Rebecca smoothed her skirt. Standing just outside the ballroom doors, her arm over Callum’s, she tried to convince herself that it wasn’t fear tickling at her spine, but anticipation. Whatever happened inside that noisy, warm room, he would protect her. She knew that as well as she knew her own name.
But she would have to chat with Donnach Maxwell, and very likely the Duke of Dunncraigh. She’d known them for better than ten years, and had considered herself friends with the Marquis of Stapp. For heaven’s sake, she’d come a hairsbreadth from agreeing to marry him.
Another chill crept up her spine. What if she’d done it? What if Callum had decided to wash his hands of the lot of them and stay in Kentucky? When she signed the marriage registry, giving Stapp her property, she might well have been signing away her own life. And Margaret’s.
“Dig yer fingers in if ye need to, Rebecca,” Callum murmured from beside her. “I’ll nae let ye out of my sight. Ye have my word.”
She lifted her shoulders. Dunncraigh and Stapp would be the same men she’d known for the past years, but she was no longer the same woman. She knew. Yes, the only proof they owned at the moment was a short letter from a dead man and Callum’s declarations, but those were enough. Everything Callum had said, all his suspicions back before he’d left Scotland and now that he’d returned, carried a strong logic. Yes, she’d tried to attribute his anger and his warnings to jealousy and pride, but she saw the truth now.
All the kind, considerate offers to help her keep Sanderson’s profitable and growing, arranging for the “improvements” they’d known her father had been pursuing, the amended documents saying that majority approval and not unanimous approval was all that was necessary to make changes in the business. They’d been taking over little by little, and she’d been grateful for it. Grateful. Well, she wasn’t grateful any longer.
“Are ye growling now?” Callum whispered. “That might scare ’em a bit.”
That made her smile despite her nerves. “I’m not growling. I’m just … I’m tired of their smugness and false friendship,” she whispered back. “And I’m angry about what they’ve taken from me while they smiled and offered sympathy.”
“I ken. Dunnae seem too disdainful, though. They thought they had ye all wrapped up with a wee bow. Now they’ll have to run with the rest of the hounds if they want to win ye. We need them to make a mistake. Someaught we can use against them.”
“I know. I won’t forget.”
“And ye look like a goddess,” he continued. “As soon as we’re done here I aim to take ye out of that gown and have my way with ye.”
This time a completely different kind of shiver went through her. After better than a year without a man in her bed she craved him, but she couldn’t blame it purely on loneliness. Donnach had several times offered to—how had he phrased it?—keep her company through the long evenings. No, this was about Callum, and how she felt in his arms. How she wanted to feel that again.
For heaven’s sake, she was eight-and-twenty, nine years married, and with a young daughter. She knew better than to be smitten. She certainly knew better than to be smitten with Callum MacCreath. Perhaps it was just that she trusted him. She always had, really. The answer didn’t quite suffice, but it would do for now.
The couple in front of them vanished into the ballroom, and a moment later the butler took her invitation. “Lady Geiry and…” The servant looked from the handwritten amendment she’d made to the card to the tall, broad-shouldered man standing beside her. “And Lord Geiry,” he continued.
Holding her breath, she let Callum guide them into the noisy, bright, far-too-warm room. Three blazing chandeliers hung across the high ceiling, while more dozens of candles stood along walls and tables and the two mantelpieces. Most of the heat came from the blazing fires in the pair of fireplaces and of course the two hundred guests wandering through the ballroom and the adjoining drawing room and informal sitting room.
Rebecca had no idea why the room’s lighting had so much significance, but the flames gave her something on which to focus while she mentally readied herself for all the sideways glances and behind-the-hand whispers.
Over the past month or so she’d been to a few luncheons, a recital, and that one evening at the theater. Many of these people she knew fairly well, but hadn’t seen since she’d left Society to go into mourning. And now she’d reappeared—on the arm of the brother of the man she’d buried.
