She turned a doe-eyed glance to Keane. “I look forward to the tour of Trentwick later.”
With regal grace, she swept from the room in a rustle of blue satin, leaving the faintest trace of roses and lemon behind.
No sooner had she departed than Bothan shut the door with considerable force. “I came to warn ye, Keane,” he blurted without preamble. He looked about wildly, his eyebrows knitting together at the room’s condition.
“Warn me?” Keane asked, impatient to continue with the Hogmanay preparations.
Swinging his frazzled gaze back to Keane, Bothan’s eyes brimmed with something akin to terror. “Lorne has vowed to get even with ye.”
“He’s been gettin’ even with me for decades, Uncle.” As if Bothan were unaware of Lorne’s penchant for pettiness and his thinly veiled jealousy. “However, Lorne’s gone too far this time. He burned out one of my tenants yesterday. Someone could have died, and this time, I intend to banish him for his idiocy.”
“Shite,” Bothan mumbled, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and shaking his head. “Goddammit.”
“I fail to comprehend why Lorne havin’ a fit of temper has ye so distraught.” Eyebrows raised, Keane crossed his arms and regarded his father’s twin. Lorne’s tantrums were commonplace. “Or is it my intent to exile him that has distressed ye? Ye won’t sway me, nae matter what arguments ye might present. He has become a threat to my people and has brought this on himself.”
Rather than argue, Bothan scratched his stubbly chin. “What in all the saints happened here?”
“I dinna ken.” Keane shrugged, once more eyeing the disorder. “But it appears someone plundered my study in search of somethin’, though I canna imagine what. I actually suspect Lorne is behind it, if ye want the truth.”
“The damned, stupid fool.” His uncle let loose with several additional vile oaths, consternation and fury pinching his face into angry lines.
Keane crossed to the sideboard and, after pouring two fingers’ worth of whisky for himself and his uncle, extended a cut crystal glass toward his Bothan. “Ye look as if ye could use this.”
Bothan didn’t hesitate, but seized the glass, downing the umber contents in one swift gulp. His eyes slightly wild-looking, he shoved the glass toward Keane. “Another, please.”
Keane obliged him, narrowing his gaze when his uncle gulped down the second glass as well, then peered longingly at the decanter.
When Keane didn’t offer to refill it a third time, Bothan released an exaggerated sigh and banged the glass down upon the desk. He rocked back on his heels, lips drawn into a rigid line, and his eyes downcast.
“Lorne isna furious with ye for banishin’ him from Trentwick.” He glanced up in contrition. “Och, that isna precisely the truth. He’s mad as hell about it. He had his heart set on beddin’ the Kennedy wench.”
“Watch yerself, Uncle,” Keane warned in a low, menacing tone. “I havena forgotten yer previous disrespect toward the woman I intend to make my duchess.”
Bothan’s jaw came unhinged, and opened mouth, he blinked like an owl blinded by sunlight. “Du… Duchess?” he croaked. Heartily flummoxed, he cleared his throat. “Ye would wed the widow?”
“Aye, as soon as she agrees.” Resting his hip on the edge of his untidy desk, Keane asked, “Why, exactly, is Lorne in a frothin’ dudgeon if ’tis no’ because I cast him from Trentwick?”
Bothan’s bluster evaporated, and his shoulders sagged. He looked every bit his seven and sixty years. Older, in truth. “I fear his rage is the result of somethin’ I accidentally let slip.”
Expression hard, he surveyed the study, his gaze lingering on the piles of discarded journals and documents. A muscle ticked in his jaw, revealing his agitation.
Now it was Keane’s turn to be flummoxed. Bothan tended to pacify Lorne’s childish outbursts rather than cause them. And he never apologized for his son’s conduct, but rather, made excuses or justified his behavior and actions.
“And ye felt ye needed to warn me, because…?” Keane’s patience had worn dangerously thin. He had a castle full of guests, and several things demanded his attention before tonight’s festivities.
Again, Bothan eyed the whisky decanter wistfully as he tugged one earlobe. “I… I may have revealed that ye are…”
“I am what?” Keane snapped, done with the verbal dancing.
