Provoked (19 page)

“But?”

David grimaced. “But the woman was real, and she
was
key to finding him. And now my friend knows where he is.”

“The woman was Isabella Galbraith,” Balfour supplied, expressionless.      

“Yes.”

“And your friend is the young man from the assembly.”

David said nothing.

Balfour stared at him for a long moment. “Why are you here?”

“I made my friend promise that if he found the man he sought—Lees was the name he went by—he would speak to me before he did anything. He was reluctant, but he promised. Today he came to me and fulfilled that promise. Now he is free to act.” David paused, looking away. “I hadn’t intended to let him confront Lees without me, but—we both fell asleep, and when I woke, he was gone.” He flushed then, realising how that confession sounded.

A muscle twitched in Balfour’s jaw. “And now?”

“I fear my friend will be harmed. I came to you hoping you would be able to give me Lees’s direction. I have to go after Euan. He has no idea what he’s dealing with—”

“Why are you doing this?”

David gazed at the man, nonplussed. “I don’t want him to be harmed. He’s just a lad. Innocent.”

Balfour’s lip curled. “You are infatuated with him.”

David shook his head, staring at the man lounging before him in disbelief. “I am asking you to help me save him. I fear for his life, Balfour. I don’t need much—just an address. I’ll go there myself.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“No, I don’t,” David snapped. “The man Euan is going to confront incited men to do things that resulted in them being executed. What might he do to a hot-headed boy who faces up to him?”

Balfour’s dark eyes moved over David’s face, searching for something. Whether he found it or not, David did not know. After a moment, Balfour slowly turned in his chair and reached for the servants’ bell. A footman soon appeared. Not Johnston this time.

“Have the carriage brought round,” Balfour ordered. “I will be ready in five minutes; then Mr. Lauriston and I will be leaving for the Imperial Hotel.”

The Imperial Hotel was several miles away, near Holyrood. Balfour’s carriage made short work of the journey, and as they travelled, he gave David a potted history of the man David thought of as Lees—Balfour’s cousin, it turned out.

“Hugh is the son of my father’s youngest sister. She eloped with a redcoat before she was officially out—my father was furious—but the marriage was certainly fruitful. Hugh is one of seven. However, my uncle is far from wealthy, and Hugh always knew he’d have to make his own way in the world. I think he was happy enough about it, till he met Isabella Galbraith.”

“He fell in love with her?” David asked.

“So he told me, when I finally caught up with him the other day.”

“You didn’t know before then?”

“I’ve been half courting her myself. I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known.” Balfour sounded indignant at the idea.

“So how did he come to spy on the weavers?”

Balfour said nothing for several long beats of time. Then softly he uttered, “My father.”

“Your father?”

“My father is the most ruthless and ambitious man you could ever hope to meet.” Balfour sighed. “What the purpose of all his intrigue is, I’ve never been able to understand, but it’s what he lives for. He sees everyone as a pawn in his game. He’s used me in the past, but I don’t allow it anymore. He really ought to have been one of those great Elizabethan men, poisoning courtiers and plotting regicide. He’d have loved that.”

“As it is, he’s had to lower himself to transporting weavers?”

Balfour shot him a steady gaze. “That’s about the size of it. My father’s part of the inner circle of government. The government sees radicals as a threat and has been using agents to flush out the most dedicated ones.

“Hugh approached my father about Isabella Galbraith more than a year ago. He knew her father and mine were close friends, and he hoped my father would speak up for him with Isabella’s parents. He was also hoping my father would find him a lucrative position in government. My father did neither. Instead he recruited Hugh into this game.” Balfour laughed then, though without humour. “And he said nothing to Isabella’s father. I suspect when Hugh drew her virtues to my father’s attention, my father decided that she would make
me
an ideal wife. It was his idea I court her.”

“Did you know Hugh was working for your father?”

“I found out a few months ago, from my aunt. She came to see me and begged me to find Hugh. She wanted to get him away from my father’s influence. She guessed he was embroiled in something dangerous but didn’t know what.”

“So you came up from London to find him?”

