Sleepless in Scotland Page 8

  He bowed his head and took his leave. As he began to climb from the carriage, however, she touched his hand.

  “Thank you,” she said again. “Thank you for this book. I shall treasure it and care for it.”

  He took her fingers in his.

  “The book is quite unimportant in the grand scheme. What I want you to treasure and care for is your own safety and well-being.”

  She watched him walk away from the carriage. He and Duncan exchanged a greeting as the two men passed each other. Phoebe’s attention turned to the manuscript on her lap, and she wondered if Captain Bell would be searching for a map or a manuscript relating to Greyfriars Kirkyard next.

  It was her own fault. She’d given him plenty of reason to worry about her. She wondered if the time would ever come that he’d be calling on a social visit instead.

  “I hope this is worth all you paid,” Duncan said, climbing to the carriage and handing her a thin packet.

  Phoebe’s eagerness regarding what was inside was gone. Her thoughts still dwelt on the man who’d just left. She looked out the window in time to see Captain Bell wheel his horse about and ride off toward the Grassmarket.

  Chaos broke out in an instant. The end of what appeared to be a weapon poked through the carriage window. Phoebe jerked back out of the way as Duncan leapt across her lap and caught the wrist of the hand holding it. A boy’s yelp rang out on the street as the constable yanked the arm in, twisting it fiercely.

  “Fock me,” the voice cried out in pain. “Fock, yer hurting me. Nay, don’t! I meant no harm.”

  Phoebe grabbed the object that had been pushed through the window. Recognition brought enormous relief. Her walking stick. The one she’d used on the killer and lost.

  “Don’t hurt him.” She leaned closer and put her hand on Duncan’s arm.

  The same thin, hairless face, the same cracking voice caught between boyhood and manhood. She had but one clear look at him that night, the moment he’d glanced over her shoulder in fear at his pursuer, but she had no doubt.

  “I know him.”

  Duncan eased the pressure on the arm but didn’t release him.

  “You’re alive. Good Lord, I’m so happy to see you’re alive.”

  She’d thought the worst. The loss of any life was tragic, but to think of someone this young murdered by a ruthless killer had eaten away at her faith in humanity.

  “Aye, alive ‘cept for I’m about to have my arm broke off.” He yelped again as Duncan sat back, pulling him securely against the outside of the carriage. “I found your stick. I was just giving it back.”

  “What’s your name?” Phoebe asked.

  He tried to pull free instead of answering her.

  “Answer the lady,” Duncan threatened, encouraging him with a slight twist of the wrist.

  “Jock.” He grimaced. “Jock Rokeby.”

  “Where do you live, Jock?”

  The boy had no interest in answering. He tugged and pulled instead.

  “There’s a gang of them, m’lady,” Duncan answered under his breath. “They live down there. Some of them born in the Vaults. Others forced to dwell there. None of them doing any good in the world.”

  “So this what I get for doing good?” Jock griped. “Lemme go.”

  “I can help you,” Phoebe said urgently, her mind racing to figure which of Jo’s houses could handle a boy his age. Unfortunately, none immediately came to mind; they were prepared to accept women and children. Still, she’d figure out something.

  “Aye. Fine. I thank ye, m’lady.” Jock’s tone was considerably less hysterical. “Folks is looking. If yer bruiser here’ll let me go, I’ll sit nice with you and we can talk.”

  Phoebe nodded, waving off Duncan as he began to protest. The constable let go of the arm and pushed the door open. The boy was off and running like a long-legged rabbit.

  Phoebe immediately jumped out, ready to go after him, but Duncan’s hold on her arm stopped her. A moment later the lad had disappeared down Cowgate.

  “You’ll never catch him, m’lady. Him and his gang know every nook and cranny from the Grassmarket to Leith Wynd.” He released her arm and backed away a step. “Nights, they go down to the Vaults.”

  Phoebe recalled the boy’s screams the night of the attack. The same thing could happen again. A killer haunted those Vaults. “He’s in danger there, Duncan.”

