Page 38 of Hit Me With Your Best Scot
Of course, he’d encountered women who spoke their minds, lasses who didn’t brook any nonsense. Up to this point, he’d thought they all lived in the Highlands, but clearly he’d been wrong. This one, Persephone Jones, did as she pleased.
Aye, she knew the rules, and aye, she did follow some of them, but she also lay with a man simply because she wanted him, rode about in open carriages with a man and without a chaperone, and encouraged men to address her by her first name. If she declined to be seen with him in Hyde Park, it was because she didn’t want ladies staying away from the theater in protest, not because she feared their censure for herself.
She earned her own way in the world and was successful enough to be able to rent a house and employ two servants, even if she chose to call them employees. A damnedremarkable woman, taken altogether. Her independence and her defiance appealed to him, even if from time to time, he got the sense that some of it was a deliberate response to… something.
A ginger cat hopped down from a wooden crate to lick his boots, and with an amused grunt he squatted to shoo it away. Rubbing fish on his boots had been one of his best ideas, if he said so himself.
Movement suddenly caught his eye, and he straightened as a metal bucket swung directly at them, hard and fast.Christ.
Pivoting, he grabbed Persephone around the waist and dropped with her to the floor.
The bucket continued its swing above them before slamming into a post with a resounding crack and splintering the heavy timber. As it rebounded toward them again, Coll rolled to his feet, grabbed a ladder, and slammed it down in front of the missile, using his weight to hold it firm. The metal container hit the ladder violently, broke two of the steps, and lurched away in a slow, drunken spin.
Grabbing hold of it, Coll pulled the knife from his boot and sliced through the rope. The bucket hit the floor and overturned, a handful of bricks tumbling out of it.
With the knife still gripped in his hand, he looked up. Three stagehands were up in the rigging, none of them near where the bucket had begun its swing.
Gradually, he became aware of the loud, shouting chaos erupting around him, and he turned again to see Charlie Huddle helping Persephone to her feet. Half the cast and most of the stagehands had gathered around them, all of them ashen, shaken, and babbling.
Coll shoved the knife back into his boot and moved people aside until he reached Persephone. Only when he had hold of her arm did he let out his breath. “Are ye injured?” he asked, turning her to face him. “Did I hurt ye?”
“No,” she returned immediately, her movements jerky and abrupt rather than her usual graceful glide. “I’m fine. You—that—my goodness.”
“That’s two things coming down at ye from the dark.” His jaw clenched, his heart beginning to pound at the thought of what had almost happened. “One’s an accident. Two is someone trying to kill ye.”
“That can’t be,” Huddle said, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead. “I’ve seen actors attempting to take out the competition to get a role they wanted, but that’s bruises or a broken arm.”
Whipping around, Coll retrieved the bricks, picked up the bucket, and dropped it again at the stage manager’s feet. The resounding thud made the smaller man jump. “That weighs four stone at the least,” he said, hearing Persephone’s intake of breath at his statement and attempting to keep his attention on Huddle. “That’s nae a broken arm. That’s a broken skull.” It might have been worse than that—a broken neck or even a decapitation—and from his expression, the stage manager, at least, seemed to realize that.
Over to his right, Jenny Rogers fainted into Banquo’s—Lawrence Valense’s—arms. There were too many damned people around, and it could have been any of them. Not the lasses, more than likely; none of them looked capable of hauling a bucket that heavy up to the theater’s catwalk. Two dozen men remained, though, and that was without counting the other workers moving in and out all day.
“Coll, a word, if you please,” Persephone said, wrapping both hands around his forearm. “My dressing room, perhaps?”
“Aye.” He kept himself half a step in front of her and pushed open the dressing room door before he allowed her inside. The last thing she needed was to have another heavy thing swinging at her from the rafters. “In with ye, lass.”
She followed him into the small room, which was dominated by its full-length mirror, but also, he noticed now, mounds of costumes, wigs, hats, and books. Coll shut the door behind them, half expecting Persephone to throw herself into his arms. Instead, she walked up to the mirror and stood there staring at her reflection for a good minute.
“Where is Claremont’s house in Town?” he asked. “I’ve a mind to pay him a visit.”
“It’s Pierce House on Farm Street,” she returned, unmoving. “I don’t know the number. Do you think it was him?”
“He didnae do it himself, but he may have paid someone to murder ye.”
Her fingers clenched and opened again. “I hope it was him,” she muttered, giving her reflection a last glare before she turned to sit at her dressing table.
“Ye reckon it could be someone else?” Coll lifted an eyebrow. For a lass so easy on the eyes and so good-humored, she seemed to have rather more enemies than he’d suspected.
“No. No, of course not. I just prefer a definitive answer to questions—I don’t like unanswered questions. And I certainly don’t like heavy things swinging at my head from out of the dark.”
“I dunnae like that myself.”
She looked up at him. “You saved my life. I didn’t even know it was coming, and then you flung me to the floor. I should be dead right now.”
That thought stabbed at him as well, painful and deep. Whatever Persephone Jones was to him, it seemed he cared a great deal that she remained unharmed. Of course, hedidn’t like the idea of anyone innocent being injured, but this felt more… personal than that. More vital. “Ye’re nae harmed. Keep yer thoughts on that, Persephone.”
Nodding, she rolled her shoulders. “Yes, you’re correct. I can’t act while I’m shaking with fear.”
“I’m going to have Gavin stay here while I’m gone,” Coll decided. “Ye’re nae to be out of his sight for a single moment, ye ken?”
