A MacKenzie Clan Gathering

by Jennifer Ashley

  “And only Ming. Not Tang or Qing.”

  “No.” Ian had seen bowls from other periods in the shops. While he supposed they were beautiful, there was something about the Ming pottery that sang to him. The thinness of the porcelain, perhaps. The exquisite workmanship, the muted colors, the way the flowers or dragons or vines wafted across the curve of the bowls. He’d long ago given up reasoning it out.

  “Interesting,” Ackerley said, rocking on his heels. “Very interesting indeed. Oh, my dear fellow, I didn’t mean to keep you standing while I prattle. You mentioned a sitting room?”

  The Ming room had a settee and chairs placed so one could sit and enjoy the collection. Ian made a motion toward them.

  “I like this room,” he said.

  “Of course.” Ackerley moved to a chair and politely waited for Ian to sit first. “You have done up the displays well, my lord. Your own design?”

  The man seemed more interested in the cupboards than the collection. “Hart had everything built for me,” Ian said. “I told him what I wanted, and he brought in workmen.”

  Ian decided not to describe how he’d come in every day to show the carpenters what he wanted until they got it just right. He’d sensed their frustration but hadn’t been able to stay away, and good thing. The room would have been all wrong if he’d left them on their own.

  “Ah, your brother, the duke,” Ackerley said. “He has helped you much over the years, so I understand.”

  “Aye.”

  Ian recalled perfectly the day Hart had come to the asylum and explained that their father had died, and Ian could come home again. He remembered the heat of the afternoon, the closeness of Hart’s carriage with its curtains drawn as they jolted along the roads, his bewilderment at being outside in the world again.

  Ian had been unable to speak, far too many thoughts tangling in his brain to come out in words. Hart had let him be silent, which Ian had been grateful for. His oldest brother had seemed to know that what Ian needed most was peace.

  Ackerley waited for Ian to continue, but Ian had nothing to add. Ackerley’s statement seemed final enough.

  “And Beth—she has been a good friend to you?” Ackerley went on.

  Beth. Her name was like a breath of air.

  “No,” Ian said.

  Ackerley’s brows rose. “No? Oh dear. From her letters, I gathered your marriage was a happy one.”

  “It is,” Ian said. The best part of his life had begun the day he’d first seen Beth, had looked into her blue eyes, had been warmed by her touch.

  Ackerley blinked at his abrupt answer. The man was obviously a slow thinker.

  “Beth is not my friend,” Ian explained. “She is . . .” Ian went through all the likely phrases, but none seemed adequate. “Everything.”

  Ackerley looked pleased and also relieved. “I must say I am happy to find her in better circumstances. When my brother married her, she was in quite a dire place indeed. No money, no family, no friends. I am glad to see she has all of that now.”

  “And wee ones,” Ian said. “We have three. Jamie, Belle, and Megan.”

  He hoped Ackerley would want to talk about the children. Ian liked to boast how Belle was proving to be so good at maths she confounded even Jamie’s tutors. How Megan’s sweetness was so like her mother’s. Megan was more artistic, and loved music. She could play little pieces by Mozart on the piano quite well, rarely missing a note.

  Ian wanted to talk about how strong Jamie was and how fearless. Jamie loudly claimed he wanted to ride horses for a living instead of continuing school, though his mother had much to say about that. But the lad had a knack for the beasts.

  “Yes, your children,” Ackerley said. “Your oldest is a boy. Is he much like you?”

  Naturally, he would be, since Ian was his father. “He is a Mackenzie,” Ian said with a touch of pride.

  “Does he collect things as well?”

  Ian had to think about it. Jamie sometimes brought home things he found in the woods or boys had given him at school, but he seemed indifferent to them.

  “No,” Ian said.

  “Hm. Interesting.”

  Ian wasn’t sure why it should be. He glanced at the narrow ormolu clock in the corner just as it struck the hour and got swiftly to his feet, his kilt swinging. “I have to leave now.”

  Ackerley stood in alarm. “Leave?”

  “It’s time,” Ian said.

  “That is important to you, isn’t it? To do everything at the right time?”

  The man was indeed slow. Why would Ian not keep a standing appointment because an old friend of Beth’s wanted to ask him odd questions?

  “Aye,” Ian said, and walked out of the room. Ackerley followed, saying nothing, to Ian’s relief. The man liked to talk about unimportant things.

  Ian met the object of his appointment at the bottom of the back stairs. Jamie held two fishing poles and a net, and had a box of tackle slung over his small shoulder.