“It’s why I was in Stirling the first night I met you.”

David felt his face flush scarlet at the vivid memory of that night and was glad of the shadowed carriage interior.

“And did you find him there?”

“No. I hadn’t seen him for months when I caught sight of him on the street last week. He led me a merry dance, I can tell you, before I finally ran him to ground.”

“And when you did?”

Balfour said nothing for several moments, and David couldn’t make out his expression in the dark. “We didn’t part well,” he said at last. “Hugh wants to believe in my father. He wants to believe all this hasn’t been for nothing. That he’ll get his Bella, in the end.”

The carriage drew to a halt before David could question Balfour further—they had reached the Imperial Hotel. Balfour made no immediate move, but reached inside his greatcoat and drew something out.

“Here.”

He presented a knife to David, the blade pointing at his own breast, the hilt at David.

David frowned. “I don’t want that,” he said, shaking his head. “Or need it.”

Balfour made an impatient noise. “Don’t be a fool. You’ve said you fear this confrontation may turn violent,
ergo
you may need to defend yourself. I have one of my own and a pistol too.”

David’s gaze jerked up to Balfour’s face. The man looked grim but resolute. He was right, and David knew it, but the thought of violence sickened him.

“If you wish, you can wait here,” Balfour added. “I don’t mind going in there alone. I’d prefer it, actually.”

David flushed with shame. He reached out and took the knife. He hadn’t paused to find his gloves before he came out, and the steel hilt felt cold against his fingers. He weighed the blade in his hand. When he was a boy, he’d always had a knife on him. He used it every day in his work about the farm, for a hundred and one tasks. He’d never considered using it against another human being.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he bit out. “Of course I’m going in. If anything, you should be the one to wait in the carriage. This was my idea, after all.” He bent over and slid the knife into his boot.

“Be careful—” Balfour began.

“I know how to handle a knife!” David snapped, exasperated, jerking upright again.

Balfour stared at him for a moment, and the corner of his mouth slowly hitched. “I beg your pardon,” he said at last. “Shall we go, then?”

David nodded stiffly, and Balfour tapped the roof of the carriage with his cane. The coachman pulled back the grille, and Balfour instructed him to wait for them round the corner.

As the carriage rumbled away over the cobbled lane, the horses’ hooves clipping at a decorous and stately pace, David cast his eye over the building. The Imperial Hotel did not live up to its grand name. High and narrow, the grey walls boasted only a few small windows. The roof was topped with steep, crow-stepped gables, little staircases that led up to empty sky. This structure was a creature of the Old Town. No hint of classicism here. No columns, no arches, but all higgledy-piggledy steps and stairs, and the windows placed only where needed.

“Come on.” Balfour’s voice interrupted David’s reverie. The bigger man was already walking to the front door, and David had to hurry to catch him up.

Balfour rapped on the stout wood with his silver-topped cane in sharp staccato.

The door was finally opened, after a second round of rapping, by a bad-tempered-looking fellow whose demeanour transformed to one of obsequious good humour when Balfour gave him a coin and drew him aside. Balfour handed over several more coins during their murmured conversation, in return, David presumed, for information and, ultimately, the fellow’s departure through the very door he’d opened to them.

“He’s making himself scarce for half an hour,” Balfour explained at David’s look of enquiry. “Come on. I’m told Hugh’s room is on the third floor. Number twenty. Our friend doesn’t know if he’s in or not, so we’d better approach quietly. I’d like to have some idea of what I’m going to be walking in on, if possible.”

They climbed two sets of rickety stairs and found themselves in a cramped, poorly lit corridor. One candle flickered, ready to gutter out, by the look of it, in a sconce on the wall. The rooms up here were smaller and closer together than on the floors below, the ceilings lower. Balfour placed his forefinger against his lips, and David nodded, but despite their best efforts at silence, their booted feet inevitably made some noise on the worn floorboards.

Halfway down the corridor, they reached a room with the number twenty painted on the rough wood. From inside came the rumble of angry voices. Hugh was clearly not alone, but it was difficult to make out words. The building might look ramshackle, but the walls and doors were thick enough. Balfour pressed his ear against the wood and listened for a few moments, then pulled back, a concerned frown drawing his brows.

