Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (46 page)

There it was—the truth at last. The whole of the truth, with all the misshapen, unlikely puzzle pieces falling into place at last. It all made such daft sense. “My God. I’ve married a zealot.”
 

“I’m not a zealot,” she insisted, visibly stung by the charge. “I just can’t stand idly by, or shrug and say ‘That’s the way of the world,’ when it needn’t be.”

He astonished her by not arguing, and by instead bringing her hand to his lips. “You really are the most extraordinary lass.” The words rumbled out from deep in his chest, because he knew it now more than ever. The truth came to him with all the speed and power of a storm sweeping across the moor. “Devil take you. You gave Talent your ill-gotten gains. For the crofters. Like that family on the road you sent to Saint Cuthbert’s. You gave the money to support the charity workhouse there. He was the reason you stole.”

She wasn’t in the least bit a heedless flibbertigibbet—she was as cunning and resourceful as a she-fox. And as to those scruples she claimed not to have—

“Nay, not the reason. Much as I would like to, I can’t blame either Talent or that poor lad. I became a thief quite on my own. Aye, I did give the money to West Kirk workhouse, but anonymously—I put it in the Poor Box at Saint Cuthbert’s. Do good by stealth, as the Bible says. And I never told him where the money came from—I never even spoke to the Reverend Talent before that night at the masquerade.”

“My God, Quince. You certainly did give away a great deal of things, but I am coming to see that you never did do away with your scruples. I rather think, despite what you’d like me to think, you kept a firm hold of them.”

 
“Nay,” she insisted, determined to make him see the bad along with the good. “I didn’t steal so I could give the money away. I gave the money away so I would have an excuse to steal. It is a terrible thing to have to admit about myself, and an even more terrible thing to await your judgment of my character. But the bare truth is I stole because I liked it.”

“Ah, lass.” He shook his head, and hugged her as if he could possibly contain all the impossible, contradictory feeling careering around within him. “Devil take me, I was right. I did know a thrill-seeker when I saw one.”

He wrapped his arms tight around her, to show her what she meant to him. To prove to her that he did not mean to let her go.

“You did,” she agreed, looping her own arms around his neck just as tightly. “Though I don’t ken how you did, you staid, upstanding politician.”

“Quince. Did you never wonder how I knew? Did you never wonder why a staid politician would be attracted to such an inappropriate, thrill-seeking lass?”

She looked at him warily, as if she had been too afraid to allow herself to wonder. “Nay.”

 
He felt as if he had waited forever to tell her. “Because you, my darling wee Quince, are my secret thrill.”

“I can’t be,” she whispered, even as she clung to him. Even as the first faint dawning of hope shone in her face. “You must understand—it’s as if something is broken inside me, Alasdair. Like my mother’s Sevres vase that I tipped over years ago, smashing into a hundred pieces. I worked for days and days, weeks, carefully gluing and piecing the vase back together to make up for what I had done. But still there was something missing, something irretrievably gone. The cracks were permanent and couldn’t be hid.”

He took her beautiful, solemn, heart-shaped face in his hands. “I refuse to let you think your character is irretrievable, Quince. Your means were wrong, but your heart was in the right place.”

“Don’t make me into a saint, Alasdair,” she pled.

“All right, I shan’t put you upon a pedestal—I shall keep you down here, with me.” He put words to action, holding her so close he could feel the strong beat of her brave, ambitious, reckless heart. “But how much was it, in all—the money you gave?”

“I didn’t keep a formal ledger, mind you—it didn’t seem prudent.”

“And Prudence is your middle name.” He gave her a warm, teasing squeeze.

“No, it is Louise Alice, actually.”
 

“It ought to be Heedless Unapologetic, if you ask me, which you don’t.” He teased her with her own acrobatic style of talk. “I begin to see all the puzzle pieces for the first time. But is there any more I don’t know?”

Quince nodded, as if she were eager to finally get the whole of it off her chest. “I never did tell Talent where I got the money, but he sussed it out. He had me followed, you see. I thought I was careful—I got away with it for three years, after all—but he had me followed, and discovered where the money came from, and how it got from snuffboxes and buttons to pounds sterling.” She took a deep, fearful breath. “Alasdair, you must promise me that you won’t use what I’m about to say against…anyone.”

Every time he thought he had come to some kind of accord with her, there was another twist, another unforeseen turn. Alasdair closed his eyes and turned his face up to the pouring sky, praying for patience, and understanding, and acceptance. “Against Talent? That, I won’t, and can’t promise. And I thought you wanted me to break the bastard’s nose?”

“Nay. I was not speaking of him, but…others.”

“You have confederates?” Alasdair braced himself anew—one nineteen-year-old lass could hardly have caused so much havoc alone. “I don’t know if I can promise that, Quince.”

“You promised to help me.”

“I married you to help you, knowing that our marriage would keep you from any further crime, and thereby removing the problem. But if there are others still—”

“Nay. No one is doing any stealing. That’s all stopped.” She was emphatic. “I stopped the pilfering immediately after you came.”

“But not the highway robbery,” he noted. “And so?”
 

She twisted her nervous fingers into his coat. “I am more afraid than I’ve ever been to trust you with this, Alasdair.”

He answered carefully. “I will try to honor that trust, Quince, but I cannot control every circumstance that might arise to make it impossible.”

“But you will try? You will try to keep this confidence, on your honor as a gentleman?”

