A Mackenzie Yuletide

by Ashley Jennifer

  She found Ian waiting for her, a kilt draped around his nightshirted body. In the summer, he’d be wrapped in only the kilt, but in the deep Scottish winter, even Ian Mackenzie grew cold.

  He lounged on the cushioned settee at the foot of the bed, his favorite place to sit and read or write in his notebook or simply stare into space and contemplate whatever he’d found important that day.

  Beth took a moment to run her gaze over his long legs, stretched out and crossed at the ankles, black slippers on his large feet. He focused on a point next to the fireplace, his golden eyes still, his hands quiet on his knees.

  Riding, chasing his children, and striding over the rugged Scottish land had kept Ian’s body strong and fit. Where other men at four and forty might be softening toward middle age, Ian was as robust and hard as he’d been at twenty-seven, when Beth had first met him.

  When he heard her step, Ian turned his head and looked at her.

  He had whole worlds inside him, and they shone out through his eyes. No wonder he’d avoided looking directly at anyone when he was younger. Hart Mackenzie could pin a person with his hard stare, but Ian could transfix them for life.

  Ian didn’t rise when Beth entered—he saw no reason to be formal with her. She sank down on the settee beside him, snuggling into his warmth. Ian’s arm went around her, and his lips brushed her hair.

  “Deep thoughts, my love?” she murmured.

  “Mmm.” The rumble of his voice made Beth nestle closer. “Will you tell me, my Beth . . . Why is a photograph of naked buttocks funny?”

  He gazed down at her, a pucker between his brows. He truly wanted to know, had likely been trying to puzzle it out all day.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Beth said. “I suppose because it’s unexpected and a bit rude.”

  “I am rude,” Ian said without worry. “That’s what m’brothers and Curry tell me. They don’t laugh—they explain why I’m rude. Or try to.”

  “Not the same thing.” Beth groped for the right words. “It’s naughty, and it’s a shock. I think that’s what brings the laughter. But Stuart and Robbie were really quite bad. We shouldn’t laugh—we should scold them, lest they be tempted to do it again.”

  Ian nodded, as though agreeing with her, but Beth knew the gesture was to make her happy, not an indication he understood.

  “I like when you laugh.” Ian’s voice darkened, his eyes softening with heat. He lifted a blunt finger and touched her lips. “It makes your face glow, and your body shake.”

  “Does it?” Beth lost the thread of the conversation, mesmerized by his gaze, his voice.

  “Aye, love.” Ian cupped her face, drawing her up to him. “Your beauty, it shines in your laughter.”

  “Ian Mackenzie,” she whispered. “That is most poetic.”

  Beth knew Ian didn’t give a damn about being poetic—he never said a thing unless he thoroughly meant it.

  Ian’s kiss parted her lips and filled her with fire. Beth ran her fingers through his thick red-brown hair, and surrendered herself to his magic.

  The settee was soft, the kilt warm. The Scottish winter receded as Ian’s touch, kisses, and body on hers washed everything cold away.

  * * *

  Lloyd Fellows yawned, covering his mouth at the last minute as he sat facing his half brother Ian in Ian’s study the following morning. The room was still dark—the sun rose late at this time of year, and if the sky clouded over, sometimes there was no light at all.

  Ian’s rooms were always cozy, warmed with fires and lamplight. Kilmorgan was too far from any gasworks to have gas laid in, but the kerosene lamps and candles created a soft glow.

  “Took the night train,” Fellows explained as he stifled another yawn. “I never sleep well on trains.”

  “It is the fastest way from London.” Ian didn’t make polite conversation, Fellows knew. He stated a fact.

  “I realize that. But just as I settle in, the train hits a curve or swerves over points and I’m jarred awake again. My wife, on the other hand, sleeps like a baby.”

  Fellows let a smile come as he thought of his wife, Louisa, lying on the opposite bed in the compartment, her eyes closed, face serene. She was as beautiful in sleep as she was in everything she did. Had the space been less cramped and their three children unlikely to pop in at any moment, Fellows would have used the bunks for something more interesting than slumber.

