by Nichole Van
But then Cuthie had appeared on the docks in Aberdeen last autumn. And now there were more mysterious announcements being posted in the broadsheets.
What had truly happened to The Minerva?
And Kieran was at risk if the magistrate moved to open a full inquiry.
Ewan watched emotions flicker across his friend’s face, world-weary sorrow mixing with somber desperation.
“I will not allow them to prosecute ye, Kieran.” Andrew’s voice was a low, tense hum. “As an Earl of the Realm, I have considerable power.”
“Aye,” Rafe agreed. “And Sophie’s father and other friends in Parliament will also side with us, should the case come to light. We will fight for ye.”
Kieran shook his head. “Ye think I care about myself at this point?”
“Kieran—” Ewan began, reaching out a hand toward him.
“Nae, if youse lot are going tae do anything, find Cuthie.” Kieran sucked in a steadying breath, fire flashing in his eyes. “I have tae know what happened to Jamie, how it ended in truth—” His voice broke.
Ewan’s heart panged.
Andrew and Rafe exchanged glances. Alex placed his palm on Kieran’s arm.
They had all mourned Jamie’s death.
Before he died, Kieran’s former mentor, Charles Fyffe, had asked Kieran to watch over his son, James. And so when Jamie came onto The Minerva, Kieran had forged an almost instant bond with the youth, taking on the role of protector.
Ewan knew only too well how close Jamie’s death had come to nearly breaking Kieran four years ago.
Finding out that Cuthie had lived, that perhaps others had lived, had been an agony, tearing open the wound of his friend’s sorrow.
“Aye,” Ewan agreed. “We all need to know what happened to Jamie.”
Kieran nodded, gaze far too glassy. He turned to look into the fire, wiping his eyes with a thumb.
Cuthie’s appearance had shattered whatever calm and acceptance Kieran had achieved. The threat of a government investigation and being charged with mutiny would only exacerbate Kieran’s precarious mental state.
Logically, Kieran knew that it was nearly impossible for Jamie to have survived. He had said as much to Ewan the last time they spoke of it.
But his friend’s pain remained a palpable thing. Ewan knew only too well the depths of such grief—the aching gash left by someone vital being torn away to an unknown fate.
Andrew, Rafe, and Alex thought they understood the nature of Kieran’s grief. But privately Ewan had heard them wonder why Kieran’s pain was so acute four years on.
But Kieran’s wound cut far deeper than the others in the room understood. Only Ewan knew that Kieran’s grief was doubly-horrific and truly well-founded.
More than once, he had pressured Kieran to speak with the others. If they all knew the truth of the situation, they might be able to offer support.
But Kieran refused.
And it was not Ewan’s secret to tell.
Instead, Ewan would leave for Aberdeen and his new position as a painter’s assistant, hoping the others found answers before Kieran unraveled entirely.
2
Kilmeny Hall
Seat of the Earldom of Kildrum
Aberdeenshire, Scotland
March 27, 1820
Violet Kerr, Lady Kildrum, was attempting to solve her third catastrophic problem of the day.
And, as usual, she struggled to know what decision to make.
The first catastrophe had been the abrupt departure of her sisters’ governess cum lady’s companion, Miss Compton. Miss Compton’s mother had taken deathly ill, so Violet did not begrudge the woman requesting a leave of absence.
But Miss Compton’s loss had led to the second catastrophe—a lack of a proper chaperone for Violet’s twin sisters, Aster and Rose. Over breakfast, Rose had bemoaned the worn ribbon on her green silk gown. Granted, shabby ribbons were hardly a true emergency, but Rose insisted that the problem be solved rightthisinstant. New ribbons were needed for Lord Graham’s dinner party, and with Miss Compton gone, who would escort Aster and herself to the haberdashers today? Their father had been unmoved by her plight, indicating his displeasure with his daughters’ chatter by snapping his newspaper more than usual.
