Amanda Scott (43 page)

“I have already reserved that pleasure for myself.”

The tide was running fast and the wind came from the north, sending the boat skimming over the waves and making Diana glad that Gordy knew what he was doing. Light mist drifted low over the loch, a dusting of stars glittered overhead, and on the dark eastern horizon a pale yellow glow announced the rising of the moon.

Except for a few brief words of explanation, first to Gordy when she found him and then to Bardie at the boat, none of them spoke. Bardie crouched down, keeping as low as he could, and but for the necessity of avoiding the swinging boom, Diana was alone with her thoughts.

One moment she felt angry with Rory for interfering, the next weak with relief that he had not handed her over to the prison governor. She had not known what to expect, but she knew she had instinctively trusted him yet again.

The return journey was swift, too swift, for Diana did not look forward to explaining her actions to her mother. However, the explanation proved easier than expected. Lady Maclean was too relieved to have her safely home again to scold.

Even Morag was still up when they reached the house. Serving whisky to Gordy and Bardie on Lady Maclean’s orders, she smiled and chattered more than usual, clearly glad they had returned.

“I won’t pretend I am pleased with you, Diana,” Lady Maclean said when they had described their journey and its outcome. “I think you are very fortunate that Calder is a fair and sensible young man.”

“He’s still a Campbell, Mam,” she said with a sigh. “In the end he will have to plump for the Campbell side.”

“He doesn’t always think them right,” Mary said. “He often disagrees with Duncan, and he even warned Balcardane that he had overstepped his authority.”

“He said that?”

“Aye, when they took James’s private papers away from Aucharn.”

“But they did that Thursday night, and—Mary, you’ve seen Ian!”

Mary grew pink but did not look away. “Twice,” she admitted. “I met him at the head of the bay on Saturday and again this afternoon. I love him dearly, Diana, but I never thought he could be so brave. He told me Duncan threatened to thrash him if he even comes near Maclean House, as if he were a child, but Ian said he’s tired of Duncan always going for him and telling him what to do.”

“Ian should know better than to taunt Black Duncan,” Lady Maclean said, frowning. “They named that lad more for his temper than for the color of his hair.”

“Duncan would never really harm him,” Mary said. “Even Ian does not fear that. He says Duncan is always bellowing at him but that it’s only because he thinks Ian cannot take care of himself, that he is too gentle for his own—”

“Mary, what is it?” Diana exclaimed. “You’ve grown white as a sheet!”

Mary pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “I don’t know. I felt dizzy, and my mind seemed to flash all white. The sensation has passed, but I think I’ll go to bed. Bardie, you will stay the night, won’t you? Tell him he must, Aunt Anne.”

“Indeed, you must, Bardie. You can sleep in Neil’s room.”

Thus, the first person at Maclean House to learn that Rory had kept his word was Bardie Gillonie, who greeted Neil’s arrival in the wee hours of the morning with mixed emotions. He was glad Neil was safe, but not so glad to be turned out of his warm bed to sleep on a trundle cot beneath a thin woolen blanket.

Rory had ridden with Neil to Maclean House to see that he got there safely as much as for any other reason, or so he told himself. If he was disappointed to find all the lights out and the inhabitants abed, he kept those feelings to himself.

Bidding Neil good-night and refraining from offering advice he knew the lad would reject, he offered to see that the borrowed horse got back to Fort William, and turned toward Balcardane, leading the animal behind him.

“Thank you, sir,” Neil called belatedly, just loudly enough for him to hear.

He waved. “You were lucky to come off with a whole skin, lad, so don’t be too quick to risk it again. And don’t murder your sister!”

“No, sir. Good night.”

It was long after midnight when Rory reached Balcardane. Going directly up to his bedchamber, he found Thomas waiting up for him.

“All manner of riot and rumpus there was tonight,” the henchman said, grimacing as he pulled off Rory’s boots.

“What’s amiss?”

“Aye, ye’ll think so, I’ll wager. Ye’ll ken fine how his lordship fired up about her ladyship’s cousin Archie coming tae stay.”

“I do recall that discussion.”

“Aye, well,” Thomas said, looking wise. “Happen it weren’t her ladyship’s cousin, after all. Seems he never let her finish the sentence and pays no heed to her most times any road. She weren’t saying Archie at all. She were saying—”

“Archibald! Good God, she calls Argyll by his given name. I’ve heard her.”

