The magnitude of what she’d begun to realize tonight continued to stun her. A week or two ago she’d been considering whether an autumn wedding with Donnach Maxwell would raise any eyebrows, or if they should wait until the following spring, when not even the most stiff-backed of matrons could mutter that she hadn’t finished with her mourning duties.
“If ye dunnae want to know whether George passed on or was pushed to it, I ken,” he went on. “I willnae tell ye if ye prefer. I mean to find the answer, though.”
“I would prefer that he was still here,” she countered. “He said he would take on everything he could of Ian’s duties, and I was so relieved. And then I had his affairs and Ian’s to wade through.” That was when Donnach had stepped forward, and she’d been grateful. Grateful.
“Then come with me in the morning, and we’ll take a look at George’s papers.”
This was all leading somewhere she wasn’t certain she had the courage to go. “There’s a difference between knowing that Ian suspected something and someone actually taking his life because of some investments.”
“So ye’d rather I sit on my arse and let things go on as they are? I cannae do that, Rebecca. I willnae.”
This would end up with him dead. Abruptly she knew it, as well as she knew anything. “I want to see proof,” she said, keeping her voice as level as she could. “I want something we could, if we needed to, present to the magistrate.”
“The magistrate,” he snarled. “Dunncraigh owns the courts.”
“No he doesn’t. Two years ago he was forced to pay reparations to the Duke of Lattimer for attempting to devalue the Lattimer property. Through sabotage, according to the newspaper. Dunncraigh said that he’d decided not to contest the decision because it would only cost him more time and money, but as I consider it now, he seems to want things that other people own on a fairly regular basis.”
“Rebecca, if ye’re trying to make me change my course ye’re doing a poor job of it.”
“I’m trying to tell you that he doesn’t own the courts. And that he’s annoyed enough of his own people that some of them might be willing to listen to you.”
“The courts. Giving him over to someone else to judge doesnae sit well with me. I gave my word that I’d end him. Nae that I’d see he gets a fair trial and a chance to squirm out from under his actions.”
Of course it didn’t sit well with him. He saw and then he acted—which was a change from his youth, when he hadn’t bothered to find a reason or an explanation before he set his course. This Callum, well, of course he disliked the idea of courts and trials, but at least he hadn’t told her no. “I said I would help you once you convinced me. You’ve convinced me. His Grace—Dunncraigh—hurt … oh, heavens, killed, my husband.” She took a breath. “And yes. I also would like to know why he would do this. And I’d truly like to look him in the eye while he tells me.”
His grim smile unsettled her even further. “I’d wager I can arrange that for ye.” He turned onto his side, facing her. “But ye leave this to me. Ye’ve Margaret relying on ye. Stay well away from Stapp and Dunncraigh.”
Touching his cheek with her palm, she smiled. “I said I would help you, Callum. I’ve sat behind my walls and let the world go by as it chose for far too long.”
“Ye had every reason to do so, lass.”
She wanted to ask him what came next for them, what he thought tonight meant. For her it had been a release, the answer to a question she’d asked back before she’d truly known what her desire to be constantly around him meant. Since then she’d learned the futility of wishes, but she couldn’t help but make one more: she wanted Callum MacCreath to remain in her life.
How much of a life did he have remaining, though, if he went after Dunncraigh? Even if he succeeded in killing the bastard, the Maxwell headed a very large clan. How long would it be until some nephew or cousin decided that murdering the man who’d murdered their chief would elevate his own position? How long until she found herself alone again?
“Ye look very serious,” he murmured, sliding closer and kissing her again.
Flinging her arms around him, she kissed him back. Worry could wait until morning.
Chapter Eleven
“Ye’re certain of this?” Callum asked, knocking on the roof of the coach.
“I’m certain,” Rebecca answered, straightening her spine. “And stop asking me as if you think I’ll turn tail and flee.”
A delicious grin danced across his mouth. “I reckon I know ye better than that. But it did take three tries to get ye into that fine dress.”
She glanced down at the soft gray and black muslin. “Because you kept taking it off me.”
“Aye, and I’d do it again if the ride was longer.”
With a deep breath that trembled a little at the end, she pushed open the coach’s door herself when they rolled to a halt. If not for the nerves beating like bats in her chest, she would almost have thought herself still dreaming. Last night—and this morning—had been … a revelation. An exhausting, eye-opening, shivery revelation.
Once the driver flipped down the steps she emerged, fixing her black bonnet against the stiff morning breeze. How could the world feel so different today? The only circumstance that had truly altered was her own knowledge. And now she’d agreed to help prove that the men on whom she’d most closely relied for the past horrid year were very likely the ones who’d put her in that situation in the first place.
All that left her thoughts again as Callum stepped to the ground. Two of her circumstances had altered since yesterday. And this one was … magnificent. He rolled his shoulders as if the coach had been too small to contain him, then offered his arm. Across the street Lord and Lady Hannick emerged from a shop, both of them stopping to ogle. Well, good. They wanted witnesses.
“Is that Molly MacKenzie?” Callum muttered.
Wrapping her hand around his forearm, she nodded. “Countess Hannick, now.” A thought occurred to her, and she hid an abrupt frown. “Did you know her?”
