“Once is enough.”
“I could have outrun them. I was just about to…”
Niall crossed his arms, making her aware of the powerful muscles in them and how broad his shoulders were. How stronghis hands were, too, and how quickly he’d handled his knives. As much as she hated to admit it, his presence had stopped what could have been a bad situation. Probablywouldhave been a bad situation…well, all right. It would have been bad. She cringed inwardly as Niall just stood there, waiting.
“I suppose ye might be right.”
“Mightbe?”
Annie scowled. She hated admitting she was wrong. “I might not have been able to outrun those men, even though they were overweight.”
“’Tis nae what we are talking about.”
She grimaced. “All right. I owe ye a big ‘thank ye’ for following me. This time.”
“Ye owe me nothing, lass.” Niall shifted his stance and tucked her hand inside his arm to begin walking. “The next time ye promise to wait for me, do it.”
Annie looked up at him. “Only if Ipromise. I’ll nae have ye ordering me about like a wee bairn.”
Niall shook his head and grunted something unintelligible in Gaelic. Annie decided not to ask. Besides, she needed her strength to keep walking for, suddenly, her knees were shaky.
****
Annie Ferguson was going to drive him completely barmy. Niall was sure of it. He’d probably be sprouting gray hair soon if he stayed in Glasgow much longer. In the four days that had passed since the incident on Virginia Street, the lass had managed to lead him all over the city, attending a meeting of the Progress Club at the tearoom and a visit to the museum that housed, of all things, legal documents related to the Magna Carta, as well as taking him on not one but three outings to look for a proper bonnet, which she hadn’t found. Not that she wore bonnets to begin with. Niall suspected Annie was deliberately trying his patience with escorting her everywhere.
Well, he hadn’t survived growing up with nine rowdy, devious brothers not to know a thing or two about biding his time.
But tonight was different. This wasn’t just another wild goose chase. Somehow, Aileen Douglas, the club’s president, had managed to secure ten minutes of speaking time during the Tuesday night meeting at the Trades Hall. Niall had been wary when Annie told him about it, but she’d insisted that a representative of the chairman had personally approved the request that all of them—Annie, Aileen, Cora, Fenella, Nairna, Kiara, Deirdre, and Inis—were allowed to attend.
Just to be sure there was no question that he was escorting the women and was prepared to defend them, Niall had chosen to wear his full tartan, complete with broadsword and several knife sheaths on his sporran belt. Not to mention leaving the handles of the sgian dubhs in his boots visible.
His apprehension only increased as he followed the ladies up the staircase to the Grand Hall. The first thing he didn’t like was that the stairs appeared to be the only exit. As they stepped inside the crowded room, the din of voices fell to a hush as the men realized they’d just been invaded by eight women. Women who held their heads high and marched, nearly in unison, toward the front of the room without looking right or left. The ensuing rumble of voices grew increasingly louder, and Niall didn’t like the tone of them, either. He fingered his blades as he sat down at the end of the front row of chairs that the ladies had claimed. Skilled as he was, he was no match for the large gathering. For once, he would have liked to have all his brothers with him.
A man—Niall supposed it was the chairman—appeared at the front of the room and gestured for the others to take their seats. An uneasy silence fell, but Niall could still hear harsh whispers. He really wished the women had decided to sit near the back,both because they would be closer to the exit and because they wouldn’t draw so much attention. But then, attention was what they wanted, wasn’t it? Niall resigned himself to shifting his chair slightly so he could have a partial view of the men behind him.
“What are those women doing here, Mr. James?” one man asked before the meeting could start.
“This is not a social gathering,” another one added, to which a number of men concurred with loud murmuring.
Mr. James frowned. “It seems we have some unexpected visitors.”
Unexpected? Niall felt his ear perk up like a buck scenting danger to his doe. He glanced at Annie beside him and kept his voice low. “I thought ye said this had been approved.”
“I thought it was.”
“Yethought? Ye were naesure?”
“Well…” Annie shrugged. “The man Aileen talked to said he’d mention it to Mr. James.”
“He’dmentionit…” Niall let his voice trail off and raked a hand through his hair. By the devil’s horns! Did the lass not realize the danger she was in by infiltrating this meeting uninvited? The weavers had just finished a strike and the tailors and hat-makers were two trades the women had recently targeted. If their chairman didn’t welcome the women, things could take an ugly downturn quickly. Didn’t Annie realize that? Or was she just too stubborn to care? Niall didn’t need anyone to answer that question. “We should excuse ourselves and leave.”
Annie looked at him as though he were a foreigner not speaking English. Then her expression changed and when she spoke, it was in the tone one might use for a rather dimwitted bairn.
“We came here specifically to speak. We cannae—willnae—leave before we accomplish that.”
Niall suppressed a Gaelic curse. Barely. “Well, have Aileen get on with it, so we can go.”
“Oh, Aileen is nae going to speak. I am,” Annie said and rose to move forward before Niall could reach out to stop her.
