Timeless Desire (12 page)

The townspeople who were out seemed to pay her little mind. The town ended as quickly as it had begun, and at the inn, a heavy-browed building at the edge of town called the Bowness Arms, Panna began to pace out a mile.

Halfway there, she noticed a man behind her walking the same path. She considered running, but where? She thought she saw Clare’s house ahead, but she was still a good five minutes away.

The man increased his pace, and Panna’s pulse began to quicken. Surreptitiously, she moved the note from her pocket to the inside of her bodice. The next time she looked over her shoulder, the man had halved the distance between them.

Her heart beat harder. Had he followed her from the castle? The inn? Did he know her connection to Bridgewater? And where was Bridgewater? Had he been captured? Killed? Would the delivery of the note make any difference now?

The man was nearly on her heels. Panna was a decent runner—every year she ran in Carnegie’s 5K race in honor of fallen police and firemen—but she was also a woman who didn’t like to be intimidated.

She dug her heels in—literally—pulled the box cutter from her pocket, and slid the blade into place.

The man, barrel-chested and sporting a full black beard, did not alter his pace. He approached her like a slow-moving freight train, moving in a direct line for her. A jolt of electricity tore through her chest.

“Put the knife away, lassie,” he said as he passed her. “I’m Clare. If you have come from my master, you are safe with me.”

She exhaled, relieved, and ran to catch up with him. “You’re Clare. I thought—” The look on the man’s face stopped her.

“You thought what?”

She shifted. “Where I come from, Clare is often”—
always,
she wanted to say—“a woman’s name.”

“There have been men who’ve said that to me.” He gave her a grim smile. “But usually no more than once.”

He started down the road again and she ran to catch up. “You mentioned your master. Where is he? Is he safe?”

Clare stopped again and eyed her. “The man’s a cat. He’ll land safely. Which is not to say he doesn’t lose a bit of tail now and then.” Walking again, he said, “You’re a new one.”

“A new . . .”

“Whore.”

“I—” Oh, what was the point? And how many whores had Bridgewater aligned with, anyway?

“I’m Clare Jenkins. Who are you?”

“Panna. Panna Kennedy. I need to talk to you about—”

“Wait. We’re almost at the house.”

A small stone structure with a thatched roof, trim shutters, and a stoop lay just off the path. A horse stood saddled under one of the oaks, and candlelight in the windows suggested inhabitants in addition to Clare. A black-and-white dog trotted out to say hello.

Clare rubbed the dog’s ears and knocked on the door— three taps followed by a pause and another tap. “You’re not from around here, then?”

Before Panna had a chance to answer, a curvy redhead of thirty or so, wearing a dressing gown and little else, opened the door. She looked at her guests and, without uttering a word, poked her head out to scan the path. Satisfied that no one was following, she invited them in with a jerk of her head.

The main room was small, and three doors led off of it. The space had been furnished with a table and chairs, a couple of benches next to the hearth, and an impressive collection of pistols and long guns bolted to the wall. The dog sighed and stretched out in front of the unlit fire.

“This is Miss Kennedy,” Clare said to the redhead. Almost immediately, one of the doors opened, and Panna found herself the object of interest of a blonde and a brunette, each as attractive as the redhead and similarly clad.

She was pretty sure she had figured out what sort of house this was.

“I’m Aphrodite,” the redhead said. “And this is Athena and Artemis,” she added, pointing first to her dark-haired companion and then the light-haired one.

Interesting theme, though I suppose it beats Scary, Posh, and Ginger
, Panna thought, shaking hands with each.

Clare nodded at Aphrodite, who placed a jug and two cups on the table. “Would you care to sit?” he said to Panna.

She took a chair as Clare filled the mugs. She sipped tentatively and was grateful to discover it was a crisp, woodsy ale. She felt the note with her fingertips but wanted some answers first. “I am most concerned about your master. Are you aware he’s being held?”

Clare grunted. Like Bridgewater, he appeared to be an expert at hiding his thoughts.

“When I saw him last, he’d been beaten up rather badly,” she said.

This seemed to raise a small fire in those sable eyes. “Indeed.”

“The army seems to think he has betrayed England’s interests.”

