“Enter,” Callum said, keeping his gaze and his attention on his brother’s accounts books. He’d spent nearly a decade working on his own books, but his had been concentrated on one entity: the Kentucky Hills Distillery. Ian’s fingers were in dozens of ventures, businesses, properties, banks, and of course a good third of Sanderson’s, George’s fleet.
Pogue opened the office door and slipped inside. “As ye requested, m’laird,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder like a bairn expecting to be caught with his hand deep inside the biscuit jar. He handed over a folded note.
Callum opened it. The note, written in Lord Stapp’s too pretty hand, was surprisingly brief; he’d thought for certain that the marquis’s venom would take at least an additional page. No doubt both Stapp and Dunncraigh considered him beneath their notice these days, though, a drunk fit for nothing but bellowing. Good. It would make them easier to drag to hell if they weren’t even looking. That would make his revenge less satisfying, though. He damned well wanted them to know what was coming.
“Dearest Rebecca,” he read to himself, “I had anticipated arriving at your doorstep to escort you to the theater this evening. For your own safety, however, I think it best I not darken your halls tonight.”
“For her safety,” Callum repeated aloud, snorting. The coward. It wasn’t Rebecca’s safety that concerned Stapp.
He looked down again. “I request instead that you will concede to meet me and my father for breakfast at Maxwell Hall at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. If we are to hold to our plans for betrothal and matrimony, we must anticipate that your brother-in-law will attempt to interfere, and we must strategize accordingly. Yours, Donnach.”
So Donnach’s primary concern was that he wouldn’t be able to marry Rebecca. That made sense, when his family had a considerable amount of money wrapped up in her father’s shipping enterprise—her share and control of the company would go to whomever she wed. Of course Donnach wanted that. Had he wanted it badly enough to kill Ian for it, though?
Callum could answer that in his own mind, but now he evidently needed to convince Rebecca, as well. He had no real reason for doing that, except that at this moment he wanted her to believe him. To believe that ten years ago he’d been correct. And perhaps, to believe in him. He didn’t expect to survive this, after all, and if the legal records could show that he’d been justified, he supposed his soul and his pride would rest easier.
“What do ye mean to do with that, m’laird?” Pogue prompted after a moment, gesturing at the note.
He wanted to burn it. That would only delay all parties, though, rather than resolve any issues among them. Folding it again, Callum handed it back to the butler. “Give it to Lady Geiry,” he instructed.
“Aye.” With a bow, Pogue headed from the room.
“Wait.”
“M’laird?”
“Where’s a respectable place for a lad to go have a meal?” he asked, scowling at his own weakness. “Where a respectable lass could also show her face without causing a scandal?”
“Ah. I would say MacCulloch’s Tea House just across Black Bridge. They say the Madeira’s fine there, but the brandy’s watered down. Or I could name a handful of taverns where ye’ll find a number of handsome lasses and much better drink, m’laird. The Seven Fathoms still stands.”
A tavern would be easier, he told himself, even as he shook his head. Not the Seven Fathoms, though. Not there. “Tell Rebecca I’ll be taking myself to MacCulloch’s Tea House at eight o’clock, if she’d care to join me.”
“Aye.” The butler hesitated. “Isnae that asking for trouble, lad? If I may say so?”
“I reckon it is,” Callum returned, going back to the ledgers. “I’m nae one to shy away from trouble.”
The butler nodded and pulled the door closed behind him. Rebecca had provided no proof that she hadn’t had a hand in Ian’s death except for her word, but Callum tended to believe her innocence, regardless. Innocent didn’t equal trustworthy, however.
When he’d first heard the news, he’d wanted her to be guilty. He’d wanted an excuse to punish her—not because of Ian, but because of the way she’d insulted and dismissed him ten years ago. Now, in part because of young Margaret and in part because he’d nearly kissed Rebecca for the second time in a day, he’d begun debating what he truly did want her role in all this to be.
“Stop,” he muttered at himself, flipping another page. He had a task. One task. Nothing else mattered.
Callum closed his eyes. No, he needed to amend that statement now. Margaret MacCreath mattered. His brother’s daughter. His niece. Whatever he did, she needed to be and would be protected. Mags was innocent in all this, and she was his blood. Two months ago—and for the ten years before that—he hadn’t wanted to know anything about his brother’s life, his happiness, his wife, or his hypothetical offspring. He’d met the bairn a day ago, and now he couldn’t name anything more precious to him in his entire life. Before he took his revenge, before he put a target on his own back from both the rest of clan Maxwell and the law, he needed to see that she was safe and protected.
