Maura had never heard of such a thing. What gentlemen? What uncomfortable situations? Were there so many of them that a man might make it his occupation? “I beg your pardon?”
Mr. Bain leaned back against the tree and stretched his legs before him, crossing them at the ankle. “It’s no’ as strange as it sounds.”
“Aye, it is,” she insisted.
He smiled, lazily, indulgently, and it made her feel...warm.
“You are a young woman, Miss Darby. You would have no call to know that there are times in a man’s life that he might need help disposing of a complication. I happen to be adept at that.”
He spoke with such confidence! She was rather envious of that sort of confidence, really, particularly as she never felt entirely confident of anything. Well, except that she was not marrying a stranger in Lumparty, Lunmarty, wherever it was he was taking her. She was entirely confident in that. “What do you mean?” She suddenly had the idea that he meant something quite nefarious. She leaned forward and whispered, “Are you an outlaw, Mr. Bain?”
He blinked. He glanced at the lad as if to assure himself he could not hear, then leaned forward, so that he was only a few inches from her, and whispered, “No.”
She swayed backward. “Then how is it you are adept at disposing of another man’s complications?”
He leaned against the tree again. “I just am. In this particular instance, I was once employed by the Duke of Montrose. He is an acquaintance of Mr. Garbett and put forth my name.”
Maura had seen the duke when she’d been called into Mr. Garbett’s drawing room to account for her alleged crime. She knew of Montrose—everyone knew of him. But there was something more that tickled at her memory. What was it that was said of him? She suddenly recalled and blurted, “That’s the man who murdered his wife!”
“He didna murder his wife, Miss Darby. It is true that the lady is no longer his wife, but she is verra much alive. When I said complications, I didna mean unlawful ones. I meant, simply...uncomfortable situations.”
“Is that what I am, then? An uncomfortable situation?”
“Aye.” He shrugged, as if that were plainly obvious. “If it eases you, you are the sort of uncomfortable situation that is easily put to rights.”
“If it eases me!” she exclaimed. “It offends me that my uncomfortable situation is so easily put to rights! And never you mind, Mr. Bain—you may be adept with someone else, for I’ll put my own uncomfortable situation to rights, thank you.”
“Will you,” he said skeptically, and gave her a hint of a smile that made his eyes shine even more. “And how exactly will you do that, Miss Darby?”
“Never you mind,” she muttered. She had only a vague idea of how she’d go about it. It wasn’t as if she’d ever been allowed to chart her own path. Until a month or so ago, she had been quietly biding her time until Sorcha married. Once, she’d inquired of Mr. Garbett if he might find her a position in a good house as a governess, or even a tutor. But Mrs. Garbett had seen her request as yet another example of how Maura meant to take attention from Sorcha. On the contrary, Maura had meant it to be helpful. She’d assumed Mrs. Garbett would want her gone.
Everything in the Garbett house depended on Sorcha making a proper match. Nothing else mattered. Maura had assumed that when Sorcha married, then she might be allowed to pursue a marriage of her own, or a position in a house that at least gave her something to do. Some place she might go where she felt wanted. And safe. She hadn’t broached it again with Mr. Garbett, not with Sorcha’s trials in attracting a suitor. She’d told herself to be patient, to stay in the shadows, to give Sorcha all the room she needed to accomplish this family goal. And then Adam Cadell had come along, the bloody bounder.
Maura had never imagined anything as ignominious as this. It mad her feel stupid to have waited so patiently for her turn, to have trusted the people who had sworn to look after her, only to have her turn upended into something as wretched as the circumstance she found herself in today.
No. She would think of something.
She looked across the fire to the lad. “Is he your son, then?”
“No. He’s a hired hand.”
“Have you a son?” she asked.
“No.”
“A daughter?” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
He shook his head.
Her back was beginning to ache, sitting like she was, and Maura looked at the tree that held him up. The trunk was big enough for the two of them, so she scooted herself up and sat next to him. “A wife, then?”
He chuckled softly. “No.”
“Have you anyone, Mr. Bain? Anyone at all to miss you?”
“I donna need anyone to miss me.”
“Anyone who claims no’ to need someone to miss them is a person that needs someone to miss them the most. I’ve no one to miss me, either, but I need someone to miss me.” She punctuated that with a sniff of superior understanding of the ways of the world. Didn’t need someone to miss him, indeed!
He gave her a discerning look, and Maura imagined how it must feel to be on the receiving end of his esteem. A tiny unwelcome shiver ran down her spine.
“You’re verra unusual for a well-bred miss. You’ve more than a wee bit of pluck. You remind me of another woman I know, a woman from the Highlands.”
“Then perhaps it is no’ so unusual at all to have a wee bit of pluck, if you are acquainted with two,” she pointed out, and turned her head.
She didn’t like the insinuation that there was something wrong with pluck. He would have it, too, had he no authority over his own life. Maura was desperate, she was hurt and above all, she was furious that she had no say in what was to become of her. None at all! Her father had once told her she could be quite stubborn when she was of a mind. Well, she was of a mind. She had already decided that she would retrieve her necklace if it were the last thing on this earth she would do. They could pry it out of her cold, dead hand if they liked, but they would not take it from her while she had a breath in her lung.
Maura suddenly realized what she had to do. There was nothing to be done for it. Turning the idea over in her mind made her quake with fear, but it didn’t matter—she would not have another opportunity and she would not let this one pass.
She suddenly stood, brushed out her gown and drew her cloak tightly about her. Mr. Bain did not object. “There is a place to wash where the river pools, just there,” he said, nodding with his chin. He picked up his book.
He thought her helpless. The Garbetts thought her helpless. Adam Cadell thought her helpless. She was naïve, that she was. But she was not helpless. Mr. Bain had no fear of her wandering about in the forest because he believed she was too frightened to stray far. Well, she was, but that wouldn’t stop her. Fury did funny things to a woman.
She walked on, past the horses, pausing to have a look at their hobbles. And then down to the pool to wash as best she could.
When she returned to the fireside, she noted that he had smoothed the pallet and had put more wood on the fire. He was reading again, engrossed in his principles of morals, she supposed. She took her place on the pallet. “I’m tired,” she announced.
“Good night, Miss Darby,” he said, as if he were sending a child off to bed. She lay down on the pallet, on her side, her back to him. She felt him get up and move away. A few minutes later he returned and stirred the fire, put more fuel to it. It wasn’t enough heat, unfortunately. She could hardly feel her fingers or toes—the cold was beginning to sink into her bones. Maura pulled her cloak more tightly about her, but she was shivering.