Provoked (11 page)

It was a forceful reminder of why the lad was here.

“Listen—I have some news for you,” David said impulsively. He’d been swithering over whether to share his suspicions about Balfour with the lad, but suddenly it seemed wrong to hold them back.

Euan’s head came up at that. “News?”

David proceeded to tell Euan about his unexpected meeting with Balfour at Chalmers’s house and the mention of Bella Galbraith at the dinner table. He didn’t tell Euan that he’d met Balfour before that night, nor did he mention their argument on the way home. He concentrated instead on the facts that Bella Galbraith’s father had once been an advocate, that Balfour knew her, and that Balfour himself was a tall, dark, anglicised Scot.

“It must be him,” Euan said excitedly when David was finished. “This man is Lees.”

“Not necessarily,” David said carefully. “There are many men like Balfour in Edinburgh. Rich Scots who come home infrequently. And he certainly didn’t seem to be harbouring a passion for the girl—just mentioned he was going to call on her.”

“Well, of course he wouldn’t speak of his feelings at a dinner with strangers! He only told Peter about the girl because he was drunk. I’m sure it must be him, but even if not, Isabella is certainly real, and she will lead me to him!” The lad was vibrating with excitement, the grief all chased away now. “When will I be able to see him, do you suppose? I met Lees a couple of times. I’m positive I’d know him again.”

Something in David cavilled at Euan’s wish to see Balfour, even though he knew it was ridiculous to object when David was the one who’d raised the possibility that Lees and Balfour were one and the same. He felt suddenly sober.

“Chalmers’s daughter mentioned an assembly she’s going to this Saturday with Bella Galbraith,” he said slowly. “Lees might be there, I suppose—whoever he is.”

Euan was now flushed with excitement. “Could we go to this assembly?”

David paused, considering. “It may be a public assembly I can purchase tickets for. I’m not sure, but I can find out easily enough. You’ll need to wear some of my clothes, though, and behave like a gentleman.”

Euan nodded eagerly. “Whatever it takes. I’ll be guided by you.” He paused, then added earnestly, “And I will repay you for the tickets. It will take some time, but I swear you will not be out of pocket.”

David shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, it’ll be a few shillings at most.” When Euan opened his mouth to protest, David continued determinedly. “But I do need something from you.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to agree to be cautious. I know you are eager to confront Lees, but you must understand that—whoever he may be—he will not be like you. His business is violence and deceit. You cannot assume that he will act honourably—”

“You don’t need to worry,” Euan replied, frowning. “I’m not the innocent you seem to think I am.”

“When I was your age—”

“All of four years ago?” Euan laughed and shook his head. “Look, Davy, I’m not from a wee farm village like you. I grew up in a rough town. You had to be tough to get by there. And I was. I
am.
”

David sighed. “Just be careful. Promise me you won’t do anything rash without telling me.”

“So long as I tell you first, I can be rash, then?” Euan chuckled, suppressing his smile when he saw David’s frown. “All right. I promise.”

After a brief silence, David asked, “Where are you sleeping just now?”

Euan looked away, seeming embarrassed. “I have a place,” he said. “It’s just a share of a room, a place to bed down at night, but it does me all right.”

“Where is it?”

“Not far from here—just at the other end of the Cowgate.”

David could imagine what it would be like. A tiny room in a filthy close housing ten times as many people as it was fit for, most of them likely drunk, poor beggars.

“You could stay here if you like. I’ve plenty of—”

“No.” Euan’s tone was implacable, his expression all offended pride.

“Fair enough. But the offer stands, if you ever need it.”

Euan insisted on going soon after that, promising to return in a day or two. He slipped out David’s front door and went down the dark stairwell, as insubstantial as a shadow, and as quiet.

David thought of Euan making his way down the steep hill to the Cowgate where it lurked at the bottom of Blair Street. David had started his life in Edinburgh down there, as a student. All life was there, from skilled workers trapped there by the capital’s high rents, to manual labourers and students eking out a living, to the poor and the destitute living in loathsome poverty, stuck away in half rooms and hidey holes.

