“Excuse me, sir,” one wee bespectacled miss said in clearly outraged tones, her short curls fairly vibrating in her agitation, “but what do you think you are doing accosting Miss Athwart?”
“I wasnae accosting her—”
But another of the ladies cut him off, this one much closer in height to himself, though still not nearly as tall as he, a full-figured woman with hazel eyes that were pure fire. “We shall not allow you to put hands on her,” she snapped, stepping in front of Seraphina like some avenging fury.
And yet a third joined in the fray, this one sporting jet-black hair and a frilly apron and brandishing a teapot as if she would bash him over the head with it. “Go now, and leave Miss Athwart alone, or you shall have us to deal with.”
Iain found himself at a loss. He had never been cowed in his life. His great size and rough appearance typically put most people off with a single look.
Yet these three women, surrounding Seraphina and looking as if they would gladly fall on a sword to protect her—not to mention the blasted bird, who had its green wings outstretched menacingly and was looking at his ear once more with a frightening degree of malicious interest—had him stepping hastily back.
“Verra well,” he said, before looking at his wife. “Seraphina, I do hope you reconsider talking to me about certain matters. I shall nae leave Synne until you do.”
With that he spun about, leaving the four women—and the bird—to stare after him.
Chapter 4
Who the devil does he think he is?”
“Are you all right?”
“Did he hurt you?”
Her friends’ questions came fast as they led her away from Iain, their concern for her and outrage over Iain’s mishandling of her obvious. Not that his brief hold on her arm had been rough or cruel. No, it had been incredibly gentle. But old fears were hard to bury, coming up at the most inopportune times, and though she had known deep inside she had nothing to fear physically from this man—she had never feared him, despite his massive size and frightening visage—that had not stopped that instinctive reaction.
Bronwyn, Honoria, and Adelaide continued to fuss about her like angry mother cats, and Seraphina realized distantly that she should have been warmed by their worry for her. The Oddments, the name her group of friends hadgiven themselves as a kind of retaliation against the ridicule and disdain shown to them by much of society for leading unconventional lives, were some of the most important people in Seraphina’s life. Her love for them was second only to the love she felt for her sisters.
Instead, however, she could only feel a strangling panic rise up as they brought her ever closer to the Quayside. Not that Iain was still watching them. And not that it would be difficult for him to find where she lived and worked. If, she thought bitterly, he didn’t already know, as it seemed he was fully aware of her presence on Synne and had come with the express purpose of locating her.
But the thought of her sisters, kept safe for so long here in this little slice of England, being found out had that familiar panic rising in her chest, and all she could think about was protecting them at all costs. No matter it had been years since they’d been forced to flee from their father’s men, no matter that they were well past their majorities and their father should not have any legal hold over them. She had made a vow to herself to keep them safe, and she would continue to do so until her last breath.
But how to redirect her friends without stirring suspicion? No matter how she loved and trusted these women, she had never been able to confess the truth of her past or the hell she had escaped from. No, not even her sisters knew the whole truth of it.
Just then, however, she spied the teapot still gripped defensively in Adelaide’s hand. Miss Adelaide Peacham, proprietress of the Beakhead Tea Room, had no doubt run from her establishment to come to Seraphina’s rescue. And that, she decided, was where they would all return.
“Adelaide,” she said, loud enough to be heard overtheir heated questions, “aren’t you supposed to be at the Beakhead?”
The reaction was instantaneous. Adelaide gasped, nearly dropping the plain white ceramic teapot. “Oh goodness. Lady Tesh will have my head.”
At mention of the dowager viscountess, the matriarch of the Isle of Synne and one of the most terrifying, strong-willed women Seraphina knew—no doubt a reason she liked the older woman so much—the entire group gave an instinctual flinch and immediately turned about, heading back for the Beakhead. But Seraphina’s relief was short-lived. As they entered the cozy tea shop, the bell jingling merrily as they threw the door wide, she realized she would not only have to contend with her friends’ questions about Iain and how she knew him, but she would also have to deal with Lady Tesh inserting herself into the conversation as well.
That woman did not waste even a moment before she started in on Seraphina.
“Miss Athwart,” she said, raising one silver brow imperiously, “come and sit beside me, and explain just what all the fuss was about that had everyone up and leaving me quite alone here.”
As Seraphina sank into the chair beside the dowager viscountess she cast a look about the Beakhead. Alone? Hardly. Half the tables were filled with customers, the two girls who worked for Adelaide busy seeing to them, not to mention Lady Tesh’s small white dog, Freya, who was sitting on the chair on the other side of her, looking as imperious and self-important as the dowager herself.
“My apologies, Lady Tesh,” Adelaide said, face flaming. “It was horribly unprofessional of me, and shan’t happen again.”
But the dowager merely waved her hand in dismissal. “Never mind that, Miss Peacham. It is commendable, after all, that you are so very loyal to your friends. And you both as well, Miss Gadfeld, Your Grace,” she drawled, looking to Honoria and Bronwyn in turn as they resumed their seats across from her, “no matter that you were supposed to have been my guests for tea.”
She turned her piercing gaze back to Seraphina. “What I do wish to know, however,” she continued, “is what happened toyou, Miss Athwart, that caused these three women to up and run out of here as if their skirts were on fire.”
Seraphina, face going hot, reached up for Phineas, urging him to step onto her hand with a small nudge under his downy belly so she might have something else to focus on besides Lady Tesh’s too-perceptive gaze. She brought the bird close to her face, running her fingers over the bright red crest on his head, down the brilliant green of his back. Phineas looked back at her steadily, his yellow eyes calm, and she took strength from him. He had been through so much—theyhad been through so much. Surely they could get through this, too.
“I merely had a run-in with an old acquaintance,” she finally replied, because, really, she had to saysomething. And there was no sense in keeping the pertinent information from Lady Tesh. The woman had ears everywhere and would eventually find out the truth of it—or at least as much as everyone else on Synne already knew. Which was blessedly not much at all.
But the dowager, in her typical quick-minded fashion, would of course recall that Seraphina had been incredibly close-lipped about her past, and so it was no surprise that the woman took that one small morsel of information and held on tight, like a dog with a bone.
