Rebecca paced the morning room floor, her gaze angling to the mantel clock every time she reached the farthest point from the window. Someone was punishing her. That was the only reason for this disaster that made any sense. And whoever it was had the ability to slow down the progression of time, as well.
Finally the front door opened, and she gripped the back of the couch to keep from rushing into the hallway. When Pogue knocked on the half-open door, she gestured him forward. “Get him in here, and shut the door,” she whispered. “And please let me know if Lord Geiry stirs from his bedchamber.”
The butler nodded. “Of course, my lady.” Turning, he practically grabbed the young man by the scruff and shoved him into the morning room. “In ye go, lad.”
Bartholomew Harvey, Esquire, tugged down at the front of his jacket as he regained his footing. “I’m here, my lady. You said it was urgent.”
“I sent for you an hour ago,” she returned, keeping her voice low.
“It’s only six o’clock, Lady Geiry. I was dead asleep, I’m afraid, and the office had to send someone to my apartment to wake m—”
“Did you know Callum MacCreath was on his way back to Scotland?” she interrupted.
He blinked. “No. I most assuredly did not. The first I knew of it was yesterday when he summoned me to that accounting office of his. Bloody Highlanders.” He flushed. “I beg your pardon, my lady.”
“I told you not to send any more letters seeking him,” she returned, ignoring his atypical profanity. Callum MacCreath could make a saint curse. “You’ve ruined everything.”
“The law is the law, my lady, as I explained before. The title requires an heir. And he is the heir.” He frowned, his thin brows furrowing. “If it wasn’t him, it would have been James Sturgeon. Or someone else, if not him. Things must be settled by the book. You are aware of that.”
“Of course I am. I just … I just didn’t want it to be him.” For years she’d tried to forget that last night, until she’d finally realized she would be much better off remembering how angry and hurt and insulted she’d been, rather than how fond she’d been of the stupid man—boy—for the ten years previous to that.
When she’d first caught sight of him yesterday, she’d barely recognized him. Taller and broader across the shoulders, he looked like he’d spent the last ten years doing hard labor. The worn clothes certainly supported that, despite what he’d said about not needing Ian’s money. He looked even more handsome, the hard masculinity of him firmly defined. But that dark, cynical glint in his two-colored eyes—that was new. As was the way he’d trod over her plans as if they, and she, didn’t even exist.
“May I ask, my lady,” Mr. Harvey said, making her jump, “what it is you require of me? It is quite early.”
She clenched her hands together. “Yes. How do I get rid of him?”
“‘Get rid of’? In what way, my lady? Because if we’re discussing something … nefarious, I cannot—will not—be a part of—”
“Stuff and nonsense,” she snapped. “He walked in here and claimed my daughter as his ward, and refuses to allow her to leave his care. Surely I have a higher claim on my own offspring.”
“Ah. No, I’m afraid you do not. Lady Margaret is Lord Geiry’s niece, and in the absence of her father—his brother—he is her guardian.”
That panic she’d felt yesterday when he’d announced that she could go wherever she pleased, but Margaret would stay, hit her all over again. Maggie, Lady Mags as the Highlanders called her, was all she had. Her only claim on what her life had been like prior to last year, the only bit of home and hearth and warmth she had remaining to her. The only part of Ian she could see, other than the portrait hanging in the library.
“But there must be something I can do,” she protested. Being in the same house with Callum, even for one night, had upended ten years of calm and peace, ten years of her being the lady she knew she could be beneath the scraped knees and stupid mad adventures. For heaven’s sake, she’d tried to hit him, when nothing in ten years had ever stirred her to such violence. Even Ian’s death, while it had brought her to tears and grief, hadn’t filled her with such … fury.
“I’m not certain how to advise you, my lady. Or whether it’s proper for me to do so.”
She faced the solicitor. “Why not? Or does he have your loyalty?”