Everything within him stilled—the charge that he might not be acting as a gentleman never failed to wound him. “Why would you question my honor as a gentleman?”

“I don’t question it. I
rely
upon it, which is why I’m asking—”

His relief was such a visceral thing—like an animal released from a cage—that he could barely contain it. So he kissed her—a hard, heartfelt kiss on the lips that was not nearly enough to assuage the hunger and sheer beating joy that burst through him. “You have my word. Upon my honor I will keep your trust to the best of my ability.”

Quince took another deep, sustaining breath and forged ahead. “There were others who helped me—not steal, mind you—but to convert the things I stole into ready money. My maid, Jeannie—”

Another piece of the puzzle. “The dressmaker. Her shop lies in Menleith Close.”

“Aye. What a distressingly precise memory you have, Alasdair.” She drew in another careful, fortifying breath. “And her brother, Charlie, as well, who is a blacksmith.”

And there it was—the whole of the picture. “And he melted the goods down, snuffboxes and buttons alike?”

“Aye. That’s why I only ever took precious metals and not jewels. Nothing that needed to be pawned or sold in its original form. Although I do still have Lady Digby’s pearls, but I had decided to raise my stakes by then. I was planning to send them to Amsterdam eventually.”

“My God. Quince.” She was nothing if not a spectacularly ambitious brat.

“I ken I’m no good.” The worry was back on her face, pleating a line between her brows. “But Jeannie and Charlie are. They only helped me because they felt beholden—the first of the money did help set up Jeannie’s shop, and Charlie’s forge. But after that, we kept none of it.”

“You gave it all to the Reverend Dr. Talent? And how much was it, do you reckon, all told?

“Somewhere in the region of four thousand pounds. Give or take a few florins.”

“Pounds sterling?” He was all admiration and incredulity. “That’s a bloody fortune.”

“Is there any other kind? I told you, Alasdair, I knew what I was about.”

 
“You did, damn you. No wonder Talent doesn’t want to give you up. Devil take me, what a puzzle you are.”

“That does not seem like a good thing, Alasdair.”

“You’re a bloody strange, marvelous, rare thing, wee Quince Winthrop.” He shook his head, even as he smiled. “In my experience most people, when they descend into a life of crime, do so out of poverty, and want. At least the poorer ones do. Conversely, those who start out in a position of wealth and privilege—as it may be argued you did—turn to crime out of greed and selfishness, and a desire to take from an undeserving world all that they can. They risk their good names, but rarely their very lives, for gain. While you—”

He shook his head, and ran his hands through his dripping hair, and generally made all manner of exasperated gestures to keep him from grabbing her, and laying her down upon the rock as if it were a granite bed, and showing her just what he thought of all her nerve and darling and ambition and bravery. “But you, brat—try as I might to find some personal gain—you have nothing to show for all your troubles.”
 

“I have you as a husband to show for my troubles.”
 

This time he was sure he could see the whole of her heart in her face. “Aye, you do, lass.
 
And none other.”

She finally smiled. “None other.”

But before he took her home, and put paid to all the disagreements and misapprehensions between them, he wanted to be perfectly, completely sure. “So, just to be perfectly clear, you’re not in love with that bastard Talent? And you aren’t going to elope in some ridiculously romantic fashion?”

“Holy gods and little fishes, nay! How could you think that?” She was so shocked, she hit him square upon his chest. “I want to break his nose. Which was a great deal less than he—”

“—deserves. Aye. How restrained of you.” Alasdair closed his eyes and took a deep breath, in a vain effort to contain the flood of gratitude and relief coursing through him. “My darling brat, you may safely leave the mon to me.”

And something that seemed suspiciously like tears of gratitude shone in the corners of her eyes. “Alasdair, that is very kind in you, I’m sure. But I created this awful situation, and I shall have to see myself out of it.”

“Must you?” He leaned in to kiss her cheek. Softly. Gently. But also, he hoped, enticingly. “I thought that maybe you'd let me assist and protect you. Just this once. As a sop to my pride.”

“Well, Alasdair, when you put it like that. Perhaps just this once. As a sop to your pride.”

He enveloped her in a hug so tight, he was half-afraid he might hurt her “My pride thanks you.”

She didn’t object. “Your pride is quite welcome.”

“And what does
your
pride think we ought to do?” He nuzzled along the side of her jaw.

“Tell him to be damned, and tell who he likes. After I have had a chance to warn Charlie and Jeannie, of course. But what do you think we ought to do?”

“I think you’re not much of a politician, wee Quince.” He punctuated his answer with a
 
kiss. “But I am.” He kissed along her brow. “I think I aim to have a nice quiet talk with the reverend—if he thinks he can prove that the money he accepted from you came from stolen goods, then I can prove he was complicit as well.”

“Oh, by jimble, that is lovely news. But it bothers me, Alasdair, that I am asking you to bend and use the law to defend me, when I am the one in the wrong.”

“And there are those scruples you claim to have sold,” he teased. “You have paid your price, wee Quince—you gave up your freedom to marry me. Talent has yet to pay his piper.”

“Well, as your scruples have been so much better exercised than mine, I feel certain I can safely rely upon them without question.” She sighed against his chest with what he hoped was contentment. “But marrying you is not a punishment, Alasdair.”

Her voice was so quiet, he was not sure he heard her correctly. “Is it not?”

“Nay.” She turned up her chin, so her warm, clever lips were but inches from his. “In fact, it’s rather nice.”