In London that would have been horribly scandalous, and might even have seen her given the cut direct. Here, of course, the rules were different. She squared her shoulders.
As far as any of them knew, Callum was here as the Earl of Geiry first, her brother-in-law second, and nothing at all third. But she had to at least imply that there was a third thing, however much it might dent her reputation with the handful of London residents present. Donnach needed to have a reason to feel pressured to act, and she meant to give him one.
While Callum hadn’t disagreed with the fact that she’d been cut out of the Sanderson family and the MacCreath families with the skill of a woodcarver, laid out vulnerable for a Maxwell feast, neither had he pointed out what would likely have happened if he hadn’t returned. But it was those thoughts that had her waking up startled, and very glad not to find herself alone in the bedchamber she and Ian had once shared. The moment she married Donnach she would have become a liability. They couldn’t have her becoming suspicious about Ian’s and her father’s deaths once she saw the full scope of what they’d done with the company.
And then there was the secondary, more awful bucket of possibilities. If she had decided to refuse Donnach, they would have to do her in before she could marry anyone else—thereby handing her shares of Sanderson’s over to her husband and his family. With her gone, her part of the company would go to Margaret. A spirited, naïve poppet surrounded by hungry, murdering hyenas.
“Smile, lass,” Callum said, leaning closer to her. “We’re three steps ahead of the Maxwell now. We need to keep it that way.”
“I suddenly have the urge to punch Donnach,” she returned, forcing a smile that hopefully didn’t look as ghastly as it felt.
“If he kens ye hate him, he’ll stay clear of ye until they can figure out another way to get what ye own.”
“I know that. I won’t put Mags in danger.”
A muscle in his forearm jumped beneath her fingers. “Nae,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Neither of them would live long enough to set eyes on her.”
Of course he’d already followed all the trails Dunncraigh could take. And the flat, hard tone of his voice made it clear that he absolutely meant what he said. As bloodthirsty as it sounded, the statement actually left her a little more steady. While Callum had breath in his body, no harm would come to Margaret. This was not a pride-pricked, blustery boy making boasts. He’d become a man—and a very dangerous one.
“I will hold you to that,” she returned.
“That, ye may do.” She felt him shake off his anger. “Now. Introduce me about. I’ve been gone a time. And ye must take invitations to dance.” He pulled her a breath closer. “After ye give me two of them. I’ll let ye choose which ones.”
“Do they waltz in Kentucky?” she asked, glad to be thinking about something else for a moment.
“Nae. But there are two of those, aye? I’ll watch the first and take the second one.”
She nearly pointed out that the waltz was far too complicated to be mastered after watching it once, but she kept her thoughts to herself. If he didn’t want to risk embarrassment, she would be more than willing to sit out the dance with him, after all. Pulling the dance card she’d been given from her reticule, she marked his name next to a country dance and the evening’s second waltz. And whether this was to stir Donnach to action or not, she liked the idea of dancing with Callum, nearly as much as she liked what he’d said about stripping her out of her sapphire-colored gown later.
Rebecca held on to that thought. It didn’t worry or frighten her like the prospect of all the “what ifs”; it made her feel strong and desired and safe—something that for a time she’d never expected to feel again. This was for her and for Margaret and for their future. And even if she didn’t put much … hope into hope these days, to herself she could admit that perhaps her future had a spot for one more person. And his wolf, of course.
“Rebecca, my dear,” an older woman with the honeyed, sophisticated tones of London in her voice called, gesturing them closer to the fire. “I was hoping you would attend tonight.”
“Emma,” she returned, guiding Callum through a flock of young debutantes who began chattering like excited geese as he passed. “Lady Caldwell, my brother-in-law, Lord Geiry. Callum, the Countess of Caldwell.”
He inclined his head. “My lady.”