“He let my entire firm go from his employment yesterday, Lady Geiry, so I owe him nothing.” He paused, tugging at his jacket again. “In fact, while I still work with some of Dunncraigh’s properties, I have no dealings with anyone connected to this household, unless you’d care to secure my services. You do still have several holdings, thanks to your father’s will, I believe, and they remain yours until marriage. Some of them, even after th—”
“Yes, I’d like to secure your services,” she interrupted. Men and their deals. She’d tired of them ages ago. “Draft whatever papers you need me to sign. Your first priority is to extricate my daughter and me from the clutches of that man.”
He bowed. “I shall return shortly, then. Good morning, my lady.”
“Yes, yes.” She waved a hand at him. “Without delay.”
Once he’d gone she sank onto the couch and gazed out the window, laying her head along her outstretched arm. All night she’d tossed and turned, dreaming of being attacked by wolves and of Ian swimming about Loch Brenan, except that his face was blue and mottled as it had been when they’d found him, but another man had been standing on the far side of his grave, looking at her with two-colored eyes.
A soft tap sounded by the door, and she looked up. The black wolf gazed at her, large yellow eyes unblinking. She gasped, straightening. After a moment the animal swung its head toward the stairs, and then turned toward the front door as Callum reached the foyer. He paused in the morning room doorway to eye her much as the wolf had.
“Pogue,” he said, still looking at her, “I’ll be out for an hour or so. If Lady Margaret isnae here when I return, ye can expect the lot of the household staff to be handed their papers.”
“She’ll be here, m’laird,” the butler returned from somewhere beyond her view. “Ye have my word.”
“And where are you going?” Rebecca asked, annoyed that he’d stifled a plan she hadn’t even had time to consider. Blast it all, they should have fled last night—though the wolf no doubt prowling the halls would have made that nearly impossible.
“Pogue says there’s a horse in the stable hasn’t been ridden for over a year,” he returned, pulling on his gloves. “Thought I’d put him through his paces.”
“No one rides Jupiter,” she retorted, before she could stop herself. For heaven’s sake, if he wanted to go riding and then broke his neck, that would be his own fault. It would certainly remove several of her worries.
He grinned, the expression making her breath catch just a little and doing something she didn’t like to her chest. “I’ll risk it. I dunnae reckon ye’ll weep tears for me if I’m killed.”
“Not a single one.”
“Dunnae worry yerself, lass. I’ve nae forgotten how to ride.”
“I don’t care.”
She did remember how he used to ride, utterly fearless and taking far too many chances. He’d been mesmerizing. He still was, apparently, since she stood up to watch through the window as Malcolm the groom led the big bay stallion around to the front of the house. Donnach had urged her to sell the brute, but Jupiter had been Ian’s one indulgence, his one dangerous thing. She thought it was silly and sentimental, but now if it took Callum down a peg or two, perhaps some good could come of her reluctance to part with the animal.
The bay stomped, then backed up, blowing, as the wolf trotted onto the front drive. As the two beasts stared at each other, Callum walked up, took the reins from Malcolm, and swung up into the saddle. Jupiter whinnied, starting to rear, but Callum didn’t tighten his grip, instead kicking the stallion in the ribs and leaning in to say something she couldn’t make out. The bay bucked, then set off down the short drive at a dead run, the wolf loping behind them.
“That man can ride,” Malcolm commented to Pogue as the two men stood by the front steps, their words carrying to Rebecca through the open front door.
“I reckon he’ll have half of Inverness claiming the devil and his hellhound are about,” the old butler returned.
The groom spat. “Aye. And I’m nae certain they’d be wrong about that.”
Rebecca wasn’t so certain about that, either. The Callum MacCreath with whom she’d grown up invented nonsensical rhymes, drank more than he should have at places where he should not have ventured, and had clearly idolized his older brother even while he constantly argued with and teased him. As he’d reached his twentieth year the drinking had gotten worse and the humor lessened, until she’d begun to think he would never mature into anything other than a loudmouthed buffoon. Adding Lord Stapp and the Duke of Dunncraigh into the mix had only made him as combustible as black powder and as dangerous as an unaimed shot.
