Loving a Lady (Brotherhood of the Black Tartan Book 3)

by Nichole Van

  “That I do. Ye dinnae like talking about yourself.” Alex flipped up the collar of his greatcoat, tucking into the heavy fabric. “Which, given how much of your soul ye paint into your fine artwork, I’m fair surprised. Seems ye’d be less reticent with an old friend.”

  Ewan grimaced in truth, drawing the warmth of his great kilt tighter around his shoulders.

  Yes, Ewan painted. And, as an act of creation, his artwork did contain bits and pieces of himself. But—

  “There is not enough of you in this. I see line and form, but I don’t see Ewan Campbell,” a former teacher at the Royal Academy had once said. “Any blushing debutante can paint something pretty. However, it takes a true artist to paint meaning, to explore soul in art. You’ve mastered pretty. Now . . . work on finding meaning. Mediocrity never led to greatness.”

  In short, Ewan was no better at discussing himself in visual form than verbal.

  Contrary to Alex’s belief, he did not paint his soul into his artwork.

  That was the problem.

  A cold breeze tugged at Ewan’s plaid. The lower half of his great kilt wrapped around his waist, the upper half he had unpinned and wrapped around his shoulders and head as a cloak.

  The two men were braving the chill March air to stroll through the walled gardens of Muirford House. The enormous country house—the residence of Andrew Langston, Earl of Hadley—dominated the skyline behind them. Alex and Ewan had arrived from Edinburgh the afternoon before, and now they awaited the arrival of two more guests—Master Kieran MacTavish and Sir Rafe Gordon.

  The men—Ewan, Alex, Andrew, Kieran, and Rafe—had formed a lifelong friendship while on a scientific voyage to the South Pacific.

  Each man had played a part in the endeavor.

  Andrew, a student of the natural sciences, had envisioned and financed the journey.

  Rafe, Andrew’s close friend and a fellow student, had joined him.

  Alex had been hired as a doctor to the gentlemen.

  Kieran had been the master and navigator of their ship, The Minerva, serving under the captain and commander, Captain Martin Cuthie.

  For his part, Ewan had been plucked from a deluge of applicants to illustrate their scientific finds. It seemed an odd move for a painter—to take a position better suited to an illustrator—but coming on the heels of knowing how much soul his painting lacked, Ewan had been eager to find a less expressive outlet for his talents.

  Today marked four years to the day since that awful night in the South Pacific. When Captain Cuthie had betrayed them, beating Rafe and Andrew nearly to death, setting a native village afire, and marooning them all on a far-away island.

  Worse, the sixth member of their band, Jamie Fyffe, had died in the aftermath of the events. To honor Jamie, they called themselves the Brotherhood of the Black Tartan. In fact, Ewan’s great kilt was formed from a length of the dark plaid they had created to remember Jamie—stripes of red, white, and green all set against a black ground.

  Today they gathered on the fourth anniversary of Jamie’s death to commemorate their fallen friend’s life. And given the events of the past several months, they had much to discuss.

  Now if only Kieran and Rafe would arrive.

  To pass the time while they waited, Ewan had left the house, intent on the walled garden and a much-needed walk. Alex had joined him at the last second.

  Ewan clasped his hands behind his back as they walked, not minding the silence. As usual, he found himself slowing his stride to match Alex’s shorter legs. It wasn’t that Alex was a particularly small man.

  Rather, Ewan was a giant.

  He dwarfed everything. Men. Chairs. Beds. He spent his life ducking through doorways and under ceiling beams and hearing phrases like, ‘Cor, he’s a big ‘un, isn’t he?!’ and ‘He must be a prizefighter, I reckon.’

  Was it any wonder he had spent so many years literally fighting his way out of poverty and deprivation?

  Alex chuckled. “Ye truly are not going to say anything else about the situation, then?”

  The good doctor was a hound to scent, it appeared.

  That old feeling rose in Ewan’s chest, the one that tasted like panic and rendered his hands clammy. It was a salmon-colored emotion—cold and slimy and unpleasant.

  “’Tis not much tae say.” Ewan swallowed, hoping Alex would drop the topic but knowing he likely wouldn’t. Why did talking about his inner thoughts induce such anxiety?