Finally he closed the ledger and shoved it away from him. He couldn’t decipher all of it, no matter how long he spent staring at the figures. Not without knowing more about Ian’s holdings and who else had a share in them. Pulling a sheet of paper from the desk, he scribbled a note to Michael Crosby. His accountants might not have managed Ian’s accounts, but they knew numbers. And they would have more familiarity with other Scottish businesses than he did.
The office door rattled and swung open. “You might’ve asked me yourself,” Rebecca said, stopping in the doorway.
He pushed to his feet, ignoring the speeding of his pulse. “Ye dunnae have to join me. Ye did get all dressed up, but ye can stay at home if ye like.”
“I’m not certain I wish to be seen with you,” she returned, not moving despite his approach.
Callum stopped, the … anticipation in his chest shifting into renewed anger. “Because I’m trouble? Because I’m a drunken boy or someaught?”
Blinking, she did take a step back. “Because you’re dressed like a drover fresh from driving a herd of cows to market,” she retorted. “MacCulloch’s Tea House is a respectable establishment.”
“Och. Give me a damned minute, then, and I’ll change my clothes.”
“Do you have any other clothes? Ian’s are in the attic, but I’m afraid you’re taller than he was.”
“My trunk’s arrived from the ship. Wait for me.”
Tromping up the stairs, he dug into the trunk where he’d had Boyd throw whatever he might need while he rode off to Boston and secured passage on The Rooster. A handful of clean shirts, a black coat he didn’t remember purchasing, an extra pair of trousers, and a kilt in the Maxwell red, green, and black. Lifting it, he shook it out. Little as he wanted to be draped in Maxwell colors, it could serve a purpose, he supposed. As he’d pointed out, he wasn’t trying to hide. Just the opposite. Earl Geiry was dead. Long live Earl Geiry. And death to all his enemies.
* * *
It was perfectly acceptable, Rebecca reminded herself, for a widow to dine with her brother-in-law. No one would think anything of it. In this instance they wouldn’t, anyway, because any observers would be too occupied with gossiping about when Callum MacCreath had returned, whether he was as wild as he’d once been, and whether that had actually been a wolf in his company this morning, or a hellhound. She doubted anyone would even notice her, which would be very pleasant for a change.
As for whether Callum had been tamed, she couldn’t answer it herself. He definitely seemed more … controlled, but whereas before she would have described him as a wildfire causing destruction in every direction, now he burned on the inside. When he finally did explode, she didn’t want to be anywhere nearby.
“Will this do, then?” he asked, trotting down the stairs with the wolf on his heels.
Rebecca opened her mouth to answer, then shut it again. She saw men in kilts all the time; this was the heart of the Highlands, after all. But most of those men didn’t look like Callum MacCreath. All he needed was a claymore in his hands, and he would have been the image of Scotland, itself—or at least the one the English ladies whispered longingly about when they ventured this far north.
“Yes,” she said belatedly, when he cocked his head at her. “Very acceptable.” She cleared her throat. “You cannot mean for the wolf to join us, though. You’ll frighten everyone senseless.”
“She’s been seen once today,” he returned, squatting in front of the beast. “That’s enough for now. Waya, guard the bairn. Guard Margaret.”
With a soft whumph the wolf turned and padded silently back upstairs, and Callum straightened again. While his attention was elsewhere for once, Rebecca drank him in. Good heavens, he was striking. And her head barely came to the top of his shoulder, she couldn’t help noting once again. “Are you certain my daughter is safe with that beast?” she made herself ask.
“Aye. Nae a soul Waya hasnae met had best enter the house, though, until I return.”
“What would she do?”
“Rip their throat out, I reckon,” he said coolly, in the same tone another man might use to discuss the weather. He took his greatcoat from Pogue and shrugged into it as the butler helped her on with her full-length black redingote with its puffed sleeves and ivory buttons.
“Are ye permitted to wear colors now?” Callum asked, gazing at her as she turned to face him.
“Yes. I’m wearing color. Violet.”
“Violet’s a half-mourning color. Ye’re nae still in mourning.”
“Not officially. Are you going to dictate what I’m wearing now?”
“Nae. I’m just wondering whether ye’re still mourning, or ye’re just aiming to look like ye are. To discourage anyone from pursuing ye, for example.”
She began unbuttoning the redingote again and unknotted the ribbon about her waist. “I’m not going to dinner with you if you’re going to lambaste me every second.”
Callum took the black silk ribbons out of her hands and knotted them back around her, the tug and twist of it far too intimate for her peace of mind. “I’ll wager ye five quid that I can keep up a polite conversation longer than ye, Rebecca. How’s that?”