  Ian waited patiently until Fellows had run through this speech. Ian had grown quieter over the years, Fellows observed. He remembered the terrified and furious young man who’d tried to attack him in the Tuileries gardens in Paris, and how Fellows had been convinced that Ian was not only mad but a murderer.

  He was glad now that he’d been proved wrong. Ian was a unique person with a brilliant mind, and Fellows had come to enjoy getting to know him.

  “You have news,” Ian stated.

  Not a guess—Fellows would not have asked for this early meeting after a mostly sleepless night on a train if he had nothing to report.

  “I have found no evidence of any theft at the museum,” Fellows announced, “except the obvious fact that the Roman necklace has vanished.”

  Ian said nothing, eyes unworried.

  Fellows continued. “There is a man called Cornelius Pemberton. He is a scholar, of the sort who has much money, travels everywhere, and takes what he likes. The problem is, he’d prefer to acquire items for his collection without paying the market price.” He lifted his hands. “I have no proof he is responsible. My suspicion comes from long experience, instinct, and knowing far too many villains in both the criminal and upper classes.”

  Ian did not nod, but Fellows watched Ian think it through, processing the information like one of Pascal’s adding machines.

  “As I say, there is no evidence,” Fellows went on. “Pemberton is a thorough villain, but always manages to keep his hands clean. Any person caught thieving for him never gives him up.”

  “He must pay them well.” Ian rose, restless, and paced to the window. On the shelf below it lay a Ming bowl in a case—one was often on display here, switched out every week with another in his priceless collection. Ian understood collection mania, but he always bought his bowls fairly, giving over exactly what they were worth.

  “I assume so,” Fellows said. “We’ve tried to bring him up on charges, but they never stick. Mr. Pemberton has excellent solicitors, and he’d be able to afford the best defense barristers if we ever got him to court.”

  Ian studied the Ming bowl. “You believe he has the necklace.”

  “I’m fairly certain he does. It’s the sort of thing he goes in for—solid gold, ancient, with history attached. Pemberton is also a frequent visitor to that museum. He’d know who was who inside the building, and possibly recruited someone to take it for him. But again, I have no thief to put my hands on, no sighting of the necklace anywhere in Pemberton’s possession, nothing.”

  Ian folded his arms. With his solid stance, the kilt wrapping his hips, he looked like a fierce Highland warrior from the bad old days, like his ancestor, Old Dan Mackenzie, reputed to be a crazed fighter.

  My ancestor too, Fellows reminded himself. Old Dan Mackenzie’s stubborn ferocity is just as much inside me.

  “You would not have come up to Scotland on the night train if you were not certain,” Ian said. “You would have sent another telegraph and traveled at your leisure. You did not want to put your suspicion on paper, but wanted me to know.”

  “Yes.”

  Fellows could dance around it all he liked, but Ian was right. Long habit of saying nothing that couldn’t be proved had kept him from simply telegraphing: Cornelius Pemberton has it.

  Fellows rose and faced Ian. “Now you know. What do you want to do about it?”

  Ian’s brows flicked upward, slight surprise at the question. He’d already made up his mind, Fel
lows could see.

  “We go see Mr. Pemberton and take it away from him,” Ian said.

  * * *

  Ian traveled to Mr. Pemberton’s large house outside Nottingham in the company of Lloyd Fellows and Megan.

  Ian hadn’t intended to bring Megan. He and Fellows had walked to the station at Kilmorgan Halt the next morning, after Fellows had gotten a good night’s sleep and persuaded his wife he and Ian needed to run this errand.

  It was the twentieth of December. Ian wanted to be back tomorrow, for the night of the solstice, the Longest Night, which he and Beth traditionally spent together. Christmas would follow soon on its heels, and then Hogmanay.

  Ian calculated he’d need a day to travel to Pemberton and wrest the necklace from him, which would put him back in plenty of time for the Mackenzie festivities. Mac was planning games he’d think were uproariously funny, and the cooks had brought in plenty for feasts, but Ian wanted only to immerse himself in his family and absorb their warmth.