The countess looked him up and down with a thoroughness that made Rebecca clench her jaw. “My lord. You’re the one from America, are you not? They do grow them large, there. You’re a very striking young man. If I were ten years younger, I’d be after you, myself.”
“I grew up here,” he returned, his brogue deepening a little. She wondered if that was deliberate. “They added some grit and muscle in Kentucky, I reckon. And I might have let ye catch me.”
It went like that for the next twenty minutes, introducing Callum to the current Inverness aristocracy. Even the ones who remembered him from before were polite and complimentary, though she didn’t think the pleasantries fooled him for a moment. He was an unknown quantity, a curiosity, a half-familiar foreigner with the physique they were more accustomed to seeing on a blacksmith than an earl. Many of them mentioned the wolf, and while he admitted to having one, he declined to explain her.
“They’re afraid of you,” she whispered, as they finished their circuit of the room.
“If they have any sense they are, aye.”
“You want them to be.”
He glanced sideways at her. “They all ken how and why I left here ten years ago. Even the ones I’ve nae met before today. Half of them came here ready to laugh behind their hands at the sad, lucky drunk who managed to stay alive long enough to claim his brother’s fortune and title. I reckon nae a one of them’s laughing now.”
“No, but you do seem to have several ladies ready to swoon at your feet,” she countered, attempting to sound amused and fairly certain she’d failed.
“They can swoon wherever they like. Dunnae expect me to go about catching them. I’m where I want to be, and with whom I want to be.”
That sent warmth from her toes to her fingers, and everywhere in between. How was it that with Ian and the preparation for marriage she’d been more concerned that everything looked perfect, that all the correct guests received invitations, than with how she’d felt about it all? Certainly she’d been excited, but now she wondered if that had been in part because her father was excited that the Sandersons, self-made merchants, were poised to join the aristocracy. The things she felt now—naughty, improper, and certainly unwise—felt foreign, reserved for daydreams that she’d ceased having the moment she walked into the church to say her vows.
“Be ready, lass,” Callum breathed abruptly, his arm jumping beneath hers. “The weasel and the rat are headed this way.”
She didn’t know which of the Maxwells was the weasel and which the rat, but then that didn’t particularly matter. Instead she concentrated on the advice Callum had given her—make them concerned that he’d snared her interest, and make them worried enough to make mistakes to get her back.
“Ye’re nae going to punch anyone are ye, Geiry?” Lord Stapp commented, as he stopped before them and inclined his head in her direction. His father beside him settled his gaze on Callum and left it there.
An uneasy shiver went through her. “I’m glad to see you recovered, Donnach,” she said, making herself smile.
He touched a long scratch on one cheek. “More or less,” he returned. “The cut on my arm took a few stitches.”
“A shame it wasn’t on yer neck, then,” Callum put in easily.
“We’re all civil here, lad,” the duke countered. “Nae need to begin a brawl. I see ye still wear the Maxwell tartan, whatever bellowing ye do about us.”
“I’ve nae a thing against clan Maxwell. Only its chief and his firstborn.”
Donnach grimaced. “Rebecca, for the sake of our mutual investments, I do hope ye can convince yer brother-in-law that dear Ian’s death was a horrible accident. I fear he cannae blame himself for being gone, so he chooses to blame those who witnessed his disgrace.”
If she hadn’t seen Ian’s note, that would have made sense. Now, it made her want to spit in Donnach’s face. That, though, would never do. Jealous. She needed to make him jealous, not suspicious that she believed Callum’s claims about what he and his father had done. “Whatever happened back then,” she said, tilting her head toward the man whose arm she still held, “Callum has changed. Margaret simply adores him.”
“Aye, he’s changed,” Donnach took up. “He’s gained a few inches and some muscle. So now he’s nae just a squawking boy; he’s a squawking man.”
The music for the country dance began. Thank goodness; she wasn’t good at either spite or coyness, however motivated she felt. “If you’ll excuse us, my lord, Your Grace, we must take our places for the dance.”
