“What will you do today?” Elizabeth asked.
“I mean to visit your uncle,” he said. “I need to speak to him about moving the trust. It was his idea, so there will be no difficulty, but I want to ask if he has any recommendations as to who else might take it on.” He paused, then added, “Of course, it depends where you intend to settle. I should place it with a solicitor situated close to where you will be.”
She frowned at that and looked up. “What do you mean? We are settled here.”
David paused. “But is that wise?” he asked. “Kinnell has already been looking for you in London. Perhaps a fresh start in another city or town would be prudent.”
“London is a big place,” she said. “And just because Alasdair tracked down Uncle Charles doesn’t mean he knows anything of my whereabouts. He could simply have discovered the family connection. It wouldn’t be difficult. I’ve not been back to Uncle Charles’s offices since he wrote to me to warn me to stay away, and once you’ve moved the trust to a solicitor unconnected to me, that should be the last of the matter.”
Frowning, David said, “He’s not going to stop looking for you. Having discovered your uncle, he might easily intensify his efforts in London. It’s much less likely that he’d think to try Bristol or York or Manchester.”
Elizabeth sighed. “I suppose so. But Euan is so well established at Flint’s—”
“He doesn’t mind leaving it, though, does he? He told me that he’s already suggested you go elsewhere.”
“I know, but I don’t want him to give up his position over me! He’s making a name for himself—well, a pen name. He doesn’t dare use his own.” She huffed out a laugh at that, though it didn’t contain much humour.
“Listen,” David said, leaning forward over the table. He put a hand over hers. “Your father placed a generous capital sum in trust for you. Properly managed, the income from it will give you a small, steady income, enough to live on—not in luxury but certainly very respectably. If Euan is willing to leave his position behind and look for another elsewhere—well, I think you should thank your lucky stars and go along with it. Go somewhere Kinnell would never think to look, somewhere there is no chance of you ever meeting anyone you’ve been introduced to before—one of the big industrial cities. That’s where Euan’s kind of stories are anyway.”
She paused, considering. “I’ll think about it,” she said at last.
“Do that,” David replied and said no more. He’d planted the seed. It would have to be enough for now.
Once they’d finished their breakfast, David rose from his chair.
“I should go,” he said. “Murdo will be wondering where I’ve got to.”
She glanced at him. “Lord Murdo is with you?”
“He was coming to London already. I just begged a seat in his carriage.”
“And you’re staying with him while you’re here?”
“Yes, at his house on Curzon Street.”
A pause. “Lord Murdo has been very kind to you. Taking you to his estate to recuperate. And now this. You have become friends, then?”
David smiled, but he could feel how tight and unnatural it must look. “I suppose we have,” he admitted.
“Was he expecting you to return last night? Will he be worried?”
David considered how to answer that. Was it credible that a man who merely regarded David as a friend would worry about him if he stayed away for a night? “He knew I was coming to see you,” he said at last, his voice deliberately casual. “So I’m sure he’ll have realised I stayed the night here. After all, I didn’t set out until quite late. All the same, I should go back and offer my apologies—once I’ve seen your uncle, of course. His office is quite close to here, is it not?”
Elizabeth nodded. “At Serjeant’s Inn. It’s perhaps a mile from here and on your way back to Curzon Street. I’ll write the directions down for you.”
She rose from her chair to attend to her task, thoroughly diverted from her curiosity about Murdo Balfour.
Chapter Twelve
Charles Carr’s offices were compact but well appointed. There were two rooms, Mr. Carr’s own office—the door to which was presently closed—and a sizeable anteroom which accommodated two clerks and several commodious chairs where clients waiting to see Mr. Carr could make themselves comfortable.
Having announced himself, David was invited to sit by one of the clerks who slipped off his tall stool, presumably to advise Mr. Carr of David’s arrival. On his return, the clerk retreated behind his desk to continue with his work, and the only sounds to disturb the silence for the next quarter hour were the scratches of nibs on paper.