  He nodded. “No argument, but that’s his lot. And those urchins know who comes and goes. That’s how he found you. Let him be.”

  They might know the secrets of those underground byways. They might know how to survive among the addicts and the gamblers and the others who frequented the Vaults, but Jock couldn’t protect himself against the kind of demonic force they both faced down there. No one could.

  “But I can help him.”

  “We’ve had this talk before, m’lady. You can’t save all of them by giving them money or shelter. That’s all ‘here today and gone tomorrow.’” The former constable held the carriage door open for her to get back in. “But maybe you could do something by putting to use what’s in that packet from Leech. What do you say?”

  * * *

  “A gaping chasm has opened in the earth and swallowed me up, Millie,” Phoebe said. “There’s no bottom to it. I just keep falling farther and farther into an endless gloom.”

  “You’re being extremely dramatic.”

  Phoebe didn’t think she was being either extreme or dramatic.

  “What I’ve written is no good to me. I can’t use any of it.” She tossed the packet of papers she’d gotten from Leech onto the table and started pacing the room again.

  After the incident in which she found young Jock Rokeby was alive, only to have him run away, Phoebe was more motivated than ever before to write this article. Perhaps there was something she could do with her pen. True, it might be of no help with Jock’s immediate future, but it could help so many others.

  After she dropped Duncan off, she’d begun to peruse the documents the clerk had given the former constable. That was when the abyss yawned beneath her.

  By the time she arrived at their Heriot Row town house, Phoebe was distraught, and Millie had quickly ushered her into the library.

  “Even what I know to be true is useless. These documents have ruined me.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Millie asked, picking up the papers and sitting on a chair to go through them. “What happened?”

  For her entire life, for as long as she could remember, the injustices and cruelty inflicted on the poor had given her family a cause to fight. Her father, the Earl of Aytoun, had been champion for the victims of the Highland clearances, battling his peers over the mass evictions and the cruel treatment of tenants. Their mother, having found Jo as an infant in a vagrant camp near Baronsford, had immediately adopted her and raised her as their own. Jo’s own efforts in creating a home for women and children at the Tower House in the Borders, as well as supporting similar homes in Edinburgh, were exemplary.

  Phoebe remembered clearly the day she’d decided to get into the fight. One summer day less than a year ago, while hunting through the library at Baronsford for something to read, she’d come across a pile of yellowed decades-old copies of a weekly publication named The Bee, which reported statistical accounts of Scotland and parish information on the poor.

  In one edition, a writer named James Anderson compared the treatment of poor in England and Scotland, concluding that the system in the south was “groaning under the influence of laws” aimed at punishing the poverty-stricken, whereas he considered the destitute in Scotland were “abundantly supplied with all that their wants require.”

  Knowing how the poor were treated in Scotland, Phoebe had become incensed. If one person could use his pen to create a rosy portrait of a terrible situation, she’d decided, then she could use hers to report the truth.

  And then, several months ago, news had come that a Select Committee from London was to visit soon. Immediately, she’d he
ard the report that the charity houses in the city and in Glasgow had begun to turn out the old and the sick. In an effort to look like a model of benign efficiency, only the healthy, hardworking, and satisfied poor would be seen during the visit. No inadequacies would be displayed.

  It was a travesty that Phoebe had intended to expose. Until now.

  “These minutes of a meeting held in Bailie Fife’s Close are quite damning,” Millie said as Phoebe paced back toward her. “The members of the Edinburgh City Parish are in attendance, and they give the directive.”

  “Exactly! Bailie Fife’s Close!” Phoebe wailed. “Why does this need to be from the Orphan Hospital? Why couldn’t he give me the minutes for a meeting at the Charity Poorhouse in Port Bristo or Canongate Poorhouse? I’m certain Leech took the minutes for all of those meetings.”

  Millie paged through a few more sheets. “I think what you have here will serve you well. One can safely assume the suggestions coming from the parish were the same for every institution scheduled to be visited by the London Committee.”