She turned, trying to pull Callum with her. He held back, though, pinning Dunncraigh with a grin that chilled her to the bone. “Levirate,” he said, and turned his back on the pair.
“I thought we were supposed to be subtle about this,” she hissed, releasing his hand and stopping opposite him.
“For me, that was subtle.”
“No it wasn’t.” She curtsied as he bowed, and then took his left hand in her right as they stepped down the line behind the other pairs of dancers. “However much you want to punish them, you agreed to go this route. I will not have you or anyone else drawing weapons in a ballroom.”
His mouth twitched as they circled around again, turned, and clapped once before joining hands again. “Look at ’em,” he returned. “Stapp looks like his head’s about to pop off.”
When she could do so without being too obvious, she snuck a look in the direction of the Maxwell and his son. They had moved away from the dance floor and were clearly in deep conversation about something. And yes, Donnach’s face was so red he might be mistaken for a summer tomato.
As she looked back at Callum, his calm, amused expression unsettled her even more. Then it occurred to her. “You did that on purpose.”
“Of course I did. My mouth moved, and words came out.”
“No. You meant to set them after you. You lied to me, Callum.”
“Nae, I didnae. But if ye think I’d set them after ye when I’d do just as well, ye’re mad.”
“Callum, y—”
“Ye needed to show interest in me, or they’d nae believe whatever I said about anything. So I didnae lie, Becca. And if I choose to have them look to me as the threat rather than ye as the prize, well, I reckon that’s my right. It’s my duty, my privilege, and my honor to keep ye safe.”
Men. “That’s very chivalrous of you, then,” she sent back at him after they separated and joined up again at the end of the line, “but you might have told me. I’ve been kept ignorant of far too many things for far, far too long.”
He didn’t speak at all for their next turn about the room. That should have annoyed and troubled her, no doubt, but it didn’t. For nearly a decade long ago, she and Callum had been the best of friends. And as different as he was now, she recognized his thoughtful face, the one he donned when he’d been an idiot and she’d reminded him of that fact. He would consider, grumble, and then apologize.
As the dance ended he looped her hand over his arm again. Her next partner, Mr. Basingstoke, approached for the evening’s first waltz, and she glanced up at Callum. “Well?” she prompted.
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to apologize for keeping your plan from me?”
“Nae. Ye were on yer own before, and now ye arenae. Ye play yer part, and I reckon I’ll play mine. Now go dance while I watch ye.”
“You’d best watch the men, or you’ll be learning the waltz backward.”
He shook his head, his two-colored eyes glinting. “I’ll be watching ye,” he repeated, lowering his voice still further, “imagining ye naked out there with naught but me in the room.”
Well, that wouldn’t make this any easier. Before she could point that out to him, Mr. Basingstoke held out his hand to her. “If you’d do me the honor, my lady,” he intoned. “I haven’t waltzed with you in over a year. I do not think I can wait any longer.”
Callum tilted his head, watching her make her way to the center of the ballroom. If he’d been her, he would have pointed out to Basingstoke that she hadn’t danced because she’d been mourning her husband, but Rebecca was far too composed and polite to say any such thing.
Despite what he’d said, he did know something of the waltz. The last time he’d been in Boston a few of the more daring lasses had demonstrated it at some soiree or other. He’d never attempted it, himself, but he’d be damned if he missed the chance to have Rebecca in his arms in front of everyone.
Aye, he could claim that was part of his plan, but that would be another lie. Dunncraigh and Stapp saw her as a means to an end—an end they wanted badly enough to kill for. When he’d seen them looking at her, he’d realized just how perilous her circumstances were. Whatever the cost, he needed the Maxwell looking elsewhere—looking at him—as the largest obstacle to his plans.
“That’s yer plan then, is it?” Stapp asked from just behind him. “Marry yer brother’s own widow? Ye always did want her for yerself, I recall. Hardly seems fair to her, though, to be saddled with a sot who’d rather drink and shoot bears in America than be a landowner here.”