  “Not much tae say?” Alex snorted. “Sir Joshua Kerr, one of the most famous painters in the country, hires ye to be his personal assistant, and ye shrug it off like it’s any other Tuesday?”

  “Well, when ye put it that way . . .” Ewan sighed. “I suppose I am . . . delighted.”

  “Delighted? Are ye the vicar’s wife talking about next month’s collection for the war widows?” Alex’s voice went breathy and sing-song. “I am so delighted at all we have accomplished this month . . .”

  Ewan managed a rueful grin. “Aright! I give. I’m pleased as Punch! That better?”

  “A bit.”

  Ewan was thrilled at the opportunity.

  Sir Joshua Kerr was indeed one of the most famous painters in all of Britain. And like most painters of his clout, he needed an assistant to help with the grunt work of painting—blending pigments, under-painting, transferring sketches, and blocking in background details.

  Ewan had been hired to be that assistant.

  “I do apologize if I have seemed flippant about the opportunity,” Ewan nodded toward Alex. “The chance tae work so closely with Sir Joshua will hopefully open more doors for myself. Ye know how hard it’s been tae build my commissions in Edinburgh. My work is sound, but none have heard of me. This could be a chance tae further my own name.”

  “That’s been your ambition for as long as I’ve known ye. I have no doubt that ye will accomplish it.”

  Ewan nearly sighed. He appreciated his friends’ support and yet . . .

  Mediocrity never led to greatness.

  Until Ewan found a way through mediocrity, he knew greatness would elude him.

  “Any other news to share?” Alex asked the words simply, but Ewan mentally shied away from the question.

  This was the problem when speaking with Alex. The man didn’t stop prying until he had worked loose anything that ached or stung.

  A moment of quiet. Birds trilled and a pheasant rustled in the underbrush.

  “Have you heard from her?” Alex dropped the question into the silence.

  His casual words landed with the force of a blunt upper-cut. Ewan barely held back a grunt.

  No need to ask to whom Alex referred.

  Ewan wanted to remain silent. He could not alter the past. She had made her own choices and betrayed his trust. Why dwell on things that could not be changed?

  But Alex did not merit silence. His question came from a place of love and concern. His friend remembered the story Ewan had told him four years ago today, huddled in the dark and horror of that night. The glowing embers of the burned-out island village had been too reminiscent of another night, another similar fire . . . and Ewan had been helpless to hold the pain in, dark memories spilling out. Alex, bless him, had listened as calm and collected as ever, offering what healing he could.

  And so Ewan swallowed and then shook his head. “No. Not a word in over eight years. I sent letters to the vicar in the region last summer, but I never had a reply. I cannae say, at the moment, if she is even alive or no.”

  “Will you visit? Try once more to see her?”

  “I cannae say. Loch Carron is not an easy place to reach, even at the best of times. The journey would take weeks to complete.” Ewan shied from the excusing words, from the implication that Mhairi was not worth the trouble and time it would take to find her.

  She was. She infinitely was.

  But the journey to Mhairi would be as much emotional as physical . . . and both were distances Ewan was unsure how to navigate.

  If ye’re going
to be a painter, then be a painter. I tire of this game, she had hissed. Go make a name for yourself, Ewan.

  Heaven knew, he had been trying.

  He scuffed his feet, sending a pebble rolling toward the flowers lining the path. Despite the weather, daffodils had pushed aside the drooping snowdrops and reached skyward, their lemony color optimistically cheerful against the drab browns of winter.

  Daffodils always signaled the beginning of ‘gold season,’ as Mhairi had called it. Daffodils bloomed, followed by gorse and then broom. Two months of nothing but yellow flowers along every lane and patch of uncultivated land.

  Mhairi loved this time of year—

  Ewan pressed a mental hand on his thoughts.

  Enough. Do not dwell in the past.

  He had left it long ago.

  “At last, ye’ve come in from the cold.” Andrew Langston, Earl of Hadley, greeted Ewan and Alex as they opened the library doors from the back terrace. Andrew jerked his chin toward Kieran and Rafe sitting before a roaring fire, enjoying a spot of tea.

