Charity’s fingers curled tighter, feeling all of her insecurities come to the surface.
“I don’t want to ruin them by saving them,” she said. Her sisters were the most important thing to her, and she felt that her worst insecurities were erupting.
Duncan looked at her for a long moment.
“You won’t,” he said as if he had the answers to everything.Infuriating,and comforting. “But you will ruin yourself if you stay here arguing with me all night instead of resting. Tomorrow you’ll need your head.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Charity’s breath shook a little.
“It’s just straightforward.”
Duncan waited till Charity was asleep to leave the room. He could not explain the strange protective instinct that he felt for this woman, only that he could nothelphimself. But when she finally slept, he tucked out of the room and went downstairs to the inn.
“A drink,” Duncan said to Malcom, whom he had spotted across the room.
“Aye, I reckoned ye’d come lookin’ for one,” Malcolm replied, sliding the mug across without rising, “Though if ye mean to sit there and brood over it, ye can do that upstairs in comfort…”
Duncan took the mug and sat, letting the silence stretch for half a moment before he spoke again.
“Did you find them?” he asked.
Malcolm’s grin faded into something more serious at once, and he leaned forward, forearms on the table, lowering his voice. “Aye,” he said. “East wing, second floor, two rooms along the same passage.”
“Who’s watching?”
“Nobody much,” Malcolm said, and there was a quiet contempt in the way he spoke it, as if even the idea of a man keeping young women penned behind doors disgusted him.
“Two footmen and a maid, though I doubt she’d stop a cat from sneakin’ past, never mind anyone with sense. He’s got pride, but he’s nae got money, and it shows.”
Duncan took a slow drink.
“You left the note?”
“Aye,” Malcolm replied. “Slipped it under the door when the maid stepped away for a minute, and I waited long enough to see the shadow move on the other side, so I ken they saw it before anyone else did.”
“What did you write?” Duncan asked, because Malcolm’s idea of a “note” could swing between practical and provoking. Though Duncan still trusted him fully.
Malcolm’s mouth twitched as if he might have teased him again, then thought better of it.
“I told ’em Miss Charity’s safe,” he said. “She came back for ’em, and I told ’em I’d be back in an hour to bring ’em to her, but they’d best come quiet, because if they start shoutin’ and stampin’ about, the whole house’ll wake and then it’ll be your uncle’s hands on their arms instead of mine.”
“They’ll come,” he said, setting down the mug with controlled care.
“They’ll argue first,” Malcolm replied, shaking his head, “But I’ll handle them.”
Duncan’s gaze flicked around the room once, then back. “Then we go?” he said, standing.
“Now,” Malcolm agreed, rising too, the humor gone from him entirely, and it struck Duncan how easy Malcolm made the shift from easygoing to dangerous when it was needed. “If we wait till the last minute, we’re relyin’ on luck, and I’ve never trusted luck a day in my life.”
They left without drawing notice, stepping into the cold as if they were only two gentlemen venturing out innocently, then took the darker way back towards Edward’s estate, keeping to hedgerows and shadow because there was no sense in walking boldly down the center of the road when the night could hide them just fine. The house looked worse in the dark, the windows dim and uneven.
“See,” Malcolm muttered, eyeing the crooked line of the roof. “He’ll keep the front polished, so folk think he’s still grand, but he cannae afford the rest of the lie.”
Huh.Malcolm had a point. The Viscount had a knack of keeping up appearances but being hollow underneath.
“We should try to be quiet,” Duncan remarked.
Malcolm lifted one hand slightly, as if to sayaye, aye, and led them to a side door, opened it with a practiced lift-and-push.
