Page 12 of The Tartan Trap

Dear Ruth,

Last night we didn’t have dinner again. It’s a wonder that I ever took food for granted. Some nights, I lie awake, stomach grumbling, and wonder if this isn’t some sort of punishment for all the times I sent a plate away with food left upon it. I wonder if any of our servants were hungry enough to snatch a morsel from those plates. But then I remember that they were earning good wages at the time. It’s ironic that in many ways, we are now far lower than our former servants, as we don’t have the opportunity to work and earn the way they did…

Callum frowned, flipped a few pages forward, and read:

Dear Ruth,

Today I saw someone I knew at the market. It was just a maid who once served me tea, but I wonder if she recognized me, dressed as I was. Sometimes, I can convince myself that my former life was nothing but a dream. And then something will happen to remind me that it was real. Only, the stark difference between my existence now makes the past feel like something I imagined.

The writer’s words called to him, entranced him. Callum looked around, wondering if the authoress—for the penmanship clearly marked the writer as a woman—was nearby. He half expected to see a middle-aged woman running toward him in a threadbare gown, trying to prevent him from reading further. But he was alone in the shop.

Perhaps he should return it to the counter? Certainly it was a mistake that had deposited the used journal upon the shelf. Yet as soon as the idea reared in his mind, he instinctively rejected it.

Callum flipped to another spot and read:

Dear Ruth,

Can I admit how guilty I feel for not selling you before you are all spent, while your pages might yet be of some value? Still, I cannot help but think that you are far more valuable to me than you ever would be to someone else. Today, the men came again. They took the breakfront that father bought mother so many years ago. * watched them take it, but I couldn’t bear it.

Who was this woman? Callum couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so curious about anything. He flipped and skimmed, flipped and skimmed for many moments. In the background, he was dimly aware of the bell above the door ringing.

Dear Ruth,

It is far easier to be gracious when one has plenty than when one has little. It’s no damage to one’s pride to cheerfully give, but it dents my pride exceedingly to accept charity with a smile on my face.

When we had money to spare, I used to take supper to the children at the orphanage twice a week. I never told you that before, did I? I suppose it was because I thought keeping it a secret—even from you—would keep the purity of the act intact. Charity isn’t charity if one announces it from the rooftops—then it becomes something else, entirely.

“A lovely day, is it not?” a melodious voice said at his shoulder.

Callum jerked, reflexively clasping the journal to his chest as if someone were trying to snatch it from him. But it was just two ladies dressed in fine, frilly gowns, giving him unsubtle, sidelong glances as they staged a conversation for his benefit.

“To be sure, though I prefer sunshine,” the brunette said.

Dear heavens, they’d found him. Again.

Callum gave a brisk nod in their direction even as he frowned. Now that he’d lifted his head, he realized that the duo were not the only female presence in the shop. There were several such groupings.

It was well past time to go. Callum picked up the first blank journal he laid his hand on, then moved to the counter to pay his bill. Thankfully, the shopkeeper had already wrapped the other items for him, giving him a meaningful, understanding raise of the eyebrow when Callum shoved the journals into his overcoat pockets instead of handing them over to be wrapped, and paid the entire bill.

For one moment, Callum felt bad that he was buying the used journal without informing the shopkeeper of what he’d found. Then again, it had been out in the shop as if it were for sale, and he was paying for it, so it could hardly be called stealing.

“I simply love perfumed paper,” someone crooned behind him, too loudly for a casual conversation.

Callum felt his eye begin to twitch. The Season hadn’t even started yet, and already the ladies were nipping at his heels like a bunch of dogs set on a fox. The thought entered his mind again—he could pack and leave London before nightfall. He might be able to make the inn at Edgeware before midnight. Even that distance would put him well out of reach of these perfumed hounds.

“Thank you, my lord,” the shopkeeper said once Callum had paid. “And good luck to you.”

Callum would have frowned at him for his sheer impudence, but he didn’t dare risk the seconds it would take to do so. The bell over the door jangled merrily once more, and now there was a veritable herd of pastel-clad creatures blocking the doorway.

Callum gritted his teeth even as he hefted a smile onto his face and made his way to the door, careful that he didn’t allow his eyes to linger or his legs to brush anyone’s skirts. If he’d come this far to find a wife, he wouldn’t risk anything that might see him entrapped by some harpy he barely even knew.

“You’re back,” his cousin called from the front parlor some time later. “I was about to send out the footman. Afraid you’d been abducted by some ambitious mother, you see.”

Callum frowned down at where his cousin lay sprawled on one of the tufted leather sofas. “Are you already in your cups? We haven’t even had dinner yet.”

“What else is there to do in this blasted city before the gun signalling the start of the races goes off?”

“The gun?” Callum frowned and sat across from him on the other sofa.