next part. May did not tolerate being told what to do under the best of circumstances. ‘I am to be with you at all times and, if not, I need to know where you’ll be, when you’ll be there and who you’ll be with.’ He had to look at her now. The temptation was too great.
She shook her head and the storm broke. ‘I will not be treated like a small child who can’t be out of her mother’s sight on the off chance this Cabot Roan might come looking for me. So if you’ll excuse me, I have vegetables to put away before they wilt.’ May’s eyes flashed and she turned on her heel, presuming to walk away.
Liam reached for her, grabbing her arm, forcing his body to absorb the shock of touching her again after so long. ‘This is not the time to be stubborn, May,’ he growled, determined to make her see reason.
Her gaze went to his grip on her arm, her voice sharp. ‘Take your hand off me. I will not allow you to be my gaoler.’
‘Not your gaoler, May, your bodyguard. Please, May. This is not about what you want or even what I want. This is about Preston, about keeping Mistress Fields and the baby safe.’ It was his best argument, this appeal to pathos. May would do anything for the ones she loved, the ones who needed her protection. It was yet another way she was like her brother.
Some of the fire went out of her eyes and she relented. ‘How long before we know if Roan is coming?’
Liam shook his head. ‘We don’t know. He could come tomorrow, perhaps he is just a day or two behind me. Perhaps it will be a couple of weeks or months depending on how long it takes Roan to discover where you are.’
‘Perhaps he’ll never come.’
‘We can hope for that.’ The odds weren’t convincing. He knew Roan. The man was tenacious.
May wrapped her arms about herself and shivered in spite of the wool shawl she wore. It was cold out, the day brisk even for November, but he thought the shiver was from something more than the weather. ‘We’ll have to tell Beatrice.’ She shot him an accusing glance. ‘You could have told her inside.’ Now that she had her information, she could indulge in the scold he’d sensed was brewing earlier. ‘You didn’t have to hold back. You can trust Beatrice.’
It was his turn to go on the defensive. ‘How was I to know if I could trust her or if it would be too upsetting in her condition?’ He had his suspicions about Mistress Fields and her seafaring husband, but he wasn’t going to voice them out loud and risk alienating May. He had more important battles to win today.
‘I had only an acquaintance of minutes to rely on for my judgement. I erred on the side of discretion for the sake of the baby.’ If Beatrice Fields had secrets, it was hardly any of his concern. In his line of work, he’d learned women had secrets just like men, and like men, they, too, could be dangerous creatures. He wasn’t going to underestimate anyone simply because they were female. At the moment, his only interest in Beatrice Fields was her connection to why May was in godforsaken Scotland.
‘I’ve told you what I know, now it’s your turn. What are you doing here? Why didn’t you stay in Sussex with the family after the wedding?’
‘That should be obvious. Beatrice needs me. She can’t deliver a baby on her own.’ May fidgeted a little and looked past his shoulder out to the field. There was more to this than the loyalty of friendship.
‘That’s what doctors and midwives are for. Have you delivered many babies in the last five years, then? With a gun in one hand, none the less?’ Liam pressed. May wasn’t lying—May never lied, not even to spare a man’s feelings, so he had learned. But she wasn’t telling him quite the truth either.
‘This is the wilds of Scotland. Two women on their own can’t be too careful. I wasn’t expecting company, that’s all,’ May snapped. He realised it was as close to an apology as he was going to get for being greeted with a pistol.
He arched a dark brow. ‘I disagree. No one carries a pistol when they’re not expecting anything. I think you were expecting something—trouble, perhaps?’
‘Trouble doesn’t follow me everywhere,’ she began.
‘No, it doesn’t. You follow it, as I recall. There was that incident with the oak tree, the rowboat, the cigars—need I go on?’
‘I was precocious in my younger years.’ Her cheeks burned with the admission. He shouldn’t have teased her. She would hate having her adolescence thrown in her face as much as he would.
‘I’d wager you are still precocious.’ His tone softened and he allowed himself a smile. It was dangerous to let himself entertain even a moment of nostalgia where May was concerned. ‘I always liked that about you, May. Never afraid of a challenge, which leads me to conclude that’s really why you’re here. You’ve followed your friend into exile perhaps, as you say, to help her birth this whelp, perhaps to thumb your nose at your parents and society. Perhaps a little of both. But, there is something more. Neither of those are a particular challenge to you.’ He was quiet for a minute, studying her, searching for the answer. He hadn’t ferreted out the real reason she was here. ‘What is Mistress Fields going to do with the child?’
‘Raise it. It’s what you do with children,’ May said too sharply. He’d hit pay dirt.
‘Hence the need for the pistol,’ Liam surmised with no lack of sarcasm. ‘She’s afraid her family will come and take the child from the home of a woman with only an errant husband to provide for her.’ With no man in the house, a protective, financially secure family would want to see a child raised in far safer circumstances. Assuming there was a husband at all—he had his doubts there, but no proof.
‘No one will take it,’ May said firmly, her eyes locking on Liam’s, her reckless stubbornness in full bloom. May thought she could hold off Beatrice’s family with a gun and the two of them could play house and raise the baby on their own. It was an admirable goal even if it was a bit over-innocent in its assumptions. Two women alone would be prey to all sorts of mischief. May didn’t know true danger. He never wanted her to know it.
Something protective stirred in him, something he didn’t want to acknowledge. There’d been only trouble down that path last time he trod it. May Worth wasn’t for him. She was beautiful and headstrong, naïvely confident that she could overcome anything. That was what money and a good family could do for a person—create the innate belief that you were as close to immortal as one could get. There wasn’t anything you couldn’t conquer. He didn’t want the world to crush that out of May.
They stood in silence, the wind picking up around them. May shielded her eyes and looked towards the empty road, Beatrice and her dubious husband forgotten. ‘You think he’ll come.’ She let out a deep breath.
‘Yes, I do. But I’ll be here, May. You needn’t worry.’ In that moment he wished it were all different; that he hadn’t been born a poor, Irish street rat, the unwanted son of a St Giles whore, or that he hadn’t aspired above his station, that Cabot Roan didn’t pose a threat to her, that he hadn’t had to come here and endure the exquisite torture of being in her presence. It was a moment’s whimsy only. All he had to do was remember how they parted and the anger would come rushing back, the resentment. In the end, class and wealth and privilege had all proven too big of a chasm to cross. When it had counted, she hadn’t wanted him. Even five years later, she still looked at him as if he was the biggest mistake she’d ever made.
‘I wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been for Preston.’ Perhaps if he defined the rules out loud they would