Euan was walking down the hill of Blair Street right now, down into darkness and filth and rows of rickety tenements that looked like bent old women. What a world away from the New Town, with its grand townhouses and symmetrical architecture. What a world away from all that privilege and power.

David straddled those worlds now. Poised at the top of Blair Street, perched on the edge of the Old Town’s squalor, ready to fly. Desperate to fly. Even as guilt made him look over his shoulder and wonder what he’d lose when he flew, and if he’d ever regret its loss or just be glad to have left it all behind him.

Chapter Nine

“Do you think he’ll be there tonight?” Euan asked while David tied one of his own cravats about the lad’s neck. In the four days since David had last seen him, Euan seemed to have become even more convinced that Balfour must be Lees.

“I don’t know,” David said patiently, adding, “I hope you’re remembering your promise.”

“Of course,” Euan replied. “I won’t do anything rash—not without speaking to you first.”

“That’s good. And you’ll need to keep an open mind too. Murdo Balfour and Lees aren’t necessarily the same man.”

“That too,” Euan said, though he seemed distracted.

“Remember, the key is Isabella Galbraith.” David stepped back to eye Euan’s appearance with a critical eye. “We might be able to gauge something from her reaction to Balfour.”

“Or his reaction to her.”

David shrugged. “Yes, but be alert to other men around her. Don’t only look at Balfour.”

“I won’t—if I get in.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s a public assembly, we have tickets, and you look very respectable. Don’t tug at your cravat.”

Euan dropped his hand. “It feels tight,” he complained. “And these shirt points keep poking my chin.”

David smiled. “If you were a fashionable young gent, you’d think those shirt points far too low. You should see how high some wear them.”

Euan snorted disdainfully. “Well, I’m no’ one of that lot,” he exclaimed, his cultivated accent slipping with his scorn.

“Tonight you are,” David said firmly. “Tonight you’re James Grant, a minister’s son studying in Glasgow and visiting me.”

“I know, I know. But I feel like an idiot,” Euan muttered.

David clapped him on the shoulder. “You look fine.” He looked better than fine, actually. In the tailored clothes of a bookish young gentleman from a decent family, he looked carelessly handsome, if a bit thin, his good looks more obvious now that he was clean and well dressed.

“Come on,” David said, settling his hat on his head. “George Street’s a bit of a walk.”

Thankfully it was a dry night, though cold. They walked briskly, arriving at the Assembly Rooms to find themselves in a crowd of patrons awaiting entry. Young ladies in pastel gowns fluttered around, chattering like a flock of birds while watchful mothers and put-upon fathers looked on. The gentlemen arrived in twos and threes, greeting each other heartily while surreptitiously watching the ladies.

There was no one David knew among the waiting patrons. He and Euan stood side by side, silent amongst the merriment as the crowd moved slowly forward.

Eventually they gained entry to the ballroom. It was a huge room, second only, David had heard, to the Great Room in Bath. It was amazingly bright too, glowing with the flickering light of what looked like hundreds of candles. Candlelight made everything look so much better than it really was, David thought. It softened all the harsh angles of daytime things, hiding imperfections and flattering the plainest faces.

“Come on,” David said, tugging Euan’s arm. “Let’s get something to drink.”

He paid a few coins for two cups of punch—weak, cloudy stuff—while Euan stood stiffly beside him. They sipped the stuff as they watched the entrance to the ballroom for new arrivals.

Would Balfour turn up? Surely he would. He had intimated as much to Elizabeth Chalmers over dinner after all. But perhaps he was just being polite? Perhaps even now he was in bed with some pretty, willing boy? That thought made David feel oddly hollow, and he found himself wondering how it might have been if he’d accepted Balfour’s invitation the other night. If he’d walked up those stairs with him and gone into his house, into his bedchamber. Stripped for him and dropped to his knees again.

Realising he was growing hard, David thrust his thoughts away and drained his cup of punch, wishing it was whisky. He returned his attention determinedly to the entrance.

It was almost a full hour before they saw anyone David knew, and it wasn’t Balfour. It was Elizabeth Chalmers with her mother and next oldest sister, whose name David had already forgotten.

