Mac had pretended to be alarmed that Isabella was such a dead shot, but Ian could see that he was secretly proud of his wife.
Ian ignored Jamie’s declaration, and so did Megan. Ian showed his daughter how the line worked, how to turn the reel to play the line in and out, and how to bait the hook.
Ian thought Megan might be squeamish about putting on the worm—Beth had been at first—but Megan very seriously fished one from the bait box and put it on the hook.
Tenderhearted Megan felt very sorry for the worm, though. Tears filled her eyes. Ian would teach her fly-fishing, he decided. There was not much to feel sorry for in a large wad of thread.
Ackerley was explaining to Jamie that plenty of women he’d known, including his late wife, fished, and were very good at it. Indeed, in the missions, they’d often relied on the women to help bring in fish for supper. Many native women were extremely skilled at it.
Jamie looked doubtful, but he subsided.
It was a peaceful afternoon, but still Ian could not shake the idea that there was a watcher in the woods. He saw nothing, though, no matter how carefully he searched.
At least Ackerley ceased speaking. After regaling Jamie with stories of women he’d known who’d brought home satisfying catches, Ackerley closed his mouth, and they fished in silence.
The woods were quiet, the stream trickling as it flowed past. This stream was a torrent farther up the hill, but here it widened into a pool, calm and rippling. Summer afternoons on its banks were long and balmy.
Something pinged against a tree by Ian’s head. The others didn’t turn around, not hearing, but Ian had heard.
He looked down at the ground to see a pebble that hadn’t been there before. Not that Ian had counted every single one of them, but he’d been aware of the patterns at his feet, and now that pattern had changed.
The others were out of his line of sight at the moment, clusters of brush at the edge of the stream hiding them from deeper woods. Only Ian had been in the relative open.
Ian leaned down and picked up the pebble. He examined it, then put it into his pocket.
Megan squealed. Ian was out of hiding and at her side in an instant, but she wasn’t hurt. She was hanging on to her pole, watching the water in delight. She had a bite.
Ian planted his own pole, leaned down to his daughter, and helped her reel in the fish. It wasn’t a very big one—Ian would have released it if he’d caught it, but it was Megan’s first.
Ian snatched up a net and brought it in, while Megan bounced up and down in excitement. Ackerley said, “Oh, good show,” and even Jamie unbent to be glad for her.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fish,” Megan said as it flopped around in the net, gasping in the air. “Maybe we should put it back.”
Jamie rolled his eyes. “Ye’d starve to death, ye would, if ye had to rely on fishing. Girls.”
“Now, young man; it shows she has a kind heart,” Ackerley said. “It’s your fish, Miss Mackenzie. You decide what to do with it.”
Megan watched the fish desperately try to leap from the net, and her eyes filled with tears. “Let him go,” she said. “Maybe he has a wife and wee ones at home.”
Ian leaned down, lowered the net into the water, and let the fish swim away. Megan, in relief, waved it good-bye.
Jamie rolled his eyes again. Megan sat down, ready to bait her hook and catch another, but Ian was uneasy.
“We’ll come again tomorrow,” he said. “Time to go now.”
Jamie protested, offered to stay with Mr. Ackerley and catch a ton of fish for dinner, but Ian wouldn’t change his mind. Jamie gave in, resigned. He’d learned long ago that when his father decided they would do a thing, God and all his angels couldn’t talk him out of it.
Ian looked carefully around as they moved back up the path to the house. He heard nothing, saw nothing, and the prickle between his shoulder blades had vanished. The watcher was gone.
They entered the house through the back passages, cleaning up in the scullery before proceeding into the main house. Beth met them in the staircase hall, with a hug for Megan, a brief kiss on the cheek for Ian and for Jamie. As Jamie and Megan began excitedly telling Beth their fishing story, with Ackerley supplying any missing detail, Ian sought Inspector Fellows.
He found his half brother outside the garden door to the gallery, moodily studying the trees that shaded this part of the grounds. Ian took the pebble from his pocket and held it out to Fellows.