The third catastrophe, and legitimately the most worrisome, had occurred after breakfast with the arrival of Violet’s solicitor and steward. She surveyed the gentlemen seated in her study, her polished oak desk stretching between them.
“Your financial situation, my lady, is not quite as robust as it could be,” her solicitor, the aptly-named Mr. Lawyerly, was informing her in his dry voice. “The debt your late mother incurred in order to alleviate the famine of ‘16 comes due in October—”
“The Manna Loan,” Violet said, using the name her father had given it—money that had been used to feed the hungry, just like manna fed the Israelites in the wilderness.
“Aye,” Mr. Lawyerly nodded. “The very same. Your late mother is to be commended for her generosity. The former Lady Kildrum made a tremendous personal sacrifice that year to ensure all her tenants were fed and housed.”
Violet nodded. All of them remembered 1816, the catastrophic Year without a Summer. The skies had remained gloomy and cloudy year-round. It had snowed in July, for goodness’ sake, the never-ending frosts destroying crops. Violet’s family had retreated from their townhouse in London, her parents wary of the hunger riots in Town. But upon returning to Scotland, they realized their thousands of tenants faced similar food shortages.
Violet’s mother simply could not allow her people to starve. And so she had taken out a loan to purchase grain from Italy to supplement her people’s meager rations.
Mr. Lawyerly continued, “I am certain your late mother anticipated being alive to deal with the repercussions of the loan. But alas, that is not the case. At present, the earldom does not have the liquid capital needed to repay it. Therefore, my lady, it would be prudent to make . . . decisions.”
Her steward, the inaccurately-named Mr. Shambles, nodded in agreement.
“I understand your mother intended to sell on the management of the southern tack, my lady,” he said. “The grassum paid to lease the land would bring a substantial sum, more than enough to settle the Manna Loan.”
“Yes.” Violet nodded, drumming her desktop, mind sorting through options but not seeing an obvious answer, as usual. “As you had said, the grassum for leasing the tack would allow me to pay off the Manna Loan. But leasing the tack would result in a decrease in income in subsequent years.”
“This is true, my lady.” Mr. Lawyerly leaned forward in his chair. His gray hair poked out in back, giving him a habitually flustered look. “The only other way to raise the capital needed would be for you to sell the London townhouse, which I know was your childhood home. Or . . .” He smiled wanly. “. . . consider marriage to a wealthy gentleman.”
Violet’s face froze into her ‘polite mask.’
Marriage? For money? Was that her answer?
Whichever decision she made—sell the tack, sell the townhouse, or marry into money—would have long consequences . . . consequences she could not entirely foresee from the beginning.
What was she to do?
And when, when, when would she stop asking that question?
For nearly the thousandth time, she wished Dahlia were here to give her advice. Her younger sister would break the choices down for Violet with uncanny clarity—pointing out the happy memories the townhouse represented, or outlining creative ways they could economize after selling on the southern tack.
How could Violet be five and twenty and still unable to trust her own mind and act? Wasn’t age supposed to confer confidence at some point?
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. Did she truly appear so maniacal? Blue eyes too wide, color high on her cheeks, an extra set of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. As usual, the brown ringlets framing her face were already unraveling. Her
hair had a singular lifelong goal—to militantly resist curl, no matter how small. How was Violet to lead an earldom when she couldn’t even convince her hair to behave?
It had been two years since Violet had inherited the coronet of Countess of Kildrum, suo jure—in her own right.
As in, no one else would solve these problems for her.
As in, all decisions stopped at her desk.
A fact that others found equally surprising.
“But how was your mother a countess and your father not an earl?” a baffled young lord had once asked at a London ball.
“The title comes from my mother, not my father. My father is the Honorable Mr. David Kerr, a younger son of Viscount Trimbull, but he is married to my mother, Lady Kildrum.”
“Pardon?”
“There have been no male heirs in my mother’s family for four generations. The first Earl of Kildrum had no sons, so his Writ of Summons included a clause that the earldom could pass through the female line.”