God, she hated already when he gazed at her like that, as if he could see straight through her skin and into her soul. Of course if he actually could do that, she wouldn’t have to keep defending herself about Ian’s death. “I’ll take that wager, sir. On one condition.”
“Aye?”
“That you won’t simply throw five pounds at me the moment we leave the house so you can continue berating and questioning everything I do or say.”
“Agreed,” he said promptly, in his deep brogue.
Since she stood there in her theater gown and coat, he’d left her with no other excuse not to join him. She was somewhat relieved, though, when the barouche appeared at the front of the house. He didn’t mean to drive them himself, and he hadn’t chosen a closed coach. Of course that might well be because he wanted to be seen again going about Inverness, rather than because he cared for her sensibilities.
Outside he handed her into the barouche himself, then took the rear-facing seat opposite her. Hopefully her relief didn’t show on her face, but she would much rather be able to keep both eyes on him than have him seated directly beside her.
“Are ye warm enough?” he asked abruptly, gesturing at the folded blanket on the seat next to her.
“Yes, thank you. Are you?”
“My knees are a wee bit chilly, but I’ll manage,” he returned. “There’re more lights along the river Ness than there used to be. It’s pretty.”
“The population in Inverness grows every year. They may not call it the Clearances any longer, but villages in the countryside continue to shrink or vanish as their chiefs try to hold on to their lands.”
“I see it in America,” he agreed, his mild tone a continuing and pleasant surprise. Perhaps he desperately needed the five pounds he’d wagered. “Half of Kentucky claims one clan or another. There isnae so much rivalry there, though. Mostly it’s Highlanders against the rest of the world trying to call the place home.”
“So you … work with men from other clans?” she ventured. Ian had said something about a distillery, but Dunncraigh had been present and had turned it into some jest about how much liquor Callum must be consuming there, and she hadn’t brought it up again.
“I employ about a hundred men from about a dozen clans, I’d reckon. At Kentucky Hills I’ve space for forty or so, but then I’ve the warehouse in Boston and the one we’re building now in Charleston for better distribution, plus the nearly finished one here in Inverness. I’ve discovered if I lease a warehouse from someone else, they tend to sample the wares.”
“Then Kentucky Hills is yours alone?”
He narrowed one eye, shifting a little as they bumped over the wooden, hollow-sounding Black Bridge. “How much did ye and Ian ken about where I was?”
“As I said, Ian went to great expense to track you down. He told me a little, but…”
“But ye didnae want to know any more than that,” he finished.
“No, I didn’t. You broke Ian’s heart. You…” She hesitated. Where hearts were involved this was a tricky business, and telling him anything of her feelings, even more so. “You broke my heart, as well.” He opened his mouth to respond to that, but she lifted her hand. “Not the way you’re going to imply, I’m certain. You were my friend. My dearest friend.”
“If I was all that, I dunnae think ye would have kept yer engagement a secret from me.”
“Of course I would have. I did. I know you.”
He shook his head. “Ye knew me,” he amended. “Ye dunnae know me.”
That would seem to be accurate. She had no idea what to make of him now. “Very well. I knew you. I knew you would take it badly, which you did, so I didn’t want to broach the subject. Are you going to yell now and deny any of that?”
“Nae, since we both saw what happened.” He blew out his breath. “I told ye I got letters I imagine were from Ian. I had my foreman toss them in the fire. Honestly, I didnae even want to touch them. I spent a time being spiteful. After that, I … I suppose I just didnae want to know. I left the lot of ye behind. I figured reading about yer life, how happy ye were, how many bairns ye had…” He rolled his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. “I didnae want to know I’d been wrong about ye getting tangled with Dunncraigh, and I didnae want to know I’d been correct.”
“But you came back.”
“Once that newspaper caught my attention, I couldnae pretend it hadnae. And I swore an oath.”
“You didn’t swear anything to Ian,” she pressed, wondering if she wanted to be a part of this conversation, after all.
“Nae. I swore to Dunncraigh.” He gave her a grim smile that sent a shiver down her spine. “I mean to keep my word.”
“But what if you’re wrong?”
“Then ye’ll have what ye wished for, Rebecca. Me, out of yer life. Permanently, this time.”
He might have been referring to leaving again for Kentucky, but from his tone he seemed to mean something even more final. Rebecca shivered again. For heaven’s sake, before he’d returned she’d been finding her footing again. Everyone, even with the overly dramatic expressions of pity and behind-her-back murmurings, had been kind. She’d begun learning something about her father’s business. She had a suitor who seemed only to want the best for her. And now in two days Callum had dragged her into conspiracies and made her question everything around her.