“That came at me in the woods,” he said. “From the direction of the hill.”
Fellows opened his palm. Ian dropped to his suntanned skin the squashed form of a soft lead bullet.
* * *
Ian had pushed aside his worries about the thieves and whisky while he fished with his children. His time with Jamie, Belle, and Megan was sacrosanct.
Once Jamie and Megan were back in the nursery, however, Ian’s mind filled again with the destruction of his barrels of whisky.
He headed downstairs, absently shrugging on the coat Curry handed him against the growing chill. The door in the back of the house led to the path that headed for the distillery. As Ian stepped out to it, he heard someone jogging behind him, then Ackerley fell in beside him, rather breathlessly.
“Are you going to the distillery?”
Ian gave a nod in answer, and he had to force himself to do that. He needed to puzzle out this problem, and distractions were not what he wanted. Ackerley was definitely a distraction.
“Mind if I follow?” Ackerley asked. “I’m fascinated. And we might be able to work out whether the thieves also did this.”
Ian didn’t answer. He didn’t want Ackerley with him, but there was no way to be rid of the man short of locking him into his bedchamber. He knew Beth would not be happy with that solution, so Ian only nodded in silence.
Ackerley struggled to keep up with Ian’s long strides as they went down a slope and into the valley between steep hills where the distillery lay.
The courtyard was filled with drays and horses, barrels being loaded to be taken to the bottlers or as is to buyers, which included hotels and restaurants in the cities. Mackenzie malt was much in demand.
Ackerley gazed at the distillery in amazement. “It’s a house,” he said. “Built right into the side of the hill.”
The distillery was older than the house at Kilmorgan, built in the early eighteenth century by the grandfather of Malcolm Mackenzie. The rounded stones of the house rose several stories, and its glass windows and tall chimneys blended with the rocky hills around it, making the place difficult to see until one faced it. Planned that way, Ian knew, to hide it from the excise men back before the Mackenzie family had paid enough to make the distilling and selling of their whisky a legal venture.
Ian, who noticed every detail of the distillery every day only said, “Aye,” and led the way inside.
Ackerley wanted to see it all. Ian recruited one of the overseers, a dour man, to take Ackerley around, while Ian and the steward went over the problem of the ruined barrels.
“Do we have enough?” Ian asked him. The exact number of orders and who they were for ran through his head.
The steward shrugged. “Can’t say for certain. You’ll weather the setback, sir, but it’s nae going t’ be easy. We have t’ decide who’s getting their whisky and who won’t be. Or what orders will have t’ be cut. There’s younger batches that just went into the barrels, but they can’t be rushed.”
“No,” Ian rumbled in annoyance.
From what the steward had shown him, the thieves had spoiled just enough to make the Mackenzies look bad when they had to announce to the world that a good portion of their batch was ruined, but not enough to put them out of business. What kind of thief did that?
“Aye, well,” Ian said. “Fill the orders as best ye can. The price on the special reserve will have to rise.”
“Some won’t like that,” the steward said darkly.
“But there are those who’ll pay no matter what,�
� Ian said. “We’ll reward them with gifts or an extra reserve barrel for loyalty, and those who walk away will lose.” That was what Hart would do, turn customer disappointment into an advantage.
Ackerley entered the distillery room and was near enough to hear Ian’s last statement. “Very crafty, my lord. So this is the still?”
He gazed in admiration at the gleaming copper tubes and pipes that ran every which way, the huge vats that held the fermented brew that would be distilled down to its purer form.
“The newest one,” Ian answered.
The steward, well trained, took up the speech. “The original still was blown up by the English army in the winter of 1745. Reconstructed in 1748 by Malcolm Mackenzie, who survived the Battle of Culloden and became the Duke of Kilmorgan once the charge of treason on him was lifted. Parts of the first still remain in this one—pieces have been replaced and the whole thing added on to in the last hundred and fifty years. Except for the few years following the Uprising, this still has been producing the best Scots whisky since the late 1600s.”
