Rebecca opened her eyes. The fire in the hearth to her right side had become nothing but a dim red glow of embers, and from the dark curtains she could deduce that the moon had set. At this time of year the sun rose by five o’clock, so she put the time at somewhere just before that.
Soft, warm breath touched her bare shoulder in slow, steady rhythm. One strong, sinewy forearm lay draped over her waist, her relaxed fingers twined with his. She pressed her back closer against his hard chest, relishing his solid warmth. When Callum slept beside her like this it felt almost like she’d managed to tame a wild beast just long enough to enjoy his company, and that when he woke again he would resume his dangerous hunt.
He’d wanted her to agree to marry him. That would ease many of his worries, and part of her longed for just that, for a way to ensure that he would stay with her. But until he could prove to her that he valued something more than his revenge, she couldn’t afford to risk entangling herself with him further. This … closeness between them was bad enough, and losing him would kill her inside. Even that, though, was better than giving him all her power and options and losing him then.
Ten, twelve years ago she’d dreamed about him, but those had been a girl’s dreams, full of adventure and tortured affairs and tears. In retrospect, the tears would have been the most likely outcome—especially once she married Ian. Callum would have brooded and wanted what he couldn’t have, and tempted her at every turn. It would have been torture, even knowing that he was absolutely wrong and ruinous for her.
That Callum, though, had died the moment he’d left Scotland. Yes, parts of him remained—that deadly anger certainly. But it felt more … focused now, aimed at one, or rather two, specific targets. And he’d become infinitely more patient, willing to wait for the perfect moment rather than lashing out at everyone and everything between him and his prey.
He’d listened to her when she insisted that walking up to Dunncraigh or Lord Stapp and shooting them would be a horrid mistake—for him. Not for them. Now that she’d seen Ian’s letter, heard the two Maxwell men speaking with her new knowledge in mind, revisited old conversations through the same filter, she knew. Not the details, perhaps, but she knew they’d somehow killed Ian and her father.
She wanted them to answer for that. But Callum needed to survive it. They needed to survive it. Her father and her husband hadn’t told her of their suspicions, presumably in an attempt to protect her delicate sensibilities. That decision had left her feeling lonely even with both of them present, and it had made her vulnerable to the machinations of Dunncraigh and Donnach because she’d had no reason to mistrust them.
Callum not only looked at her, he saw her. He included her in his thinking, now that he trusted she hadn’t been a party to any of this subterfuge. He’d listened to her when she’d advised caution. And he clearly desired her. That could have been mere manipulation or flattery, a way to gain her cooperation, except that he’d proposed.
He’d proposed. Even if he’d only made the offer because he wanted to protect her, it meant she could have him, forever, if they could find a way around this. And now she would never sleep. Rebecca carefully untangled herself from him, slipping from his bed and pulling her night rail on over her head. She’d left a heavy shawl over the back of the chair before the hearth, and she wrapped herself in it, missing his warmth.
Padding quietly in her bare feet, she opened the door of the master bedchamber and slipped into the dark hallway, the single lamp at one end barely enough to allow her to avoid the furniture. Margaret’s bedchamber lay across the hallway and down a bit, the door cracked open a few inches. She pushed against it—only to have it blocked by something solid.
Frowning, she pushed again. A low growl directly on the far side of the door answered her. Good heavens. “It’s me, Waya,” she whispered, noting that despite her alarm, she couldn’t name any one thing more likely to dissuade any housebreakers from entering Margaret’s room, door partway open or not, than a full-grown wolf.
The barricade shifted, and she opened the door wide enough that she could slip into the room. Yellow-reflecting eyes caught the dim light, staring at her as she tiptoed over to the bed. Evidently she’d been approved, though, because the wolf didn’t attempt to eat her.
Quietly she sat on the edge of the bed. Margaret lay in a tangle of blankets and pillows and wild dark hair, secure in her self-made nest. Reginald at the foot of the bed, out of reach of restless feet and elbows, lifted his head, blinked at her, then went back to sleep.
If Callum hadn’t returned, if the Geiry title had passed to James Sturgeon as she’d thought she preferred … Back when she’d trusted Donnach and even thought to marry him …
Rebecca shivered. She couldn’t imagine what might have happened to her if she’d married Donnach. He wouldn’t need her, after all, once her property passed to him through marriage. And then Margaret would have had no value, no place, in this world of backstabbing, greedy men.