“So it would seem.” Thomas grinned, taking Rory’s coat and folding it carefully over a stool. “According to her ladyship, his grace will honor us with his presence tomorrow or the next day. He’ll be none too pleased tae hear ye’ve taken an interest in the Maclean fortunes, I’m thinking.”

“No, he won’t,” Rory agreed. “Were you planning to tell him?”

“Nay, not I, and I warrant your uncle will be too caught up counting the groats required tae house and feed a ducal party tae thrust a spoke in yer wheel, but Black Duncan is bound tae tell his grace soon enough.”

“It doesn’t much matter where he hears it,” Rory said with a sigh, “though I’ll confess I’d as lief he not hear it from Duncan.”

He would have liked to avoid Duncan altogether before the duke’s arrival, but when he entered the breakfast parlor the following morning, he found both his cousins there before him.

Without preamble, Duncan said angrily, “I hear you have interceded on behalf of that scoundrel Maclean.”

Keeping his temper, Rory said, “If you mean Sir Neil Maclean, Stonefield took his precognition and decided he had no cause to charge him with a crime.”

“And you just happened to be present while Stonefield questioned him, and then you rode back to Maclean House with him.”

“You are well informed.”

“I’ve told you before, I have my methods, but there is no great secret about it. You crossed late on the Ballachulish ferry, and one of the men brought me word. You did no good letting him go, you know, for he’s hand in glove with James and Allan Breck. Doubtless he will now try to flee the country with Breck.”

“Duncan’s right, nephew,” Balcardane said, entering and joining Rory to examine the dishes set out on the sideboard. “If Neil Maclean ain’t in this conspiracy up to his boot tops, you may call me a Dutchman.”

“You’ll not convince him,” Duncan said bitterly. “Our cousin forgets where his loyalty lies. He’ll set himself against his own, all for a pair of golden eyes.”

“You are being unfair, Duncan,” Ian said, spreading marmalade thickly on a chunk of bread he had broken from the triangular loaf on the table. “Rory told you it was Stonefield’s decision. He cannot hold Neil if he has no evidence against him. In any event, if you think he is a conspirator, you are an even worse judge of character than I thought. Neil is no villain.”

“If you think his release means you can go back to calling at Maclean House, you had better think again, little brother.”

Duncan’s tone was dangerous, but Ian only shrugged and put the spoon back into the marmalade pot. “I’ll be out this afternoon, going about my own business,” he said. “If you want to waste your time following me, that is your affair. Not that I can’t lose you in the woods any time I want to do so, of course.”

Duncan frowned, but at that moment, Lady Balcardane bustled in, catching her wide skirt on the door latch and pausing to disengage it as she said, “Did I hear you say you mean to be away this afternoon, Ian dear? You must not, you know, for if Archibald—No, I’m forgetting that you want me to call him Argyll, my dear sir, though I cannot think why I should, for I’ve known him since I was a child, although in those days I called him Uncle Archibald. Although he is not really my uncle, of course, and no doubt he would stare to hear me address him so now, for I daresay I have not spoken above two words to him in ten years—”

“Silence, woman,” Balcardane roared. “You will call him Argyll because I command it. Furthermore, before you order so much as another collop of lamb—”

“Collops? Lud, sir, as if I would serve such poor stuff to his grace. I hope we may do prodigiously better than collops for his supper, and so I tell you.”

Having had, yet again, a surfeit of his relatives’ company, Rory excused himself hastily. He found little comfort in the mischievous glint in Ian’s eyes as he watched Duncan, but he had no inclination to heed his cousins’ squabbles either.

If Argyll truly intended to grace Balcardane Castle with his presence, lamb collops and murder investigations would be the least of Rory’s worries. It was high time, he decided, to organize his thoughts and compose his arguments so that he could produce an explanation of his dealings with Diana Maclean that the duke might at least understand if not accept. The last was probably too much to hope.

“Where did Neil go?” Mary asked as she and Diana hunted eggs in the barn.

“I don’t know. All he said—shouted, rather—was that if I ever plan another prison escape, he’ll make me sorry I was born, and a lot of other silly stuff. Why?”

“I hope he doesn’t do anything rash.”

Diana smiled. “It’s not like you to worry about him. Will you see Ian today?”