At length, Mr. Carr’s door opened, and two people emerged, a neat, white-haired man wearing spectacles and an even smaller elderly lady who held his arm tightly. As the man, whom David presumed was Mr. Carr, led his elderly charge towards the front door, he nodded at David and said, “I will be with you once I’ve escorted Mrs. Kirkton to her carriage, Mr. Lauriston.”
“Please take your time,” David replied, nodding in return.
It was a full ten minutes before Mr. Carr returned.
He paused beside David’s chair. “Would you care to join me in my office, Mr. Lauriston?”
“Yes, of course.” David grasped his cane, wincing a little as he rose from his chair, a detail that he was quite sure the watchful solicitor noted.
As they passed the clerk on his high stool, Mr. Carr paused, saying, “Will you ask Polly to bring some tea in to us, Mr. Jenkins?”
The clerk murmured his assent, and Mr. Carr ushered David into his office.
It was a large, comfortably furnished room, reassuring in its solidity. The dark wood of the sizeable mahogany desk gleamed with care, and the hundreds of books that lined the walls looked to be regularly dusted. The desk itself was entirely clear, except for one small, tidy pile of papers right in the middle, tied up neatly with pink ribbon. Mr. Carr lifted the little bundle and placed it in a wooden tray that occupied a corner of the desk. Then he sat down, gesturing at David to take the chair on the other side of the desk.
“I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Lauriston,” he said. “You or Mr. Ferguson, anyway.”
“I hope you don’t mind me coming without an appointment,” David replied. “I only arrived in town late yesterday afternoon. If now is inconvenient...”
He trailed off as Mr. Carr shook his head. “Not at all,” the older man said. He paused, then added, “Before we go further, I should ask if you’ve heard about Patrick.”
“That he’s passed away?” David felt the heaviness of his sorrow again as he nodded. “Yes. I went to see Elizabeth yesterday, and a letter came from her sister with the news.”
Mr. Carr nodded. “He is a great loss to his family and to the legal profession. A fine man.”
“The finest,” David whispered.
“He had a very high regard for you, Mr. Lauriston.”
David couldn’t speak in response to that, and perhaps Mr. Carr saw it, because he became suddenly businesslike.
“Now, as to Miss Elizabeth, our beneficiary. I assume you are aware of what happened recently?”
David nodded. “I know that Sir Alasdair came here, seeking information as to her whereabouts. In the circumstances, I understand you advised Mr. Chalmers that it would be prudent to move the administration of the trust to another solicitor.”
“That is correct, so far as it goes,” Mr. Carr said. “Though there is a little more to the story than I wished to share by letter with my poor brother-in-law.” He leaned forward and took hold of a small bell. It gave only a light tinkle, but a moment later the door opened and the clerk who had greeted David on his arrival peered inside.
“Yes, sir?”
“Would you kindly arrange for Mrs. Kirkton’s papers to be returned to storage, Mr. Jenkins? No change to the current arrangements required. Just a little chat today.”
The clerk approached the desk and lifted the bundle of neatly tied
papers out of the wooden tray. “Very good, sir.”
“Thank you.”
As the clerk left, closing the door quietly behind him, Mr. Carr returned his calm gaze to David.
“This office is rather small, Mr. Lauriston, so we store most of our clients’ files and papers in another location close by. The clerks fetch what I need and return it when I’m done. In all, they make several journeys each day.”
Puzzled, David nodded. “That sounds sensible,” he agreed.
“Sensible and...fortunate.”
“Fortunate?”
“As I said, I didn’t tell Patrick the whole story of Sir Alasdair’s visit here. He came in the afternoon. The same night, this office was broken into and turned upside down. There were a few client papers on my desk, but only what I’d been working on that day. Nothing pertaining to Elizabeth’s trust. Nothing that would reveal her whereabouts.”
David stared at the other man, at his tidy, polite countenance, and didn’t know what to say for a moment. “You think Kinnell—” he began, breaking off in sheer disbelief.
