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Cal was tempted to watch as she descended the ladder. He would have had at least a flash of her ankles and perhaps seen more than that, but he wasn’t in the habit of playing Peeping Tom. He knew plenty of women who were more than eager to take off their clothes for him. He didn’t know why he should give one who was thorny as a hawthorn bush any notice.
Except for that kiss...
That kiss meant he couldn’t not notice her from now on.
She reached the end of the ladder where the last rung or two had broken off, forcing him to jump down when he’d descended. Cal caught her about the waist, just as she would have jumped, and lifted her gently down. She stiffened as soon as he put his hands on her, but for whatever reason that didn’t deter him.
He did take a step back once he released her. Her red hair might have been a fire about her face. Her eyes were as hot as pokers. “In the future, please refrain from touching me without permission, Mr. Kelly,” she said. Cal would have described her as seething. If he’d been at home in London, and she a woman there, he was fair certain she would have planted him a facer. Hard to imagine she was the woman all but melting in his arms a few minutes before.
“Forgive me, Miss Murray. Me chivalry sometimes gets the better of me.”
She rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Baron, who was watching the two of them with an amused expression. “This way,” Baron said, indicating with his hand. Miss Murray led the way, but when Cal would have followed on her heels, Baron put a hand out. “You go last.”
Cal didn’t argue. Better to give the lass some space. She was clearly overwhelmed by the kiss they’d shared.
A moment later, he put thoughts of Miss Murray aside as Baron stopped before a metal door set into a metal casement. The rest of the cellar seemed to have been carved out of the soil and rock, but this was not natural. Baron took a key from his vest and placed it in a lock. The door swung open with a creak, and Miss Murray then Baron entered. At first glance, the room inside was surprisingly large. The three of them had plenty of room to spread out, and there was space for a table where a man with a hat pulled low over his forehead sat beside another man whose head rested on the scarred wood.
The first man rose. He didn’t speak, but he nodded to Baron and Miss Murray. Without acknowledging him, she moved off to the side, where a smaller table had been set. She lit the lamp and opened her notebook. She certainly knew how to be unobtrusive. Cal, on the other hand, felt woefully out of place. He didn’t understand what he was doing here or what was expected of him.
“I’ve brought you someone who speaks Gaelic,” Baron told the man in the low hat.
Cal felt, more than saw, the man’s eyes shift to him.
“Can he be questioned again?” Baron asked.
“The physician has seen him.” The man spoke for the first time. He had a cultured voice, which was gravelly and low.
“The verdict?”
“He needs rest to heal from his wounds.”
“Then we won’t press him too much tonight.” Baron gestured to Cal to sit at the table. Cal obeyed, taking the chair offered him, that closest to the man whose forehead still rested on the wood. The other man and Baron took the remaining seats.
Baron cleared his throat and looked at Cal. “Ask him if he was compromised.”
“Why can’t you ask him?” Cal said.
“Because I don’t speak Gaelic.”
Cal’s Gaelic was far from polished. He hadn’t spoken it in some time, but his mother had spoken it to him when he’d been a child. He understood it well enough. He thought for a moment about how to ask Baron’s question then leaned forward and murmured the question in Gaelic.
At first there was no response from the man. Cal glanced at Baron for more direction, but Baron’s gaze was fixed on the seemingly unconscious man. Cal tried again, this time asking a bit louder.
Slowly, the man turned his head, his long hair hanging in dirty streaks across his face. The hair obscured the man’s features but couldn’t completely hide the blood trickling from a cut by his eye or the swelling around his nose. Cal had seen the effects of violence before, and he didn’t recoil, but he couldn’t help but wince.
The man nodded his head, though Cal could imagine the action pained him. Still, it was simpler than answering as there was not one word for yes or no in Gaelic, and the man would have had to repeat Cal’s question, more or less. “He says yes,” Cal said.
“I can see that.” Baron’s gaze was still on the Irishman.
“Ask him about our operatives. Have they been compromised?”
Cal asked the question, and the man raised his head. His bloodshot eyes bore into Cal’s. Surprise flooded through Cal as he realized the man had one blue eye and one brown. “They’re dead,” he said in Gaelic.
Cal suppressed the shudder that worked its way through him.
“What did he say?” Baron demanded.
“Your men are dead.”