“I recall feathers, but that could be one of several things,” he returned. “I’m a wee bit hazy about most of that time.”
It was very likely he was lying, but she appreciated that he’d gone to the trouble of doing so. “Mm-hm.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I cannae change who I was a decade ago. Believe me, I’ve wished otherwise. But I’m nae that pup any longer. Now lead the way. My knees are getting cold.”
She started off in the direction of Edgley House. The coach might have driven them right up to the front door, but she understood why Callum had had them stop four streets away. He wanted them to be seen. He wanted Dunncraigh to know where they went. Thinking about that, though, only made her more nervous, and she had something she’d much rather contemplate at the moment.
“You’re the one who chose to wear your tartan,” she pointed out, glancing down at his kilt.
“I’m a Highlander, am I nae? Buckskins served me better in Kentucky, but I dunnae want to be seen as an outsider here. Nae if I’m to convince a magistrate of any of this.”
She could hear the distaste in his voice as he spoke the last bit, but hopefully he would keep to that plan until he actually began to believe it would be better than charging headlong into the fray. And hopefully he wasn’t just saying the words so she would stop arguing with him.
Ahead of them Mrs. Ketchum and her lady’s maid approached from the direction of the bakery, the stout woman nearly falling over her own shoes as she caught sight of them. “Good morning, Mrs. Ketchum,” Rebecca called, smiling, before anyone could duck into hiding.
“Lady Geiry,” the older woman greeted her, inclining her head, her wide-eyed gaze on Callum.
“Oh, do forgive me,” Rebecca went on. “Callum, Mrs. Ketchum. Morag, my brother-in-law, Callum MacCreath. Lord Geiry.”
“Ye’re the one with the devil wolf,” the maid exclaimed, covering her mouth when her employer hit her with a reticule.
“Aye,
” Callum returned. “I am.”
“So ye’re back in Inverness, m’laird?” Mrs. Ketchum took up, her voice pitched a little high. “From America, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “From Kentucky. Aye.”
“Do ye mean to stay, then?”
“I reckon I will. For a time, anyway. I’ve my duties here to attend to, now.”
“Oh.” The matron visibly shook herself. “Oh. Well, that’s bonny, then. If ye’ll excuse me, I’ve some biscuits to purchase.” Shoving her maid ahead of her, the woman reversed course and dove through the bakery door with not an ounce of subtlety. It was rather marvelous, really, seeing people flummoxed by someone other than her.
“That’s the most polite I’ve heard you be since you returned,” Rebecca noted with a smile, continuing up the street toward the harbor.
“I was worried she’d have an apoplexy if I scowled.”
The woman likely would have. “I’m not complaining,” she went on. “It’s … nice not to have the first question on everyone’s lips be an inquiry as to my health or how I’m managing. Especially when they don’t care and are only looking for fodder to gossip over.”
He looked sideways at her. “Is that how it’s been?”
“I had to stay indoors for most of the first six months, but since then, yes. I suppose they’re just being polite—I mean, I wouldn’t know what to say, either—but even a chat about the weather would have been better than simply staring.”
“Ye should have climbed a tree. That would have ’em wagging their tongues about someaught else.”
A laugh escaped from her chest. “Yes, about how I’d gone mad and needed to be sent straight to Bedlam.”
“I never thought ye mad. I thought ye daring.”
She had been much more daring before she turned fifteen or sixteen, though that might just as easily have been ignorance on her part. Raised by a too indulgent father and allowed to run free while he attempted to make business connections in a new town, she’d relished Callum’s swift friendship and his unconventional ways.
“Why are ye staring at me?” he asked, pulling her a breath closer to his side.
Rebecca shrugged. “For some reason it struck me last night that I used to enjoy your company.”
“Aye, back when I put worms on hooks so ye wouldnae have to touch ’em.” A grimace pulled at his mouth. “We had some fine adventures. When we were bairns.”
She frowned right back at him. “You mean to discount everything in the past, then? Yes, we were naïve, and we’re both different now, but we were those bairns. I used to love chatting with you. And adventuring with you.”
“Nae, I’m nae discounting who we were. I also spent ten years to nae be that idiot any longer. I stopped being naïve.”
“But young Callum did have his moments,” she pointed out. “We’re both here now because we were friends back then, because we liked similar things.”
“When I thought about ye, I didnae contemplate the times we went fishing, Rebecca. I thought about how yer shift would cling to ye when ye came out of the loch, about how ye’d tuck yer hair behind yer ear before ye did someaught that scared ye. About how blue yer eyes looked in the morning.”
Her skin warmed. “I thought you hated me for what I said to you. For what I did.”
“I did,” he said matter-of-factly. “Ye gave all that to another man.”
And there it was again. “You didn’t think about me that way until I accepted Ian’s proposal, and don’t you dare pretend otherwise.”
He snorted, not at all the reaction she’d expected, and yet more evidence that he’d … matured, that he’d become more self-aware or controlled. “I didnae think of marrying ye before Ian proposed to ye. I’ll agree about that.” He tilted his head a little. “Likely because I just … It didnae ever occur to me that we wouldnae be together. If ye dunnae think I looked at ye from time to time, well, ye werenae paying attention.”