“Candidly?” Mr. Carr said. “I do. I can prove nothing, of course. But Sir Alasdair made it fairly clear to me during our—quite unpleasant—conversation that he believed I had knowledge of Elizabeth’s whereabouts, and if I wasn’t prepared to tell him, he would take whatever action was necessary to find out for himself.”
A soft knock on the door interrupted them.
“Come in,” Mr. Carr said.
A middle-aged maidservant bearing a tea tray entered. She set it down on the large desk and bobbed a curtsey.
“Thank you, Polly,” Mr. Carr said in his calm, pleasant voice. “Those biscuits look delicious, I must say.”
The maidservant beamed and departed.
David found himself smiling too. Mr. Carr’s scrupulous politeness appeared to extend not only to his clients and visitors, but to his clerks and servants. Now the man was pouring a cup of tea for David, adding a splash of milk and offering him a plate of biscuits that looked to be freshly baked. David took one and bit into it. It was every bit as delicious as Mr. Carr thought, a crispy little wafer of sugar that melted in the mouth.
“What else did Kinnell say when he was here?” David asked.
Mr. Carr sat back in his chair, folding his hands over his chest. “Let me see. Well, when he first arrived, I was with another client—as I was when you arrived this morning. Sir Alasdair wasn’t as content as yourself to wait. He made such a racket that I had no choice but to excuse myself to my client and go out to investigate what the hullabaloo was. When I emerged from my office, he announced loudly that he knew who I was and he’d thank me to tell him where his wife was before he was forced to knock my teeth down my throat.”
“Charming.”
“Isn’t he? I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, but if he’d care to explain, I was happy to listen. That prompted him to tell me that I was as bad as his father-in-law.”
“Compliments, then?”
Mr. Carr gave a chuckle, but then he sighed. “He was not merely guessing, Mr. Lauriston. He knows she is here, in the city. He does not know where, but he knows.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But I could see there was no doubt in his mind about it. He was by no means sure of my involvement, but he was sure about that.”
“I’ve told her she should leave London. There are many other cities she could easily disappear in.”
“I couldn’t agree more. We were lucky there were no trust papers here when Sir Alasdair sent his men. Her address is recorded in the files. The papers are being kept safely with my bankers now, but you should identify a new solicitor to deal with the trust, someone with no connection to her.”
“I will do so. But Elizabeth needs to decide where she’s going first.”
“She does,” Mr. Carr agreed. “And the sooner she leaves London, the better.”
MR. LIDDLE ANSWERED the door when David knocked on the front door of the Curzon Street house an hour later.
“Good afternoon, sir,” the butler said, holding the door open. “His Lordship is in his study. Shall I show you through?”
“I think I’ll go to my bedchamber first, thank you,” David said, but when he went to move toward the stairs, the butler placed an impertinent hand on his forearm.
“I believe His Lordship would appreciate it if you would let him know that you are back, sir,” he said quietly. “He was a little concerned when you did not return last night.”
“Oh,” David said, mortified at being so softly rebuked. He’d rather hoped to wash up and put on clean clothes before confronting Murdo, but if Murdo had been worried about him, he supposed he should show face as early as possible. “All right, then.”
Abandoning the stairs, he followed Liddle along the corridor, past the drawing room and on to another door that presumably led to Murdo’s study.
The butler knocked softly at the door, but there was no answer. He knocked again, a little louder this time.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to David over his shoulder. “Perhaps His Lordship has returned to his own rooms.” Having delivered that pronouncement, he opened the door, only to halt in the doorway—David behind him—when he saw that room was, in fact, occupied. Murdo half reclined in the large chair behind the desk, eyes closed and head lolling on his shoulder. He was asleep, and given that he still wore the clothes he’d been in when David left him yesterday, perhaps that wasn’t a surprise. Had he waited up for David all night?
David glanced at the butler, who seemed suddenly paralysed by indecision.
“Leave us, please, Mr. Liddle.” When the butler opened his mouth to protest, David cut him off before he could speak. “I will take responsibility.”