But Callum had come, and the first thing he’d done was place Margaret under his protection. At the time she’d thought it underhanded and cruel. Now she knew otherwise. And if for no other reason, Rebecca loved him now because of that.
She loved him. Her heart pounded hard in response, an affirmation to what it had known for days now, despite her mind’s refusal to acknowledge such a basic, vital thing. She loved him. He’d upended everything in her life, made her look all over again at things of which she might have preferred to remain ignorant. He argued with her, unsettled her, threw ice-cold water on her ideas of safety and comfort. And she’d never felt as alive as she did in his company.
A soft whumph from the wolf at the door made her look up. Callum stood in the doorway, naked but for the kilt knotted at his hips. Waya rubbed against his thigh, and he reached a hand down to scratch behind the wolf’s ears.
Rebecca held out a hand in his direction and he stepped forward, silent on the hardwood floor, to take her fingers in his. Tightening her grip she stood, drawing his arm around her so she could lean back against his chest. Standing there in her daughter’s room, Callum’s arms around her, the abrupt sensation of contentment, of peace and comfort and calm, surprised her with its soft warmth. After Ian’s death, she’d never thought to feel it again.
“Did someaught fright ye?” he breathed into her hair.
“I just want to check on Mags,” she returned in the same quiet tone.
“She’s either asleep or twirling about like a pinwheel. There’s naught in between.”
With a soft chuckle, Rebecca stepped out of his arms to lead the way to the door. “She’s always been very confident, but now that she has a pack, I don’t think she can be stopped.” Now that she had a father again, Rebecca almost said, but stopped herself. Callum didn’t get to be a father unless he proved himself able and willing to remain with them.
In the hallway Callum tugged her back against him. If they weren’t careful the servants would notice and begin talking, and then she would have to figure out what to tell Margaret—which would be supremely difficult when she didn’t even know what to tell herself.
“I wish ye could go about with yer hair down,” he said, pulling a long strand of the blond stuff over the front of her shoulder and twining it around his finger.
“I’m not a maiden, or a hoyden, so I can’t. Not outside the house, anyway.” She leaned up and kissed him. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’m glad ye did. I’m discovering there arenae enough hours in the day, any longer.”
“Not for vengeance and a family, you mean?” she asked, before she could stop herself. “Perhaps you need to choose one and let the other go.”
“Let it go? Ye mean let them go. Let them get away with two murders. How can I do that, lass?”
She looked up at his face. Even in the dark both of his eyes looked light, though if she hadn’t known she wouldn’t have been able to tell which was green and which one, blue. “I can’t answer that. But I’ve been looking for solutions, and I can’t seem to find one that includes both.”
He lowered his arms, their absence leaving her cold. “Then ye dunnae know me very well, Becca.” Turning around, he walked back up the hallway past the open master bedchamber door, and toward the stairs.
“I know them,” she said to the empty hallway, and turned for her own bedchamber. “And that’s what frightens me.”
* * *
Callum shoved the close-written notes Dennis had left him aside and stood, stretching. The muscles across his back had spent so much time being knotted up with frustration and anger he was going to become a hunchback if he wasn’t careful.
As he sifted through the growing pile of evidence that Rebecca had insisted he compile, he found himself wishing he could talk to Ian. His brother had always been proficient at separating wheat from chaff where information and rumor were concerned. Callum knew himself well enough to realize that he wanted to pile every bit of news he found, reliable or not, onto the pyre he’d built for burning Dunncraigh at the proverbial stake.
He’d returned to Scotland to do one thing. And the other things that kept coming between him and that goal, things and people he’d begun to view as astonishingly vital to him, kept twisting him about and making him hesitate—which he’d never expected.
Leaving the office, he sent a quick whistle toward the stairs, then continued into the foyer. “Is Jupiter saddled?” he asked, shrugging into the caped greatcoat Pogue handed him.
“Aye. It’s a wee bit windy out there today, m’laird,” the butler supplied. “And the rain’s nae falling straight down.”
Callum grinned. “It feels like the Highlands, ye mean.” Waya trotted down the stairs, shoved her nose into his knee, then pawed at the closed front door. “Ye smell it too, aye, lass? Wild and rain.” When Pogue hesitated to push the wolf out of the way so he could open the door, Callum did it himself, and Waya slipped outside in front of him.
“Ye might consider taking one of the lads with ye, m’laird,” the butler commented. “Or waiting until this afternoon, to see if the weather clears.”
“I’ll risk it. We’ll be back in an hour or so. Nae visitors and nae a man—or woman—leaves while I’m away.”