“He does more for the people of the borderlands than Queen Anne or Marlborough and his bloody army,” Athena said, flushing. “As far as they’re concerned, we’re as bad as the Scots.”

Clare threw a warning look in her direction.

“I had the occasion an hour ago to be in the room where they’d been holding him,” Panna said. Aphrodite and Artemis exchanged knowing smiles, and Panna felt her cheeks warm. “He was gone and the place had been ransacked.”

Clare snorted. “No room in that castle would hold him long.”

Panna gazed at the women, wondering if it was safe to talk. Clare ignored her unspoken question, leaving Panna to guess. “I know what you mean,” she said, “and he had, er, availed himself of the facilities—we left at the same time—but he told me he intended to be back within the hour. And he wasn’t. Or if he’d made it back, he was gone again by the time I returned.”

“Which officer beat him? Did he say?”

“The colonel and his men.”

Clare’s beefy fingers tightened around his mug. “Is that all?”

She thought about the message from Reeves, and about the visit from Bridgewater’s father, and about Thomas, the boy who’d been captured and questioned, but she had no idea how much of that she should share. She hoped Bridgewater’s note would indicate that.

“He sent me with a message for you.” She pulled the note from her pocket and slid it across the table.

Much to Panna’s surprise, Clare ignored the letter and reached for her ponytail, pulling the ribboned bow free. Drawing the fabric taut, he examined its length as if he were reading a ticker tape.

“Oh, Christ.” He leapt up.

“What is it?” Panna frowned.

He held the ribbon before Aphrodite. She paled and handed it to Athena. “I’ll take the horse.”

“As fast as you can, lass.”

Aphrodite threw on a coat and grabbed a pistol from the wall. A moment later she’d flown out the door, and the thunder of the horse’s hooves filled the night.

For a second or two, Panna was shocked, but her surprise soon evaporated with the cold realization that she had served as an unwitting mule for Bridgewater. When had he written the words? She thought of the pencils hanging from ribbons on the map in the hidden room. It must have been then, while she’d bided her time imagining the possibilities of the surveying seat. Heat blossomed on her cheeks at the thought of the kiss they’d shared. She combed her memory for the sequence of events. The kiss had definitely come before Bridgewater tied the ribbon. Had the kiss only been a pretext to get her hair down so he could retie it?

The buzz of shame in Panna’s ears was so loud now, she feared that everyone in the room could hear it.

“What about the note?” she said at last.

Clare’s gaze fell to his boots. He had watched the realization of her betrayal crawl across her face. He picked up the note, broke the seal, and unfolded the paper.

“I apologize, Miss Kennedy. Though he was only arrested this morning, Bridgewater has been under watch for a long time, and the whore’s ribbon is a trick we have used a number of times to great success.”

“I am
not
a whore. I am a friend of Bridgewater’s—a library keeper from Penn’s Woods.”

“Oh.” Clare processed the implications of that statement and his eyes softened. “Then I can see where it would be doubly hard for you.”

Yes, being seduced by a lord so that she might serve as a living, breathing envelope for his war correspondence was not easy.

“The note,” she repeated sharply. “What exactly does it say?”

He sighed and pushed the paper toward her.

Nothing.

The paper was completely blank. Bridgewater hadn’t trusted her. He’d needed to get the message to Clare, but he had been careful not to put his faith in the crazy interloper who’d appeared out of nowhere, even after she’d made her feelings for him as clear as glass.

“In that case, I suspect you have a pretty good idea where Lord Bridgewater is,” she said with irritation.

Clare’s brow went up. “
Lord
Bridgewater?”

“Yes. Or Lord Adderly, or whatever this prodigal son is called.”

He nodded. “I do know his whereabouts.”

“I want you to take me to him.”

Clare, not a man to be forced into anything, looked at her, unmoved.

She stood. “Look, I made it here on my own. I can certainly make it back without your help.”

He caught her arm. “I cannot recommend it.”

The thought that she’d been tricked not just into becoming a mule but into placing herself willingly in the arms of a man who intended to hold her against her will made her both scared and angry.

“Does Bridgewater own this place?” she demanded, shaking her arm loose.

“What if he does?” Clare said. “I earn my place here.”

