“No one touches the Duke of Dunross. Not on my watch,” the figure snarled and bared his yellowed teeth. “I’m a better shot than any of you, including His Grace, and he was in the Light Company. Mark you, I can shoot blind, and my bullet will find your heart. And anyone who moves but a hair on his head will get a bullet in his brain.”
Higgins.
At his feet, McKenna lay dead.
Chapter 20
“Are you hurt?” Gabriel checked Birdie’s head, her shoulders, her arms.
“I am fine.” She scrambled up to her feet. “I only bumped my head.”
Higgins stood in front of them, pointing the pistol at the crowd of men. “Stay back. Don’t get too close to Their Graces, unless you want to be the next one with a bullet in your heart.” The men backed off, lifting their hands in surrender.
“They mean no harm,” the reverend said. He had recovered consciousness and had scrambled up. “Please. No more shooting.” He moved forward slowly, hands raised, to Logan’s crumpled form. He checked Logan’s body and confirmed that he was dead, indeed.
Bruis pulled off his hat. “It never should’ve come to this. We figured a wee bit ‘o smugglin’ hurts no soul. Needed to feed our families. Wasnae goin’ to get rich off it. McKenna here always took things mightily seriously. Was always a bit too passionate, too violent, an’ all that. An’ now he paid wi his life.” He shook his head sorrowfully.
Higgins shuffled over to Gabriel and handed him the pistol. “This is yours, Your Grace. She gave it to me for safeguarding.”
Birdie looked at him apologetically. “I couldn’t just leave it in your room like that. Maybe I over-reacted. But after what happened to my father… I thought it better for Higgins to keep.”
Gabriel looked at her, shocked, as the implications of her words dawned on him. “Did you think I’d shoot myself? Did I give the impression that I was that far gone?”
She wrung the corner of her shawl in her hands. “Honestly? Yes.”
Gabriel shook his head, dazed. “I never would have … I never thought—” he groped for words.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted you more,” Birdie whispered.
Bruis cleared his throat loudly. “So … what happens now?”
The men shuffled their feet as they stood around them.
All eyes turned to Gabriel.
He felt the weight of leadership fall on his shoulders. It was a familiar feeling.
He felt the cold metal of the pistol in his hands and closed his eyes for one moment.
Then he nodded as he resigned himself to his fate.
“Bring the stuff up,” he ordered.
McKenna’s bodywas laid to rest in the chapel, and a dry-eyed Eilidh kept watch over it. Birdie had told her she’d always have a job here at the castle, and that she and her children would be taken care of. She made a mental note to talk to Higgins about her.
Eilidh had nodded. “You are a good woman, Your Grace,” she’d replied.
The men had brought the cargo up to the library.
It really was quite absurd, Birdie reflected, as she saw the men sitting around the massive oaken table in the corridor, talking earnestly with Gabriel.
When had the smuggling adventure turned into a tea party?
Mrs Gowan had arrived with a basket full of freshly baked raisin buns and made tea for everyone. The men had pulled out their flasks of whisky and tipped it into their teacup, slurping loudly as they discussed the events of the day.
Gabriel sat, arms crossed, at the head of the table, and listened silently as they told him about their past and present woes. The past duke had not only neglected his estate and tenants but also confiscated their fields and evicted them from their farms. His intent had been to turn the farmland to pastures for sheep, because sheep’s wool brought in more profit than agriculture. But he’d never bought the sheep. In the absence of any true leadership after the old duke’s death, the villagers had turned to smuggling to maintain their livelihood. Yet Gabriel had been oblivious to all this. Deeply immersed in his own problems, he’d not bothered to learn about the people’s welfare. By the time he’d arrived at the castle, they’d been smuggling for several years already, under Logan’s leadership. They’d been importing brandy, rum, and tea, and exported illegally produced whisky.
The “ghost”, the white sheet that Birdie had discovered on the barbican, had been their way of communicating. They hadn’t counted on the duke bringing in a new duchess, especially not one who stuck her nose into every nook and cranny, even at night.
