Page 42 of Brigand

He reined in his annoyance and scrubbed his forehead with apalm. “Fine. Thank you for your help.”

Colin nodded. “I’m glad we found her.” He nodded toward theassemblage of men. “William’s here.”

Ewan slanted a glance at the table, a frown puckering hisbrow. “William?” William Winslett, Lord Wickham, was one of his partners.Gentry, but a good sort for all that. He kept his ear to the ground inEdinburgh and London, feeding Ewan information on business opportunities andpromising partners. “I thought he was in England. What’s he doing here?”

Colin shrugged. “Now that you’re back with…everything undercontrol, I’ll be taking my leave.”

Ewan nodded. “Again, thank you, Colin.”

“Anytime.” His friend grinned as he made his way from theroom.

William stood then and made his way over to Ewan.Everything, from his dress to his swagger, proclaimed him Quality with acapital Q.

Usually Ewan despised such men. They’d never caused himanything but trouble. But he and William had been through a lot together overthe years. Ewan knew the true measure of the man. He liked him immensely.

“McCloud.” He nodded. A small smile graced his lips. It wasalways there, that smile, no matter the circumstances. Ewan knew not to trustit. Instead he gauged the hard glint in William’s eyes, the tightness of hislips. He knew this was not a casual social visit.

“Shall we repair to my study?”

William chuckled. He was used to Ewan’s mockery of the hauteton. “Indeed.”

They sat in his office and Ewan poured them each a dram ofwhisky. It was not yet noon, but he felt in the course of the last few dayshe’d earned a drink. Or seven. Regardless of the time of day.

“So. What brings you to the wilds of Scotland?”

William tossed back his drink with a grunt and leanedforward. “I thought you should know. Word is out on the streets. There’s abounty on your head.”

Ewan nearly guffawed. There had been a bounty on his headsince he was eighteen. But due to the reputation he had worked very hard tobuild and the fact that he never forgot a debt or failed to repay abetrayal—not to mention that he’d had made everyone in league with him very, veryrich—no man with a brain in his head would turn on him. “And?”

“The man searching for you is, ahem, rather powerful. Aduke.”

A tiny chill crawled up his spine. Violet had mentioned aduke the other night. A cousin. Who would be searching for her. He frowned.

“Word is he’s on his way to Scotland to reclaim somethingyou have of his.”

Ewan cleared his throat and refilled both their glasses. “Iappreciate the information.”

“There’s more.”

The bottle stilled. “What?” Fuck. He didn’t want to know.

“It’s the Duke of Moncrieff.”

Ewan’s heart stalled and then set up a rapid chatter in hischest. A cold chill gripped his bowels. The Duke of Moncrieff?

Duke of Moncrieff was Violet’s cousin? How had he not knownthis?

He hadn’t heard that name in years. He disliked hearing itnow. Especially in this context.

Of all the men to be searching for Violet, why did it haveto be the one to whom he owed his life?

He’d been a reckless idiot when he was young and had endedup in a French prison, charged as a spy. He’d been housed in a cell crammedwith soldiers and heroes collected during the war.

Ewan had been neither a soldier nor a hero. He’d beensmuggling brandy—a very profitable trade upon which he’d built the foundationsof his empire. A French platoon had captured him on a beach and carted him offto some ancient castle on the coast and tossed him into the dungeons. A realdungeon, this. Fetid and dank and unspeakably foul. The captors had been cruel,hard men who hated the British. And though Ewan was a Scot, they hadn’t seenthe difference.

He’d been beaten, starved and near worked to death.

He would have died there if a wealthy man hadn’t bribed theguards to engineer an escape for his son. On one dark, moonless night, theircell was left unlocked, allowing them—all fifty men—to melt into the shadows.They’d been met in the woods by a band of privateers and escorted to a sleekcutter anchored in the bay; the privateers had carried them all to England—andsafety.