The butler didn’t look particularly reassured by that comment, but he gave a stiff bow and withdrew, closing the study door quietly behind himself. David crossed the room, glad of the rug below his feet that muffled his steps. He stopped in front of Murdo’s chair and gazed down at his lover. The other man looked exhausted and rumpled. Utterly done in. It was close to noon now, and David found himself wondering how long Murdo had been sleeping. If his drawn, pale face was anything to go by, it hadn’t been long.
Staring down at Murdo, knowing that his lover had been worried about him, David felt a pang of guilt—and something else too. A bewildered sort of tenderness, an odd protectiveness that made him reluctant to wake the other man.
David rarely saw Murdo like this, quiet and passive. When they were in bed, Murdo took charge. He was naturally assertive, and since David preferred to cede control, they had fallen into a rhythm that suited both of them. It was easy to forget that Murdo was as breakable as anyone else. Seeing him like this now, tired and vulnerable, was a reminder of that.
The odd spell that held David locked in place was broken when Murdo began to stir. His wakening began with a soft moan and a series of tiny shifts of his body, until he finally lifted his head and, with a slow blink, opened his eyes.
“David,” he breathed, smiling. Then, as memory returned, he sat up abruptly in his chair, demanding in a rusty, too-loud voice, “Where the hell have you been?”
David had to suppress an urge to snap back in the face of that aggression, answering calmly, “I stayed the night with Euan and Elizabeth. It seemed a better option than walking home in the pitch-dark.”
“You stayed the night!” Murdo exclaimed. “Didn’t it occur to you to at least let me know you were safe?”
“And how was I supposed to do that?” David asked, his own voice rising now.
“A dozen ways. You could’ve sent a note.”
David gave a disbelieving laugh. “By whose hand? Euan and Elizabeth don’t have a retinue of servants like you, you know. They don’t even have one servant!”
“I’m sure you could’ve found someone who’d’ve been willing to bring me a note for a coin or two,” Murdo snapped. Then he sighed, and the anger seemed to go out of
him. He rubbed his hands over his unshaven cheeks in a weary motion.
“I’m sorry,” he added more quietly. “I was worried.”
David leaned back against the edge of the desk, the better to look Murdo in the eye. It seemed, though, that the other man wasn’t for meeting David’s gaze. He stared at the shiny mahogany surface of the desk as though fascinated by it, a faint flush heating his high cheekbones.
“You knew I was with friends,” David said carefully. “I told you where I was going. And it’s not so very surprising I didn’t come back, given the lateness of the hour, is it? Would you have preferred me to walk home in the dark?”
Murdo shook his head. “You misunderstand me. I was worried something may have befallen you on the way.”
“Well, that’s just silly. It was still light when I set off.” David gave a soft chuckle, but it died in his throat when he saw the expression on Murdo’s face and realised he was perfectly serious.
“I was worried that my father may have arranged for someone to follow you,” Murdo said. “It didn’t occur to me till after you left, but once I thought of it, I couldn’t stop. I was convinced you were lying, beaten, in some alleyway.”
“What? He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Murdo considered, his brows drawn together. “I just don’t know,” he said after a long pause. “But then I didn’t think he even knew about you—until he came here yesterday and made it clear he was well aware I had someone staying with me at Laverock House.” He shook his head, lips thinning. “Which means that someone’s been sending him reports—just when I thought I’d weeded all of that out.”
“But why go to the bother of setting someone on my heels? What does that achieve?”
“To get you out the way,” Murdo said flatly. “You’re an obstacle to his plans. And I feel like the worst sort of fool because I’m the one who made him see it.”
David swallowed, his gut clenching with nerves. “How do you think you managed that?”
“For months I’ve been ignoring his demands to return to London to get married. Ignoring him is how I deal with him, you see. I realised long ago that it’s a mistake to fall into the trap of providing explanations for not doing what he wants. Refusing to speak to him is so much more effective and satisfying. Unfortunately, I made an error of judgment when he came here yesterday.”
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