She didn’t want to gather blankets. She wanted to go outside and do something to help. Gathering her skirts, Charlotte ran for the front door. It stood open, smoke curling into the foyer as the breeze carried it eastward. Once she stopped outside she closed it behind her; otherwise even after they extinguished the fire Ranulf would have to replace all his curtains.
It seemed an odd thing to worry over, given the circumstances, but as she rounded the corner of the house she stopped dead, all thoughts of curtains fleeing. Fire lapped orange and angry out of the hayloft window, and the entire back of the building was nothing but smoke and flames. And she knew immediately that no tipped-over lantern had sparked this blaze.
She shivered, then ran forward again at the sound of Ranulf’s shout. Men and horses darted in front of the flames. And as she drew closer she made out the ragged line of men hauling buckets from the well behind the house.
A very worried-looking young man cranked the handle at the well to bring the bucket up and down while others used the water to fill still more buckets and hand them down the line. Charlotte took a breath, coughing. She might not be able to haul a quantity of heavy buckets about, but she could certainly help turn a crank.
“Let me help,” she said, moving to the opposite side of the rig and joining her hands with his.
“Thank you, miss,” he said feelingly, panting.
Working together, they dropped the bucket and pulled it up at nearly twice the speed it had been going before. Servants from the neighboring houses began to appear, and she instructed them to drop more ropes with buckets into the well to speed the flow of water to the fire.
Her arms began to feel like lead, but she clenched her jaw and kept turning the crank. However exhausted she was, the men hauling the full buckets of water must be even more so. She closed her mind off from the numbness and the sharp ache, and concentrated on nothing but making her arms move.
A hand closed over hers, and with a creak the crank stopped turning. “Well done, Ginger,” Ranulf’s low brogue came. “Well done, lass. The fire’s out.”
She couldn’t uncurl her fingers. After a moment he seemed to realize that, because with a surprisingly gentle touch he pulled her hands free. “Did we save Stirling?” she heard herself ask, even as her legs sagged. How long had she been standing there? It felt like both years and seconds all at the same time.
“Stirling’s well. All the horses are oot. The stable’s lost, but the fire didnae spread to the house, thank Saint Andrew and all the angels.”
She took a look at him, tall and formidable even with a missing coat and rolled-up shirtsleeves, singe marks and soot covering nearly every inch of him. And then before she could protest that she just needed a moment or two for feeling to return to her arms and legs, he swept her up into his arms and carried her back to the house.
“Oh, thank goodness, Charlotte!” she heard her mother say. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
“I was helping pull water from the well,” she said. Abruptly she realized that Ranulf still carried her, and she elbowed him in his hard chest. “I’m not an invalid,” she stated. “You may put me down now, if you please.”
His grip tightened momentarily, and then he set her down lengthwise on one of his lush couches. “I’ll fetch ye some whisky,” he said gruffly, and moved off.
Immediately Jane sank down on the floor beside her and reached for her hand. “Oh, you have blisters,” she said, and began rubbing Charlotte’s fingers.
“I feel like one large blister,” she returned, wincing as pins and needles began dancing up her arms.
“As ye should,” Ranulf said, squatting down beside Jane and holding a glass to Charlotte’s lips. “Ye stood there fer near three hours, to hear my valet tell it. He says ye organized the neighbors and their wells, too.”
Three hours? No wonder she felt so prickly. “I wanted to help.”
“And so ye did. Nearly worked poor Ginger’s arms off. He won’t be able to knot a cravat for a week. Drink.”
With the rest of her family looking on anxiously, she did as he bid her and choked down several swallows of strong whisky. Her muscles began to relax, and she closed her eyes. The last thing she remembered was Ranulf rubbing her fingers and calling her a bonny, brave lass. Well, that was nice to hear.
* * *
Ranulf carried the sleeping Charlotte out to her family’s coach and set her carefully down on the seat, moving back as the rest of the Hanovers and Rowena climbed in after her. This evening he sent both Peter and Debny back with them and Una; just because mischief had been done didn’t mean it was finished with.