When Elizabeth spied David, her ordinary face lit up with a bright smile, and she raised a gloved hand at him in a tiny wave. Mrs. Chalmers noticed Elizabeth’s distraction, and her gaze followed her daughter’s, a frown drawing her eyebrows together when she saw that David was the object of the younger woman’s attention.

He bowed at the three ladies, eliciting bobbing curtseys from Elizabeth and her sister and a cold nod from their mother before she brusquely moved the girls along without detouring to allow them to speak to David. Elizabeth sent him a regretful glance as she trailed her mother.

“Who’s that girl?” Euan asked, staring after them with an arrested expression.

“Which one?”

“The one who smiled at you. With the sparkling eyes.”

David smothered a smile, amused that even single-minded Euan could be distracted by a pair of sparkling eyes. “She’s the girl who’s friends with Isabella Galbraith—Elizabeth Chalmers. The other girl is her sister, and the older woman is their mother.”

Euan considered for a moment. “We’d better keep an eye on them, then.”

“We’ll do better than that,” David replied. “We’ll ask them to dance. This is an assembly, you know.”

Euan looked horrified, hunted. “I don’t know how to dance,” he said under his breath.

“Surely you know some country dances?”

“I know lots of them but not any of the ones that are being done here! None of this looks like dancing I’ve seen. Don’t these people know how to enjoy themselves?”

David smiled. He knew what Euan meant. This was nothing like the village dances he’d attended in Midlauder when he was a boy. They’d been both tamer and wilder. No question of an unmarried young man directly asking a single girl to dance with him, though it might be arranged with her parents’ agreement. But when the women danced without the men, they lifted their skirts to their knees and laughed and sang, and when the men danced without the women, there was yelling and whooping and such a carry on. More sport than grace in it. David smiled to remember those days. William had loved showing off at such affairs, undertaking absurd feats, like the time he balanced on top of a pyramid of men, swaying at the top so much it made David’s gut clench with fear, even as he laughed. He used to grin at David as they danced with the other men, white teeth flashing, all cocky and handsome. William’s father would’ve been mortified if he’d known his son was fraternising with the tenants and labourers. And worse.

This assembly was very different from those long-ago Midlauder dances. The small twelve-piece orchestra was well dressed and played the music at a stately pace. The dancing was elegantly restrained. And yet the purpose of the evening—to snare a marital prospect—was, if anything, more obvious. Almost offensively so. Something businesslike about the way the dances were transacted, the young ladies’ time doled out in small measures. As though they were goods in a grocer’s shop to be sampled. Two ounces here and four ounces there.

David’s attention began to drift, his gaze traversing the crowd for what felt like the hundredth time, when his attention snagged on a dark, familiar head.

Balfour was half turned from him, deep in conversation with an older lady. His profile was strong, unmistakable. The straight blade of his nose and that firm, determined jaw. The sweep of black hair across his brow. When he smiled at his companion, it seemed to David that the room brightened, as though a sudden breeze had caused the candles to all glow just a little bit more. Balfour’s evening clothes seemed twice as elegant as anyone else’s in some unidentifiable way. He seemed more assured, more powerful. Taller, broader, more arresting. Even his smile was more engaging. He was simply…more.

Just as David came to that conclusion, Balfour turned his head, and their gazes met.

For an instant, Balfour’s expression showed genuine surprise—dark brows elevating, eyes widening—and David felt a surge of satisfaction to have caused that small reaction. But just as quickly, Balfour had himself under control, regaining his customary expression of lazy amusement and raising his cup of punch in a mocking toast.

“Jesus Christ!”

Euan’s soft exhalation in David’s ear distracted his attention. He turned to the younger man, who was staring across the ballroom at Balfour. Balfour himself had turned back to his own companion. Had he seen Euan? Recognised him?

“Is it him?” David asked, his mouth suddenly dry, a gnawing fear growing in his belly. In his absorption, he had almost forgotten why they were here.

“Yes, I—I think—God, I don’t
know
.” Euan frowned, uncertain. “If it’s not him, it looks damned like him. I need to get a closer look.”

David felt suddenly shaky, and his heart was racing. He realised with some dismay that he’d desperately wanted Euan to say no, Balfour wasn’t Lees. How absurd. Why should he care one way or the other?