“Ye ken a great deal about me for someone I’ve nae spoken more than two or three sentences to at a time,” Callum returned, keeping his gaze on the lithe, golden-haired, azure-draped goddess swirling before him.
“I ken who ye are. A younger brother desperate to be half the man his older brother was. So desperate ye’d even take his widow for yerself.”
“I see throwing ye out my window didnae knock any sense into ye. Care to try again on the balcony?” He gestured toward the open doors to one side of the room, the only place where he’d noticed a breath of cool air and the scent of damp evening.
“My father offered ye a very generous price for whatever claim ye have on Sanderson’s fleet, Geiry. Take it. The next offer willnae be as generous.”
Taking a last look at Rebeca, Callum faced the Marquis of Stapp. “Ye’re interrupting a mighty pleasant view here, so I’ll ask ye plain—what will that next offer be, exactly? Because I did turn down the first one.”
Donnach’s brow furrowed for a heartbeat before it smoothed out again. “More than likely it’d be beating ye half to death and throwing ye on the next ship back to America.”
“That doesnae sound very gentlemanly. And how do ye mean to explain two Earls of Geiry vacating the title within eighteen months?”
“Ye can keep the title. In Kentucky, or wherever ye were hiding.” Stapp took a half step closer, and Callum edged his fingers toward the sgian-dubh sheathed against his right calf.
Hiding. Had they looked for him? Ian had known where he was. If his brother had trusted the Maxwell so much, why hadn’t he said anything? Or had they not told Ian they were looking?
Hm. It would have made sense to remove him even before killing Ian. Then the title would have gone to his softheaded cousin, who would have wet himself at the idea of being noticed by a duke and the head of their clan. And then, with Donnach’s marriage to Rebecca, Dunncraigh would have owned Sanderson’s entirely.
Callum clenched his jaw. Damn him for being too stubborn to read Ian’s letters. The last one, at least, though he hadn’t known at the time that there would be no more. It might have told him what was afoot, that they were all in danger. It might have convinced him to return home in time to save the lot of them.
“Interested, aye?” Donnach asked, misinterpreting his silence for consideration. “I’ll convince the duke to grant ye a boon for going away. It might nae be what he offered ye before, but I reckon it’ll be enough. More than enough.”
“More than enough for what?”
“To compensate ye for nae marrying a lass who nae wanted ye, anyway. I was there, if ye’ll recall. I heard what she called ye. And I saw her choose yer brother. I even heard the conversation after ye left the house like a scalded cat.” The marquis chuckled. “I’d wager yer ears were burning, because it was fairly unpleasant.”
Ah, the bit where Stapp tried to turn him against Rebecca so the marquis could move back into the “almost betrothed” position. “Back to Kentucky,” he mused, wishing he hadn’t allowed Rebecca to convince him that shooting both Maxwells was too easy. He knew it, too, but damnation, it was tempting. “Have ye ever seen a man scalped?”
Stapp blinked. “What?”
“Scalped. I’ve seen it. Lost three of my men back when I first began my business. They strayed where they shouldnae have, and paid for it. My point, though, is that once ye’ve seen a man scalped, still alive and begging to be killed, being threatened with a beating doesnae much signify.”
“Ye’ll nae win her, Geiry. Ye cannae be trusted, and ye cannae be relied on. I’m the one who’s been here for the lass when she lost her husband and her father. Ye were somewhere off seeing men getting scalped until ye got word ye’d inherited a title and blunt.”
“Dunnae fu—”
The Duke of Dunncraigh stepped between the two of them before Callum could jab a finger into the marquis’s chest, grab hold of his jacket, and drag him out to the balcony.
“Away with ye, Donnach,” his father said.
With a curt nod the marquis turned on his heel and walked into the crowd. Given how close he was to losing his temper, Callum was surprised to see that no one else seemed to have noticed the confrontation. But then Stapp was much more accustomed to navigating Inverness soirees than he.
