Glasgow rogue, p.1
Glasgow Rogue, page 1
Table of Contents
Glasgow Rogue
Copyright Notice
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
A word about the author…
Thank you for purchasing
Glasgow Rogue
by
Cynthia Breeding
Copyright Notice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Glasgow Rogue
COPYRIGHT © 2025 by Cynthia Breeding
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies in accordance with Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790, The Wild Rose Press expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception. Only brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews may be allowed.
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Cover Art by Teddi Black
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Publishing History
First Edition, 2025
Trade Paperback Print ISBN 978-1-5092-6331-8
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-6332-5
Previously Published by Highland Press 2020
Published in the United States of America
Chapter One
Glasgow, 1817
The bane of Annie Ferguson’s existence, at least for the past two weeks, walked through the breakfast room door of her mother’s boardinghouse. She tried to ignore the Highlander, which wasn’t easy to do.
“Has anyone ever mentioned that ye are as prickly as a thistle, lass?” Niall MacDonald asked as he pulled out a chair next to her.
Annie gave him her best no-nonsense look. “Did I ever mention that ye are a thorn in my side?”
Niall grinned amiably, his smoky gray eyes crinkling a bit at the corners. “Aye, ye might have a time or two.”
A time or two. More likely a time or two every hour of the waking day for the past two weeks, which was precisely how long he’d been following her around. “If ye would stop hounding me—”
“Escorting ye, lass,” Niall said. “’Tis a bit of difference.”
She managed to keep from rolling her eyes. Just barely. “Whatever ye call it, I doona need someone hanging on to my apron strings.”
He raised a brow. “I doona think I have ever seen ye sport such a garment.”
Annie shook her head in frustration. “Ye ken very well what I mean. Ever since the incident at the tearoom, ye have nae left me in peace.”
“Incident? Ye and my sister-by-marriage were accosted by men meaning to abduct ye because they are angry about that club of yours—”
“The Women for Progress and Liberty have every right to meet!” Annie practically sputtered. “We have a right to protest that the merchants’ and weavers’ unions in Glasgow are closed to women.”
“I am nae arguing the point, but when ye march about the streets, ye make yourselves an easy target.”
“’Tis the only way we can draw attention to our cause,” Annie said.
“Och, aye. Ye definitely got noticed outside the tearoom,” Niall replied. “If my brother had not been following—”
“Aha! Ye admit Alasdair was following us! Is it a family trait, then?”
A corner of Niall’s mouth quirked up. “Ye must admit, ’tis a trait that comes in handy.”
Annie bit back a retort. It was true that things might have turned out quite differently if Alasdair MacDonald hadn’t been looking for his bride, Bridget, that afternoon. Still. That didn’t mean his brother had to dog Annie’s every step since then.
“Come now. Admit it,” Niall coaxed. “Ye doona mind me escorting ye as much as ye say.”
“Nae. I mind it more than I say.” Annie lifted her chin. “I am only exhibiting proper manners by refraining from comment.”
The quirk broke into a grin. “Since when are ye concerned with proper manners, lass?”
She scowled at him. “Are ye insulting me now?”
He shook his head, managing to straighten his mouth, although a hint of humor lingered in his eyes. “Nae. Prim and proper women are nae that interesting.”
Annie continued to frown. “It that a compliment?”
Niall cocked his head to one side and studied her. “Are ye wanting one?”
She felt herself blush, hating the fair skin that redheads were so often cursed with. “Of course not. I doona need compliments.”
“Every woman needs compliments.”
Annie bit her lip, hoping the heat she was feeling wasn’t turning her cheeks the color of a ripe tomato. Hadn’t she learned her lesson about glib remarks years ago? “Not me. I’m nae interested. Ye can save such drivel for proper ladies who are naïve enough to believe it.”
“I told ye proper ladies doona interest me. Especially naïve ones. Ye, though, are a thistle, Annie Ferguson.”
“I am nae even going to ask if that is a compliment,” Annie replied. “Ye have made your point that ye think I bristle too much.”
“Ye misunderstand..” Niall’s gaze intensified and he leaned forward in his chair. “A thistle has a lovely bloom the same color as your eyes. Has anyone told ye that?”
Annie stared at him. She knew better than to believe such nonsense, although she had to admit it was original. Worse, Niall sounded so sincere. But then, so had the man who’d taken her virginity. Annie blinked. She hadn’t thought about that in a long, long time.
“My eyes are dark blue, nae purple.”
Niall smiled easily. “I will have to study the color, then.”
She wondered if it was possible for a body to spontaneously combust. Her face felt on fire and that heat was rapidly spreading throughout the rest of her. Blast it. Annie pushed back from the table to stand. “I am going to call on the Sisters of Mercy this morning. They have several elderly patients who need someone just to talk to. There really isn’t any reason for ye to come along.”
Niall laid down his napkin and stood as well, a thoughtful expression replacing his smile. “Ye can be as easily assaulted on your way to the home as anywhere else. I will accompany ye.”
