He’s not safe here, and neither are you.”
“Nor you, sister. Fawkes will take out my desertion on you if I leave. Either I give him what he wants or we flee together.”
My sister was as horrified as I was by the thought of Fawkes possessing me merely to exercise his power over our family. Perhaps even more so. She remembered more vividly the lifestyle we had once led, of dignity and civility; she valued and coveted this ideal more than any other, as our mother once had. “You are not for sale, Amelia. ’Tis not an option.”
“Neither is leaving you behind! You must come with us.” Sebastian Fawkes was one of the most powerful ganglords in Edinburgh. A man who hungered for power and would go to any lengths to gain it. A man who enjoyed the chase, the game, the fear in the eyes of those he sought to better. Myself included. I had intrigued him from the start. My looks and my insolence had fueled his conquest. My family’s predicament had given him the perfect avenue to gain the upper hand when I’d refused to engage him. He could have forced me, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to own me in every possible way. By whatever means necessary. “I’ll not leave you here alone to fend for yourself.”
“I’m not alone, Amelia. James has taken a shipment south, but he will return for me. If I leave, we’ll lose what little we have left. My place is here. I have to see this through.”
“Your place is with us!” I insisted. Not as bait, to lure me back. None of this mattered: this club, the shreds of our livelihood, this city, with its confining, unending hardships. My sister was much more involved in the underworld, mostly by default, than I was. Her husband, James, over time, had fallen further and further into the abyss of debt. He had become a pawn and a runner in a dangerous game. Despite it all, Cecelia was loyal to him, for all that he had tried to do. My mother’s ingrained sense of duty to home and husband, to keeping up appearances at all costs and to stubborn perseverance had manifested themselves strongly in her eldest daughter. Cecelia held doggedly on to some tattered hope that all was not lost.
And she would not listen.
“Please, Cecelia,” I begged her. “Please come with us. I’ll not go without you.”
The banging at the door down below was growing louder, the commotion gaining momentum.
“You can, and you will,” she insisted. “You are the strongest person I know, Amelia. You’ll rise to the top no matter what you do, or where you go. Take Hamish, I beg you, and don’t look back. They’re coming. Hurry!”
The pounding at the door gave way to a smash and a flurry of voices. Fawkes was earlier than his promises had indicated. Much earlier.
The noise was getting louder. And closer.
“Take him!” she cried, urgent. “I know what Fawkes threatened you with, and what he’s capable of. He’s taken my husband to keep me here, to keep me quiet. I have to wait for James. You must go. Go and don’t look back. Keep him safe, Amelia. Please. I beg you. Do whatever it takes to keep him safe.”
Cecelia gave me a brief hug. And then she ran in the opposite direction.
There was no more time to argue with her. If I waited any longer, my opportunity for escape would be lost. It might already be lost.
I woke Hamish. Quickly and quietly, I led him to the library down the hall. Closing and locking the door, I pulled him toward the bookcase. I knew where the latch was. Behind a black leather-bound book about, of all things, the deciduous trees of the British Isles. I’d read it only once, in my quest to learn every shred of knowledge I could get my hands on. But it was hardly riveting material. Which was precisely why I had put it in this space, hiding the latch that would release the bookcase from its frame. I had discovered the secret portal many years ago, when I’d been searching for something to read. At that time, a small red book had sat there, almost conspicuously, bringing attention to itself. Its pages were blank except for these words: Be free. The small red book became one of my most treasured possessions. I used it as a journal, to record my innermost thoughts and restless dreams, of a life far from Edinburgh’s backstreets, away from the lowlife and the immorality, to a place more serene and forgiving. This small library had set me free many times over in my imagination, through books, fantasies and aspirations. Now it would, I could only hope, deliver a more literal sense of the word. I pulled the bulky shelf forward, exposing a hidden passageway. Loud banging on the door nearly undid me. I could hear Fawkes’s voice. Calling for me. Threatening me with his vengeance and his obsession. My heart was in my throat. The lock was rusted with age; it wouldn’t hold for long.
“Why are we running, Ami?” Hamish had whispered. “Where is my mother?” I pushed Hamish into the narrow passageway, barely fitting through it myself, pulling it closed behind us until I heard the click of the lock. We were in the dark staircase now. “These men have less than honorable intentions,” I had replied to him, once I was sure we were well out of range of being heard. “For me. Your father is exporting a shipment to England and your mother waits for him. We will meet up with them again when it is safe to do so. Until then, we must find a safe place, far from here.”
Feeling our way down, drawing our fingers against the rough-hewn wooden walls, we reached the bottom of the staircase. Cautiously, I turned the key, opening the door to a dark underground tunnel, which led us to a hidden doorway, far down the back alley and away from the building itself. There were shouts from around corners. Unseen commotion called for us, seeking us out. We ran through the backstreets, toward the northern edge of town, putting as much distance between us and them as we could. After a time, we’d stopped for a moment, out of breath. It was then that we saw a farmer’s wagon, pulling away from a small stables, half filled with hay. We climbed on as it began to roll. And we had done it. I had escaped him. For now.
“I was so afraid,” I whispered. And I was no longer lying. I had been afraid. More afraid than I’d ever been in my life. The tears in my eyes were not an act and they pooled before I even realized what was happening. I had not cried since we’d fled, not a single tear for the displaced disaster my life had become, or for my sister, whose fate I could not know.
I didn’t know why I was crying now. I did feel overcome with emotion, aye, but I also wondered if I was reacting to Knox Mackenzie’s authority by playing on his manly concern. This was the sort of reaction I might have staged in the past, although this time my feelings felt unnervingly authentic. Annoyed with myself for showing such overt vulnerability, I wiped the tears away, wanting to temper my weakness with a show of resilience. I had a job to do, I remembered: deception in the name of survival. I imagined telling him the truth, and his reaction.
I’m a card dealer, Laird Mackenzie, and a gifted one at that. I’ve resided in one of the less prosperous gaming clubs in old Edinburgh for the past ten years, using my blossoming feminine wiles to deceive the less-skilled, downtrodden gamblers, conning them out of money to keep my family off the streets. I can count cards, curse in French and drink a half-inebriated man under the table. Are you charmed yet? Offer me a job, Laird, and look after my nephew for me while I travel unchaperoned back to Edinburgh to see if my sister is being held against her will by an evil ganglord.
Nay, the truth would be best kept quiet. “We hid, and we escaped,” was all I said on that topic.
Knox Mackenzie was watching me intently. Little rays of kindness seemed to be shining through the veneer of his staunch authority, as though he wanted to contain them but couldn’t. “You’re safe now,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of here inside the walls of Kinloch.”
Here he was, this prodigious, controlling laird and warrior, offering not only protection, but solace. Safety. It was such an unfamiliar mood for me: that of
