The Reckless One by Connie Brockway Read Free Book Online Page A

followed her as a balding man took her elbow and steered her through a doorway into a small cabin. Before she could turn, the door closed behind her.
    She looked around. A narrow cot was nailed to one wall, likewise a table on the opposite wall. On this stood a chipped washbasin. Gratefully, she dipped the end of her kerchief into the frigid water and dabbed at her face.
    Outside the door she heard a woman’s voice. Apprehension followed her surprise. It could only be Muira Dougal, the woman whose iron will and driving determination had shaped Favor’s last nine years. No one had told Favor Muira would be onboard. She hadn’t prepared herself to meet the woman who’d … Favor floundered for a word that could adequately describe the degree to which this woman had influenced her life. All of it done from hundreds of miles away, mostly through letters.
    In some very real ways, Muira Dougal had invented Favor McClairen. Certainly the child who’d arrived on this foreign soil no longer existed.
    “How did it go?” Favor heard her asking Jamie.
    “Well enough, Mistress,” Jamie Craigg answered deferentially. “The guard at the prison didn’t blink twice when the girl said she was Madame Noir.”
    “Is she any good then? Will she succeed in what she must do?”
    Jamie paused before continuing. “Aye. She’ll do. Though I’ll say this”—a deep chuckle rumbled out—“if a man was in on the joke, so to speak, he would see right enough that the lass dinna understand the woman she played.”
    “Well, Jamie Craigg”—Muira’s voice dropped in pitch, became biting and hard—“I’m glad you’re so amused. But this isn’t a joke. It’s our last chance to regain what was stolen from us and if you no longer hold that a sacred endeavor, there are those of us that still do.”
    “Forgive me, Mistress,” Jamie said gruffly. “I just found the lass—enchanting is all.”
    “Enchanting?” the woman echoed thoughtfully. “Good. She’ll need to be enchanting, and more, for her purpose. What happened next?”
    Favor pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear Jamie’s reply. “… wary and hard, as hard a man as I’d not like to cross. But she had him eating out of her hand soon enough and sending him into the arms of the French as docile as a lambkins.”
    Favor’s throat knotted with guilt.
    “But then, just as he’s about made it to the lieutenant’s side, the lass calls out a warning. The Englishman dashes one way and we dash the other.”
    The door to the cabin suddenly swung open and Favor scuttled back. An elderly woman stood before her, her lantern raised. Favor squinted at the bright light, trying to see past its glare.
    “Listening at doors, Miss?” the woman asked.
    “If it aids my cause,” Favor answered calmly.
    “Ach!” A wide grin split the face of the thin woman. She turned her head toward Jamie, who filled the door frame behind her. “Bold!”
    The bright light dangled a moment longer in front of Favor’s face. Finally, irritated by it, she forced herself to face it squarely. “Would you kindly take that thing out of my face, Madame?”
    A low chuckle greeted her imperious tone. The old woman lowered the lantern to her side. “Speaks like a McClairen wench. Uncrowned royalty is what the McClairens always thought themselves.”
    Muira’s smile faded. “That’s good, lass. You’ll need all that queenly bearing and more. But tell me, come nightfall does a haughty manner keep the vision of Merrick murdering your kin at bay? No.” She answered her own question fiercely. “Only an act of recompense will do that.”
    Favor backed away, caught off guard by the old woman’s bald-faced reference to the night Favor had all but destroyed her own clan. She chided herself for her naivete. She’d thought Muira might offer her a word of welcome. She should have known better. She’d had a decade’s worth of letters to instruct her differently.
    The old woman studied her impassively