  Stepping through the library doors after Alex, Ewan re-wrapped the upper-half of his great kilt to be a sash rather than a cloak, pinning it in place with a large brooch, before joining his friends in front of the warm fireplace. He embraced Kieran and shook Rafe’s hand, asking about Lady Sophie Gordon, Rafe’s new bride.

  Predictably, Ewan’s stomach rumbled, a loudly embarrassing sound. His large body required food in endless amounts.

  Fortunately, Andrew had luncheon at hand. Two footmen carried in trays of food, setting them on an expanded gateleg table. One of the footmen could not stop staring at Ewan, his head turning over and over to take in a third and fourth look.

  Ewan could practically hear the conversation once they returned to the kitchens. Och, I dinnae ken a man could be so large. His hands were the size of platters . . .

  This had forever been Ewan’s lot, had it not? His outsized body always garnered some reaction—fear, surprise, lust, shock—but never indifference.

  Ewan would never be inconspicuous.

  Just like he would never cease being hungry. The gnaw of hunger was an old friend. He had spent too many years on the brink of starvation, literally fighting to keep food in his belly.

  And so he ignored the footman’s gawking and proceeded to pile a plate high with roast beef sandwiches and crumbling shortbread.

  Sitting back in a chair and tucking in to his feast, Ewan watched his friends exchange pleasantries. Alex congratulated Rafe on being granted a baronetcy by King George IV, hence the new title of Sir Rafe Gordon. Rafe commented on the large portrait Ewan had painted last autumn of Andrew and Jane, now hanging over the fireplace in the drawing room.

  But as they spoke, Ewan’s gaze was drawn back to Andrew’s tight expression. It was echoed in Rafe’s stiff shoulders and the tense slash of Kieran’s mouth as he downed a glass of whisky.

  It was a sickly-orange emotion—tense and taut—that snapped at the heels of their camaraderie and doused the room in a garish light.

  Ewan swallowed a mouthful of shortbread and brushed off the lingering crumbs.

  “What has happened?” he asked into the chatter.

  Every head swung his way, question marks hanging in the air.

  “Something has occurred,” Ewan repeated. Not a question, this time.

  Rafe winced, the white scar tracing his cheek tightening.

  Andrew folded his arms across his chest, that same grim set to his features.

  “Of course, you would notice this first, Ewan,” Alex said, swinging his gaze between them all. “What happened?”

  Kieran shook his head and reached to pour himself another dram. “’Tis nothing a drunken stupor cannae fix.”

  Ignoring Kieran’s jab, Andrew reached across the desk behind him. “Apparently, this was printed in the Aberdeen Journal last week.”

  He handed a newspaper cutting to Alex. The doctor tilted it so Ewan could read as well.

  NOTICE

  The sinking of The Minerva is not what it seemed. Promises were broken, and the debt has not been paid. Those who survived should be held to account.

  Alex let out a low whistle. “Another one?”

  “Aye,” Andrew nodded.

  Last October, a similar notice had appeared in the Edinburgh Advertiser.

  “There has tae be a link between the notices,” Rafe said.

  “Undoubtedly,” Alex agreed. “But why are they appearing now—nearly four years on—and what on earth do they mean? We know of no debt.”

  Kieran knocked back another finger of whisky, giving every appearance of a man determined to drink himself insensible as quickly as possible.

  He reached for the whisky bottle again.

  Alex scooted it out of Kieran’s reach.

  “Perhaps ye should switch to tea,” Alex said. “Consider it some doctorly advice.”

  “Nae.” Kieran shook his head. “This is definitely a problem for alcohol.”

  “Alcohol is never the answer, Kieran.”

  “O’course it is.” Kieran leaned forward and grabbed the bottle. “It helps me forget the question.”

  He poured himself another finger of whisky.

  Ewan frowned, exchanging a concerned look with Alex.

  Of them all, Jamie’s death had hit Kieran the hardest. Though none of his friends understood exactly how hard. That information was Ewan’s alone.

  Up until six months ago, they had assumed that they were the only survivors of the wreck of The Minerva four years earlier.

  Then the notice had appeared in the Edinburgh Advertiser. Threatening letters had followed soon after.

  Rafe had discovered in November that somehow Captain Martin Cuthie had survived the sinking of The Minerva.

  How the man had survived . . . none of them could say. And since that time, Cuthie had utterly disappeared.

