The moment the coach stopped, Margaret flung open the door and nearly fell on her face to the ground. Before Rebecca could even gasp a warning, Callum grabbed the girl by the back of the gown and hauled her back inside the carriage. “What’s yer hurry, Mags?” he asked, setting her onto her feet.
Of course he’d adopted the nickname the Scottish servants called Margaret—Mags would never do in London, for it sounded much more like the name of a shepherd’s daughter than that of an earl’s—but of course Maggie had now begun to refuse to acknowledge any other version of her name.
Rebecca hadn’t realized how much her daughter craved having a father about, because other than a slowly lessening recitation of where Ian had gone and the acknowledgment that he wasn’t coming back, Margaret had never attempted to replace him with Pogue or any of the other male servants, or even with Donnach or His Grace the duke. But however … confused she felt about Callum herself, Margaret clearly adored him.
“I want to show you my bedchamber,” the little one returned. “And I forgot to wait for the steps.”
As she spoke, the butler hurried out of the house and flipped down the coach steps himself. “My lady,” Duffy exclaimed. “And Lady Mags. I’d nae idea ye were…” He trailed off, his narrow face going gray, as Callum emerged from the coach. “Sweet, merciful Saint Andrew,” he intoned.
Callum offered his hand. “Hello, Duffy. I didnae think to send word ahead, so ye can blame me for the surprise.”
“M … Master Callum? I mean to say, Laird Geiry.” The butler shook his proffered hand vigorously. “I, that is, we, thought ye—”
“Aye. I’m aware.” He turned around, offering that same hand to help Rebecca down from the coach.
She should have been insulted, she supposed, that he treated a servant with the same deference he offered her, but that just seemed petty. She’d heard that Americans treated everyone equally, with no use for kings or lords, so perhaps he’d simply become accustomed to this greater familiarity. It suited him, actually. This new version of him, anyway.
“My lady?” he prompted, wiggling his fingers.
Shaking herself free of the thought of him in one of those raccoonskin hats and wearing a bear’s coat over his shoulders, she took his hand and allowed him to help her to the crushed-oyster drive. “Please see my things moved to the south corner room, Duffy,” she instructed, to save herself from being ordered to remove from yet another master bedchamber.
“Aye, my lady. I’ll have it aired oot at once.” Gesturing, the butler took his new master’s bags himself while more footmen scrambled out of the house to collect her luggage and Margaret’s small trunk, and to aid the second coach, which carried Mary, her lady’s maid, and Agnes, the nanny. Callum didn’t have a valet, and she wondered if she should recommend Wallace, Ian’s former man.
“… introduce Waya to my Daffodil, so I can go riding with you,” Margaret was saying, as she took hold of Callum’s big hand and began tugging him toward the house.
“Daffodil is yer pony, then?”
“Yes, of course. Mama doesn’t let me ride her in town, because Daffodil is very little and would be frightened.”
Callum glanced over his shoulder at Rebecca. “That seems wise,” he offered, a slight, attractive grin touching his mouth.
She remembered that he could be charming, but in this instance she knew he’d only brought Margaret along so he could keep an eye on his ward. As for herself, at least she’d been invited along instead of having to chase the coach down the road.
Reginald leaped down from the second coach and ran to the front door, the wolf loping up a moment later. She’d trotted beside them for a good two hours as they traveled south from Inverness, and from the look of her she could have carried on for another hour or more.
“Do ye mean to stand on the drive all day?” Callum asked, appearing beside her.
Rebecca started. “I’m merely taking a last look,” she improvised. “Geiry Hall is yours now, after all.”
“Aye.” He looked up at the pretty gray-stoned mansion and its wide, well-windowed front. “Dunncraigh ran across me this morning,” he went on conversationally. “He invited me to luncheon and pointed out that he and I are partners.”
“Goodness. And you didn’t throw him through a window?”
“Nae. There werenae any handy. When I left he’d agreed to rent his pier to yer da’. I wouldnae call that a partnership.”
“The business kept growing,” she said, wondering why she was attempting to word her explanation diplomatically. Of course she didn’t want a fight erupting between Callum and the Maxwell simply because of a ten-year-old disagreement. Neither, though, did she want to say something unintentionally suspicious to the man looking everywhere for conspiracies. Whatever he found, he would have to look for on his own. Because what he suggested about Ian’s death was ridiculous in light of what she knew of Donnach and his father, and she had no intention of feeding his … fury. “Larger investments meant larger returns. It was sound reasoning.”
