Greer was astonished into taking a page out of her mother’s book of ladylike tactics. “How irregular.” It was not helpful that her own missives to Ewan’s friends had also gone unanswered.
The cold puddle of doubt and dread and guilt swilling up her insides expanded into an icy loch of misapprehension. She had been so sure the malice toward Ewan stemmed from Crief, not Edinburgh.
“Have you met any of those friends?” she asked. “The quadrumvirate, Ewan used to call them.”
“Disreputable is what I call them.” Cameron’s tone was curt. “The worst sort of people, libertines all, gamblers and fornica—” He stopped himself. “Forgive me, but I get so irate thinking of them. To answer your question, I did meet them once or twice in Ewan’s company, but I never thought them suitable companions for a man with my cousin’s responsibilities.”
“Gracious,” was all she could think to say again. Cameron’s description was such a contradiction to the picture Ewan’s years of correspondence had painted of his relationship with his friends, she did not know what to believe.
Only one thing was very clear—one way or another, she had been lied to. So many lies, that every time she thought she had a falsehood sorted out, another assertion came along to make her doubt her own mind.
They made the rest of the way to the Dalshee in silence, each to their own unhappy thoughts, but when they entered the stableyard, Greer was chagrinned to find her father anxiously looking for her.
“Greer, dear, there you are.” Though he gave her a pointed parental look, he mercifully held his questions to himself. “Your Grace.” Papa bowed and shook the Duke of Crieff’s hand. “I hope you and Greer enjoyed your ride.”
“His Grace met me at the edge of the southern forest path,” Greer clarified, lest Papa get the wrong idea. “And was kind enough to insist on accompanying me home.”
“For her safety,” His Grace of Crieff reasoned. “We’ve reason to think there may be a miscreant—a madman—loose in the hills.”
“A miscreant? Do you mean a poacher?” Papa asked, though neither he nor his gamekeeper had ever been overly strict about the taking of small game on Dalshee lands—there were rabbits enough to go around, Papa always said, and no one on Dalshee ever need starve for the lack of food when there were rapacious rabbits eating his farmer’s crops.
“Indeed, that is what my moorkeeper fears, my lord,” Cameron confirmed, although Greer had seen nothing of concern in Dewar—indeed if anything, she suspected that he had steered Cameron toward the narrow southern glens on a goose-chase to keep him away from the bothy under Glas Maol. “And why I insisted on seeing Lady Greer safely home.”
“Insisted, did you?” Papa cast a sly wink her way. “Why, she’s safe as houses out there, my lass. Practically raised on the moorside, she was.” His voice was full of amused pride. “Knows it like the back of her hand. But now that you’ve come all this way, come into the house, do, and take some refreshment. We’re expecting guests, but Lady Shee will be glad of a visit.”
Greer would be glad of a departure. She wanted Cameron to return to Crieff so she could disappear into her room and puzzle things out. She wanted to find Ewan and convince him to listen to her. She wanted night to fall so she could secret Ewan into the safety of the house. She wanted to harness up the Dalshee traveling coach and speed him off to the Inn at the Bridge over the Shee Water and ask every one of the questions lined up like pistols on a table, primed and ready to be shot off.
Ewan was alive, and every moment that she was not with him—was not actively helping him—felt like a dangerous waste of precious time. But there was nothing she could do at that moment, trapped by both propriety and her instinct to keep her information from Cameron.
So she used her considerable thwarted energy to hold her wheesht, pouring the coffee and tea her Mama had waiting for their arrival, and set herself to be the dutiful, attentive daughter, while Malcolm Cameron spoke to her father in a low voice that she perhaps wasn’t meant to hear. “I am glad to have a moment to speak with you, sir. There is also the delicate matter of the small piece of business I wrote about?”
“Ah, yes, the parcel along the upland loch.” But Papa, being not as delicate as His Grace, answered in a voice loud enough for them all to hear, and looked to her. “Greer? What say you?”