Gulping, Bothan clawed at his soiled, wrinkled neckcloth. His troubled gaze darted back and forth, looking everywhere but at Keane. “Erm, my…son.”
Keane went perfectly still, all of the air whooshing from his lungs, his blood frozen in his veins.
Shite. Shite. Shite.
He wanted to smash something. Break every pane of glass in the windows. Hurl the furniture across the room.
God. God dammit!
It had been repugnant when he believed Gordan his sire, but the knowledge that this… This… Whoreson of a man, a man with no honor or courage, or even a smidgeon of decency had sired him. Christ.
He despised the very thought, loathed that he was the spawn of such a devil.
His gaze drilled into his uncle, offering no quarter or mercy, and recognizing the undeniable truth in his contrite expression. Keane flexed his fingers against the urge to throttle this cowardly, craven, despicable bastard-of-a-man. The vile whoremonger who’d raped his mother and kept silent while his twin was forced at blade-point to marry her.
Odin’s teeth.
Everything made perfect sense now.
Gordan’s continued denial of despoiling Winifred Kennedy. The ongoing feud between the Buchannan twins. All of it.
Gut-wrenching wrath enveloped him, and through gritted teeth, Keane managed, “Pray tell, precisely how did that conversation come about?”
Ashen, his face damp, Bothan stumbled to a chair and collapsed into it. He buried his head in his hands, his breathing harsh and irregular. “Lorne was threatenin’ to kill ye for humiliatin’ him. Vowed he’d make yer death look like an accident. He gloated that the duchy would be his since ye werena Gordan’s son, after all.”
Lorne had always coveted the dukedom and all that went with it. No doubt in his twisted mind, the dukedom did indeed belong to him. And Keane supposed it did since Gordan hadn’t sired a son. Bothan would’ve inherited, and as his eldest son, Lorne was next in line.
Except, Bothan’s spinelessness and deception had cheated Lorne of what he deemed his right.
“Heartily sick of his envy of ye and his mad ravin’s, I… I snapped. Lost my temper.” His expression defeated and bleak, Bothan lifted his head. “Ye, Keane, are the son I’m proud of, no’ that weak-willed, spoiled piece of horseshite. I was well into my cups, pished in truth, and I told him as much.”
Was the confession supposed to mean something?
Bothan was proud of him?
Keane cursed beneath his breath, and spying his unfinished drink, quaffed back the whisky. “I assume my brother is responsible for this?” He waved his hand in a circle to indicate the wrecked room. “Why?”
He had no doubt Bothan knew the reason.
What had he omitted from his overdue confession?
Bothan didn’t even attempt to misunderstand. Slouching into the chair, he kicked his legs out before him and shut his eyes.
Even now, he took the coward’s way out and didn’t face Keane with his admission. Such disgust riddled him that he couldn’t prevent his lip from curling. The revolting sack of dung slumped before him was his father. My father!
Compared to this scunner, Gordan Buchannan now seemed like a veritable saint.
God, how the devil’s glee must be echoing within the many levels of hell at this moment.
“After ye were born, I wrote Gordan a letter, confessin’ the truth about Winifred,” Bothan said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Which, of course, he kent anyway. He was nae fool.”
“My mother mistook ye for him?” Or had the human turd pretended to be Gordan when he’d despoiled her?
&nbs
p; Guilty color suffused Bothan’s face, and he opened his eyes.
Well, that answered that question.
How outraged Gordan must’ve been, trapped by his twin. His married twin. A man with a wee bairn of his own.
“I was drunk that night,” Bothan admitted.
When wasn’t he?
“That’s nae excuse for yer despicable behavior,” Keane gritted out, flexing his fingers, and welcoming the viciousness humming through every pore. The violence kept him focused, forced him to dredge up a degree of control he didn’t know he had, or else Bothan Buchannan would be lying on the floor already.
Shamefaced, Bothan scrubbed at his face with a hand, muttering, “I asked for Gordan’s forgiveness, though I kent I dinna deserve it. I dinna ken if my brother saved the letter, but if he did, ’tis proof ye are my son. Lorne came completely undone when I told him.” He swiped a shaking hand across his face. “Screaming and throwin’ things.”
