Wicked Company (9 page)

“The letter
I,”
she had demanded of Hunter before Boswell’s interruption.

“
I
…
I,”
Hunter repeated, his brow furrowing. The cleft in his chin flattened as he grimaced, searching his memory for the song title that would help him identify the letter. “‘ I’m a Rover! ’” he exclaimed triumphantly.
“I
is for ‘I’m a Rover’!”

“Yes!” Sophie had said enthusiastically, writing the song title on a little chalk board. “See… here’s the
I
in ‘I’m a Rover.’ Now, what about
W?
First make the
sound
of the letter
W
.”

“Blast!” Hunter replied in frustration. “How did I know you’d ask me that one?” His eyes lit up. “Wha… wha… wha…
W
is for ‘One Merry Day’!”

Sophie shook her head and smiled encouragingly.
“
One
sounds
like a
W
sounds… but, no,
W
is for ‘Wee Cooper O’ Fife,’ or ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again?’”

“Or ‘Will This Sapskull Ever Learn His Alphabet’?” he said, disgusted. “Here
you
are, not even eighteen, and you’ve mastered every tome on these shelves. As for me, I’m near witless with my letters. ’Tis sheer folly for me to try to make them into
words.”

Sophie put her hand on his arm and said sympathetically, “You’re making
good
progress, Hunter. But it takes time to make up for all those years when you were memorizing the songs by heart and learning your skill at juggling. You’ll be reading like a professor before the year is out, I promise.”

Hunter gazed at her for a long moment and then took her small hand, completely covering it with his own.

“Sophie, coming to know you and your da… ’tis like having part of my family again. A blockhead like me couldna ask for a better friend.” Sophie’s heart thudded against her chest and her eyes searched his, willing him to say more. “You so put me in mind of my sister, Megan,” he added slowly. “She was such a sprite, like you… a little elfin creature who made you glad just to see her smile…”

“Where does she live?” Sophie ventured tentatively.

A look of bitter sadness flooded his eyes. “She died,” he replied, retracting his hands from hers and balling them into fists, “when she was still a bairn.”

Sophie waited patiently, but Hunter offered no more information on the subject. His gaze had taken on a faraway look, as if he were viewing a scene of absolute desolation.

The moment of closeness between them had ended even before Boswell sauntered through the front door of the book shop and issued his invitation for Hunter to join him at the Netherbow Coffeehouse. Hunter swiftly agreed.

“Farewell, pet,” her pupil said with a breezy wave, his former cocksure demeanor reasserting itself. “Tell your da I may want a new playbill printed if Comely Gardens will sponsor a concert in August.”

“Aye… I’ll see he gets your message,” Sophie replied, falling in with the subterfuge. She was eager to specify their next appointment, but merely bid the two young men adieu, not wanting to reveal Hunter’s secret intention to learn to read.

Hunter failed to return for another reading lesson for more than a week, although, a few days later, Sophie caught a glimpse of Hunter and Boswell entering the Pen and Feather across the road, accompanied by two voluptuous-looking actresses from the playhouse. In the days that followed, Sophie was filled with a sharp longing to see that cocky grin and experienced deepening anxiety over the deplorable state of their family finances. McGann’s had received a few printing commissions but nothing that would earn them enough to order more books from London and abroad to replenish their woefully depleted shelves. Without the enticement of new wares, business had fallen off dramatically. Sophie’s father grew even more disheartened as the week wore on. The only thing Sophie could suggest was that he seek the same diversion Hunter and Jamie Boswell had indulged in at the Netherbow Coffeehouse.

“’Tis like a tomb in here,” she commented, glancing around the empty book shop. “I’ll finish up the placards for the wigmaker and keep on the lookout for a book buyer with blood in his veins and a few coins in his pocket.”

Daniel offered a wan smile in response to her attempted levity and drifted off to the coffeehouse.

Every time Sophie heard someone come in the shop, she raced past the wooden hand press to see if it was Hunter, but the few customers who did stop by were neither six feet tall nor blessed with a smile that could make Sophie forget everything but its engaging warmth.

She pulled the handle of the wooden press with an angry jerk. For some reason, Hunter seemed to regret having almost kissed her, and now he was keeping company with that doxy at the playhouse! Why, she wondered peevishly, did he continue to treat her as if she were a mere child? Lord Lemore was practically in his dotage, but even
he
had viewed her as an object of desire.

Before Sophie could ponder this riddle further, she heard the door open and a cane thump smartly three times on the floor, a signal that demanded immediate attention.

She jumped down from her composing stool and rushed into the other chamber, halting abruptly at the threshold. As if materializing from her thoughts, Lord Lemore stood leaning against a silver-headed walking stick, his thin-lidded eyes gazing at her like a lizard at a fly.

“Is your father available?” he asked. “I’d like to discuss ordering several new engravings from your agent in London.”

He stated the request as if it were perfectly reasonable to discuss with his local bookseller’s daughter his desire to add to his collection of obscenities. She assumed that his assortment of pictures stoked the fires of some warped craving in the man, and that now he must be in need of new stimulation.

“My father is not here, sir, and I’m afraid I don’t know when he’s expected,” she said stiffly, rooted to the floor.

Lord Lemore strolled toward her, a sardonic smile tugging at his features.

“A happy accident, perhaps,” he murmured, drawing near. “I’m sure that, young as you are, you have the experience to assist me in selecting some additions to my noteworthy collection.”

He gazed at her steadily, carefully placing his cane on the desk where her father kept his accounts.