That man, though, the one at this moment likely spreading panic through the outskirts of Inverness, didn’t much resemble the Callum she’d known. He’d come in like the winter wind, shoving all resistance aside, and it had happened so fast she still hadn’t found her feet. And she needed to find her blasted feet. The sooner the better.
“Mama,” Margaret said, dancing into the morning room, “Agnes says I must stay up in the nursery, but she’s afraid of Waya, and I want to see her.”
Waya? The wolf, Rebecca remembered belatedly. “The wolf and your uncle went for a ride,” she said. “And yes, you should remain up in the nursery until we can find another place to stay.”
The six-year-old stopped spinning her circles. “We have to leave? Why won’t Uncle Callum let us stay? He seemed very nice to me. I’ll ask him, if you like.”
No, she didn’t like. “He will permit us to stay,” Rebecca said slowly, deciding against informing the sprite that she’d essentially become a captive. “I’m not certain we should, though. He’s an unmarried man, after all.”
She stopped. He was unmarried, wasn’t he? She hadn’t asked, but she’d assumed … No, he must be single. Otherwise he would have informed her that she was now the Dowager Countess of Geiry or something equally old and finished sounding. And the way he’d looked at Margaret, as if she was both precious and alien at the same time—he was not a man who’d spent any time with children.
None of that mattered, though. What mattered was that Callum seemed to be set once again on making trouble, and she wanted Margaret nowhere near it. Or him. “Don’t fret though, butterfly,” she said, moving to take her daughter’s hand so they could spin together. “We have your grandpapa’s home closer to the harbor. I simply need to make some arrangements before we can officially move in.”
Margaret flapped her free arm up and down. “I’m glad Uncle Callum is here,” she stated. “Everyone’s been going to heaven and leaving us here alone.”
Yes, they had been. Rebecca sighed. “We’re not alone,” she returned. “We still have Lord Stapp and the Duke of Dunncraigh. And your friends, and mine.”
“Well, I do like Sarah MacKenzie quite a lot, but she’s afraid of dogs, and I have a wolf now.”
“You do not have a wolf. Your uncle has a wolf. And we won’t be sharing a house for long.” The sooner they could both remove themselves from the complications he represented, the better. If Mr. Harvey couldn’t discover something, she would find someone who could. Money certainly wouldn’t be an issue. Rebecca tugged her daughter toward the hallway. “Now let’s go have some breakfast before it gets cold.”
“Very well. I intend to save all my ham for Waya, though.”
“As you wish. I would imagine a wolf prefers uncooked meat, though.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Margaret returned. “Excuse me, then. I have to go see Mrs. Kirkland and tell her I would like some raw ham for breakfast.”
Oh, dear. “Just don’t eat any of it, yourself, Maggie.”
The six-year-old giggled. “I’m not a wolf, Mama.”
No, Margaret wasn’t. But there were two wolves residing at MacCreath House now. Waya, and Callum. A man who’d been a puppy ten years ago had matured into something else entirely—a hunter, a predator. One who seemed to be looking for prey. And she had the disturbing feeling that he might be looking at her.
Half an hour later as she sat shaking her head at her daughter, presently seated at the breakfast table with Reginald on her young lap, she could almost pretend that Callum MacCreath’s arrival had been a nightmare, that he’d vanished with the morning mists as a warning for her to be more grateful for what she had remaining.
“I do hope you’ll remember that in polite company we do not feed Reginald on the tabletop,” she commented, resting her chin in her hand and trying not to smile at the sight of the white Skye terrier sticking his long tongue out as far as he could manage to reach the scraps of meat Margaret had placed on the smooth mahogany surface.
“I’ll remember,” the six-year-old said, giggling. She nudged a scrap of meat closer to the dog, and Reginald gobbled it happily.