  But Cuthie’s survival had torn open the barely-healed wounds of Jamie’s death. Kieran had been slowly unraveling over the winter. Every time Ewan saw his friend, he had a glass of whisky in his hand and a bleak deadness in his eyes. Kieran was far too young to have such a world-weary expression.

  “What else?” Ewan asked.

  Tension still hung in the room. That bitter orange color clinging to furniture and dripping down the walls.

  With a hefty sigh, Andrew reached for a piece of foolscap on the desk behind him, snapping the paper.

  “This arrived with the evening post. It’s a notice from a magistrate in Aberdeen. After a blethering introduction, he eventually says, ‘I know that a formal inquest was held three years ago pertaining to the sinking of The Minerva. However, new evidence has come to light. Given that nearly eighty of His Majesty’s citizens lost their lives when The Minerva sank, we feel we cannot allow this new claim in the Aberdeen Journal to go un-investigated. Would your lordship be at leisure in two weeks’ time to answer a few questions?’” Andrew handed the letter to Alex. Ewan read over the doctor’s shoulder.

  Mmmm.

  “The tone of the letter certainly isnae brusque or threatening,” Ewan said, looking back up at Andrew. “I would guess that the magistrates simply want to do what they do best—make some noise and assure the public that there is nothing amiss.”

  “Aye,” Alex agreed. “But what ‘new evidence’ does the magistrate have? Cuthie is alive somewhere. And that complicates this.”

  Andrew grimaced. “I am well-aware of that fact.” He ran a tired hand over his face. “If only we could find the blasted man. My Runner from Bow Street keeps turning up empty-handed.”

  “Cuthie has gone to ground like the true rat that he is,” Rafe snorted. “Probably skulking around the Caribbean or some such, waiting for this to die down.”

  “He can’t hide forever. Someday, he will resurface—”

  “Ye should just say it.” Kieran shifted forward in his seat, reaching again for the whisky bottle. Alex snatched it away this time, placing it on another table out of reach. Kieran scowle
d. “I am the most at risk here.”

  “Pardon?” Rafe asked.

  Kieran continued to stare at the whisky bottle, as if contemplating wrestling Alex for it, the muscles in his jaw clenching over and over.

  Ewan nudged Kieran’s boot with his own, drawing his friend’s gaze, hoping to communicate empathy through his expression.

  Kieran raised his head, a dreadful bleakness in his pale eyes.

  “Youse all were guests aboard the ship,” Kieran said. “I am the only one who was a crew member. If the government decides tae officially open an investigation, my actions that night could be viewed as mutinous. We’ve always known this. It’s why we stay mum about the voyage. We dinnae want anyone asking too many questions.”

  Silence greeted his words.

  Kieran, Ewan noted, did not seem particularly concerned about his own well-being. Often Ewan felt as if he were watching the life slowly drain out of his friend. But then, Ewan knew the true depths of Kieran’s suffering, the painful secret he harbored.

  Ewan could not blame the man.

  The fire popped in the hearth, the coals settling.

  The dancing flames tossed Ewan back to that night in the South Pacific.

  Their journey had been an adventure up to that point. At least for Ewan. He had never left Britain before the trip, so every port, every new plant and animal, was utterly fascinating. Four years ago, they had dropped anchor in the harbor of a native village in the New Hebrides.

  The locals had been friendly, immediately collecting plants and animals for Ewan to draw. Their time there had been idyllic.

  Until the day that Cuthie had ordered the villagers to be taken as slaves and sold for profit on their way back to Britain.

  Of course, the Brotherhood absolutely refused to go along with Cuthie’s plan. The subsequent fight had turned bloody, but as far as Ewan knew, no one had been killed. The violence had ended when Cuthie torched the village and then sailed The Minerva out of the harbor under moonlight, marooning the rest of them. Only Jamie had remained aboard The Minerva, held captive by Cuthie.

  They did not know the specifics of what transpired after that.

  The Brotherhood had been rescued weeks later by a passing Portuguese whaler. The crew of that ship had told tale of sailing through the wreckage of The Minerva. All evidence pointed toward the ship having been sunk by a hidden reef. The crew were presumed lost at sea, including Jamie.