But as for his single-minded oath of vengeance, he’d already veered a little off the trail. “Why did you kiss me?”
The barouche rolled to a halt, and he stood to unlatch the door and step to the street. “Because I’d been imagining doing it for ten years, and I wanted to know someaught,” he returned, holding out his hand.
Trying not to show her hesitation, she clasped his warm fingers and stepped out of the vehicle. When he offered his arm, she wrapped her hand around it. “You wanted to know what?” she prompted, though every ounce of her shrieked at her not to ask the question. If he’d been imagining kissing her for ten years, she did not want to know why. Except that she did.
“If ye were as curious about me.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
The slight smile that curved his mouth this time was genuine, a remnant of the high-spirited, adventurous boy he’d once been. “Aye, ye were. And ye are. As for what that means, I reckon I’ll find out.”
“You’re mistaken, Call—”
“At the risk of losing five quid, lass,” he interrupted, “I’m willing to accuse ye of lying. Now smile and tell me all about the local gossip while we eat. I still have some catching up to do.”
Rebecca wasn’t so certain about that. All of this might have caught him by surprise, and he’d had all of five weeks, most of them on a ship, to decipher as much as he had, but Callum MacCreath already seemed well ahead of her in discerning not only what he meant to accomplish, but what, precisely, he thought of her. And if she couldn’t catch up, or better yet change his mind, they would all be in a great deal of trouble.
* * *
“M’laird,” Dennis Kimes said, making another note on his third sheet of paper, “I cannae decipher all this in one morning. I do recognize some of the names, but I’ve nae way of knowing who else does business with them, or who the owners might be.”
Callum shifted a stack of books and crossed his booted ankles atop them. “What do ye require, then?”
“Honestly?”
“Do I look as though I want lies from ye, Kimes?”
The younger man paled a little. “Nae, m’laird. Honestly, then, I require a week, some assistance, and ye nae staring at me like the devil himself.”
In his own opinion he’d been doing more glaring than staring, but it likely amounted to the same thing. “I’ll do ye two better,” he returned, standing carefully in the clerk’s tiny paper-and-book-strewn office. “I’ll give ye a week, an assistant, access to whichever papers I have still at MacCreath House, another lad to keep a watch over ye in case ye uncover someaught … interesting, and I’ll ride out to Geiry Hall to collect whatever books might still be there.”
Kimes looked up, the pen in his hand dripping ink as his fingers abruptly shivered. “To keep watch over me?” he repeated. “Is this going to get me murdered, m’laird?”
“Nae,” Callum returned firmly. “It willnae. If there’s danger about, I mean to see that it’s aimed directly at me. That extra lad will remain by yer side, though, just to be certain.” That had to be a rule. No one else was allowed to be harmed either by Dunncraigh or by his own investigation into Ian’s death. And the more he considered it, the more he did want to know the exact details, exactly whom he owed a death, and why it had suddenly needed to go this far after ten years of apparent harmony.
That made several other paths clear, as well. He did need to go to Geiry; he wanted to go, to see where Ian had driven that phaeton, where his brother had spent his last hours and days. But he couldn’t go alone. Not with the Maxwells here in Inverness.
“If ye need me, send word by messenger. I’ll be but two hours away, and I’ll be back as quick as I can,” he stated, as he and Waya picked their way into the main part of the Crosby and Hallifax offices. “Make certain Mr. Crosby kens what ye’re about.”
“Aye,” Dennis returned, following him out. “Will ye have someone watching out for him, as well?”
“I’ll give ye a trio of lads from my warehouse here,” Callum decided. “Ye use them how and where ye see fit.” He turned around, taking a step back toward the shorter man. “And ye’re nae to trust anyone but those who already have yer confidence. Ye ken?”
The clerk nodded. “Aye. And thank ye for having trust in me, m’laird.”
Pushing back at his own impatience for answers, Callum inclined his head. “I’ve nae found a shilling missing in eight years, Dennis. The lot of ye have given me every reason to trust ye. Keep me informed.”
With that he returned to the busy dockside streets. Waya at his side, he walked down to the water, taking in the sight of half a hundred ships loading cargo, unloading it, or jockeying for position in the harbor. The wealth to be had was almost tangible; no wonder Dunncraigh had dug in his claws the moment he saw a chance to grab some of it.
What had it been, though, that had pushed the Maxwell to murder Ian? What opportunity had come along that the duke simply couldn’t share, couldn’t allow anyone else to partake of? That was what Callum needed Dennis Kimes to discover; without a reason, proving that a duke had committed a murder would be impossible.