As he stepped back from the coach, Rowena reached out the window and grabbed his wrist. “Charlotte said someone knocked over a lantern. Do you think that’s what happened?”
And even tired and worried, she still made an effort to stifle her brogue. It reminded him of Berling and his cohorts. “I dunnae, lass. We’ll take a look in the morning, when the light’s better.”
She nodded. “Be safe, Ran. And please don’t do anything mad.”
“I willnae. Keep Una in yer room with ye tonight, just to ease my mind. Good night, piuthar.”
“Good night, bràthair.”
The moment the coach left the drive, he stalked back to the smoldering stable. The grooms would have to keep watch all night, to be certain flames didn’t erupt again. The five horses he’d kept inside the building were safe and likely still jittery at the Duke of Greaves’s house on the next street over.
“You’re not going to attempt anything mad are you, Ranulf?” his uncle asked from several feet behind him.
“I happen to know a man with a reputation fer setting fires, Myles,” he said, his shoulders aching from keeping such a tight leash on his temper.
He wanted to hurt someone—Berling—for this. The man had put his household, his family, in danger. He might well have burned a dozen more houses along the street if the wind had been wilder, or their response slower. And beneath all that, buried beneath a ton of smoldering embers, lay the thing that troubled him the most—the idea that Charlotte had been out in the middle of the chaos and that she might have been hurt.
When he’d found her at the well she’d been white-faced and clearly exhausted, her hands clenching the crank so hard she’d needed his help to let go. Seeing her there standing firm amid the chaos had been … It had been a revelation. She was proper, aye, and she had no stomach for bloodshed, but she was not timid and she was not weak.
And with all his prejudice against the English, it was English servants and their masters who’d helped him put out the fire. It was an English duke who’d offered to stable his horses. And unless he was greatly mistaken, it had been a Scotsman masquerading as an Englishman who’d set this fire.
“Ranulf, we don’t know for certain that Berling is to blame,” Myles said, as if reading his thoughts. “We don’t even know if it was he who burned the schools or shot Bear. It was the Donnellys I told, after all.”
Ranulf rounded on his uncle. “I know,” he hissed. “I should have seen to him when I had the chance. Breaking his nose clearly wasnae enough.”
“Perhaps you should have. In the Highlands you would have had a fair chance of getting away with it. But this is London, and he has more friends and allies here than you do.”
“Then they can be allies to a dead man.” With a last look at the smoking rubble, he turned back for the house.
Myles grabbed his shoulder. “At least wait until morning,” he said tightly.
When Ranulf looked from him to his hand, his uncle released him again. “He’ll be waiting for me tonight. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
“Thank God. Come stay at Wilkie House tonight.”
“Nae. I’ll help keep watch over the stable till the smoke stops rising.” In addition he had some thinking to do, and this setting fit his mood far better than a comfortable bed at his uncle’s residence.
“Well, get some sleep. I may only barely b
e a part of the family, but I do worry about you, lad.”
With a grimace, Ranulf stopped and turned around. “I was wrong,” he said evenly. “Ye’re my uncle. Ye’re part of my clan, and I do love ye. I give ye my word I willnae go after Berling tonight.”
Myles looked away for a moment, then wiped a hand across his face as he turned back again. “I must have smoke in my eyes,” he grumbled, his voice not quite steady as he blinked and rubbed at his eyes again. “Thank you, Ranulf. Going up to Glengask gave me a family, you know. Losing you…”
Ranulf clapped a hand on his uncle’s shoulder. “Ye willnae lose us again. I cannae guarantee peace, but family stays together.”
That, at least, he could see to. Berling would be more complicated. He wanted nothing more than to remove from this life a man he knew to be a threat before anything else could happen. But Myles was correct; this wasn’t the Highlands. Little as he liked it, he would have to tread carefully. But he would see to Donald Gerdens. That, he swore.