“No sons at all?! For four generations?” The poor man sounded properly horrified. “B-but, why?”
“I suppose because God did not wish my maternal ancestors to have sons,” Violet replied, tone ever so dry.
The man blinked. “So you will inherit the title, just as your mother did, even though you have younger sisters?”
“Yes. In the Scottish peerage, when there is no male heir in the direct line, the title can pass to the eldest daughter. I understand matters are handled somewhat differently in England.”
The conversation had not improved from that point. The lordling had struggled to understand how a woman could manage an earldom. To be fair, he had a valid point.
How was Violet to manage it?
Some days she awoke panicked to feel the title’s leaden weight on her shoulders.
Yes, she had been groomed for the position of Lady Kildrum from birth, but that had simply involved endless instruction on etiquette and precedence. Her mother had assumed Violet would live as she had—bouncing between their London townhouse and small English estate. Management of their extensive Scottish holdings would be left mostly in others’ hands.
At the moment, Violet knew only enough to comprehend how little she actually knew.
For generations, the Countesses of Kildrum had divided their land into tacks which were then managed by tacksmen. Unlike England, where nobles usually managed their lands directly, nobles in the Highlands relied on tacksmen. These tacksmen would pay a fee—a grassum—to lease tacks of land for a specified period of time (usually nineteen years). The tacksmen would oversee the lands and pay a portion of the rents they collected back to the landowner, the annual tack-duty.
For the Countesses of Kildrum, the tack grassums provided a jolt of income immediately and a residual trickle from tack-duties. The tacksmen also removed the countesses from managing the day-to-day affairs of their lands.
However, in recent years, Scottish nobles had come around to the point-of-view of their English neighbors and had begun re-consolidating their lands from the tacksmen. After all, the tacksmen were middlemen, skimming profits off tenant rents.
Violet had seen this firsthand just ten months prior when one of her tacksmen had passed away, releasing a small tack back to the earldom. Instead of selling the tack on, Violet had listened to her uncle, Sir Joshua Kerr, and hired Mr. Shambles to administer to it. It was a wee tack, after all, and manageable enough for one man to oversee without hiring additional staff.
The result had been a decided uptick in her monthly income. Violet clearly saw that, over time, retaining control of the land directly would prove significantly more profitable.
But now a second tack had come to the end of its term. An enormous tack. A fiefdom of a tack. Land that would require an entire office of stewards to manage. Stewards that Violet would then have to oversee herself.
Her father, along with Mr. Lawyerly, wanted Violet to sell the management of the tack to a tacksman, allowing her to pay off the looming Manna Loan and, in the process, shield herself from the unladylike ugliness of tending to estate matters.
Violet was not sure. The long-term dividends of keeping the tack for herself were compelling. It was, after all, fiefdom-sized. Loads of tenants equaled loads of rents to be paid.
The problem, of course, was that Violet had no idea how to go about administering to the colossal tack. The mere thought paralyzed her. Like the title itself, it was too much too soon.
As if hearing her thoughts, Mr. Lawyerly sat forward. “You know your late mother, may she rest in peace, wished for you to leave the management of your lands to others. She never dreamed you would shoulder the burden yourself. She would expect you to sell the southern tack and use the grassum to pay off the Manna Loan.”
He was not wrong.
But Mr. Lawyerly—of Lawyerly, Hammer, and Shaw—had been a solicitor to the Earldom of Kildrum for the past twenty-five years. The man remembered Violet’s days in leading strings, and because of this, his advice tended to be more avuncular than professional.
This was usually a positive thing.
Today, Violet was not so sure.
“Forgive me for saying this,” he continued, “but if you do not sell on the tack, you must consider marriage, my lady.” Mr. Lawyerly swallowed, his expression hesitant. “I understand that Lord Graham has been courting you, as of late.”
Right. Yet another decision that Violet had to make.