Of course in truth he only needed to satisfy himself. Once he knew for certain who’d done what and why, he would act, and everything else be damned. Callum rolled his shoulders, shaking off the sensation that fate waited in the wings. A good quarter of the ships in the harbor flew the small white and green flag of George Sanderson’s fleet—or rather, of Rebecca Sanderson-MacCreath’s. A portion of the profits of every voyage those ships made went into her coffers now. Even deducting the pay of the captain and crew, insurance, the ships themselves and their upkeep, she was worth a fortune.
He frowned. Did she realize that? Had it occurred to her yet just how valuable a commodity she’d become? Because he would have been willing to wager everything he now owned that that fact hadn’t escaped Dunncraigh or his dear eldest son, Donnach Maxwell.
Waya uttered a soft, low growl beside him. Stiffening, his hand instinctively going to the knife tucked into the back of his trousers, Callum turned around. Half a dozen men rode toward him, the one in the lead mounted on a muscular gray charger. They spread out as they approached, enclosing him in a half-circle with the harbor at his back.
They could attempt to pen him in if they wished; the moment he recognized the stiff posture and lifted chin of the lead rider, flight became the last thing on his mind. He’d wondered when the Duke of Dunncraigh would deign to acknowledge his presence in Inverness, and it seemed he’d just found the answer to that question.
It also meant the duke had someone keeping an eye on him, or they’d never have found him in the tangle of people and wagons about the harbor. That didn’t surprise him in the least, but he would have to take it into account from now on. He stood where he was, one hand on the knife handle, and let Waya move a step or two in front of him. And then he waited for them to finish closing in, as if that rendered Dunncraigh any safer from him.
“Callum MacCreath,” the duke finally uttered. “I nae thought to see ye back on Scottish soil, lad.”
“I nae thought to be here,” he returned. “But ye didnae have to come looking for me. I’d have gone to find ye, soon enough.”
Deep-set green eyes assessed him. How much of that last conversation did Dunncraigh even remember? Callum doubted it had crossed the duke’s mind since, except perhaps when he’d felt the need to tell Ian he had all the friends and family he needed here, and he was lucky he’d run off that drunken brother of his before any harm could come of his association with the wastrel.
“I didnae see any reason to delay,” the duke commented. “We are partners now, after all. Join me now for luncheon at the Olde Club, and we can discuss our business.” He glanced down at Waya. “I dunnae recommend ye bring that beast with ye, though.”
The Olde Club, at the time he’d lived here, at least, had been the stiffest, most prestigious gentlemen’s club in Inverness. He’d set foot there once, in Ian’s company, and had detested every overstuffed moment of it. But this wasn’t about a pleasant luncheon, or the company he might find there. This was about information, and power. “Nae,” he returned easily. “I’d sooner set my own kilt on fire than sit at a table with the likes of ye, Dunncraigh.”
A muscle in the older man’s cheek jumped, but otherwise his expression remained unchanged. “That’s nae wise, lad. We are partners, and it’s to yer own benefit to know yer business. At least I assume ye’ve nae idea of what yer dear brother had planned for the family MacCreath. But he confided in me, and it behooves me to help ye figure out all the twists and turns.”
Every time Dunncraigh uttered the word “lad,” Callum wanted to punch him—which was likely what the duke intended. “I reckon ye can wait until I’m ready to meet with ye,” he retorted. “If ye care for a word, send a note. I dunnae recommend ye come calling at my home.” He smiled. “Nae doubt Stapp can testify to that.”
“We left off poorly, lad,” the duke pursued. “Ten years is a long time to carry a grudge for someaught ye did to yerself. Let’s begin again, shall we?”
“I reckoned that was what we were doing,” Callum said. “Ye brought yer wolves,” he went on, gesturing at the men surrounding him, “and I brought mine. I’d call the playing field level. Dunnae ye fret though, old man. I’ll be seeing ye again. Soon.”
With that he walked off down the pier, eyeing the rider who blocked his path until the man backed his horse out of the way, then whistling Waya to heel. Dunncraigh had likely seen what he expected—the “lad” who drank too much and spoke too freely about whatever tickled his mind. Good. The less worry the duke had, the more likely he would be careless. Arrogant. Unmindful of any consequences for his actions. Especially the ones that he’d taken a year or so ago. Even if he wasn’t, Callum would find the chinks in the Maxwell’s armor.
What concerned him at the moment was whether Rebecca had begun to find the chinks in his own, and what he meant to do about that. And about her.