“I’m sure ye doona want to sit around for two hours or more waiting on me.”
Niall shrugged. “I will escort ye there and then go to the shipping office to check on some things Alasdair mentioned before he left. Then I’ll return for ye.”
Annie sighed. If Niall thought she was a thistle, he was as difficult to avoid as a briar patch on a narrow, rocky trail. “If ye wish.”
He gave her a suspicious look and she almost smiled. If he could unsettle her with a silly compliment, maybe she could unsettle him as well.
It was worth a try.
****
Niall definitely did not trust the demure answer Annie had given him as he escorted her to the Sisters of Mercy Home for the Infirm and Aged. In the few weeks he’d been staying at the boardinghouse, he had not seen—or heard—one demure thing come from Annie. She had a fiery temperament and never hesitated to speak her mind, a trait most men wouldn’t like, but one Niall found refreshing. His younger sister, Margaret, had the same qualities, but then, she’d had to hold her own with ten brothers, none of whom were known to be even-tempered either. Heaven forbid that Annie and Margaret should ever meet.
If ye wish, Annie had said. She’d even said it again when he left her at the door to the Sisters’ communal home. Somehow, that docile tone made him wary. However, he did have other matters to attend to. He just hoped she’d stay put while he was at the marine office.
“Good morn,” Gustav Fredrickson, the harbormaster, greeted him as he entered the office a short time later.
“Good morn to ye,” Niall answered. The harbormaster was a large, middle-aged man with the permanently bronzed skin of one who’d spent years at sea but now coordinated the dockings along the quay of the River Clyde. Niall’s half-brother, Robert Henderson, said even a skiff didn’t pass by unnoticed by Gustav.
“Any ships due in for the Henderson line?”
Gustav reached for a sheaf of neatly stacked papers and thumbed through them. “Ja. The Sea Lady should be in day after tomorrow.” He handed a sheet to Niall. “Looks like she’ll be carrying a load of kelp.”
Niall nodded as he took the paper and went to the small office that Robert rented at one end of the building. He left the door open as he rounded the desk and sat down behind it to study the paper. This end of the shipping b usiness was new to him. At his home in Arisaig, his part in farming for kelp—the seaweed that would be burned for its soda ash and used in glassmaking—was limited to visiting the Hebrides in search of new underwater fields. But Robert’s house in Arisaig had been struck by lightning, and while he was rebuilding it, he wanted someone in Glasgow to supervise the shipments. Alasdair had done it before, but he was in London pursuing a seat in Parliament.
Niall put the paper down and reached for the ledger lying on the desk. Opening it, he flipped through several pages of transactions. Earlier entries contained small, precise numbers that were easy to read. In the last few pages, the entries were larger, some of the numbers overlapped, as if made by a hand not used to accounting. That probably wasn’t surprising since Alasdair had told him the original bookkeeper, Mr. Graham, was recovering from a bad bout of consumption and his nephew, Gordon Monroe, had taken over the books. Niall looked over to the smaller desk in the corner where the accountant normally sat. It was empty now because the nephew had claimed a sudden family emergency that needed attending.
Looking back at the ledger, Niall sighed and shut it. Accounting was not his strong suit either, but surely he could manage for a few weeks until Robert could return. Besides, it was a perfect excuse to stay in Glasgow…or more precisely, at Annie’s mother’s boardinghouse.
He grinned suddenly. Exactly why Annie intrigued him was something of a mystery, but intrigue him she did. Perhaps it was her independence. Or perhaps it was because she appeared to be immune to his ability to captivate. The idea was somewhat offsetting since he had a well-deserved reputation for wooing lasses. Even the other ladies of the Liberty and Progress Club weren’t oblivious to him. They might not be as openly flirtatious as debutantes, but he’d caught their furtive looks and smug, little smiles when he paid them compliments. Annie was the only one unfazed. In fact, she actually didn’t seem to like compliments at all.
His grin faded. He’d been sincere about the color of her eyes this morning. They were such a deep, dark blue that they did look violet. He hadn’t been overly solicitous either, yet she had all but rebuked him. As far back as he could remember, that had never happened before. Ever. Not even when he was a green lad getting to know what girls liked. Only two of his brothers, Gavin and Braden, had as many women surround them at a feast or ball. Good thing they were both up north. They’d never let him hear the end of their taunts if they heard Annie’s responses to his efforts. Niall shook his head as he stood to leave. Annie was a challenge.
But then, he did like challenges.
****
“Dearie?” Mrs. O’Connor, the elderly lady Annie had been reading to, inquired as she leaned forward in her chair. “Is there something in there that ye don’t think I should be hearin’?”
Annie blinked, suddenly realizing that she had been wool-gathering and lost track of what she should be doing. She’d been reading Walter Scott’s epic poem, Marmion, when her thoughts had drifted to the conversation with Niall MacDonald. Drat it. She glanced at the book now and smiled at Mrs. O’Connor. “Unless a man lusting after a lady who is already betrothed to another shocks ye, no.”