Someone rapped on the front door, and a moment later Pogue stepped into the room. “My lady, Lord Stapp wish—”
The Marquis of Stapp brushed past the butler. “Callum MacCreath?” he snapped, scowling as he looked about the breakfast room. “Is it true?”
Her beau generally showed more decorum and civility upon his entrance than that, but she imagined Callum had a poor effect on everyone. “Is what true?” she asked, mainly to hear what impression her brother-in-law had made since his arrival.
“Belleck came calling this morning, said his valet was huddled below stairs with the rest of his servants and swearing that the devil and his hound had ridden past the house this morning. And the dock’s buzzing about Callum MacCreath and a monstrous black wolf. Have ye seen him?”
“Uncle Callum’s living here,” Margaret announced, feeding Reginald the remainder of his scraps. “And so is Waya.”
Donnach Maxwell pinned the girl with his gaze. “‘Living here,’” he repeated, eyes narrowing. “And who is Waya?”
“His wolf,” Rebecca supplied. “He appeared yesterday afternoon. I had no idea he—”
“Ye told me he was dead, Rebecca.” Shoving a chair back, he dropped into it.
“I said I thought he was dead. As did you. How else do you explain why a man who’s had a sizable inheritance and a title waiting for him would refrain from collecting it for better than a year?”
He looked down for a moment, then slammed his hand onto the table. “Damnation.”
“If you please, my lord,” she protested, moving around to place her hands over an impressed-looking Margaret’s ears.
“What? Oh. My apologies, Lady Margaret.”
Rebecca kissed her daughter on the top of her dark hair. “Go upstairs to Agnes,” she instructed. “Take Reginald with you, if you wish.”
Margaret sighed. “Yes, Mama. Please tell me when Uncle Callum returns. I want to play with Waya.”
Good heavens, what had happened over the past day? Her daughter wanted to play with a wolf, she’d been removed from her own bedchamber, and she and Margaret had become prisoners in the home where she’d lived for the past ten years. She sat in her daughter’s vacated chair. “Yes, he’s here. I had nothing to do with it.”
With a deep breath, Donnach nodded, his light brown hair short and precise as his dark green jacket and gray trousers. “Of course.” He sat forward, reaching across the table for her hand. “Then gather yer things. Ye and Margaret will come stay at Samhradh House.”
She blinked, surprised. “With you?”
“Aye. With me. We’ll be wed by the end of summer anyway, and I’ll have my mother come stay as well, if ye like, so there willnae be any scandal.”
“I … Thank you, Donnach. That’s very generous of you. It’s not necessary, however. You know my father left me Edgley House.”
“Aye. I’ll help ye move yer things there, then.” He straightened. “Pogue!”
“No, Donnach. I don’t—”
“I’ll nae have ye in the same house as that drunk,” the marquis interrupted, standing again as Pogue entered the room. “And that’s final.”
“Aye, m’laird?” the butler asked.
“Arrange to have Lady Geiry’s and Lady Margaret’s necessities packed. They are leaving the house.”
“I cannae do that, m’laird,” the butler intoned, lowering his head.
“The devil ye say,” Donnach returned, glowering. “It wasnae a request, man. Now!”
Did he honestly think she hadn’t already considered leaving? “Donnach, I c—”
“Donnach Maxwell,” Callum’s low voice came, and Rebecca turned, startled, toward the doorway. “The first rat to come scratching at my cellar door.”
Callum stood there, his broad shoulders nearly brushing the doorjamb on either side. She didn’t see the wolf, but no doubt the beast was somewhere close by, ready to eat anyone who disagreed with him. She put an involuntary hand over her chest. He’d always been trouble. Now, though, he seemed … lethal.
The marquis stood, facing the door, his hands clenched. “The prodigal son,” Donnach said, making a small movement that might have been him having second thoughts about approaching the new Lord Geiry. “Who dug ye up?”