“We have to go in,” he whispered.

David’s heart raced faster, his breath growing short and shallow. He stepped forward and pressed his own ear to the door, straining to make out what had made Balfour look so worried. There was no talking, but he heard an unmistakable grunt of pain and reared back, as though burned, shooting an alarmed glance at Balfour.

“Our friend told me the locks are feeble,” Balfour murmured. “He suggested a determined assault on the door if we had to get in.”

“You can’t be serious,” David hissed. “The door looks very stout.”

“I was assured otherwise,” Balfour whispered back. “And what else can we do?”

David bit his lip. Balfour was right.

“Get ready to come in straight after me,” Balfour whispered, pressing himself up against the opposite wall to give himself as much of a run up as possible. It would only be a couple of strides, but Balfour was a big, burly man after all. He put his hand in his pocket and drew out his pistol, nodding at David’s boot. David reluctantly bent and pulled out the knife.

Ready?
Balfour mouthed.

David swallowed and nodded, heart pounding.

Then Balfour charged.

Chapter Fifteen

Balfour’s shoulder struck the door, the heft of his big body slamming into it. With a loud splintering sound, the door gave way and flew inwards, smacking into the wall on the other side as Balfour rushed in, David on his heels.

The two occupants of the room jerked round to look at the invaders, the flash of shock across each face for a moment identical. There was half an instant of perfect stillness when David’s mind struggled to take in the picture before him. It was all wrong. Euan was no victim here. He was standing tall and aiming a pistol at the other man, who was kneeling some distance away. The kneeling man—as large and powerfully built as Balfour—wore only a nightshirt, his hands interlaced behind his head. There was a cut at his temple that oozed blood and the early bloom of several bruises on his face.

David’s gaze shifted to Euan. He looked almost as bad as he had a few hours ago as he’d stood at David’s door. His coat was filthy from sleeping on the ground, his face shadowed with weariness, but something held him upright—the same thing that made his eyes burn with conviction as he considered David and Balfour.

“Murdo—”

This was from the captive. His eyes were wet, his expression slack with relief.

“Keep your eyes on me,” Euan snapped, and the man turned his head back.

Balfour took one slow step forward. He held his pistol away from his body, pointing the muzzle at the floor.

“If you take another step, I’ll blow his head off,” Euan said flatly.

Balfour stilled. “All right,” he said, his deep voice even and slow. “We only want to talk to you.”

Euan gave a short, humourless laugh. “Is that so? That’s just what we’ve been doing, haven’t we, Lees? Having a nice talk about how you betrayed my brother and all his friends.”

Hugh closed his eyes and swallowed, the momentary relief from seeing Balfour all washed away.

“Euan, listen to me—” David began. The knife felt wrong in his hand.

“I said don’t move,” the younger man shouted, even though David hadn’t shifted. “Don’t take another step, Davy, or I swear—” He broke off, incoherent.

Balfour’s hand landed heavily on David’s shoulder. “Careful,” he murmured.

“Why did you come here?” Euan exclaimed. His eyes went briefly to Balfour before he returned his gaze to the kneeling man. “And with
him
of all people?”

“I needed his help to find you,” David replied. “I came because I was worried about you. I felt sure you were in danger, and I felt responsible.”

Another harsh laugh. “Well, as you can see, you had no need to worry. I told you before that I know what I’m about. Now you’ve come in here with your damned sense of responsibility and complicated everything.”

“Is that what you think?” David replied. “It seems to me I’ve come just in time to stop you killing him—that’s not what you came here to do, is it?”

“What do you mean?” Euan replied, his frowning gaze on Hugh. “I always meant to kill him. How could you have thought otherwise?”

David gaped at him. “You said you wanted to confront him,” he said at last.

Euan smiled grimly. “And here we are. Confronting one another in the simplest way possible.” A flickering glance at David. “Your trouble is you judge everyone else by your own standards, Davy. Most people aren’t as good or honourable as you imagine.”