“And I wager in the past few months Dunncraigh’s been kindly taking on more than his share of the work, aye?”
“There hasn’t been anyone else to see to it,” she stated. “I’ve been attempting to learn the nuances of my father’s investments, but without His Grace I would have given up by now.”
Callum nodded, setting off back toward the front door. “Well, I imagine he’ll have it in fine shape by the time ye wed Donnach and they take over ownership,” he commented.
“At least Donnach was here,” she returned, clenching her jaw.
His shoulders squared, but he didn’t stop his retreat. “We’ll stay here at Geiry for a few days, I reckon. And to avoid any misunderstandings later, dear Donnach’s nae welcome in this house, either. Neither is Dunncraigh.”
And there he went, making declarations again just to remind her that he had control of … of everything. Rebecca stomped her foot. “I hope you realize that if there was a conspiracy and that if I was a part of it, or being urged to be a part of it, your high-handedness would not be encouraging me to take your side.”
At that he did turn around. “And I hope ye realize that ye flayed me alive once, and that I’m nae likely to trust ye again until I ken exactly what’s afoot. I warned Ian, and came back to find that exactly what I feared came to pass. So mayhap it’s ye,” he went on, pointing a finger at her, “who needs to earn my trust.”
If she hadn’t been a lady, if she’d been fourteen or fifteen years old again, Rebecca would have yelled back at him something about how he was not allowed to stomp back into her life after ten years and upturn every applecart in the countryside. Damnation! She had things figured out again, finally. She had her future—and Margaret’s—figured out. Some cousin of Ian’s would inherit the Geiry title and properties, she would marry Donnach Maxwell, and he and clan Maxwell would see that she and Margaret were comfortable and safe and that Margaret would have a fine future as a stepgranddaughter of the Duke of Dunncraigh.
With a barely stifled growl Rebecca gathered her skirts and tromped around the house to the vast garden at its rear. She’d spent a great deal of time amid the roses and lavender, beneath the haphazard shade of the tall birch trees. Today she didn’t seek solace as much as she did a solution to the turmoil caused by Callum MacCreath. Because while her first thought might have been simply to press for a swift engagement and wedding with Donnach—which would at least see her away from the house and somewhere safe and protected—that would also mean leaving Margaret behind. And that, she couldn’t do.
Even before Callum’s return she’d had the nagging thought that, among the trio of businessmen with whom she’d found herself over the past ten years, two of them were dead. And the son of the one who remained would control two-thirds of the enterprise if she married into his family.
She’d heard other things about the Duke of Dunncraigh over the past two or three years, completely aside from the venom Callum spewed at him. Things about people who disappeared if they displeased him, and threats to his own clansmen if they disagreed with his policies.
Two years ago he’d turned his back on a thousand cotters of his own clan, giving their care over to the English Duke of Lattimer for no other reason than that the folk had declined to side against Lattimer, their own landlord, when Dunncraigh had demanded they do so. It had been in the newspapers, but Donnach had only commented about it to tell Ian not to ever mention Lattimer in the duke’s presence.
Last year, within a few weeks of Ian’s death, she’d heard some rumors about a near kidnapping of an English duke’s sister because Dunncraigh disliked her brother. Not much news had penetrated the fog around her then, and she’d absorbed even less of what she actually heard, but she remembered thinking that the brother, the English duke, had more than likely been Lattimer, as well. She wondered if Callum knew any of these things. If not, she certainly didn’t want to be the one to tell him. He didn’t need more firewood for his conspiracies.
And then there was Callum, himself. He’d been such an attractive young man, constantly tempting her into the sin of showing off her ankles, swimming in his company while wearing nothing but a shift, and he’d made her feel as wild and exhilarated by life as he seemed to be. Angry as he’d been prone to get, that Callum had been her friend and confidant until his brother had approached her with an offer of marriage that she couldn’t—and didn’t wish to—refuse.
This Callum, the one who’d reappeared three days ago, had all the soft edges ground away. He was strong, determined, and evidently willing to charge at one of the most powerful men in Scotland because of a self-made belief that Dunncraigh had done wrong. Ian had bent with the wind, making the best of any situation, seeking diplomacy and logic over any sense of personal affront he might have had. Not so, Callum. After only three days she already knew it—he would not bend. And part of her, the part that had once wished he would see her as more than his adventuring friend, worried that he would break. Or rather, that the much more experienced and patient Duke of Dunncraigh would break him rather than wait for whatever damage he feared Callum might do to their joint business.