“Lady Greer is to be consulted?” If His Grace was discomfited, he hid his feeling behind mild, polite surprise.
“Greer is my firm right hand here at Dalshee, Your Grace, as well as my strong legs. I sent her up to have a look at those fields. I consult with her on all matters of the estate which she will someday inherit.”
“Ah.” Cameron acknowledged the logic with a nod in her direction. “How progressive.”
“Indeed.” Papa was unapologetic, turning his attention to her. “Did you get a good look at the property in question, my dear?”
“I did,” she confirmed with just enough smugness in her voice to please herself without being offensive to His Grace. “And I find it well worth buying, for it will increase our frontage on the loch considerably—almost entirely, depending upon how the boundary lines are re-drawn. But before I advise my father for the purchase, I feel I must advise you, as your neighbor, Your Grace, against its sale.”
If she had another reason—wanting to preserve the hectares for Ewan—she kept it to herself.
Now Malcolm Cameron did look discomfited—heat reddened his cheeks. “Indeed?”
“Because you have asked for my advice on other matters relating to the estate, I feel it incumbent upon me as you neighbor, and friend, to advise you so—the price you ask includes the market value of the crop as well as the land, but if you sell Dalshee the crop, what barley will you have for Crieff to distill?”
For a moment Cameron said nothing, his mouth sealed in a tight controlled line. And then his hauteur gave way to chagrin. “You have the better of me, again. I had no idea of the crop—barley, you say?”
“Aye,” her father agreed. “I wonder your steward did not advise you thus.”
“Indeed. I shall remonstrate with him directly. I am more than thankful for your principled advice. Yet…” He stirred his coffee for a long moment. “I still needs must sell what land I can. Crieff must…” His voice dropped to a murmur, as if he hated to admit such news “…retrench.”
Papa, bless him, got a rather particular glint in his eye. “If I may be so bold, but as your neighbor and your elder, with the benefit of years, might I enquire why Crieff’s finances needs must be retrenched?”
“It is no great concern.” Cameron frowned and smiled all at the same time, managing to look unconcerned about the very problems he had been hinting at. “Crieff is as sound as ever. However, I seek a more…prudent, careful hand on the finances, shall we say. I dislike extravagances and waste—thousands of pounds foolishly spent on silk draperies from France—and have undertaken a stricter course of action to make sure Crieff can continue on as a going concern for years to come.”
A very, pretty speech, she supposed, though it stung like a skelp to hear of the room Ewan had so thoughtfully designed for her called a foolish extravagance. She knew the room had been extravagant—wonderfully, sentimentally so. But that was when she had assumed Ewan could afford the extravagance.
And yet, while the facts supporting Cameron’s course of action might have been correct, the execution was sadly lacking—staff, who would need to find employment elsewhere, had been let go, burdening the village. Crops were being mismanaged to the detriment of Crieff’s long-term financial health. And Ewan’s reputation was being tarnished to no good end, while he could do nothing about it.
That Ewan was a good man still, no matter his injuries, she did not doubt. But her mind could not help but whisper that perhaps his injuries were the result of the extravagances and debt? Perhaps he had become indebted to the wrong sort of people in Edinburgh?
It was all so curious and confusing and contradictory, she did not know what to believe
of Malcolm Cameron. How could everything he said be the truth? How some of what he said not be true?
She wanted a long, candid talk with her parents, but Papa was walking Cameron out with one hand over His Temporary Grace’s shoulder, keeping him close in conversation, as if he sensed that the business of buying the acreage in question at an advantageous price would be concluded more swiftly if Cameron were brought to the bargain man to man. Without a daughter’s interfering hand.
So be it. She was practical enough to know the result was what mattered, not the way of obtaining it. And once she and Ewan were finally married, the two properties would for all intents and purposes be one.
If she and Ewan were ever married. If he remembered her.
Greer swallowed her bitter worries with her tea, until her thoughts were interrupted by the jangle of harness and crunch of the Crieff carriage’s wheels upon the gravel drive.