  “There ye are, Dad,” Jamie said. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  Ian flashed his son a faint smile as he took most of Jamie’s burdens from him. It was a standing joke between them—Ian never forgot anything.

  “Mind if I come along?” Ackerley asked. “I’ve done a bit of fishing in my day. Sometimes it was the only way to feed the multitudes.”

  Ian immediately handed Ackerley his fishing pole and reached into the nearby cabinet for another. “We only have one rule when we’re fishin’,” Ian said.

  “Oh?” Ackerley held the pole upright, looking interested. “What is that?”

  “No talking,” Ian said, and led the way out the door.

  Chapter Five

  Ian knew someone followed them. He led the way through the bracken and brush of the woods a mile or so from Kilmorgan, angling to the stream where fish bit the readiest.

  He could hear footsteps moving in time with theirs, the person keeping quiet, or trying to. Ackerley was oblivious, and so was Jamie, but Ian knew someone dogged their path.

  Ian hurried a few paces to catch up to his son. “Jamie, take Mr. Ackerley to the stream. I’ll follow.”

  Jamie came alert, but he assumed the responsibility without question. “This way, sir. Watch that bit of ground there—it can be boggy.”

  Ian sidestepped into the woods, making his way noiselessly back the way they’d come. His heart beat swiftly. If one of the robbers or whoever had ruined his barrels, or an entirely new villain came down the path, Ian would have him. He’d truss the man up and drag him to Fellows, or maybe simply break his neck.

  The footsteps came closer, measured, nearly silent. Ian hurtled out of his hiding place and grabbed the shadow as it passed.

  A shrill scream echoed in his ears. He lifted the squirming thing he’d caught and found himself face-to-face with his daughter Megan.

  As Ian stared at her, Megan’s fright turned to indignation. “Papa, you scared me!”

  Ian didn’t know what to do. He’d just terrified his daughter, a being who was the most precious thing in his life. He didn’t have the words to apologize, explain, tell her that she’d frightened him and he’d made a mistake.

  Ian only knew that she was shaking, it was his fault, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

  He responded the only way he knew how when words spun in his head without any clear pattern. He hugged her.

  Megan hugged Ian back then planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’m sorry, Papa. I was afraid if I called out, you’d send me home.”

  Why? Ian wondered. Was that what other fathers did? “I won’t send ye home, lass.”

  Megan smiled. “Good. Then I want to go fishing with you.”

  So simple an explanation. Ian let out his breath. He set Megan down and took her hand to lead her along the path to the stream. Megan skipped beside him, her fright forgotten.

  Even as they went, however, Ian knew that his first instinct had been correct. Megan hadn’t been the only one following. Someone lurked out there, wat
ching. Ian kept Megan close to his side, putting his bulk between her and the world.

  Ackerley, when they reached him and Jamie, broke into a wide smile.

  “And who is this?” he asked, leaning down to study Megan.

  “Megan Mackenzie,” Ian said. “My daughter.”

  Ackerley stuck out his hand. He liked shaking hands. “How do you do, young miss?”

  Megan took his hand properly. “Very well, thank ye, sir. And you?”

  “I am very well too,” Ackerley said. “I am pleased to meet you.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir,” Megan answered in her usual sunny way. Megan loved everyone in the world evenhandedly.

  “Megan wants to fish,” Ian announced. He took Jamie’s extra pole, the smallest one they’d brought, and showed Megan how to hold it.

  “Girls can’t fish,” Jamie said abruptly.

  Jamie had been in a state lately in which he declared that girls couldn’t do a good number of things—ride, hunt, shoot, fish, walk across the glen, play cards, understand scientific principles.

  Ian had no idea where Jamie came up with these views. Ladies, Ian had seen, could do anything they put their hand to. Violet, Daniel’s wife, used a spanner to fix an automobile engine as readily as Daniel; Eleanor was a skilled photographer; and on the last visit to Kilmorgan, the wives of the family had decided they wanted to learn to shoot with pistols. Cam, Mac, and Hart had thought this a dangerous proposition, but Ian had set up a target and taught them.

  Isabella had been the best, hitting her target dead center each time. Beth had not been bad, though she tended to pull to the right. Ainsley had mostly hit the target and had been eager to practice. Eleanor had been better than Ainsley and Beth, but she confessed her father’s old gamekeeper had taught her to shoot long ago.

  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 th
e 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.