She stayed in the garden all afternoon, brushing away Duffy’s attempts to lead her in for luncheon and Mary’s offering of a heavier shawl to protect her against the wind. In truth, today was lovely, with fat, unhurried clouds breaking up the sky’s deep blue, and a breeze just strong enough to keep the birch leaves dancing.
Clarity continued to elude her, and so she finally made her way through the back entrance of the house to find Duffy ordering the dining room to be opened and the table set for dinner. “My lady,” he said, bowing. “May I have some tea brought for ye?”
“No, no. Thank you. Where is Margaret?”
“Lady Mags is in the library with Agnes, where they’re searching for books about wolves, I believe.”
“Oh, dear. Nothing horribly bloodthirsty, I hope.”
He smiled. “I did see Agnes hiding someaught behind the geography books.”
“Excellent. A bit of curiosity is healthy, but I certainly don’t want her to have nightmares. And … Lord Geiry?”
“He went oot to the church nae more than ten minutes ago, m’lady.” The butler’s expression sobered again. “I reckon he wanted to see his bràthair.”
“Of course.” The St. Andrews parish church lay on the grounds of the Geiry estate, less than a quarter mile from the house. She and Ian had married there, and uncounted generations of MacCreath lords lay beneath the stately oaks on the east side of the old stone building.
For weeks after the funeral she hadn’t been able to go back there herself, despite the urging of her father and Margaret’s obvious curiosity. It seemed so … final. Irreversible. Then when she’d laid her father to rest at the Inverness Cathedral, she’d felt surrounded by inevitability, and intentionally going to view it had made things even worse. But doing so alone … She took a quick breath.
“Excuse me, then. I shan’t keep you from your duties.”
“Of course, m’lady. Lord Geiry requested dinner to be served at seven o’clock.”
“Thank you.”
She wandered off in the direction of the stairs until Duffy exited the hallway. Then, still breathing harder than she liked, Rebecca slipped out the front door and hurried down the road toward the quaint church. However angry she might be at him, and he at her, Callum shouldn’t have to go see Ian alone.
At the low stone wall that divided the cemetery from the meadow beyond, she stopped. Some of the old MacCreaths lay beneath grand, angel- or lion-draped monoliths, but for Ian she’d had a plain marble slab commissioned, one that only spoke of him as a husband and father and of his honorable nature. Had it been enough? It had seemed fitting at the time, but it should have been his successor who approved the design. Callum, of course, had been in America, while cousin James Sturgeon hadn’t felt comfortable taking on the duty when he hadn’t yet been declared the heir.
Well, Callum could commission another one if he didn’t approve. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped through the low, wooden gate. Close by the wall on one side she spied him, and she stopped to lean against the trunk of one of the ancient oaks. She was here to offer any comfort if needed, she reminded herself. If he didn’t appear to need any, she could just slip away and he would never know she’d intruded.
“Ye damned fool,” Callum said quietly, and it took a second or two for her to realize he was speaking to Ian, rather than to her. “I warned ye. I warned ye about tangling yerself up with that devil. But ye have to think the best of everyone ye meet. Except for me, of course.” Picking up a small rock, he threw it at the headstone. It smacked dead center, then ricocheted off into the bushes beneath the church’s closest window.
“I dunnae ken why ye wrote me, or what ye wanted of me,” Callum went on, squatting at the foot of the stone-covered grave, “but I’m here now. I mean to make him pay for what he did to ye and yer lass and yer bairn. I gave my word. As for what comes after that, I reckon that’s up to me.” He straightened. “If ye have any objection, ye’d best let me know it now, Ian. I’m nae likely to ask ye again later.”
For a long moment he stood there, as if waiting. All Rebecca could hear was the birds, and the light breeze ruffling the leaves. Down in the village beyond the church the blacksmith was working, the clang of his hammer sharp despite the distance.
“Well then,” Callum finally said, inclining his head. “I’ll take that as ye being in agreement with me. Ye rest now. I’m nae certain we’ll meet again, but know that I’ll do what needs to be done. Whatever the cost. I’ll nae disappoint ye again. I swear it.”