  “No. What’s in there is no good to me.”

  “I understand the people of Edinburgh have a fondness for this institution, since it’s the oldest charity in the city,” Millie said reasonably, continuing to leaf through the pages. “But what you’re writing is a commentary on governance in the city. You’re not discrediting the good these places do.”

  Phoebe took the document out of her sister’s hand and showed her the page that had created such havoc in her mind. “Here. Read these names.”

  “The list of the board of directors.” Millie scanned the names and then she looked up in surprise. “Captain Ian Bell.”

  “A benefactor and a director of the Orphan Hospital,” Phoebe said, wringing her hands.

  “Do you think he could have known about the eviction of the sick? According to the minutes, he wasn’t in attendance at this meeting.”

  “Of course, he couldn’t know,” she snapped, suddenly angry her sister could think for a moment he was capable of such cruelty. “He volunteers his time. He donates his money. And he does all of it quietly with no need for accolades. But can you imagine the consequences if I wrote an article that exposed all of this? His name would be dragged into it.”

  Phoebe threw her hands in the air and resumed her pacing again. She didn’t know which upset her more right now. Not being able to complete her column or the probability that writing it would besmirch Ian’s name.

  “What are you going to do?” Millie asked.

  “I can’t cause him more agony after what he’s suffered. Not after everything he’s gone through, losing his sister like that.” And not after saving her life, she continued silently. And, Lord help her, not after how she’d begun to feel for him. “I have no choice. I can’t write the column.”

  Millie sat in silence, looking intently at her. They were only two years apart in age, and Phoebe knew her sister’s expressions too well.

  “Come out and say it.”

  “All right.” Millie organized the papers on her lap. “If it had been any other person, you’d have written the article. But Captain Bell is different. Finally, there exists on this planet a man who has some influence with you.”

  “He has no influence,” she protested. “My decisions are mine. My own conscience dictates right and wrong. I simply cannot justify doing an injustice to a man of good character while attempting to expose this problem.”

  She wasn’t going soft.

  “So you think Captain Bell is a good man?”

  “Of course he is. And you know it too.”

  “And you think he’s handsome?”

  “You know I do. And you do too. And so does every woman in Edinburgh with two eyes in her head.”

  “But you’re the woman who encountered him in the Vaults. And you’re the only one who danced with him at the ball. And I don’t recall anyone else spending time with him in the garden that night.”

  Phoebe had said nothing to her sister about their kiss, only telling her that Captain Bell assumed she was a novelist like their aunt Gwyneth and that he’d been very understanding.

  “Oh, that’s not all,” Millie continued, not allowing her to interrupt. “You told me he followed you all the way across the city to the Grassmarket, just to bring you a gift today. And you’re going walking together to Arthur’s Seat.”

  “But you’re coming with us.”

  The young sister sighed. “Admit it, Phoebe. Captain Bell has an influence with you because you like him. You always have. But there is no ‘happily ever after’ in sight the way things stand now. You haven’t entrusted him with the truth.”

  She wanted to argue that Ian’s assumptions weren’t far from the truth. But with Millie, she couldn’t pretend it was so, so Phoebe stayed silent.

  “He is showing extraordinary interest, but are you suited for each other? You’re headstrong and stubborn, and I suspect he is too. You have an independent spirit, but his life has taught him to take command.” She laid the stack of papers to the side. “But the most damning part is that you have a talent for pushing men away. You intimidate them.”

  Hearing the truth hurt. Millie stood and embraced her before drawing back and looking intently into Phoebe’s face.

  “I am happy for you. I truly am. But your relationship with the captain has the potential of being either a very romantic love story or a heart-wrenching tragedy, depending on what you do next.”

  “What I do next?”

  “Yes. To have him, to keep him, you need to consider making a compromise . . . in your life and in your writing and in what you want for your future. You have to change.”

  Compromise. Phoebe wondered if Millie and Grace had already been talking. Everyone wanted her to change.