Ian, who’d heard the story too many times to count, watched Ackerley’s reaction instead. He’d expected a missionary to be sternly disapproving of anything to do with spirits, but Ackerley looked over the still and the room around it, a huge vault of a chamber that ran straight back into the hillside, with great interest.
Ian, though he did not talk nearly as much as his brothers, had as wide a mischievous streak as any of them. He might be mad, but that didn’t make him weak, or even worse, nice.
Ian fixed Ackerley with a sharp stare, forcing himself to look into the man’s rather ingenuous brown eyes.
“Come with me,” Ian said. “And try some.”
Chapter Six
Ackerley looked doubtful as Ian poured another measure of whisky into two glasses. They sat in a little parlor off the barrel room, where clients and privileged tourists were allowed to meet with the steward or a Mackenzie—whichever brother happened to be home—and sample the wares.
Ackerley had already downed one glass of the special reserve and declared it excellent. He seemed content to prudently stop after one glassful, so Ian brought out the special special reserve.
“The queen drinks this,” Ian said, as he poured it, the liquid making a musical sound.
Ackerley lifted his glass, studying how the amber liquid caught the light, the facets of the heavy crystal throwing warm spangles to the table. “The queen herself, eh?”
Ian shrugged. “Hart says she mostly serves it to guests.”
“Ones she wishes to impress,” Ackerley said. “Well, I must sip what Her Majesty does, mustn’t I?”
Ian watched closely as Ackerley let a droplet flow over his tongue. He sat quietly for a moment, then his face changed. “Good heavens, my lord. That is ambrosia. Pure ambrosia.”
Ian topped up Ackerley’s glass and lifted his own. He took a sip, letting the smooth liquid tingle over his tongue and down his throat.
Ackerley took another mouthful, closing his eyes to savor it. Ian’s respect for him rose a notch. Ackerley didn’t swig the stuff, or claim to not understand what the fuss was about. He seemed to share Ian’s appreciation for a well-made whisky.
Ian waited patiently until Ackerley finished his glass, then he poured more.
Ackerley shook his head. “Oh no, I should not. I’m not used to spirits.”
“Ye are staying at the house, going nowhere,” Ian said. “Do ye have to face any of your flock later today?”
“My flock? No, of course not. I’ve retired. My last flock is still in India, ably tended by my replacement.”
“Verra well, then.” Ian filled his own glass and lifted the decanter, offering.
Ackerley hesitated, then flushed. “Oh, why not? Just another taste.”
The whisky lessened Ian’s shyness a bit. Being slightly drunk didn’t always help him, especially when he was with a crowd, but sometimes, he’d feel less inhibited. Not always a good thing, Beth warned him.
However, Ian wanted to know all about John Ackerley. And the best way to find out was to loosen the man’s tongue and encourage him to reveal things about himself.
“Never thought a missionary would approve of whisky,” Ian said. “The Scots’ ones are teetotalers. They drive Hart spare.”
Ackerley looked amused. “Those of us in the C of E are not quite so uncompromising. Excessive drink is a terrible thing, of course. A taste now and again of a fine wine, or indeed, whisky such as this, is far different from living in a glass of gin. Even our Lord Jesus Christ drank wine. Not that he had much choice in those days—I imagine it was much better for him than the water. Though they had ale as well. An ancient drink, is ale.”
Ian did not want to talk about the history of ale or wine in Roman times.
“Beth is happy to see you,” he prompted.
“Yes, dearest Beth. As I said, I am pleased to find that her circumstances have much improved. Poor little thing.” Ackerley took another sip. “You have done well by her.”
“Aye.” Ian waited, hoping the man would say something like, Now that I’ve seen she is all right, I can be on my way.
Ackerley drained his glass and studied its emptiness regretfully. “I must confess something to you, Lord Ian. My motives for traveling all this way weren’t simply to call on an old friend—my brother’s widow, that is.”
“No?” Ian snatched up the decanter and refilled Ackerley’s glass. “What then?”