Rebecca ducked behind the tree as he turned and walked past her through the gate and up the path leading back to Geiry Hall. That had been close. As for what Callum had been referring to, what he’d thought Ian might object to, she didn’t know, though after that kiss the other day she could hazard a guess. Heavens.
“Ye shouldnae be out here alone, lass,” he called after a moment, not slowing his pace. “It’ll be dark soon.”
Oh, blast it all. Belatedly she straightened, brushing bark and dirt from her shawl. “I only wanted to make certain you weren’t in distress,” she returned, trying not to rush her steps and not managing it well. “I wasn’t eavesdropping.”
“I’m in distress that my brother died when he didnae have to,” he said, finally relenting enough to slow his ground-eating pace. “And I ken that ye reckon I’m being emotional because I only learned about this six weeks ago. That’s only partly true, Rebecca, because in all honesty I’m nae surprised it happened. I mostly hoped I’d turn out to be wrong about all this.”
“You still m—”
“Aye, I still could be wrong,” he broke in, finishing her thought as she drew even with him. “Come with me to the loch tomorrow morning. Show me where it happened. Do ye still have the phaeton?”
“It’s behind the stable. I didn’t want to sell it, or to have anyone else use it.”
He nodded, then offered his arm. He did remember how to be a gentleman, then; he simply chose not to be one for the majority of the time. “I’ll take a gander at it, as well.”
“You know that won’t be enough to convince me of anything.” She tensed, waiting for him to counter with the statement that she was the one who needed to convince him of Dunncraigh’s and Donnach’s innocence. “What if I said I didn’t want to be any part of this?”
He moved his arm, tugging her in a little closer against his side. “Then I’d reckon ye had someaught to hide from me, and I wouldnae be nearly as friendly as I have been.”
“‘Friendly’?” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow. “Is that what you’ve been?”
Belatedly it occurred to her that she shouldn’t bait him, but he only sent her an unreadable sideways glance. “Ye’ve nae idea, lass. Now. Has anyone been into Ian’s papers or his office since he passed?” he asked.
“My father came to collect an account book, and there was a schedule His Grace needed, and I started to straighten things up, but nothing else. And that was only the first fortnight or so. Only the maids and perhaps Duffy have been in there since.”
“Who collected the schedule?” he pursued, his voice hardening as she mentioned Dunncraigh.
“Donnach. They were all in business together. That doesn’t signify anything nefarious.”
“Nae to ye, perhaps. I’m nae that naïve.”
Naïve. No one had called her that in a very long time. They walked past an oak tree with one down-hanging branch, an old swing with frayed rope still hanging above the grass. She’d swung in that tree, when she and her father came down from Inverness to stay at Geiry Hall with the MacCreaths. It seemed like another lifetime ago, but she could still remember the wind rushing past her, and her happy shrieks as Callum pushed her far higher than she should have allowed herself to go.
But she wasn’t that girl, any longer. She was eight-and-twenty, for goodness’ sake, with a six-year-old daughter and a third of an empire to manage—at least for the moment. She’d never forgotten her responsibilities before now, but just walking beside Callum caused all sorts of odd, uncomfortable, heady thoughts to surface. She didn’t like it. He didn’t fit with any of her plans.
“I should have asked,” she made herself say, “do you have a family? Children? A wife?”
He glanced up toward the house. “Nae. I sold my horse here to buy passage to America, and sold everything else I owned to purchase some land in Kentucky. From there I bartered for what I needed, did some fur trapping and scouting until I could put together enough blunt to begin distilling whisky. That’s nae a life for a woman, or a bairn.”
“But you said you were wealthy even without your inheritance.”
“Aye. I am now. And I live in a fort surrounded by trees and a million acres of wildlands, filled with bear, wolves, Indians, panthers, and winters that would put the Highlands to shame. I’m a powerful man there, because I damned well earned it with my own two hands. I’ve nae been celibate, mind ye, but I dunnae live a life that’s fit to share.”
“You didn’t live a life fit to share,” she corrected, trying to ignore both his comment about celibacy and the nonsensical flash of … jealousy, she could almost call it, that made the fingers of her free hand coil. That made no sense. Almost the entire time she’d known him before his flight from Scotland, he’d had one young lass or another pining after him. He’d never been one for celibacy. But seeing how magnificent he looked now, how single-minded and … centered he’d become, could easily be mesmerizing.