The old lady shook her head. “I’m thinkin’ no much can shock me at my age,” she said and then smiled, a hint of a dimple in her right cheek. “Besides, I know how the tale ends.”
“Why didn’t ye say so?” Annie asked, closing the book. “I can find something else.”
“No need to be doin’ that,” Mrs. O’Connor answered. “I’m rather likin’ the idea that a nun who broke her vows gets walled up alive. ’Tis rather fittin’. One should always uphold an oath, don’t ye think?”
“Aye. A person should be held to account,” Annie replied. Maybe if Broderick Fletcher, the miscreant who’d promised to fulfill her heart’s desire, had been more accountable… Then she frowned. If she wanted to be honest with herself, she’d allowed the seduction, even if she foolishly had believed everything Broderick had said.
“What’s wrong, dearie?” Mrs. O’Connor asked. “Ye look a wee bit troubled.”
Annie shook her head to clear it. That whole, sordid mess had happened three years ago. Luckily, she hadn’t quickened with child, so there was no sense in dwelling on it. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking how true the line ‘What a tangled web we weave…’ is. Deception is never good.”
“A pity more people don’t remember that.” Mrs. O’Connor smiled again. “But the gallant knight is reunited with his betrothed, so Marmion has a happy ending.”
Annie smiled back. “Are ye a romantic? Someone who believes in happy endings?”
“Aye. Of course.” For a moment, the old lady’s eyes glazed as though she had slipped into another world and then she refocused. “My Gilbert and I had near fifty years together. And fine those years were.”
“Fifty years. It seems unbelievable.”
Mrs. James nodded. “And they went by like a salmon’s flash in the stream.”
“Did ye never argue?”
“Argue? Nary a day went by that we didn’t.” Mrs. O’Connor’s pale blue eyes twinkled. “But then, there was the putting-it-all-to-rights that followed. Mr. O’Connor had a talent for doing that, right up to the time he died.”
It took Annie a moment to realize what Mrs. O’Connor meant. “I dinnae…” Annie stammered, not sure how to continue.
The older lady smiled again, the dimple reappearing. “’Tis not just young folks that feel frisky, ye know. Some feelings don’t change just because we age.”
Annie felt her face heat. “I’m sorry! I dinnae mean it that way. I… ’Tis just that I doona think I could ever have such strong feelings for a…for anyone.”
Mrs. O’Connor tilted her head and studied Annie. “Not even for that young man who accompanied ye here this morning?”
Annie’s face warmed again and she shook her head quickly. “That man has been the bane of my existence for the last two weeks. He won’t leave me alone.”
“Perhaps he is smitten with ye, dearie.”
Annie gave an unladylike snort. “Hardly. He insists on escorting me every time I leave the house, as if I don’t have enough sense to take care of myself.”
“Why would he think that?” Mrs. O’Connor asked.
“I doona ken…” Annie shrugged. “Well, there was an incident where his sister-by-marriage and I were almost attacked, but—”
“Ah. And did the young man rescue ye?”
“Nae.” Annie shrugged again. “His brother did.”
“And ye could have been hurt,” Mrs. O’Connor said. “’Tis not a bad trait for a man to want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Annie frowned. “I doona need a man to protect me.”
“Not even one so braw and handsome as him?” When Annie shook her head vehemently Mrs. O’Connor continued, “Ye have to admit, dearie, that he does present a formidable presence.”
Annie’s frown deepened. It might be true that more than one of her club members had gazed at Niall with interest, although she’d attributed that to his wearing a kilt the first time he escorted her to a meeting. He’d had a broadsword strapped to his side and black-handled knives sticking out of each boot as well. Who wouldn’t stare at someone dressed like that? She had to admit that he did present a striking appearance. His longish black hair that resembled a wild mane did make him look a little bit animalistic, too.
Mrs. O’Connor winked. “Ye might want to rethink.”
Annie felt herself blush again. She sincerely hoped this blushing thing wasn’t going to become a habit. It was quite annoying. Just like Niall MacDonald. “I doona need to rethink. I have nae need for a man in my life.”
“Ummm.”
Annie was tempted to ask what that meant, but she really didn’t want Mrs. O’Connor to indulge further in some fantasy of Annie being a damsel in need of rescuing by some knight errant. She was not. “Truly. It seems some sort of punishment that the Fates landed Niall MacDonald at my mother’s boardinghouse. There are plenty of other establishments around.”
Mrs. O’Connor blinked. “Punishment? Ye are lookin’ at it wrong. ’Tis nae the Fates who have a hand in this. ’Tis the Fae.”
Annie blinked too. “The Fae?”
“Aye. Faeries. Sidhe. They do enjoy a bit of meddling, just like our Irish leprechauns.”
Annie opened her mouth, then closed it. Mrs. O’Connor had always seemed quite lucid, but perhaps at her age she was a trifle touched in the head. Right now, the elderly lady was tipping her head to one side like a bird and fixing a bright-eyed look on Annie.