Rebecca swallowed. Perhaps she had noticed. That didn’t make her any more willing to admit that from time to time back then she’d had some very interesting dreams about him where her imagination had filled in the blank spaces made by her lack of actual experience. Or that last night he’d put her imagination to shame.
“If ye keep looking at me like that, I may just forget myself and kiss ye right here in the open,” he murmured, his arm muscles flexing beneath her fingers.
By his way of thinking that would probably serve to make Donnach and his father panic over the idea of losing her. Of losing Sanderson’s, that was, and cause them to reveal all their evil deeds. “You would have to marry me to save me from the resulting scandal,” she pointed out, sending another acquaintance a nod. “I may be a widow, but there are still rules.”
“It would be that simple?” he asked, stopping so quickly she nearly turned into him.
“What?”
“To make ye marry me,” he pressed. “It would be as simple as kissing ye in public?”
Her heart fluttered. “Don’t you dare, Callum,” she whispered tightly, reflecting that a few days ago she would have taken that as a threat. They didn’t seem to be enemies any longer, thank goodness, but “complicated” didn’t even begin to describe … this. Them. The whatever it was that lay between them. “Last night was … a release,” she offered. “I’ve felt alone for a very long time. At the same time I haven’t forgotten why you came back here. Or that some of your plans, such as they are, seem more than dangerous. ‘Danger’ is not on my list of requirements for a husband. Nor is ‘careening toward getting yourself killed.’”
“Hm.”
She scowled up at his profile. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like, lass. Naught’s decided. Dunnae think that means I’ll keep my hands off ye in the meantime.”
Rebecca snorted, not at all averse to that. “You’re a madman.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
At the front steps of Edgley House he let her move ahead of him, standing back as Williams the butler greeted her and held the door. She appreciated his deference. This, more than anywhere else in the world, was her domain. It was the one substantial item that would remain hers once she remarried. In addition, for the moment she owned a large portion of a shipping company and a small house in fashionable Knightsbridge in London. Everyone, herself included, saw this ownership as temporary, as part of an obscenely large dowry that would go to the man of her choosing.
Perhaps that was the true measure of her power. She could choose to whom she gave her wealth. A few weeks ago she’d decided to give it to Donnach Maxwell, the Marquis of Stapp. That made sense, in her world as she’d known it then.
And now everything had upended. Not only because of what Callum had suspected and now begun to prove, but because of the man himself. Ian had married her on the expectation of inheriting her inheritance. He’d died a fortnight before that could happen. At the time she’d thought it ironic. Now, though, because of Callum, she had to wonder if Dunncraigh had taken steps to see that the fleet remained under her control, so she could bequeath it to his son through marriage.
“There was no reason for anyone to murder my father,” she announced, keeping her voice below the butler’s hearing as they reached George Sanderson’s old office and she let them inside. “Once I remarried, my husband would inherit my father’s share, just as Ian would have.”
“They killed Ian to stop him from talking about something, or from taking action about something he’d discovered,” he returned in the same low voice. “I reckon either they didnae want to risk George figuring out what happened, or they didnae want to wait for him to die in his own good time.”
“That’s awful.”
“Aye, it is.”
“I don’t like being a pawn,” she said more loudly, bending down to unlock her father’s desk with the key she’d brought.
“Then dunnae be one.” Callum sat in the chair and began pulling open drawers, setting the
contents onto the smooth mahogany desktop.
She didn’t know what she expected from him—more reverence, an acknowledgment that he was digging through a man’s life—but of course he had other goals in mind. Still, acknowledging that a good man—a man he’d known for a decade and one he knew she’d adored—had died wouldn’t have taken much effort. Only a little compassion. It angered her, as did his flippant response to a dilemma that had been weighing on her for better than a year.
“Of course. That’s the answer,” she snapped, taking a stack of papers and setting them in her lap as she plunked down in the chair facing the desk. “I’ll magically change my sex so I may keep what I own. I’ll have Maggie—Mags—do the same so she may inherit my riches.”
Williams cleared his throat from the doorway. “May I fetch you some tea, my lady? A glass of whisky, my lord?”
“Tea will do for me,” Callum returned. “I’ll nae answer for the lass, or she’ll punch me.”
“Tea is fine, Williams. Thank you,” she said stiffly. “And I may punch you on principle.”
“My lady?” the butler squeaked.
“Not you, Williams, of course. Him.” She jabbed a finger in Callum’s direction, not looking at him as she turned another page in the stack she’d selected.
“Ah. Very good, then.”
Once the butler had left, she did glance up. Across the desk Callum gazed at her, his two-colored eyes at once so similar to and so different from Ian’s. She’d never spoken to her husband as she just had to him, but then she’d never bothered to mince words with Callum—just as he never had with her. Of course no one had ever aggravated her as much as Callum had, either. Evidently some things didn’t change, after all. “What is it?”
“Ye ken what’s at stake now, who wants what from ye. And ye can make yer moves accordingly. That makes ye a queen. Nae a pawn.”
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