“Aye. We’ll keep watch.”
The white mop galloped down the stairs, but skidded to a halt in the doorway. Evidently Reginald didn’t like rain weighing him down. Stepping over the black-eared terrier, he hunched his shoulders against the biting rain and collected Jupiter from the waiting groom.
“Let’s go, Waya,” he said, swinging into the saddle as the wolf set off at a gallop down the drive.
The rain didn’t bother the wolf, and it didn’t trouble him, either. He needed to clear his head. Vengeance had been much easier when he didn’t care about anything else. Before he’d known Margaret existed. Before he’d realized that Rebecca was another victim of Dunncraigh’s, and not an adversary of his.
This morning in looking through Dennis Kimes’s notes he’d found the list of seven properties Dunncraigh had acquired over the past decade. The more significant ones he’d purchased over the past eighteen months or so. A small building just off the port at Dover, another in Southampton. Property just south of Dover along the water—for a dock, perhaps? To someone looking for it, it said that Dunncraigh wanted offices in every major port, private docks for Sanderson ships out of sight of the harbormasters … Power without the mess of having anyone regulating it.
Of course Ian and George would never have stood for it. While to him it said—screamed—motive, though, it was all he had. A note from his brother, and some property purchased in the company’s name. He couldn’t prove the purchases had been made without the permission or knowledge or approval of the duke’s other partners. He couldn’t prove much of anything at all.
If he couldn’t go at them directly, though, he needed to do it as Rebecca had suggested—via the courts. The damned Maxwell had covered his tracks well, but the duke had only known he had someone moving against him for the past few weeks. Before that he’d removed Ian, and then he’d removed George. The problem, or so Dunncraigh had thought, was ended. All he needed was to bring Rebecca into his clutches, buy off James Sturgeon, and he would have control of what would, under his ownership, become the second-largest shipping conglomerate in the world. Second only to the East India Company.
He’d taken Ian’s ledger, and more than likely whatever notes George had made. Had he destroyed them, though? Or kept them in case some legal tangle appeared and he needed them? Dunncraigh would have no reason to do away with them, because he’d done away with their owners. Hm.
Of course that had changed now that he’d arrived from Kentucky and made his threats. Callum angled Jupiter back toward the harbor as he considered. He needed to pay Maxwell Hall a visit. And he needed to make certain Dunncraigh wouldn’t be there to greet him when he went calling.
A heavy splinter flew off the bakery sign beside his head. He ducked instinctively as the hollow sound of a rifle firing cracked into the street, half muffled by the rain.
Callum whipped around, counting off seconds in his head as he searched rooftops and alleys. Waya had circled back close behind him, no doubt sensing trouble. With the rain pushing scent out of the air she would have trouble finding a single shooter in a large town full of men, and he didn’t want to linger long enough to give the would-be assassin another chance.
As he reached twelve he kicked Jupiter in the ribs, sending the stallion pounding up the street the way they’d come. With Waya on his heels he retreated to the nearest alley, then jumped down from the bay. Tying off the reins on a piece of fence, he squatted down beside the wolf. “Hunt, Waya. Let’s see who shot at me, aye?”
Her head went down, shoulders up, in classic stalking pose. They’d hunted people before, though rarely and never in a town of thousands. As she glided soundlessly around the corner he reckoned the odds were equal that she’d find the shooter or a rat. Setting one foot into Jupiter’s stirrup, he stood on the saddle then jumped up to grip the nearest eave. Pulling himself onto the roof, he crouched, making his way toward the corner where he’d come into the shooter’s view.
The buildings here were close enough together to touch in places, and moving from one roof to the next was more a matter of keeping an eye out for loose shingles than anything else. Once he had a view of the street he settled lower, trying to figure where the shot had originated. Below people walked to and fro, huddled against the rain and utterly oblivious to the fact that a murder had nearly occurred just five minutes earlier.
Spying the bakery sign, he shifted one rooftop over. The shot had to have come from within a foot or two of where he crouched. Turning, he found a spot on the roof just turning dark from rain—as if someone had been lying there, waiting. “Damnation,” he muttered, taking a last look for anything left behind before he dropped to the eave and then down to the street.
“Good heavens,” a thin lass said, backing away as he landed in front of her. “What the devil?”
“Aye, the devil,” he returned darkly, as Waya padded back to join him.