  He and Fellows had stepped onto the train when a breathless voice had sounded behind them.

  “Papa! Wait!”

  Ian turned to see his younger daughter rushing through the gate to the platform, the stationmaster in vain trying to stop her. A satchel, strapped around her shoulder, slapped her side as she raced toward Ian.

  The train began to move. Fellows was already in the compartment, Ian just stepping in.

  Ian had only a second or two to ponder. He could wave Megan off and tell her to go home to her mother, shouting at the stationmaster to convey her there safely.

  Or he could take Megan with him, pay the fee on the train, and telegraph Beth at the next station so she wouldn’t worry.

  Ian was heading to confront a villain who got away with his crimes by being wealthy and well connected. It was no place for a child.

  The stricken look on Megan’s face decided things. Ian stretched out an arm to her. “Run!” he called.

  Megan’s sunny smile blossomed. She sprinted for the train, Ian catching her up as it chugged down the platform. He swung her into the carriage, then fell inside himself and slammed the door.

  Fellows was on his feet in surprise and consternation, but he gallantly gestured Megan to a seat. Megan, out of breath, plopped down, beaming at her father and uncle.

  “I’m to be helping you, Papa,” she declared. She patted the satchel at her side. “I’ve found out so very many things.”

  Chapter 6

  Mr. Pemberton lived five miles outside Nottingham in a mansion built in what Ian’s brother Cameron called “Bastardized Scottish Jumble.”

  Turrets and crenellations rose around a whitewashed stone house flanked by four round towers. A road snaked to this house through a snow-covered meadow, ending in a stone bridge over a tiny, now-frozen stream. A door built to look like a drawbridge appeared to be the only entrance to the house.

  Ian took in the design and calculated that the house could not be more than thirty years old.

  They’d reached Nottingham after dark and stayed overnight at the station hotel. Megan had been delighted to eat at the restaurant with her father and uncle, and she’d slept in a trundle bed in Ian’s chamber.

  In the morning, the coach Fellows had hired slowed as they crossed the bridge, wheels thumping hollowly over stones. The bridge was solid and well engineered, another modern convenience built to look old.

  Ian descended when the coach halted and handed out his daughter. She had revealed several interesting things about the necklace and its provenance last night.

  The front door was a slab of very old wood, which possibly had been a true drawbridge at one time. It was immense, and a smaller opening had been cut through it to lead into the house.

  A footman admitted them and led them into a hall that was very much in the Scottish baronial style—whitewashed walls and huge beams like the ribs of a ship holding up a dark wooden ceiling.

  From what Ian had pieced together from old drawings and plans, the hall of the original Kilmorgan Castle had looked a bit like this. When Old Malcolm had built the new house, however, he’d left castle architecture well in the past, embracing the most modern materials and designs the mid-eighteenth century had.

  Ian and his party were not expected. Fellows told the footman to announce that Lord Ian Mackenzie and Miss Mackenzie had come to call upon Mr. Pemberton. Ian noticed that Fellows omitted his name and the fact that he was a chief superintendent of Scotland Yard.

  The footman coolly took Ian’s card and ascended the large staircase at the end of the hall, leaving them alone.

  “He’s snooty because you’re Scots,” Fellows said. “Never mind the ‘lord’ tacked to your first name and the fact that his master lives in a pretend Scots castle.”

  Ian hadn’t noticed the footman’s disdain, and he did not much care about it. Megan, likewise, seemed taken with the many antique weapons hanging on the walls, unworried about their reception.

  “That is a rapier from seventeenth-century France,” Megan said, pointing. “From the time of Louis the Thirteenth. That is a broadsword from the fourteenth century, probably from Germany.”

  Fellows studied the swords with interest. “How do you know so much about weapons, young lady?”

  Megan gave him a look of surprise. “Books. I’m very interested in antiques and history, and swords always come up in adventure stories. That is a basket-hilted claymore, and that is a Roman short sword.”

  Ian’s pride soared as he watched thirteen-year-old Megan twist her face into a very adult expression as she rattled off the information. She, like Ian, remembered almost everything she read.