As for Dunncraigh, well, Callum had insults aplenty for both the marquis and his father. After holding them in for a decade, it felt good to let them fly. Especially since it wasn’t just for his own satisfaction. He had two lasses to keep safe. “Rebecca may think ye’re some kindly grandfather to her,” he said aloud, gazing at the duke levelly, “but I know ye killed my brother, and I know ye killed George Sanderson.”
“That’s a dangerous thing for a lad with yer reputation to say to a man with mine,” the duke returned, not looking even a wee bit surprised at the accusation.
And both the duke and his son continued to pick at the man he used to be, the one they thought he still was. Callum curved his mouth in a slow smile. “Just because ye couldnae find me in America doesnae mean Ian couldnae. And just because he was a bit late in moving against ye doesnae mean he didnae tell me what he knew—and how he planned to fight ye.” He inclined his head. “Good evening to ye, ye old goat. I look forward to seeing ye again. Soon.” Turning, he walked away.
“Ye’ve said that before, and ye’ve insulted me before. I still seem to be … unharmed.”
Callum stopped. The man made a good point. Slowly he turned around and returned to stand in front of the duke. Bending his head a little to reach the man’s ear, he whispered, “Ye’re unharmed because this is my kingdom now, ye pile of shite. Ye’ll live for as long as I say ye will, and nae a breath longer. I warned ye that I’d end ye. I keep my word. But nae on yer schedule. Because if there’s one thing worse than being scalped, it’s waiting for the blade to touch ye. Think on that while ye lie in yer soft bed tonight.”
With that he did walk away, but only to the far side of the ballroom. He might have set the Maxwell’s gaze on him, but the easiest path to what the duke and his son wanted was still Rebecca. For God’s sake, he should just marry her now, and cut them off at the knees.
The thought tempted him. More than tempted him. He wanted her, and he had no intention of letting her go. Ever. But she wanted justice with a taste of ridicule, and he craved revenge. Stapp and Dunncraigh needed a taste of hope, or they might well cut bait and run—or rather, shut themselves behind locked doors where he couldn’t get at them, and where a single letter from a dead man wouldn’t sway a judge to action.
Still … He gazed at her, swirling and smiling halfway across the room, candlelight glinting along the silver clips in her golden hair. When she and her gangly partner came to an abrupt stop, he actually felt unbalanced for a moment. When he saw what—who—had stopped them, though, he pushed through the soft haze and started forward. Stapp.
As he reached the outermost dancers, Rebecca waved her fingers at him, though her gaze remained on the marquis. She knew the game they’d chosen to play, and while he might not have told her all of the twists and turns, she damned well had spleen. With a nervous half bow Mr. Basingstoke relinquished her to the marquis, and Donnach Maxwell put his hand on her waist, took her hand, and turned into the waltz with her.
Callum didn’t like it. At all. Whatever else that man had done to their family, he’d gone after Rebecca’s hand in marriage. Hell, he was still in pursuit, as far as he knew. Fuck.
They would have danced at some point during the evening; both he and Rebecca had realized that. She had to be swayable, for their plan to work. But not the damned waltz. Not a dance where the marquis held her in his arms.
He made himself watch, anyway. Aside from his vow to protect her, the sight of the two of them served to remind him of just how close he’d come to missing the chance to save her, and to have her. To know her again, and to realize all the ways in which he’d been an idiot ten years ago.
If she could knowingly dance in the arms of the man who had a hand in killing her husband, then he could watch her do it. But tonight, after they returned to MacCreath House, she would be his. Part of him wanted to think, to imagine, in much longer terms than that, but he stopped himself. The deeper they played this game, the more likely it became that he would die protecting her. And he couldn’t—wouldn’t—promise her a future he couldn’t deliver. No matter how much he’d begun to desire it.