A Scot Is Not Enough

A Scottish Treasures Novel

Gina Conkle

• Publisher: Avon
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9780062998965
• Print ISBN:
  9780062999009
• Subtopic: Literature General

USA Today bestselling author Gina Conkle’s newest stunning romance in her Scottish Treasures series features a fierce Scotswoman eager to break the rules and the man who vows to stop her.

A Gentleman of Virtue

Decent and ambitious, Alexander Sloane is finally a finger’s breadth from achieving the government post he’s worked towards for years. A minor task monitoring Bow Street funds for the Crown is his final hurdle. But he discovers more than he bargains for when his assignment leads him to the most captivating woman in London.

A Woman of Questionable Repute

Cecelia MacDonald has one mission: find and steal the sgian duhb, the ceremonial dagger taken from her clan by British soldiers during the Uprising of 1745. The coy and clever Scotswoman has never had any trouble using men to do her bidding and she’s enjoying the cat and mouse game she’s playing with the delectable Alexander. But when a mutual enemy proves deadly, she must rely on him for more than flirtation to gain the dagger.

An Explosive Partnership

As Alexander and Cecilia become unlikely allies, their desire for each other overwhelms them. When shocking secrets come to light, will Alexander realize loving the wrong woman is the right thing to do?

Chapter One

September 1753

Law and disorder collided brilliantly at Bow Street, an entertainment of human nature, drawing merchants and matrons alike. They crammed the gallery, chewing gossip like candy, the courtroom their circus, the victims and the accused their performers. A motley mix of humanity, all of them.

Except for her. The clever blonde.

She graced the gallery, a wash of silk and sex. A woman unescorted with lips painted an ungovernable shade of red. Her subtle smirk was fine art and her intelligence a sonata. She caught every one of the magistrate’s witticisms, if one accepted her musical laugh as evidence. Mr. Fielding was, at heart, a writer. What else were they good for except crafting quips? Though one had to be quick to catch them. Courtroom observers sometimes scratched their heads at Fielding’s brisk commentaries. Not the blonde. She took notes, an interesting habit. And he, Alexander Sloane, Undersecretary to the Undersecretary of the Duke of Newcastle (a mouthful, that!), took note of her.

The elegant woman made his assignment—tracking Bow Street’s sudden influx of money—less dreary.

Fielding considered him a nuisance; the thief takers considered him a spy.

He was both.

Not a popular position to be in.

He slipped away as the courtroom proceedings ended, intent on taking himself to his room at the White Hart on King Street to work on his other assignment—studying a mysterious Jacobite ledger. Dinner and a pint while he deciphered smudged columns and coded entries would be his entertainment. Both tasks spanned a month or two, depending on the duke’s whim. The pressure was immense. Reporting directly to His Grace allowed no margin for error.

Walking through Bow Street’s hallways, he fed on the challenge. Precision ran in his veins. The natural world was a messy place, but numbers were truth in its purest form and corralling them a joy.

Before he’d departed for Bow Street, the duke had handed over the Jacobite ledger. “Unravel this, Mr. Sloane, and we can talk about your appointment.”

Court of the Exchequer. To be a judge in the financial courts, and he, Baron Sloane.

The position wouldn’t make him a peer, but the centuries-old honorific quickened his step through a private doorway to a realm of leather and tallow candles. Fielding’s office. The Bow Street ledger waited by a puddle of wax on the magistrate’s desk, a folded copy of The Covent-Garden Journal on top of it.

He slid the book off the desk, strode to the private entrance, and reached for the door.

“Mr. Sloane. Just the man I was looking for.”

Hand falling to his side, Alexander turned and waited, rigid as a duke’s man should. Calculation sparked in the magistrate’s eyes. Fielding closed the main door, shutting off public noise splashing into the room.

The quiet . . . there was dread in it.

Fielding never met with him privately.

“How may I be of assistance?”

The magistrate limped by on gout-riddled feet. “I have a task for you.”

“More expenditures to tally?”

“No. I need you to follow a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yes, the petticoated variety. Two arms, two legs, two breasts. Commonly considered the gentler sex.”

“I am aware,” he said aridly.

The magistrate landed in his chair, his black robes billowing. “It’s a simple job. Keep your distance, take notes on her day-to-day whereabouts, and report your findings directly to me.” Fielding’s gaze knifed him. “But no one else can know.”

Not even the duke was the warning, hanging as sharp as a gleaming sword over Alexander’s head. A cold “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” chill came with it.

He tucked the ledger tightly under his arm. “I gather the woman in question is not the average London criminal.”

“Neither average nor a criminal. She is, however, a known Jacobite sympathizer.”

“A scurrilous lot.”

