“Ah, aye!” Tavish interrupted and caught sight of the man in black turning his head ever so slightly toward them. He reached into the wooden barrel behind the bench and withdrew two bright spheres, presenting them to Audrey as if they were Scotland’s crown jewels. “Forgive me. Here you are.”
“Oranges,” Audrey said stiffly.
Tavish smiled and then indicated with his eyes the stranger now turned fully toward them. “From Spain.”
Understanding dawned at last in Audrey’s eyes. “Oh,oranges! How lovely! Thank you, Master Cameron—father will be so pleased.”
“Perhaps you might return later in the day to see if I’ve any left,” he suggested. “It’s all theStygianreturned with on this latest voyage. Silk. And oranges.”
Audrey Keane nodded smartly and then dared to give him a wink as her maid took the tied bundle from Mam. “I will most certainly do that. I do hope,”—she paused a moment, met his eyes and lowered her voice—“there are…more.”
“Good day to you now, Miss Keane,” Mam said pointedly through her smile.
The redhead only glanced at Mam. “Mistress Cameron.” Then she turned and left the shop, trailing her expensive skirts and her young maid behind her through the open doorway and up the stone steps to the bustling spring street above.
“She wanted one of those filthy books you promised her, nae doubt,” Mam hissed low at his side as she rewound the hairy twine she’d cut. “I doona ken why you’d waste space on such rubbish. She canna even read, I’ll wager.”
“’Tis nae filthy, Mam,” Tavish murmured. “’Tis a single volume of poetry, easily carried among the bottles. You know as well as I that Audrey reads quite well, much to Master Keane’s dismay. You’re only salted because you canna read such stuff yourself.” He watched the man move to the other side of the shop.
“Och,Audreyall the day now, is it?”
“That’s her name.” Tavish felt beneath the bench top for the familiar smooth handle of the baton he kept, his eyes never leaving the stranger while his mother’s mumblings about the dangerous wiles of Audrey Keane faded into the hum of the street noise beyond the shop walls.
Tavish guessed the man in black to be approximately his own age—a score and ten, perhaps a few years more. His profile revealed a high, sloping forehead with prominent brow and cheekbone, a Roman nose above a noble looking chin. Certainly, the man’s grooming was impeccable, his long, black hair tied at the nape with a dark-colored silk ribbon, both of which nearly disappeared against the plush quilting of the man’s fine gambeson. He was successful—or wealthy, any matter—considering his black suede leggings filling the shining leather boots. The stranger’s belt was wide and equipped; long gauntlets hung from his right side, his weapon on his left—a lengthy arming sword with shining silver pommel, its leather-wrapped scabbard stretching from hip to mid-calf. This was no home-forged, crude weapon.
Nay, this was no ordinary stranger.
So the burgess had hired a foreigner to do his dirty work for him, had he? Tavish took firm hold of the baton and slid it silently from its hiding place, holding it down by his leg.
“—Audrey Keane since she was in braids and you’d think Captain Muir and yourself would—” Mam broke off her hushed tirade. “Tav?”
Tavish’s eyes followed the stranger as he ambled ever closer to the bench, his eyes still seeming to peruse the bundled wool.
Mam wrapped her fingers around his arm, seeking his attention, but all he would allow her was the slight angling of his ear toward her.
“What are you thinking you’ll do with that?” she whispered, shaking his arm for emphasis. “Is it your plan now to beat those who come to hire you?”
“He’s nae here to hire me, Mam.”
“And how would you be knowin’ that?”
“Only look at him,” Tavish said. “Nosing about the place, eavesdropping on my business with Audrey. Someone’s sent him.” Mam’s silence told Tavish he’d no need to explain his meaning. “Perhaps ’twill deliver a clear message to the burgess that I’ll have no more of his threats and his thieving, do I send his hired man back to him with a glen in his skull.”
Now his mother’s fingernails dug into his arm. “You hush, now! Hush! Doona speak of such things! The burgess will jail you and take everything we have—everything you’ve worked so hard to build.To keep!”
“I’ve a revelation for you, Mam—’tis the burgess’s intent to take it all any matter. TheStygiancanna so much as anchor at Leith—as if I were no better than a common pirate.” His mother gave him a look from the corner of her eye, but he ignored it. “I’ll have nae more of it, I say.”
“And I’ll nae have my only child hanged!” She pinched the inside of his elbow hard enough to make him wince, and then, before he could stop her, Mam had shoved past him and was gone from behind the bench, approaching the stranger.
“Good day to you, sir,” Mam called out, leaning at the waist as if to draw the man’s attention.
He turned and gave Mam a short, courteous bow that took Tavish a bit by surprise—usually those sent by the burgess possessed little in the way of manners. “Bonjour. A good day to you, Mistress. Forgive me for not greeting you sooner; I had no wish to encroach upon a private conversation.”
Any good will kindled by the stranger’s courteous French greeting to Harriet Cameron was quickly extinguished by the remainder of his address, spoken with a proper, clipped accent.
An Englishman.
“Oh,” Mam cooed, causing Tavish’s bad temper to increase. “Well! How verra kind of you! That’s only my son, though.”