Mary smiled. “Aye, he promised to come, no matter what.” Her expression altered oddly and she added, “Morag’s waiting for these eggs. Let’s go in.”

Seeing her shiver, Diana wondered if she was cold.

Archibald Campbell, third Duke of Argyll, no longer enjoyed the vicissitudes of Highland travel, though he still enjoyed many other things. A widower for thirty years, he was, even at the ripe old age of seventy, still noted for his profligacy and his love of power. Some said he loved power too well to hazard it by ostentation and money, so little that he spent it neither to gain friends nor to serve them. Others called him a man of little truth or honor, with no attachment but to his own interest.

Rory was aware of what others said about the man who had so heavily influenced his life, but he had always found him a man of sound judgment with a thorough knowledge of mankind. The duke was also shrewd and argumentative, and he had no doubt as he stood facing him in Balcardane’s bookroom that afternoon that his own interests and Argyll’s no longer marched in harmony.

Before he had been in the castle ten minutes, the duke had sent for Rory and summarily dismissed both his entourage and his hovering host and hostess.

Now, as Rory stood before the library desk, waiting for him to speak, he felt much like a schoolboy hailed before a harsh headmaster.

“Well?” Argyll snapped.

Not a promising beginning. Knowing he would do better not to equivocate, he smiled and said, “I am glad to see you, too, my lord duke. I trust you did not find your journey too tiring.”

“Damn your impudence! What’s this nonsense I’ve been hearing?”

“I am not certain what particular news has upset you, sir, but may I sit down while we sort it out?”

An appreciative gleam showed in Argyll’s eyes. He waved to a nearby chair. “Now,” he said, when Rory had taken his seat, “I’ll be plain. I’m told that I should no longer trust you.”

Repressing a surge of anger, aware that more than his reputation rode on this interview, Rory said as calmly as he could, “I have always spoken my own mind and followed my own road, sir. We have disagreed before, and no doubt we will do so again, but I have never given you cause to distrust me, nor will I.”

“Well said. What do you make of all this?”

Accustomed to Argyll’s abrupt ways, he answered evenly, “It’s early days yet, sir. They have arrested one James Stewart, but I am not convinced of his guilt. Until now, he has enjoyed a good reputation and lived an untarnished private life.”

“No man who rebelled against his rightful king can be held in high esteem.”

Tempted though he was to remind Argyll that the duke’s own grandfather and great-grandfather had been executed for high treason, Rory said instead that the authorities had unlawfully refused to let James see his solicitor.

“Don’t bother me with his troubles,” Argyll growled. “Who’s the wench?”

Meeting the basilisk stare, Rory said bluntly, “She is Anne Stewart Maclean’s daughter, sir, and I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with her.”

“Lord save us, that blasted woman again! Am I never to be done with her? I won’t have it, Rory. Find yourself another one.”

“I’m not willing to do that, sir.”

“Damn your impudence!” With that, the floodgates of the ducal wrath opened and the flood washed over its hapless victim.

“What is it, Mary?” Diana demanded. “For the past five minutes or more you’ve been pacing the parlor floor like a cat on a hot bakestone.”

“I don’t know, Diana. I just—”

She broke off, clapping a hand to her mouth, shaking.

“Mary, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Mary’s face was chalky, her eyes wide and staring blankly. Their irises were almost colorless, their pupils enlarged to black pools. Suddenly, she screamed and threw her arms wide. Her lips moved rapidly but no sound came. Her body grew rigid. Tears welled into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“No,” she moaned. “Oh, no-o-o-o!” Then, crying out, as if she were in agony, she collapsed to the floor in a trembling heap.

Diana flew to her side, but although she managed to get Mary to lie on the parlor sofa, she still had not spoken a word an hour later when men came running to tell them that someone had beaten Gentle Ian to death in the woods near Inshaig.

“We found a broken powder horn in the pocket of his jacket,” one of them said to a stunned Diana. “He’d mended it with red sealing wax just like them bits they picked up where Glenure’s murderer hid in the shrubbery!”

R
ORY WAS WITH HIS
uncle when they learned of the tragedy. Having survived his ordeal with Argyll with most of his dignity intact, he had spent the better part of the afternoon escorting the duke to the murder site and then to the alehouse at Inshaig, where Argyll conferred with Balcardane and Sheriff Stonefield.