The Jacobite ledger with its fanciful code names came to mind. Lady Pink was one, Lord Blue another. The Uprising of ’45 had ended seven years ago. Any rebels who’d survived the war had been shot, hanged, or fled. Only the most brazen—or foolish—would spawn trouble in London. In either case, he was ill-equipped to track them.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, sir, but I am not a thief taker.”

“Which makes you perfect for the job.” Fielding rummaged through ledgers. “Miss MacDonald knows them all . . . probably better than their mothers,” he muttered in a voice cracking from ill health.

The magistrate was an aging crow of a man. Cold creatures, crows, as canny as they were destructive. They collected shiny things, as much to mark their territory as to distract. Could be why Fielding didn’t want him underfoot. A veneer of corruption smeared Bow Street, which was the other reason he was here. The latest claim was the magistrate wrote under a pseudonym, instigating the Paper War between The Covent-Garden Journal and Grub Street newspapers all in the name of selling his books.

Not illegal, but far from upstanding.

“Sir, my purpose here is to oversee your use of the crown’s funds.”

“For law and order, Mr. Sloane.” Fielding’s voice rose with righteous fervor. “And there is no better way to see justice done than to be part of it.”

He marched to the desk. “I must vigorously object. I serve—”

“Object to your heart’s content, but imagine how pleased His Grace will be when I tell him the fine work you’ve done on behalf of the crown.” Fielding opened a ledger and thumbed through its pages. “Might hasten the path to your next position.”

Baron of the Exchequer. Anger kindled, from the tight spot he was in and from the black-robed crow who pinned him there.

“That’s extortion.”

“It’s following a woman. How hard can that be?”

“I don’t care for your methods.”

Fielding was unmoved, his eyes and his robes wrinkled. Probably his soul too. His desk was a hodgepodge of account books, records of known criminals and suspected criminals. Alexander chafed at the taint placed on the latter cohort. Mere hearsay landed a person in the books. Once in, the entries became ruthless and detailed, assuming guilt. Ledgers crammed the shelves, all with hasty sketches next to lists of habits, unique attributes, and known associates. Fielding slid one of those ledgers forward.

“Report her activities to me once a week, and when the time comes, I shall report your excellent work to the duke.”

Alexander met the magistrate’s cold stare. “What are you looking for? If the woman is not a criminal, why is she in your books?”

“Ah, yes, my ledgers.” Fielding reached for a quill. “We both know you don’t agree with my methods. If my assumptions about this woman are incorrect, this is your chance to prove me wrong.”

A trap neatly set.

Fingers drumming the account book under his arm, Alexander looked down. Fine-boned features smirked from the page. The clever blonde. Her name was Miss Cecelia MacDonald. The artist paid fair tribute. An arrow-straight nose with delicate nostrils and eyes sparkling and mischievous. She was texture in a gray city, adventure waiting to happen. Farther down was her small-bosomed cleavage. His gaze clung to that fascinating indent, imagining what the artist couldn’t capture.

“I wouldn’t know what to do with this woman.” Alexander groaned. Good Lord, his wits had fled him. “Correction. I know what to do with a woman. But this”—he waved a hand over the page—“is a delicate matter.”

“Miss MacDonald is hardly delicate. She is a demirep.”

“A demirep?”

“A woman who, I collect, intrigues every man she likes, under the name and appearance of virtue, yet is what everybody knows her to be but what nobody calls her.”

“There is no law against uncertain virtue.”

“Order is the foundation of any good society, and ambiguity the devil’s device.” Fielding dipped his quill in the inkwell with a decisive clink. “You would do well to remember that.”

Alexander touched the scurrilous sketch, a haze seeping into his bones. In London, a thin stratum of the fair sex lived free of propriety’s constraints. Women uncontained by families. Women who left more questions than answers in their wake, which made them provocative, and Bow Street counted Miss MacDonald in their number.

A woman of certain freedoms.

Beyond the magistrate’s window, bright bonnets and staid tricorns bobbed. Coats were clasped against crisp September air, smiling faces above them. Some would seek home and hearth, while others would seek Covent Garden’s lush entertainments. A driven man, Alexander had achieved much in his twenty-nine years; he would achieve a great deal more before he left Bow Street. He allowed no time for rampant pleasures.

“There she is,” Fielding said. “Your quarry.”

Dut...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-Five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
• Chapter Thirty
• Chapter Thirty-One
• Chapter Thirty-Two
• Chapter Thirty-Three
• Chapter Thirty-Four
• Chapter Thirty-Five
• Chapter Thirty-Six
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
• Chapter Forty
• Chapter Forty-One
• Chapter Forty-Two
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Announcement
• Also by Gina Conkle
• Copyright
• About the Publisher