Chapter 20
Mal slammed himself over the table and hauled the man up by his coat. Like Wilfort, Halsey was chained to his chair. He hung awkwardly in Mal’s grip.
“Ye watch what ye say about Lady Mary, or I’ll break your neck,” Mal said with low-voiced menace. “I’d break it now if Geordie Murray weren’t so keen to keep ye alive. When he’s done squeezing ye for information, maybe I’ll come back and finish ye off.”
Halsey masked his flash of fear with another sneer. “No need for violence, Highlander. I’ll step aside for you with Mary, if you make it worth my while.”
Mal jerked him closer, and Halsey grunted in pain. “Why the devil should I make it worth your while?”
“To keep yourself from being jailed for cheating me.” Halsey’s voice was scratchy, his light blue eyes as cold as a winter lake. “Give me the ten thousand I was promised, and marry the chit if you want. Or make her your whore once you pay for her. I scarcely care.”
Mal shook him. “I remember telling ye to be careful what ye say, Halsey. Ye’d sell her to me, then? Maybe I’ll lend her a dirk, and she can rid herself of ye that way. That’s what Highland lassies do to husbands they hate.”
Halsey put on a tired smile. “You’d do well to remember that. Ten thousand pounds, paid to my man of business in London. Mr. Sheridan, at twenty-three High Holborn. He’ll nullify the contracts.”
The man was disgusting. Mal slammed Halsey back into his chair, finished with him. “Ye don’t worry that ye won’t be going home to collect the money?”
“No.” Halsey lifted the handkerchief that had fluttered to the table. “This rebellion is doomed to failure. Your chiefs can’t agree on who to support, and even the ones who’ve already joined can’t agree with one another. The popular view is that all Highlanders are Catholic and behind the Stuarts, when you and I both know that neither fact is strictly true. Your own father is a staunch Protestant, and thinks all Catholics are the devil. He must chafe that his son and heir has joined the side of Beelzebub.”
“My father has no love for anything English either,” Mal said. “Good day to ye, Halsey. I might be back later to kill ye.”
Halsey only touched the handkerchief to his drippy nose. Mal closed the door behind him, his anger and revulsion leaving a foul taste in his mouth.
Wilfort at least had showed that he cared for his daughters, despite the bruise on Mary’s face, even if he could not come straight out and say it. Lord Halsey, on the other hand, cared for nothing but himself.
Mal walked upstairs, lost in thought. He spoke to Duncan, even gained a brief audience with Lord George Murray, and then left Holyrood. The streets of Edinburgh embraced Mal as he made his way to the close where his house lay.
When he arrived, he sought out Will and asked him to compose a letter in his elegant way to Mr. Sheridan, man of business, at twenty-three High Holborn, London.
Mary heard Malcolm return, and watched over the banisters as he disappeared into a room below and didn’t come out.
The duke, fortunately, had quit the house soon after Malcolm, and a modicum of peace had come over the place. Mary had spent the time breakfasting and settling herself into the chamber Naughton had said was hers.
Mary had not had much appetite, but she’d made a show of serenely eating the bannocks Naughton brought her and drinking her tea. No giving way. She was a Lennox, from a line of proud people.
Naughton then produced Mary’s own trunk full of her clothes. Somehow, he and other servants had sneaked inside her father’s house and packed up her things.
Mary studied Naughton, a rail-thin man with red hair going to gray, as he announced, in his quiet voice, what he’d done. Unlike Mary’s friends’ conception of the oversized, ill-mannered, unruly Scot, Naughton was quietly efficient. And kind. Mary nearly lost her pride to tears as she thanked him.
“Not at all, m’lady. Anything ye wish to make your stay more comfortable, ye have but to summon me.”
Naughton had departed, letting Mary compose herself and finish her breakfast. A maid called Jinty was sent up to help her wash and dress. Jinty was a beautiful girl—dark-haired and blue-eyed in contrast to the fair or red-haired servants Mary had seen in this house so far.
“I come from the islands, m’lady,” Jinty said in a musically soft voice. “Iona, in the Hebrides. At least, me mum did. Then she married a Scot from the Highlands. I was born at Castle Kilmorgan. Was so excited when I first came to the city.”
Jinty had not been trained as a lady’s maid, so Mary had to instruct her on what to do. Jinty helped her brush out her hair and unpack her things. The girl was well mannered and eager to learn.
But after Mary settled in, dressed now in her own clothes, she paced, nervous, waiting for Malcolm and what news he might bring. Now, as she watched over the stair railings, he shut himself into the room downstairs, for whatever reason, and didn’t seek her.
Mary could stand it no longer. She gathered her skirts and hurried down the stairs, barely able to make herself pause and knock politely instead of barreling inside to find Malcolm.
Malcolm himself wrenched open the door. Will was behind him, saying, “I hope to God ye ken what you’re doing,” before Mal came out into the hall.
Mary started to speak, but Mal gave her a silencing look, pushed her to the next door on the landing, and guided her inside.
This was another sitting room, one that faced the rear of the house and was quiet. The chamber was small, but the furnishings here were as rich and elegant as those she’d seen elsewhere. If French kings and aristocrats gave Will furniture to make him go away, he must make a nuisance of himself often.
“My aunt—” Mary began worriedly.
Malcolm touched his finger to her lips. “Is fine and well. With Lady Bancroft in that huge house with plenty of people to look after her, including your formidable maid.”
Mary’s hand went to her heart as it throbbed in relief. “And my father?”
The question was more fearful, and Malcolm’s expression did nothing to reassure her. “He’s imprisoned but in a room with a table and a bed, not a dank dungeon. I’ve fixed it so he will be freed soon.”
Mary’s knees started to buckle. Only Malcolm’s quick arm around her waist stopped her from falling. She’d kept herself from speculating all this time about what would happen to her father, to her aunt. Families could be broken and destroyed so easily in these times, arrests made, executions swift. “Thank you, Malcolm,” she said fervently. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, love. We’ve a long way to go.”
Mary curled her fingers against his chest. “Everything is splintering, falling away beneath my feet.” She gave a little laugh. “Much of it because of you.”
She expected Malcolm to respond with a smile, but the look in his eyes was bleak. “I never knew my father would go so far to thwart me. I’m sorry, lass. Truly, I am. But all will be well, I promise ye.”
He again wore the haunted look he had before he’d left the house, when he’d shouted at his father and then at Will. The weight of the world seemed to press on Malcolm’s young shoulders. Mary touched one of those shoulders, feeling steel strength beneath his coat.
“What did you mean?” she asked him. “As you were leaving, you said, ‘I can’t take care of all of you at the same time.’ You looked odd when you said it.”
Malcolm went still, his tawny eyes seeking hers. For a moment, Mary thought he wouldn’t answer, then he shrugged.
“It’s me lot in life, isn’t it? To be the one to pick up the pieces? Duncan is fixed on the Jacobites. Will is interested in information—the gathering, the keeping, the using of it—no matter where it comes from and what it’s for. Angus looks after Dad and can’t be bothered with the rest of us. Alec falls so deeply in love, it’s like he drowns. Magnus was the dreamer, lost in his own world, and he never was well.” Malcolm let out a breath. “I look after them all—ye see? Even Dad. I have to. They need me. No one else to do it, is there?”