  Megan would be grown up soon. In five years she’d be making her come-out and looking to be married.

  Time. It went by so fast. Before Ian had met Beth, every hour had stretched as though bathed in treacle. Now days were liquid, flowing smoothly along. Nights moved even more swiftly, and were joyful when he was wrapped in Beth.

  The stiff-backed footman returned and told them coolly to follow them upstairs. Ian took Megan’s hand and led her after him. He did not necessarily want to bring Megan into contact with Mr. Pemberton, but still less did he wish to leave her alone in this strange house.

  Ian glanced around in distaste as they ascended. He knew people believed that his zeal about Ming bowls was a part of his madness, but at least he focused on one type of object and displayed them in an orderly fashion.

  This house was a jumble of different bits and pieces from many centuries and countries, from an elephant saddle from India to Meissen porcelain to a shield from fifteenth-century Venice. The clutter of Mr. Pemberton’s collection mania littered every surface, including the floor.

  The footman led them to a double door, which was carved with a scene of medieval soldiers hacking each other to bits. Some wore plaid great kilts, which made Ian cringe. Scotsmen hadn’t begun wearing kilts until the sixteenth century.

  The footman opened the door, which swung back in silence. The room beyond was cavernous. Carpets overlapped one another on the floor, and every space was covered with shelves, cases, and tables with paths around them, rather like a library or museum.

  At the end of this room was a clearer space before a fireplace, a carved mantelpiece taking up an entire wall. Before this sat a group of furniture—a carved bishop’s chair from whatever cathedral had been ransacked surrounded by several modern and comfortable-looking chairs.

  The man who rose from the bishop’s chair was a stranger to Ian. White-haired and upright, he wore a long dressing gown and a fez used as a smoking cap, though he held no pipe or cigar.

  He had visitors, two of them. They sprang up in consternation from the wing chairs and turned to Ian in dismay. Ian knew these two very well—one was Curry, his valet. The other was his son.

  “Dad!” Jamie blurted, then he deflated. “Aye, well, ’twas to b
e expected, I suppose. Meant to surprise you, sir. But perhaps you can join me in persuading Mr. Pemberton to let go of the piece?”

  * * *

  Jamie breathlessly resumed his seat, his face hot, aware of his father’s scrutiny. He had tried most of his life to please his dad, which was difficult with a father who could outthink him at every turn.

  Ian said nothing, however, only moved to a chair as Pemberton, seemingly pleased that even more people had come to accuse him of theft, waved at them all to sit.

  Jamie kept his face blank, but he clenched his hands. He ought to have known his father was too canny, too quick to figure out what he and Curry had learned—that Mr. Pemberton had hired a man to steal the necklace for him.

  Curry had discovered this by contacting his old friends and asking for gossip. One had admitted that a mutual acquaintance, a chap known as “Old Joe,” had gained employment at a museum, minded his manners for a year, and then purloined a necklace as it was being packaged to send to a French geezer.

  Joe had simply put the package into his pocket and walked out the back door. He’d delivered it to Pemberton, who had arranged for his employment at the museum in the first place, and Pemberton had paid Joe a hundred pounds.

  Jamie had been incredulous. “The bloke handed over a necklace worth tens of thousands of guineas for a hundred quid?”

  Curry had shrugged. “As far as Joe were concerned, it were a bird in the ’and. Better take the ready money than try to sell it on his own. Pieces like that are hard to fence, lad.”

  ’Struth, Jamie had said to himself.

  Ian settled into his usual nonchalance as Pemberton surveyed them all in delight. Wasn’t no one more coolheaded than Dad when it came to fencing with other collectors, Jamie thought with some pride. If Ian Mackenzie wanted a thing, he obtained it. Even men like Pemberton were no match for him.

  “Gentlemen. And young lady. Welcome.” Mr. Pemberton sat down again in the bishop’s chair, a little smile hovering around his mouth. That smile worried Jamie more than his father’s steady gaze or Uncle Lloyd scowling as though itching to make an arrest.