But Cameron had ridden—
“Are you were expecting other guests?”
Her Mama raised one elegant eyebrow. “You would know the answer to that question if you had spent more than a fleeting moment with us in the past two weeks. You’re off at all hours, roaming the moor. I know you are still grieving for Ewan, Greer dearest, but as always, too much is too much.”
“I’m sorry, Mama.” But she wasn’t sorry, really. “But the most extraordinary thing has happened. Today—”
But Greer didn’t finish because the second most extraordinary thing of the day happened before she could say another word—Malloch, the butler, announced their guests.
“My Lady, the Marquess and Marchioness of Cairn, and the Honorable Mr. Archibald Carrington.”
Lady Greer Douglas
Dalshee House
Perthshire
16 April, 1790
My Dearest Lady Greer,
I stand rebuked. And rightly so. I fear I had some of the zealotry of the convert in my last letter. I hope you will forgive my fervor for agricultural improvement, for which I suffer great abuse from my friends, who all pursue far more classical intellectual studies—Alasdair reads Latin and history in preparation for the law and government, Archie pursues the written word as if it were game, and Rory refines his already exquisite taste with more study of medieval art and architecture, while also adding some elements of the up-to-date science of chemistry for reasons none of us understand. All of them disparage my agronomy as dirty and grubby but have little understanding of all the science—the breeding of strong seed and stock alike—that will revolutionize farming, which I esteem as the backbone of all Crieff’s estates.
I do realize it is more than a little ridiculous to study farming from the ancient, medieval halls of the university, so far from any actual fields, but I must hope that the base of knowledge being pounded into my thick skull will eventually see me in good stead upon my return to Crieff.
I hope this letter finds you and your family in good health and good spirits, and that your spring lambing season goes well. Pray do keep me informed so I may have the benefit of your practical advice to weigh against the latest theories. You shall keep my feet upon the ground far more successfully that any of my friends.
As a token of my penance, I send with this letter all my esteem and devotion, along with an armful of Scots kisses—less refined, you may assume, than the Italian—but all the more passionate in their honesty.
I remain your devoted friend, EC
Chapter 19
My Lord and Lady Cairn, and Mr.Carrington, my lady.”
A tall, imposing ginger-haired man, and an only lightly less imposing woman, along with a dark-haired man, made their bows before the lady spoke first. “Pray forgive our intrusion, my Lady Shee.”
“Not at all, my Lady Cairn.” Mama’s manners won over her astonishment. “My Lord and Lady Cairn, and Mr. Carrington.” She made them a very graceful curtsey. “You are most welcome to Dalshee. May I present my daughter, Lady Greer.”
“Lady Greer.” The Marchioness of Cairn came toward her in a rush, taking up her hand in a heartfelt gesture of support. “I hope you forgive the impulse, but we felt it necessary to come as soon as we could.”
“But of course, my lady.” Greer made her curtsey to both her and the marquess, though she was impatient with all the polite formality. “My lord.”
“Call me Quince, please.” The Marchioness of Cairn clasped Greer’s hand tight with what Greer could only call sympathy. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Greer hardly knew what to think, or which one of the questions careering through her mind to ask first. “Some of it good, I hope?”
“All,” the marchioness declared. “So much so, that I suppose I felt I already knew you, and wanted to be your friend. Which is why we felt we had to come.”
“Yes, of course, you are very welcome.” It was a pleasure to feel their sympathetic understanding. “Please call me Greer. I, too, felt that way from Ewan’s letters about you all. And you must be Mr. Carrington.” Greer turned to the dark-haired gentleman waiting quietly behind Lady Cairn. “You are also most welcome to Dalshee.”
“My lady.” Carrington bowed over her hand. “Call me Archie, please. It is an honor to meet you at last, thought I must admit to wishing that it were under very different circumstances.”
Greer could only agree. “Indeed.” Especially as the circumstances seemed to be changing hourly.
“Please, come and take some refreshment,” Mama bid them. “The earl will be along shortly.”
