Her gaze followed his. “I want to see it,” she said.
“See what?” Niall asked.
“The Royal plate that brought about all this treachery and heartache. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Her brother-in-law shrugged. “I’ve never seen it myself.”
“In all those years?” She hadn’t pegged him as being so uncurious. “I would have begged until my parents let me look.”
“Oh, I did. But it was pointless. There’s no key to the padlock.”
Hamish gave her a hard hug. “I tossed all the keys into a loch years before Niall was born. After one of those bitter quarrels. To keep the pieces from disappearing one by one.”
So he’d distrusted his friends even then. Unfortunate that he’d failed to take those feelings to heart—it might have saved Elspeth’s life. But as the old French saying Kendra used to hear on the Continent put it,“L’amitié ferme les yeux.”
Friendship closes its eyes.
Drawing her from those thoughts, Niall stepped forward and planted kisses on both her cheeks. “God willing, I’ll see you soon.”
She was surprised to feel tears welling up. “I expect you at Amberley before too long.”
He nodded. “After the harvest.”
Trick embraced his brother. “I thank you for taking care of that for me.”
“We—Da and I—thank you for allowing us to stay.” Niall’s gaze flickered over to the castle’s open doorway, where Annag and Duncan stood glaring, her children behind them. “And allowing them to stay, too.”
Trick shrugged. “They’re harmless.” And he was right. For all Kendra’s wild imaginings, Duncan and Annag had never done anything to hurt either of them. “Besides, they’re my siblings. I won’t pretend to like them, but if it makes Da happy to give them a home, then I’m happy, too.”
Tears welled in Hamish’s eyes as he took Trick by both hands. “We don’t deserve you, lad.”
He shook his head. “It’s I that don’t deserve you—a father and a brother that would do any man proud. Family, after all these years.” Blinking back his own tears, he wrapped the older man into his arms and held him a long moment. “We’d best be going.”
“Aye, I suppose you must.” Hamish forced a smile and watched them climb into the carriage.
Trick closed his eyes until they rode away, then opened them and pulled Kendra across the cabin for a soft kiss. “When we get to London, I’m going to ask my solicitor to deed Duncraven over to Hamish, with Niall as his heir.”
If she’d had any remaining doubts that her husband was a good man, they vanished then. “That’s wonderful, Trick.”
“Not wonderful, only decent.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Besides, the last thing I need is an estate in Scotland. My father—the duke,” he corrected himself, “left me more than I can deal with as it is.”
Maybe he could fool himself into thinking his actions were less than generous, but Kendra knew better.
Sixty-Three
IT FELT STRANGEto Kendra to be back in London but at Trick’s town house instead of the one she’d always known in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. And Caldwell House, a dark monstrosity built before the Civil War, was every bit as disgustingly opulent as he’d said. Standing in the master bedchamber, where she was dressing before attending court, she was reminded of an overdecorated cake.
A blue and orange one.
“Ghastly,” she said, kicking off her shoes.
“I told you that you would hate it.” Trick shrugged out of the surcoat he’d worn for travel. “Feel free to redecorate.”
“I imagine I have better things to do that will keep me busy a while.” Peeling off her garters and stockings, she frowned at the lavender gown that Jane had selected. Too insipid for her mood. They’d sent a messenger ahead to request Kendra’s London clothing be moved from the Chases’ town house, and she hurriedly flipped through the gowns that had been crammed into the master bedroom’s wardrobe. “I wonder how all the children are getting along?”
“Fine, I’m sure,” her husband said absently while pulling a fresh shirt over his head.
Cavanaugh had laid a blue velvet suit on the bed. Men had it so easy, Kendra thought with a bit of weariness-induced irritation. Brown or green, velvet or satin. Aside from varying quantities of braid, lace, and ribbon, everything looked the same. Their shirts and cravats were always white, their shoes—with the exception of some foppish court dandies—invariably black. High-heeled with fancy buckles for court, low-heeled and plain for every day. There was nothing much for them to decide.