  * * *

  Trust, the foundation of society. Trust binds one person to the other. Trust lifts people up and makes them whole. Trust creates faith in a leader and belief in heaven.

  Trust is what leads the lamb to slaughter.

  He hadn’t set out to kill Sarah Bell. His blade was still hot from the kill, and the voices had grown silent. But when he emerged from the wynd and turned onto the South Bridge, she saw him. They stood face-to-face. There was no mistaking. No passing by. They exchanged greetings. She expressed her surprise at seeing him. She looked curiously at the clothes he only wore in the city. She was visiting with a friend who was in the shop, she said. Why was he there?

  She was trusting. Luring her down to the Vaults was simple. He mentioned a name she knew. She was hurt, and he was going for help. If she would accompany him and stay with her for a moment. Down this wynd. Through here. Be careful on these dark steps.

  She felt little pain. He’d known her since she was a child. But she had to die.

  And now this one. Phoebe Pennington. She saw his face, and that made her a threat. To him. To everything he needed to do.

  He would be patient, find his moment, and then strike.

  Chapter 7

  Lady Millie Pennington received Ian with a manner that could only be described as open and friendly. After telling him that her sister would be down shortly, however, she offered her apologies for not being able to join them for the outing. She had another engagement, but she’d be pleased to accompany them next time, if they desired it.

  Ian was frankly pleased with the arrangement, but the irritation darkening Phoebe’s expression as she sailed down the stairs and into his carriage suggested her feelings were somewhat different.

  As they started across town toward Arthur’s Seat, he waited for the cloud to pass, but her continued silence indicated there was no foreseeable end to her mood. When he attempted to engage her in light conversation about the neighborhood and the day and their destination, she was largely unresponsive for much of that too.

  “We can go back,” he told her finally. They’d reached the foot of Calton Hill. Beyond the Bridewell Prison, Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags rose majestically in the distance. �
��You and I alone. With no chaperone. If you’re at all concerned—”

  “Do you really think I give a straw about what others might think of us walking out together?” she asked, interrupting him.

  He raised a brow, watching the storm brewing behind her deep blue eyes and expecting more thunder to follow. “Well?”

  “My sister, if you must know. I’m upset because we were arguing before you arrived.”

  “I couldn’t tell from Lady Millie’s welcome and hospitality that there was any problem.”

  “That’s because she is just like my mother,” Phoebe groused. “She has no difficulty speaking her mind, ordering me about. And she has no right. She’s younger than I. She disagrees with me, causes me to lose my temper, and then I rage at her like a fishwife. And through it all, her poise never falters. She never shows that she’s upset at all. It’s infuriating.”

  Ian sat back in the seat, admiring Phoebe’s flushed cheeks. Over the cream-colored muslin dress, the blue spencer jacket she wore matched the color of her eyes. She was punishing the reticule she held in her lap. She turned her gaze out the carriage window. Her lips were moving, though the murmurs were usually inaudible, and the ribbons of her straw bonnet danced beneath her chin in agreement.

  “There should be some advantage to being fourth out of five children, one would think.”

  He waited, sensing the answer was not his to supply. He was correct. She continued her dialogue as if he were not there.

  “Should be is clearly not the same as is!” She cut down a dozen pedestrians with her fierce frown. Luckily, they were unaware of the injuries they suffered. “Shouldn’t I have authority over someone in my family?”

  “Pardon me for breaking in.” Ian tapped his boot against her foot. “But are you upset because of the lecture Lady Millie gave you or because you think you might have hurt your sister’s feelings in the course of that discussion?”

  She started to reply but stopped. Her lips immediately thinned, and her chin dropped.

  Ian thought of his own family. No father to take advice from. No brothers to argue with. No sister to care for and spoil. Only a mother whom he continuously lied to with the hope that sparing her the pain of the real world would somehow keep her alive and reasonably content. He had none of the familial connections that defined Phoebe Pennington’s life.