“And I suppose he calls upon you here from time to time?”

Clare’s brows knitted. “Aye, he does.”

“Of course he does. And Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis are the women who have been carting his messages back and forth?”

“They are. And they have been doing it at great risk, I might add.”

“I’m sure. Though surely there are
some
rewards for the whores of a man like Bridgewater, are there not?”

“
Whores
?”

Clare’s face turned the color of eggplant, and Artemis and Athena burst into laughter.

“These women are my sisters,” he sputtered.

“Sisters?” Panna searched the faces of the four for signs of kinship.

The hair had thrown her—Aphrodite with her bright persimmon curls, Athena with her bangs and gleaming fall of raven hair, and Artemis with her thick moonbeam braid. Now that Panna looked, however, she could see Aphrodite’s wide nose, slightly raised at the end, echoed almost exactly on the other women’s faces and in a more masculine fashion on Clare’s. But it was the shared intelligence in the four pairs of coffee-colored eyes that settled the question.

“We may pretend to be whores when necessary,” Athena said kindly, inserting herself between Panna and Clare, who looked near apoplexy, “However, tis only an act.”

“I am terribly sorry,” said a painfully embarrassed Panna. “I—well, I am not one, either.”

For some reason, the plaintive afterthought struck everyone as humorous—well, everyone except for Clare, who was still trying to find his tongue. The women laughed again, and this time Panna joined in.

“Then you are Bridgewater’s . . . accomplices?” she asked.

“We prefer ‘colleagues.’” Artemis smiled.

“Will you at least tell me what the ribbon said?”

Clare’s face, which had just started to relax, tightened again.

“Tell her,” Artemis implored. “She risked her life coming here. She’s part of it now, too.”

Panna wasn’t certain she wanted to be part of anything, let alone an operation run by a man who would stoop to seducing colleagues to get them to ferry his messages around town. Nonetheless, she was curious about the contents of the secret message.

Clare cleared his throat grudgingly. “There was a plan to attack tonight.”

“Yes. Langholm.”

“No, that was a ruse. The real target is Carlisle. Several tons of gunpowder are making their way to the English army via Carlisle tonight.”

Panna cocked her head. “You are English, are you not? Cumbria, as I recall, is an English county. Wouldn’t you and Bridgewater want to support the efforts of the English army to protect the borderlands?”

“We do not fight over borders. We fight to save lives. The gunpowder will be used to attack clans along the border.”

“By your army—Bridgewater’s army?”

He gave her a cool look. “Aye.”

So Bridgewater was the head of a rebel group that was taking justice into its own hands. It was a very dangerous game to play, with the possibility of reprisals from either side if his work was discovered.

“And the ribbon?”

He nodded toward Artemis, who handed Panna the length of pale green satin. She stretched it in her hands. “Cancel C,” he had written.
Carlisle
.

“Why cancel it?” she asked, but knew the answer even as the question left her lips. Because “They know.” The English army knew of the rebels’ plans to attack the caravan of gunpowder. That’s what Reeves had scratched into the bowl. That’s why Bridgewater had needed her to deliver it.

“I’m not sure,” Clare said, “but I suspect—”

“The army knows.”

“Aye.” He looked at her, surprised.

“They do. Bridgewater received a message like that earlier this evening.”

“From whom?”

Despite their seemingly open conversation, she did not want to betray Bridgewater’s source unnecessarily. “Another colleague.”

His eyes lit briefly, acknowledging her caution, before he turned toward the window. She could see the worry in his eyes.

“What is it? Aphrodite will be able to stop it, won’t she?”

“If the army knows—” He stopped, unable to say the words. “There are fifty rebels there. More than enough to take the wagons with minimal struggle. But if the army sends a regiment . . .” He shook his head as if trying to free himself of the notion. “If Aphrodite makes it in time, she can stop them. But Carlisle is three hours from here. Longer by night.”

Panna cursed herself for her delay. “But what if she doesn’t make it in time?”

“Let us pray she does.”

Panna clapped a hand to her mouth as the realization came to her. “She doesn’t know
why
Carlisle has to be canceled. She doesn’t know the army knows.”
Why did I have to be so damn scrupulous?