“I’ve never come across such a letter. I doubt Gordan would’ve saved it, such was his hatred toward ye.” Keane poured himself another dram and tossed it back, savoring the burning trail to his stomach.
Or mayhap, he had saved the incriminating missive to use against Bothan.
If so, Gordan had concealed it well, because in his many years as laird and duke, Keane had never come across the missive.
Christ on the cross!
Keane’s snapped his head up. “Did Lorne say anythin’ about Marjorie?”
“Nae.” Bothan shook his head. “His grudge is with ye, no’ her.”
Keane didn’t believe that entirely.
“Ye’ll leave Trentwick, now, and I never want to see ye here or on Buchannan lands again.” He could scarcely bring himself to look upon the man who’d sired him.
“What of Lorne?” Bothan asked wearily as he struggled to stand, a weak and dissipated old man cracking under the weight of his many sins, at last.
“Never fear on that account. I’ll deal with him.”
Chapter Twelve
Humming to herself, Marjorie secured the fastenings of her heavy woolen cloak as she nodded at two massive, armed sentries before she descended the narrow stone stairwell. They returned her greeting with somber nods. That made ten—no twelve—additional guards she’d seen about the castle since this morning.
A result of Bothan’s visit?
The thought made her uneasy, especially after someone had wreaked havoc in Keane’s study.
She hadn’t intended to participate in tonight’s festivities beyond the lighting of the bonfire, but since her heady encounter with him in his office this morning, she’d had a change of plans.
Besides, hadn’t she promised to toast the new year with him?
Expectation made her tummy turn over.
She hadn’t been this giddy in a long while, and she wouldn’t attempt to deceive herself. Keane was the cause. It wasn’t just his undeniable good looks and magnificent physique, though she admired both. It was discovering who he was as a man, as a person, that had her bewitched.
She’d misjudged him. Neither of them had been on their best behavior all those months ago, but since he’d so charmingly introduced his cats to her daughters, her heart—and other parts, too—had quite decided they liked the duke. Very much, in truth.
His wife.
Keane had declared he wanted to marry her. How could the idea both thrill and terrify her at once? Nonetheless, the notion took root, spreading like the early morning mist rising from a loch.
No opportunities to be alone together had presented themselves the rest of the day, which was just, as well. It had given her time to deliberate his suggestion. Certainly, it was far too soon to consider marriage, but a courtship?
Her heart skipped a beat, and a jubilant smile tugged the corners of her mouth upward. Aye, a courtship wasn’t at all objectionable. Not at all. It still rather befuddled her to admit she’d caught Keane’s regard.
Thus, after settling her worn-out daughters into their comfortable beds and telling them a story interrupted intermittently by loud purrs and an occasional chirp from Sphynx or Chimera, they’d drifted off to sleep.
Playing with the cats all day had not only exhausted Cora and Elana, but the big cats, too. And since the girls couldn’t claim a single scratch or nip from the oversized tabbies, Marjorie now trusted them.
Keane hadn’t exaggerated how tame they were.
She’d asked Phemie to find her if her daughters awoke and needed her.
The lighting of the bonfire would take place at nine. A glance at the mahogany longcase clock standing proudly in the corridor revealed Marjorie had just over an hour to spare. She frowned upon noticing four more heavily armed guards as she made the landing.
That, along with Keane’s admonition she not leave the keep unaccompanied, only served to cause all sorts of fanciful imaginings. Giving a mental shake, for surely Keane would advise her if there was a need for concern, she brought her wayward musings back to the present.
Likely, as the security was only on the levels where many of the guests were as well, he’d been concerned that merrymakers would find their way into the keep tonight. A belly full of spirits might cause wayward revelers to wander where they ought not.
How ridiculous her dread of spending Hogmanay at Trentwick and seeing the Duke of Roxdale had proven. Thank God she’d come, for this burgeoning warmth building inside her might very well be love.
Love
Could she truly be so fortunate as to find love not once, but twice in a lifetime? And this consuming emotion was, well…consuming. Her girlhood love for Sion had been real: sweet, pure, and uncomplicated. But these feelings for Keane might very well be her undoing.