“I-I cannot help you, sir,” she stammered, her heart quickening with apprehension. “The type of engravings I delivered to you two months ago are not what we normally stock, you understand.”

“Oh, but I am confident they are
available
to you,” he replied. “You are being too modest about your ability to locate what I want. I am told that you are wise beyond your years and know the book trade as well as your esteemed father.”

“I don’t know about
lewd etchings!”
she exclaimed with an unexpected flash of anger. Immediately, however, she regretted her outburst. Lord Lemore eyed her narrowly, but remained silent. “I’m terribly sorry I can’t help you and I’m afraid, also, that you’ll have to excuse me, m’lord,” Sophie added with a politeness she certainly did not feel. “I have a printing order to complete.”

“’Tis folly to speak so indiscreetly of lewdness, my dear,” the nobleman said in a low, menacing voice. “’Twould be disastrous for McGann’s, wouldn’t it now, if the good churchmen next door were to hear of your pronouncing such blasphemies? If you cannot supply my needs, I shall seek elsewhere. Good day.”

With that, he snatched his walking stick off the desk and turned on his heel. Heading for the door, he nearly collided with Hunter Robertson, who was just then sauntering across the threshold.

Sophie clung to the door frame of the printing chamber, her face drained of color as she watched Lord Lemore stride into the High Street without a backward glance.

“Hello, lass… have you an hour to spare for a reading lesson?” He peered at her closely. “Are you all right?” he inquired solicitously. “You look fashed, and that’s a fact.”

“Th-that man…” Sophie began, and then burst into tears.

“What man? The coxcomb who just left the shop?” Hunter sent a confused look over his shoulder at Lord Lemore’s figure, retreating down the road. He put a brotherly arm around Sophie’s heaving shoulders.

“That
coxcomb,
as you just called him, is Lord Lemore!” Sophie blurted. She reached for a corner of her printer’s apron and dried her eyes. “He’s a man of great influence in Edinburgh and a good customer of my da.”

“So?” Hunter asked practically. “Best to tug yer forelock and be polite to those aristos and leave ’em be,” he advised.

“But he could do us dreadful
harm!”
Sophie wailed and found her eyes
filling with tears once again.

“Why? How? Sweetling, whatever is the matter?” Hunter responded, folding his arms around her again protectively. “What can a coxcomb like him do to such a brave lass as you, will you tell me now?” he teased.

“H-he can h-hurt Da,” she gulped. “He can tell th-those kirk elders about the p-pictures!”

“Pictures?” Hunter asked, bewildered. “But ye sell
books
at McGann’s. What would Lord Lemore be wanting with pictures?”

“I don’t know why
anyone
would want those horrid engravings!” Sophie shuddered. “I suppose Da only sends for them from London when things are as wretched as they are now!”

Hunter sat her down on her stool where they usually had their reading lessons and took one of her hands in his.

“You better just tell me what this is all about, wee one.”

“I’m
not
wee!” she cried, tears once again spilling over her eyelids despite her fierce efforts to hold them back. Just because Hunter had fallen into the arms of some jade at the playhouse didn’t give him license to treat her like a doltish child!

Hunter looked abashed.

“
Wee
is just a word that seems to fit you,” he apologized. He smiled encouragingly. “Winna you tell me now?”

Sophie took a deep breath and then, blushing furiously, told Hunter about the erotic engravings Daniel McGann had procured for Lord Lemore. When she described her encounter with the nobleman the day she delivered the last packet to his lodgings, Hunter looked aghast.

“God’s bones!” he cursed. “Preying on such a bairn as you!”

“Perhaps I seem a bairn to
you,
Hunter Robertson, but the filthy cad considered me woman enough to lay siege to my drawers!”

“But you’re only sixteen!” he exploded. “And you look to be about twelve!”

“Sixteen and six months!” Sophie snapped. “Lord Lemore assured me
Highland
lasses were frequently wed at my age and, therefore, I should know perfectly well what happens between men and women in bed—marriage or no!”

It was Hunter’s turn to flush scarlet, and for once he was unable to summon a suitable retort.

“When I didn’t accept his order,” Sophie continued anxiously, “Lemore hinted that he would call down those ranting clerics on us again! If that happens, Hunter, we’re
finished.
Da will be evicted from the Luckenbooths and we’ll have nowhere to go!”

“’Twas probably an idle threat, to keep you from spreading tales that would call the elders down on
him.”

“And they’d be believing a bookseller’s lass against a nobleman?” she retorted sarcastically. “No, Hunter… I’m really frightened. Lord Lemore—”

“Lord Lemore’s a twisted scoundrel, to be sure,” agreed Hunter. “But, have faith, pet. He’ll find another source of filth in this fair city, dinna you fret. And then he’ll forget about your impetuous words.” He smiled down at her reassuringly and gave her hand another squeeze. “And dinna be too hard on your da,” he added as if reading her thoughts. “He’s only trying to look after you as best he can. One man’s filthy pictures is another man’s art.”

“I know,” Sophie replied softly. Yet it disturbed her that a man with reverence for truth and beauty could bend to the base demands of a villain like Lemore. Despite what Hunter might think, she was no longer a child, and she suspected she was in the process of discovering just how difficult adulthood could be.

“How about a reading lesson to take your mind off your worries?” Hunter inquired, interrupting her reverie. “Since I saw you last, I have signed articles with David Beatt officially joining the playhouse, and I
must
be able to learn my parts, small as I suspect they’ll be. So, these days,
W
is one of my favorite letters,” he grinned.
“W
is for ‘With a Hundred Pipers’.”