This one, at least, she could dodge for now without incurring consequences.
“Lord Graham has not made an official offer for my hand, Mr. Lawyerly.” Violet held up a silencing palm when her solicitor would speak. “So until he does, the point is moot—”
Snick.
The door to her study opened, and Violet’s father, Mr. David Kerr, walked in with purposeful strides.
No knock. No polite inquiry.
But then her father considered Violet’s desire to run the earldom to be a passing fancy.
Mr. Kerr spared a glance for the two men seated before her desk before turning to her.
“How may I help you, Father?” she asked before he could speak.
Given how quickly his eyes drew into veiled slits, he did not appreciate her dry tone. “Violet, as we have discussed at length in the past, I do not consider it appropriate for you to be closeted with not one, but two, men.”
“Yes, Father,” Violet replied with equal restraint, “and as we have also discussed, such closeting is necessary to the wellbeing of the estate, which, in turn, touches upon the health of our finances. These meetings are essential. We agreed that a proper chaperone would be sufficient to protect my reputation.”
“I see,” her father said, voice tight. “Given that Miss Compton left the premises this morning, I am curious as to how you are managing to be properly chaperoned at the present.”
Violet blinked slowly and then pointed at the maid quietly darning socks behind Mr. Lawyerly and Mr. Shambles.
Mr. Kerr followed the direction of her finger, noted the maid, finally nodded a greeting to her solicitor and steward, and then turned back to Violet.
A long breath of silence ensued.
A muscle in her father’s cheek twitched. Though he had recently passed his fiftieth birthday, her father was still a dominating physical presence. Tall and lean with receding pepper-gray hair, his blue eyes snapped with sharp intelligence.
Violet held her father’s steely gaze.
She sympathized with her father. She truly did.
The early death of his wife had thrown him into a bizarre limbo.
As husband to a countess, her father had retained legal rights over Lady Kildrum’s actions and money.
However, as father to a countess who had reached her majority, Mr. Kerr had no claim on the earldom or its finances. Unlike his wife, he no longer had a legal relationship with his grown daughter.
An emotional connection, surely. But not a legal one.
Yet he was still the legal guardian
of Violet’s twin sisters—Aster and Rose, aged seventeen—and as such, had much to say about their upbringing, but sparse financial resources to make his opinions a reality.
In short, her father was no longer truly master of the house. And when he felt Violet was making choices contrary to her mother’s wishes—which was often—he could do nothing about it except rage at her in his impotence.
Therefore, before he began another tirade, Violet launched a counter-attack. “I do appreciate you bringing up the subject of Miss Compton’s absence, Father. Aster and Rose have set their sights on visiting the haberdasher this afternoon, and without Miss Compton, they will have no proper chaperone—”
“Bah!” Her father waved a hand, dismissing the idea. “I do not have time for such frivolity. I have far too much writing to accomplish today. I am not some minion to do my daughters’ bidding. Surely a footman or groom could escort them.”
Violet finally gave into the urge and rubbed her temples, closing her eyes.
The younger son of an English viscount, her father had been destined for the church, a vocation that he had eagerly embraced. Over the years, he had channeled this devotion into writing religious treatises and arguing obscure doctrinal points with his colleagues from Oxford. Things he claimed left him little time for his daughters.
This was always the conflict, was it not? Her father was quick to disagree with Violet’s choices but rarely offered support.
Moreover, how could her father so blithely ignore this issue? Had Dahlia’s predilections taught him nothing?
With a hefty breath, Violet raised her head and met her father’s gaze. “And which footman or groom would that be, Father? Tom, the handsome footman that Aster flirts with incessantly? Or would you prefer Angus, the burly groom that she makes eyes at every time she visits the stables? Or perhaps you would prefer my sisters spend the afternoon discussing ribbons with Mr. McKay in his shop? You recall Mr. McKay, do you not? I believe Aster eloquently described him last week as the man who puts ‘the dashing into haberdashery.’”