Ackerley cleared his throat. He took a fortifying sip, his face reddening with it. “I came here on purpose to see you, my lord. To ascertain Beth’s well-being also, of course, but I’ve known for some time she was perfectly happy. She’s very polite, but I could tell by her letters that she is quite fond of you and content in her marriage. A man of the cloth develops a knack for reading people, you know.”
Ian fixed on the man’s first sentence. “To see me?”
“Indeed.” Ackerley rested his hands on the table as though resisting the temptation to take another sip. “I’ve traveled the world. Once I made my decision to retire and left the mission, I did not come straight home. I took my leisure to visit places I’d longed to, staying with friends and other clergy of my acquaintance as I moved across the Continent. A missionary does not retire with much funds in his pocket, you understand.”
Ian curbed his impatience. Was Ackerley trying to touch Ian for money? Ian would happily give him all he wanted, if he would go away.
“I spent some time in Vienna,” Ackerley went on. “A fascinating place, and a beautiful one. And the work being done there by philosophers and doctors is equally as fascinating.”
Ian sat back in the chair, the amount of whisky he’d drunk warming him. He saw no reason to respond to this, so he simply waited.
Ackerley said, “I learned much about the new work done on various madnesses. I spoke to one doctor in particular, who had a patient with difficulty in speaking to people, who couldn’t meet their eyes, did not answer direct questions, broke out in non sequiturs, disliked water that was too hot, insisted that everything in his life be ordered in an exact way, and so forth. The doctor was making remarkable strides with him. I learned all I could. The patient made me remember how others have described you. And I thought—why not toddle along to Beth and tell her about this possible cure?”
Ian said nothing. His gaze slid to the stone wall behind Ackerley, his heartbeat quickening.
Ackerley continued, “I confess, you do not appear to be as mad as this other fellow. I suppose it comes in degrees.”
Ian opened his mouth. Nothing came out for a few seconds, then words burst into the silence. “They tried to cure me at the asylum. It was torture. I was a child. It made me worse.”
Ian tried to tamp down the memories, but they spilled upon him. The trouble with being able to remember everything was not being able to shut the bad things out.
They’d put Ian into ice baths to cool down his tempers, shut him alone into dark rooms
when he became violent. The electric shocks were the worst, bursts of white-hot pain through his body, meant to erase his troubled thoughts.
Ian’s hand closed around the whisky glass until the facets pressed into his palm. Ian was a large man, his hand strong, but the glass was made of heavy lead crystal and didn’t break.
Ackerley watched him with a look of sympathy. “My dear fellow, this is not the same sort of thing at all. I heard what you went through. Those asylums of twenty years ago were positively medieval. Many insisted on using techniques from the early years of the science, which have proved useless. I am surprised they did not claim you had demons inside you and tried to exorcise them. I have studied the problems of the mind for many years, and I must confess I became more fascinated when I learned that Beth had married you. I believe, my lord, that I can help you.”
Chapter Seven
Help him.
Help me do what? Be normal? Give Beth a husband she doesn’t have to apologize for, change her life for, be ashamed of?
Ian sat very still while the memories of the asylum receded and his true life came back to him. He was in his distillery, which made the most famous Scots whisky in the world, facing the brother of his wife’s late husband.
“Did Beth tell you about me?” Ian asked. Beth didn’t like to talk to others about Ian, didn’t like anyone talking about him. But perhaps she’d been more forthcoming to Ackerley.
“No.” Ackerley sounded frustrated. “She says little about you except what extraordinary things you achieve. She is very proud. But—and I hope this does not offend you—your, shall we say, unique character is common knowledge. It is the subject of journal articles.”
Ian hadn’t known that. But then, he wasn’t much for perusing medical journals. He read about Ming bowls, whisky distilling, mathematics, and astronomy, and read children’s stories to his son and daughters. Plus he read, in privacy, the occasional tome about bed play that his brothers always seemed to be finding. These, Ian enjoyed discussing at length with Beth.
A Mackenzie Clan Christmas Page 14