The girl gasped, grabbing for her companion’s arm as Callum and the wolf returned to the alley where he’d left Jupiter. In a sense, this was the best thing he could have expected. He’d annoyed or worried one or the other of the Maxwells to the point that they wanted him dead. They’d tried bribery, twice, some more direct suggestions that he go back to Kentucky, and now they’d moved on to a more permanent solution to their troubles.
He’d wanted them too worried about him to try anything else with Rebecca, but it seemed more likely that the best he could hope for was to make them reckless. Having someone shoot at him in the middle of Inverness in broad daylight definitely fit his definition of reckless—but it also seemed rather … chancy. How had they known he would be riding there today? Aye, he rode most mornings, but he didn’t always take the same path. That bored him.
Or did they have possible assassins lurking throughout the city? As the Maxwell, Dunncraigh certainly wielded enough power with his clan to convince a few of his men to kill. Even if their intended target was part of clan Maxwell, himself.
The other possibility, of course, was that this had been a distraction, something to keep him away from MacCreath House. That idea shot dread down his spine, and he sent Jupiter into a dead run back across the bridge, Waya sprinting behind them.
He skidded to a halt, jumping down from the bay and striding for the house. “Any callers?” he demanded, as Pogue pulled open the door.
“Nae, m’laird. It’s been quiet. Yer coat?”
The butler reached for it, but Callum ignored him as he pounded up the stairs. “Rebecca? Mags?” he called out, shoving doors open as he went.
“We’re in the nursery,” Rebecca’s voice came from the end of the hallway, and he let out the breath he’d been holding. She emerged as he reached the door, and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into a tight embrace.
“Thank God,” he muttered, lowering his face into her hair.
“What in the world’s happened?” she asked.
“Someone took a shot at me.” Reaching around her, he pulled the nursery door closed. “I wanted to be certain it wasnae a distraction while Stapp dragged ye out to a church or someaught.”
Her face grayed. “Someone shot at you?” Seizing his arms, she held him away from her, searching his front—evidently for holes.
“They missed.” He shook himself free. “And I’m getting ye all wet. My apologies.”
“We need to go to the authorities, Callum,” she said quietly, grabbing his sleeve again. “Before you do get shot.”
“We havenae a damned thing to give them.” Tilting his head, he wondered what she would say if he suggested they hand over Sanderson’s to Dunncraigh and simply flee to Kentucky. That would never do, though; she’d made a life for herself in Scotland, but Rebecca was no adventurer. Her steadiness helped anchor him, and given the way his life had gone, he needed her to be logical and forthright. He simply … needed her.
“Then what do we need to do so we can stop this before I lose you, too?” A tear ran down her cheek.
He brushed it away with his fingers. “We need yer da’s ledger, and Ian’s. So I need ye to find out for me when Dunncraigh’s most likely to be away from Maxwell Hall. Can ye do that without putting yerself in harm’s way?”
Her eyes lost focus for a moment as she considered. “Yes, I believe so. I’ll invite Her Grace to luncheon. We’re still friends, as far as anyone knows. Give me a day or two.”
Callum leaned in and kissed her sweet mouth. “I’ll give ye a day or two, Becca.” He’d give her a thousand thousand days, if only he could figure out how to end this with both of them alive and well.
“Uncle Callum, why are you kissing my mama?”
Margaret stood in the open door of the nursery, the mop on one side of her and Waya on the other, her nanny Agnes standing behind the pack with her hands over her mouth. “Friends kiss each other,” he stated, belatedly lowering his own hands from Rebecca’s waist.
“I don’t think so,” the wee lass countered, shaking her head. “Not like that.” She stuck out her tongue, mouth open, to demonstrate.
“Oh, for…” Rebecca knelt beside her daughter. “Uncle Callum thought I’d gone out into the rain and gotten hurt,” she explained, taking her daughter’s hand. “He was very relieved to see that I was well. That’s all.”
“Well, I’m never going to kiss anyone like that.” She made a face. “Yuck.”
“I should hope nae, bug,” Callum commented. “Now if ye’ll excuse me, I need to find some house plans.” As he passed, he helped Rebecca to her feet. “I hope my face doesnae look like that when I kiss ye,” he murmured. “I’m like to have nightmares, now.”
“We’re going to have to tell her something sooner or later,” caught him as he headed for the stairs.
Aye, they were. Not until he could be certain he wasn’t going anywhere, though. Not to prison, and not to the devil. Because he wasn’t about to offer the bairn another chance at a father and then take it from her again. Or let anyone else take it from her.