and her brother had brought this friend instead.

Liam nodded gratefully at Bea. ‘I appreciate it, Mistress Fields.’ Bea actually blushed. May rolled her eyes. He’d already got to Beatrice with his rough brand of gallantry. She’d forgive her friend. She knew how easy it was to fall for that charm.

‘I’ll go ready the room, Mr Casek. May can show you around our little place.’ May stifled a groan. Mister this, and mistress that. Good heavens, all this polite formality was going to kill her if showing Liam around didn’t do it first.

‘How long do you suppose you’ll be here?’ May asked bluntly.

Liam’s blue eyes narrowed to dancing flints. ‘As long as it takes to keep you safe. Until the new year, I imagine.’ He shot Bea a considerate glance. ‘I’ll be sure to make myself useful. Looks like that barn roof could use a little work and you’ll need an extra set of hands once the bairn gets here.’ That was his breeding showing or lack of it. No gentleman friend of Preston’s would have considered the impact of one more mouth to feed and care for. Neither would a gentleman have mentioned a pregnancy even if a nine-month belly was staring him rather obviously in the face. Liam Casek might have a gentleman’s mouth, but he’d been raised working poor. Life held no secrets for him.

‘It will be good to have a man around the house,’ Beatrice acceded with another smile. Not that man, though. The last thing May wanted was to be alone with him, and now she would be for months, not because she felt threatened by him but because of who she was when she was with him. That frightened her a great deal even as it thrilled her.

Chapter Three

Liam stepped outdoors and scanned the yard, looking for a destination. The stone fence to his left seemed as good a place as any to have this conversation. He strode towards it, aware of May behind him. He’d give her five strides before her patience broke and she started demanding information.

One... May Worth could still frighten the living daylights out of him. That hadn’t changed in five years. He would have thought a man who’d been to war, a man who’d seen men die, who’d often delivered that death personally and intimately on behalf of the Crown, would not be so easily frightened by a single female. But logic failed to account for May Worth. There was so much to be frightened by: her beauty, her intelligence, her overwhelming confidence in the rightness of her opinion, but it was her stubbornness that frightened him the most, not because she intimidated him but because he revelled in her fearlessness.

Two... He’d once found her fearlessness so intoxicating he’d believed he could change the world for her. He’d been drawn to it like an addict to opium. He was a stronger man now, his own ideals and expectations better tempered by reality. Was she? He feared that reckless stubborn streak would be the author of her demise someday.

Three... Look where it had led already today: it had her pulling a pistol on a guest and demanding safe passage to her brother’s side, then refusing to leave the cottage. Very shortly it was going to prompt her to ask for every ounce of information he possessed regarding Preston and she was not going to like what he had to say.

Four...

‘Tell me everything,’ May blurted out, catching up to him. Five strides had been too optimistic. ‘We’re alone now, there’s no reason not to.’ There was a scold in there somewhere for him. She was angry he’d held back. She was anxious, which made her anger excusable, understandable even, but he still made her wait until they reached the stone fence. Someone had to teach May patience.

He leaned his elbows on the rough surface of the stone and looked out over the expanse of green field. It was far less disconcerting than looking at her and seeing those beautiful green eyes that could stalk a man like a tiger or burn with emerald passion, the rich walnut sheen of her hair, the elegant sweep of her jaw, the defiant point of her chin, the delicate, straight length of her nose set to perfection on her face, all of which informed a man without asking that this was a lady born to wealth and luxury. And then there was that skin, so perfectly translucent it called to mind every cliché he’d ever heard about silk and pearls and alabaster. It was indeed hard to speak when one could choose to look at May Worth instead. He’d learned to cultivate the skill, however. His sanity and male pride had depended on it.