Chapter Nine
Ranulf woke to the sound of raised male voices and a loudly barking dog. Every muscle felt stiff, which made sense once he realized he’d fallen asleep sitting at his desk. A page of the English law book he’d been reading was stuck to his cheek, and he scratched at his scraggle of beard as he lifted his head. Groaning, he pushed to his feet.
“Damnation,” a familiar brogue came from the doorway. “Ye look like hell spat ye out into a fireplace.”
Sharp relief hit him at the sight of the tall, black-haired man standing there. “I told ye to stay at Glengask, Arran,” he returned, rounding a chair and walking up to his brother. Abruptly he didn’t feel quite so outnumbered—by enemies, by English, or by females.
“Aye. I decided against it.”
Ranulf pulled him into a hard embrace. “I’m glad to see ye.”
“Certainly ye are. Ye need someone to help ye clean up that mess ootside.” Arran patted him on the back, then stepped out of the embrace. “Owen said ye got the horses oot, and no one was more than singed. He also tried to wager me ten quid that it was Donald Gerdens who did it.”
“Dunnae take that bet. Ye’d lose.”
Together they walked down the hallway to the breakfast room, where the sideboard had been set with a simple breakfast of rewarmed haggis, toasted bread, and hard-boiled eggs. Fergus danced around them, alternating between shoving his head beneath Arran’s hand and Ranulf’s.
“Una’s with Winnie, I assume?” Arran asked, selecting a huge breakfast and hooking his boot around a chair leg to pull out the seat.
“Aye. Peter and Debny are at Hanover House, too.”
“Good. Let me put someaught in my stomach, and then we can go kill Berling.”
Gathering a much more spare breakfast for himself, Ranulf took a seat opposite his brother. Arran was the most levelheaded of the MacLawry brothers, the best educated, and arguably the most clever. If what little he’d heard about the fire had convinced him that Berling was involved, then it was so.
“Well?” Arran prompted after a moment. “Do ye have someaught else in mind?”
Ranulf sat back as the overly attentive Owen poured him a brimming cup of hot coffee. “Myles reminded me last night that this isnae the Highlands. I’ve nae difficulty with separating Berling’s head from his shoulders, but I dunnae think England appreciates revenge the way we do.”
“Not anymore, anyway,” Arran agreed. “The Sasannach are very nearly civilized.” He wolfed down a mouthful of haggis. “Ye’ve a different idea, then?”
“Not as of this moment.” He took a swallow of coffee, closing his eyes as the warmth of it spread all the way to his toes. “Now that ye’re here we can keep a better eye on him, though.”
Arran glanced at him, light blue gaze curious, before he returned his attention to his breakfast. “An eye. That’s different.”
“What do ye mean?”
“I mean it’s different. I may only have been eleven when athair died, but I knew what it meant when ye went oot ‘hunting’ with a musket and a shovel and came back two days later covered in dirt and not bringing any game with ye.”
Ranulf took a breath, pushing away the abrupt memory of the cold and the fear and the deep, bottomless anger that had driven him out when the men of his clan had been torn between advising caution and calling for a full-out war. It had been sixteen years ago, and he still remembered the crunch of leaves beneath his feet as he crept forward in the dark toward Sholbray Manor. He shifted in his chair. “And yer point is?”
“I know ye didnae chase down Berling before because we had to tend to Bear. Even if we’d had any doubts then, I dunnae see what’s stopping ye now, the Highlands or London or Boston, Massachusetts.” His gaze lowered again. “Unless it’s some lass named Charlotte Hanover.”
Bloody hell. He didn’t even know his own thoughts; explaining her to his astute brother would only have him sounding like a lunatic. “What does Lady Charlotte have to do with anything?” he asked, deciding on an attempt at ignorance.
Arran sipped at his tea. “You tell me,” he said succinctly.
“There’s naught to tell.” He looked at his brother. Looked at the mound of food on his plate, the shadows beneath his eyes. “When did ye leave Glengask?”
“Four days ago. And aye, I ken I shouldnae have traveled alone, but I doubt anyone could have kept up with me fer long even if they had been trying to follow me.”