Rebecca couldn’t blame him for hesitating; Callum had to be two or three inches above six feet now. And where before he’d been whip-thin, somewhere over the past ten years he’d put on solid muscle. She doubted he carried an ounce of fat on him, and he looked strong enough to lift a mountain over his head.
She’d noticed all that yesterday, but he seemed even more … striking with Donnach standing there and hesitating to approach him. She’d always thought of the marquis as tall and capable, but Callum MacCreath was the devil himself.
“I distinctly remember telling ye, Lady Geiry,” Callum noted, his gaze moving to her, “that Stapp isnae welcome in this house. Did I nae make myself clear?”
“He just arrived,” she hedged. “I haven’t had a chance to tell him anything. And he was only attempting to decipher the rumors about you.”
“Dunnae make excuses for me, Rebecca,” Donnach said. “If this boy thinks he can intimidate me, he’s welcome to try it.”
Callum tilted his head. “A boy, am I? If it comforts ye to think so, dunnae let me stop ye. I’ve only one bit of advice for ye today. Get out. Now.”
“We were just leaving. Rebecca, we’ll send for yer things later. Go fetch Margaret.”
“If ye’ve a yen to take the lady with ye, I’ve nae objection,” the new Lord Geiry commented smoothly. “The bairn stays here.”
Donnach lowered his head a fraction. “So be it. Rebecca, let’s be off.”
Startled by his matter-of-fact response to the idea of her leaving Maggie behind, Rebecca looked at the man who’d been her confidant for much of the past year, and her friend for considerably longer than that. “I am not leaving my daughter, Donnach. I hope you know me well enough to realize that.”
Finally the marquis looked back at her. “Ye cannae wish to remain beneath the same roof as this monster,” he stated, his tone an odd mix of disdain and pleading. “I was there that night, if ye’ll recall. He insulted ye and yer dear husband to the point that his own brother drove him away.”
“I recall.” Deliberately she seated herself again. “Find a way to remove my daughter from his protection and I’ll happily join you at Samhradh House. Until that happens, I will remain here.”
“Ye heard the lass, Stapp. And if ye dunnae leave through my front door now, I’ll set ye outside through the window.”
People didn’t talk to Donnach Maxwell that way. And they certainly didn’t threaten him. For heaven’s sake, he was the heir to the chief of clan Maxwell. Donnach certainly didn’t seem to know how to take it, either. He bristled, his hands curling into fists. “Ye still need to learn some respect, b—”
Callum moved. Before Rebecca could do more than gasp, he had Donnach by the back of the shirt and the rear of his trousers. Hauling the shorter man around like one of those giant men in the Highlands games, he heaved. First the vases and plates that sat on the table beneath the window crashed to the floor. Then the wood-framed glass panels shattered into splintered shards that caught sunlight as they spun—and Donnach disappeared through the window.
“Mayhap ye’ll recall now that I mean what I say. So ye go run to Dunncraigh,” Callum growled in a carrying voice, as the curtain rod fell onto the side table. “Ye tell him I know what he did to Ian, and that I’m a man of my word. I’ll be seeing both of ye. Soon.”
With that he turned on his heel and left the room. For a moment Rebecca sat there, stunned. No one, even in the Highlands, did what he’d just done. Not to the Duke of Dunncraigh’s firstborn son and heir. Callum MacCreath had just declared war on his own clan.
He’d thrown her—and Maggie—into the middle of his battle as surely as he’d tossed Donnach through that window. That infuriated her. But just as troubling was the abrupt realization of how certain he was. Not even Callum, at least the one she’d known ten years ago, declared war without good reason. He thought Ian had been murdered. And he thought the Maxwells had done it.
As certain as she’d been that Ian had made a rare mistake and paid for it with his life … No. It had been an accident. Because if it hadn’t been, everything in the past year had been a lie. And the idea that Callum had hold of the truth, the thought of what he might do with it, troubled her even more.