Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

A nd so began a very different week in Amelia’s new life. She woke bright and early the following day, already excited to share what she knew with the locals. She’d been expecting three or four of the barmaids to turn up, if that — part of her had even worried that nobody at all would come to learn from her. But she was shocked to find a whole crowd of women waiting for her, almost a dozen when she counted. It seemed that it wasn’t only the tavern’s staff who had had enough of Taffington’s lecherous conduct — a few other local girls were there, and asked in small voices if it would be alright to take part in the classes as well.

“The more the merrier,” she said at once. “Everyone’s welcome. Bring your friends, if you want to.”

The morning flew by. She’d been expecting the locals to be a little shy, especially after meeting Milly, whose voice barely raised above a whisper — and true, a few of them were clearly a little leery of her, especially when she pulled off her wrap to reveal her well-muscled arms. But it didn’t take long to coax them into performing a few simple exercises, and before too long she could tell she’d awoken a warrior spirit that hadn’t been hidden too deep beneath the surface. She ran them through the simplest and most direct means of discouraging an attacker, using the knees and elbows to identify a man’s most sensitive parts, and the women were soon laughing as they practiced kneeing an imagined attacker in the family jewels. By the time the lesson drew to a close, she could tell she had a class of self-defense mistresses in the making — even the shy Milly had demonstrated an impressive speed and ferocity with her narrow, pointy elbows.

The next morning, the class size had doubled, and by the following day, they were forced to move into a field on the outskirts of town, a short walk from the tavern, where there would be room for everyone to move the way they needed to. Amelia was thrilled to be sharing what she loved with such an enthusiastic group of learners — and it wasn’t long before they were contributing their own experience, too. Several of the older women shared a few tricks relating to their long skirts, showing ways to trap and trip would-be attackers using the bulky fabric — as well as a few sewing tricks that would make the cumbersome skirts easier to move in.

“It’s not just the training, either,” she told Hamish on the third night, her mouth full of stew. “It’s the camaraderie. Training together always brings you closer to your community, reminds you that you’re not alone.” The two of them hadn’t seen much of each other since their arrival in the village, with Hamish busy with his own line of work. He’d been conducting interviews around the village with people who’d had altercations with Taffington, hoping that there’d be something in all the stories they could use to have the man driven out of town. So far, there was nothing particularly damning, though the sheer weight of the man’s bad behavior ought to have been more than enough to justify his expulsion from the town. Amelia almost felt guilty about how much fun she’d been having with her class of would-be warrior women — hers was clearly a much more empowering job than Hamish’s, which largely involved listening to story after story about an arrogant jerk getting away with everything except murder so far.

“I’m so glad they have you,” Hamish said with a smile. “It sounds like you’re really helping them.”

“Honestly, I feel like I’ve just opened a door and shown them what was there already,” she said, shaking her head. “These women are ferocious. I’m a little frightened of what I’ve awoken, if I’m honest.”

“Well, what did you expect of Scottish women?”

She grinned, lifting her ale to toast that sentiment. But his gaze didn’t leave hers, and the soft smile on his face made her feel like she was about to blush to the roots of her hair.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, eyes darting quickly away.

They were in a reasonably secluded corner of the tavern, which was quiet this early in the evening, and it wasn’t long before those bright blue eyes returned to her.

“I hope you don’t mind my saying that I admire you, Amelia. I admire what you’re doing here.”

There it was — the blush she’d been trying to hold back. She’d never been very good at accepting compliments — it was something Carmen had often chastised her for. “I admire you too,” she said, well aware that it was a copout to deflect a compliment with another compliment. “Your dedication to solving this problem through nonviolent means, despite how… deeply unpleasant the man is. If it were me, I’d have thrown him off a cliff by now.” They’d ridden past the sandstone cliffs on the ride down, and she’d entertained more than a few silly but satisfying fantasies of seeing Taffington plunge to his ignoble end down there. “It’s admirable, your dedication to diplomacy above all.”

“Not quite,” he said softly, surprising her. “Not quite all.”

“What do you mean?”

He paused for a moment, and she saw the familiar shadow on his face that tended to appear when he was thinking about Amy. She held her breath, ready to let him change the subject if he wanted to, but fiercely curious about what he might be about to say. In all the time they’d known each other, he’d never actually told her what had happened to Amy — what terrible tragedy had cut her life short so cruelly soon. They both knew it was the curse that was to blame, of course, but they’d left it at that.

“I have settled arguments with violence before,” he said after the silence had stretched almost unbearably long. “Some quarrels can’t be settled by anything but blood.”

“What kind of quarrels?”

“Like the one I had with the man who killed my wife,” Hamish said simply.

She stared at him across the table, stunned by the revelation, so casually spoken… though the look in his eyes told her that while the subject might have been simple, his feelings about it were anything but.

“There are some actions that diplomacy simply cannot resolve. And for all Taffington’s faults, from the information I’ve gathered about him so far, there are certain lines he hasn’t crossed — not yet, at any rate, or not to my knowledge.”

Amelia felt an eerie chill run down her spine at the flat, dispassionate way he spoke, and she found herself looking at him through new eyes. Part of her, she had to admit, had considered the work he was doing a little bit soft — gathering information in the hopes that he could make some legal argument to get rid of Taffington. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might also be accumulating evidence, waiting to see if it weighed heavily enough to necessitate a more violent solution.

And whatever it said about her, she couldn’t help but admit that she was even more attracted to him than she had been.

The space between them stayed quiet, and she sipped at her ale, not feeling particularly pressed to disturb it. That was something she quite liked about Hamish — the way they could simply pass the time together in silence, neither of them feeling the need to break it just for the sake of making noise. It made what they did say to each other all the more special. Which was why, when Hamish cleared his throat and sat forward a little, she found herself leaning forward to take notice.

“I never did tell you how she died, did I?” Hamish asked softly, that same shadow still hanging heavily over his handsome face. “Amy, I mean.”

“No, you haven’t. Nobody has,” she added, not wanting him to think she’d gone and found the story out from someone else. “I’d like to know, if you’d like to tell me.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, then began to speak, his voice soft and measured. There was an oddly remote look on his face, as though he was telling a story that belonged to someone else. She knew that trick well — it was exactly how she went about the thorny work of telling people about her father, on the rare occasion that she had to. Just pretend you were telling a story about someone else, that was the trick. Remove yourself from the story entirely.

And as Hamish spoke, she understood more and more just why he spoke about Amy’s death so rarely.