“Thank you.” The marchioness sat beside Greer. “Please allow us to offer you our most heartfelt condolences. We must thank you for writing to Alasdair and Archie, else we never would have known of Ewan’s death.”
“Indeed,” her husband added from behind. “We had been in happy expectation of Ewan’s word of your marriage, and so your letter, when it finally reached us in London, came as quite a shock.”
“I am sorry to have been the bearer of such bad news.” Though she would have better news for them directly, she hoped—as soon as she understood their place in Ewan’s attempted murder. “But I had so many questions, you see.”
“As do I,” the marquess answered, just as Papa and Malcolm Cameron returned to the drawing room, and Greer was obliged to be patient through another round of introductions, though her curiosity was all but burning a hole through her tongue. “But of course, you’ve met before.”
“No,” Alasdair Colquhoun answered. “I’ve not had the pleasure.” He inclined his head to Cameron. “Your Grace.”
If it had pained her to address Malcolm Cameron with Ewan’s title while the latter was forced to hide in a remote bothy, she could see by their sudden stiffness that it was doubly harder for Ewan’s dear friends to bear. And they certainly had not her solace in knowing Ewan was alive. But until she could suss out who was lying—whether Cameron had lied about meeting Ewan’s friends before, or the marquess was lying now—she would keep that particular information entirely to herself.
Alasdair bowed to Cameron. “My wife, Lady Cairn.”
“Your Grace.” Quince made a curtsey perfectly calibrated to show just enough deference to Cameron’s rank without any warmth.
The taut tension in the room was palpable. Archie Carrington made no more than a barely civil nod in Cameron’s direction—no love lost there.
Mama offered their guests refreshment, but Greer was too aware and too curious to wait until all the social niceties had been completed to set a cat amongst the pigeons to see which one took flight. “But I thought that you all had met before? His Grace was just saying—”
“That I had not had the pleasure,” Malcolm Cameron contradicted.
This was such a direct repudiation of every opinion of Ewan’s friends he had previously divulged to her, that Greer could not but object. “Nay. You said that—”
“Ewan had spoken so eloquently of your friendship in his letters.” Cameron frowned at her in concern. “Surely you remember—we spoke of this on our ride here?”
What she remembered was entirely different. And what letters? How had it never occurred to Greer that Ewan might have other correspondents, especially his cousin, of whom he had never mentioned? And then again, Ewan had never mentioned debt.
“But you came”—Greer covered her confusion by redirecting the conversation with a question for the marquess—“you said, from London?” That might account for the delay in their answering her letters—she had written to Cairn in the marquess’s case, and Edinburgh in Mr. Carrington’s.
“Your letter was sent from Cairn to London,” the marquess answered. “Upon its receipt there, we immediately made for Scotland to condole with you.”
“I thank you.” Greer felt a new stirring of hope. “It is very heartening to meet friends who knew Ewan so well.” But first, there was Malcolm Cameron to try to suss out. “Indeed,” she continued, “His Grace and I were just talking of you all this afternoon, and saying—”
“What a very sad business my cousin’s death has been. Very sad, indeed. But a business which, unfortunately, requires my immediate attention,” Cameron answered. “And so I must take my leave. It was a pleasure.” He bowed to each of the guests, and then Mama. “My Lady Shee. My lord.” He bowed and shook Papa’s hand. “We’ll conclude our business some other time.”
But why did he not stay when he had just been telling her that he wanted to talk to these people? Surely Cameron had as many questions for them as she did?
Unless here was her pigeon taking flight.
But did she need to keep him from flying off? Would Ewan be in danger if she let his cousin go? Who was dangerous to whom?
Too many questions she could not seem to answer on her own.
Papa and Mama rose to see Cameron out. “But about this poacher,” Papa was saying. “I shouldn’t worry too much about it. I would advise you to leave in it Dewar’s capable hands—he’s experienced enough to see to things as he ought without creating a to-do.”
MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY (The Highland Brides Book 4) Page 18