“Well, then,” Ranulf responded, suspicion creeping through him. “Since the fire was last night, what, exactly, prompted ye to fly down here like a damned bat?”
“If ye’ve nothing to say on a particular topic, neither do I.”
Generally Ranulf appreciated their middle brother’s cleverness, but this morning he would have preferred Munro and his more straightforward manner. “Ye mean to say ye hurried down to London because I mentioned a lass in a letter? Do ye think I’m a monk, then?”
“Nae. But I do think when Ranulf MacLawry mentions a Sasannach lass five times in one letter, together with adjectives like ‘bossy’ and ‘headstrong’ and ‘unfathomable,’ then someaught’s afoot.” Arran rubbed at his forehead. “And since ye also said ye were outnumbered and Winnie said she’s nae coming home and ye went and bought a house, I thought ye might be able to use another MacLawry in London.” He cocked his head. “Am I wrong?”
Ranulf shook his head. “I’m glad to have ye here, as I said. But keep yer damned opinions to yerself.”
“I can do that.”
After they finished a quick breakfast, the two of them went out to the stable. There was little left but part of one wall and a pile of broken, blackened rubble. All of the stableboys swore they’d done nothing to cause the fire, and that in fact they’d all been in the side room eating when the fire started at the back of the stable.
Walking the rear perimeter, Ranulf’s foot crunched on broken glass. When he squatted down and dug through the burned grass and ashes he found the half-melted collar and burner of a lantern. After he called Arran over, they found a few more pieces of shattered glass. Whatever this had hit, it had done so with some force.
“It could have come down from inside the wall,” his brother said absently, marking a spot four feet from where the wall had stood—the place where they’d found the most distant piece of glass. “But it’s more likely it was thrown against the wall from the outside.”
Ranulf had already come to that conclusion, himself. When Berling had burned down the schools around Glengask and An Soadh—and he knew it had been Berling and his men, with or without definitive proof—he’d flung oil and then lanterns at the walls. Not identical to the way the stable fire had likely begun, but close.
“Arran, ye make a decent sketch. Draw the back of the yard here, and mark where we found the pieces of lantern. I’ll fetch a box fer all the bits of it.”
“We’re gathering evidence, then?” his brother asked skeptically.
“Aye, we are. Shut up and find some paper a
nd a pencil.”
“As ye order, m’laird.”
Debny rode up as Ranulf was putting the last piece of lantern safely in a box. Immediately he straightened to approach the head groom. “How are Rowena and the Hanovers?” he asked, stopping himself from asking specifically about Charlotte.
“All well. Lady Charlotte said she feels like she has cannonballs strapped to her arms, but she’s well otherwise.” The servant dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded note. “She sent this for ye, m’laird.”
Ranulf wiped his sooty hands on his trousers to give himself a moment to steady his racing thoughts before he took the missive and unfolded it.
“‘Ranulf,’” he read, “‘Thank you for an unforgettable evening. If you need to cancel our visit to the museum, I completely understand, but please let me know. Affectionately, C.H.’”
He grinned. “Remarkable lass.”
According to his pocket watch it was nearly half ten, and he badly needed a bath and a shave. Because not only did he plan to visit the museum with Charlotte, but he meant to look his most civilized while doing it. Why that was suddenly more pressing than proving who’d set fire to his stable, he would debate later.
Arran leaned in the doorway of the master bedchamber as Ginger was struggling with the knots in Ranulf’s cravat. “Do ye mind if I take the room at the other end of the hallway?”
“That’s fine.”
His brother hesitated. “Ye look very bonny.”
“Shut up. I’m off to Hanover House. I can leave ye off there if ye want to see Rowena.”
To his credit, whatever additional observations or questions Arran had, he kept them to himself. Instead he retrieved his satchel and wandered toward the back of the house. He’d arrived with even less luggage than Ranulf had; if he meant to stay for a time, they’d be making another visit to the prissy, padding-obsessed tailor.
The Devil Wears Kilts Page 16