“This isn’t a fort surrounded by Indians and wilderness,” she continued, trying to find the reasonable tone she’d meant to adopt. “You’re Lord Geiry, now. You have villagers and businesses here that require your attention.” She stopped, trying to pull him to a halt beside her. He likely could have kept going without pause while she dragged behind him in the mud, but instead he faced her. “You do mean to stay here, don’t you? In Scotland?”
“I’ve nae decided that yet,” he said, glancing over her head back toward the church. “I reckon that depends on whether I have to drag Dunncraigh to hell, or I can shove him into the pit.”
Her breath caught. “You truly mean you would sacrifice yourself for some … vengeance that you don’t even know is merited? Callum, that’s horrific.” And if for a brief moment she’d allowed herself to panic at the thought of being left alone again, he didn’t need to know that.
To her surprise, he gave a short laugh. “I’d have thought ye’d be happy to be rid of me.” He resumed walking, his firm grip over her hand keeping her moving with him. “Or am I wrong about that?”
“I suppose my answer depends on your plans,” she returned, wishing this odd … ease at being back in his company would go bury itself back in the graveyard where it belonged. No, not ease, precisely, because he continued to unsettle her. Trust, perhaps. She’d been injured in his company, but never more than scrapes and bruises. Looking to him for protection, though—logically it made no sense. For goodness’ sake, she had a safe, predictable, kind beau for that. “I want to be happy you’ve returned. But the last time you were here, you were chaos personified. You can’t deny that.”
“Nae. I cannae.”
“I’m not so certain that’s changed.”
Callum nodded, unexpectedly veering them off the path and heading them toward the stable. Did he want to look at the phaeton now? She would have preferred that he examine the vehicle by himself; personally she didn’t like being anywhere near it.
At the side of the stable, the one farthest from the house, he stopped and dropped his arm, loosing her grip on his sleeve. His gaze holding hers in a way that made her heart skitter a little, he dug into one of his pockets and produced a five-pound note. Wordlessly he took her hand and placed the paper in it, curling her fingers over the money.
“What are you—”
“I dunnae want to be nice right now,” he murmured.
Callum put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back against the stable’s exterior wall, then leaned down and took her mouth in a hard, warm kiss. Heat speared through her, putting the lie to whatever she wanted to tell herself about how wrong this was and how much she didn’t want it. Want him.
With a low moan he tilted her head up, plundering her mouth. Rebecca grabbed onto his lapels, holding on both to keep her balance and because she had the mad desire to climb inside him, to be so close that no space existed between them. His tongue invaded her mouth, tangling with hers, his breath hard against her cheek.
When he tugged her gown up past her knees, his big hand splayed along her bare thigh, she groaned. God, she could feel him, feel his arousal pressed against her through his trousers and her muslin skirts. And she wanted him. For a year she’d slept alone, and even before that except on the occasions Ian visited her bed, and abruptly it felt like decades. Eons.
Thank goodness she knew better than to fall for him. Rebecca kissed him back, hot and openmouthed, wondering if he had any idea that if he’d kissed her ten years ago as he was doing now, she likely would have thrown caution, logic, and self-preservation to the wind and gone with him anywhere he wished.
A good portion of her still wanted to do so, still felt the pull of him against her better judgment. But she was a woman grown now, and one with a child and responsibilities and employees and all of those futures resting on her shoulders. And he … He wanted revenge, and had openly declared that he didn’t care if he lived past the moment he found it.
Gathering up all her willpower, all the anger and frustration she’d ever felt in his presence, she doubled her hands into fists and shoved. It felt like trying to push over the Rock of Gibraltar, or so she imagined, but he backed off by an inch or two. “What?” he murmured, nibbling at her lower lip.
She knew he could feel her shaking. “No,” she managed.
He stilled. “Nae because of Ian, or nae because of me?” he asked, keeping his tone level and his voice very quiet.
Rebecca knew what he meant. Did she cherish the thought and memory of Ian so greatly that the thought of being touched by his brother filled her with dismay? Or was it simply Callum who gave her pause? If she answered with the former, he wouldn’t touch her again. She knew that, without either of them having to say another word. He would leave her be, find his vengeance, and then she’d likely never speak another word to him unless it involved Margaret. But then she might never feel this wanton, this wanted, this … alive, ever again.
“It’s not Ian,” she whispered.
Callum touched his forehead against hers, very softly. Then he backed away, nodding. “I reckon I can work with that,” he said, and turned on his heel.