In no way would she describe them as sweet or simple. He’d ignited an inferno in her, and no matter which way she looked at the situation—the possibility of a union with him—the situation was complex.
He’d been right, however, when he’d said there’d been an immediate, overwhelming spark between then. And Marjorie desperately wanted to explore whatever this was, yet she was also afraid.
Afraid of having her heart shattered again because she wasn’t a woman who did anything by half-measures. If she allowed herself to love Keane, she’d do so with her every breath, each beat of her heart, and her very soul.
She very much feared she was half-way in love with him already. Being with Keane infused her with a feeling of completion—that he understood her in a way no one else ever had. Not even Sion, and he’d been the best of husbands.
She put a hand to her heart, a sense of wonderment engulfing her.
The greater the love, the greater the risk of pain.
Ah, but also the promise of greater happiness.
Four days remained before they were to return home. A lot could happen in a short period, as she’d already learned.
“Marjorie?”
Lost in her musings, she started when Camden called her name. She looked up to see him, Graeme, and Berget approaching, none looking as cheerful as one would expect for the biggest Scottish celebration of the year.
Smiling, she accepted Camden’s extended elbow. “You’re a somber lot. Why the long faces? I thought you were eagerly anticipating tonight’s revelry.” They always had at Killeaggian Tower. She eyed her brothers-in-law, then Berget. “Has something happened?”
“Nae.” Graeme’s features cleared, and he produced a broad grin as he tucked Berget’s hand into the crook of his elbow. “We were discussin’ our departure. It would be best to take advantage of the break in the weather, so I think it wise we depart nae later than the day after tomorrow.”
So soon?
Dismay shredded Marjorie’s earlier joy.
She couldn’t possibly make a decision that soon. Shoving her disappointment into a corner of her mind, she produced a bright smile. Nothing—especially thoughts of leaving Keane—would taint this evening.
“I’m glad ye decided to join us, after all,” Graeme said. “The
lasses are abed?”
Marjorie chuckled as she fell into step beside Camden. “Yes. His grace’s giant felines have kept Cora and Elana entertained since we arrived. All four were sleeping soundly when I left the nursery a short while ago.”
“I’d never have thought the Duke of Roxdale the sort to like cats,” Berget commented as they exited the castle. “He seems more like a horse and a dog man. Cats can be quite temperamental.”
“He rescued them as kittens. Before their eyes opened, he told me. They think he’s their mother.” Marjorie lifted a shoulder as they stepped out into the brisk night air. “I suppose he couldn’t help becoming attached.”
Berget nodded, her face aglow. “Like I fell in love with Frigg’s pups.”
The puppies had been utterly adorable.
Marjorie looked past Camden’s broad form to Graeme. “I was going to ask if you’d consider allowing the girls a kitten or two when we return home? I think it would do them good to learn to be responsible for another creature’s wellbeing.”
“I havena objection.” Graeme cocked his head. “I’m nae sure how the hounds will take to a couple of hissin’ kittens, though.”
“I’m sure they will be just fine, darlin’,” Berget interjected. “After all, the dogs are sweet-tempered, and no’ all kittens bare their claws and spit.”
Five deerhounds claimed Killeaggian Tower as their home. Four had lived there before Berget’s arrival. A litter of pups had been born shortly after she’d become governess to Elana and Cora, and Graeme had gifted her the runt.
Smart man. The way to Berget’s wary heart had been through that wee pup.
They walked in silence the short distance to the area adjacent to the unlit bonfire.
Nearby, several open-sided tents stood erect. Many contained long tables laden with every sort of food. Others held barrels of ale and whisky, and a few more displayed various goods for sale. Dozens upon dozens of flaming torches entrenched in the ground lit the area and released twirling ribbons of smoke into the night sky.
Where the weak sun had reached today, the snow had melted, leaving the ground soggy, but in the shadows, snowdrifts remained. A slight wind blew, sending the torch flames to dancing, and a shiver scuttling down Marjorie’s spine despite her heavy cloak.
To Defy a Highland Duke Page 11