“Cairns said you have been there for hours. I could have told you—”
“Are you still having him followed?”
“Aye, my lady.” From his direct stare, she knew the rest of it without him stating it—he had her followed as well.
She gathered up her reticule and the satchel and waited for her doorman to open it.
“I will finish this myself, Mr. Chalmers.”
And she left him without another word.
Wisely, he did not follow her into the house.
“Good afternoon, Clare. Are you in for dinner tonight or do you have plans?” Samantha stood inside the foyer as Clare entered. “I had thought to invite Peter, but if you’d prefer not, I will keep you company.”
“I fear I will not be good company this night, Sam,” she admitted. “But I am in for the night.”
“Should I leave you then?”
“Nay,” she said, taking Sam’s hand. “Invite your scandalous young man for dinner with us.”
In the end, it turned out to be a lovely, quiet dinner among friends and Clare was glad for that. It did seem that all the anxiety and worrying had dissipated once Clare made her decision and plan. Actually, handing over the deed to him would be the easy part now that she’d faced knowing she must.
And, it had been no point of contention for her since she knew that the safety of those she was trying most to help was at the heart of it.
As she lay in bed waiting to sleep, she repeatedly told herself all would be well. That she was better off this way—breaking off ties completely and walking away from this destructive force in her life.
So, if she was completely convinced of the rightness of her plan, why then did her heart plague her with thoughts about what could be between them? Why did images of them on his ship, watching as they sailed south, repeat over and over in her thoughts?
Why did his whispered words of praise and affection remain in her memories? The way he spoke to her as if she mattered? As if they were partners and not competitors and opponents?
As she finally, finally, drifted off to sleep, one thing became very clear to her—in spite of it all and if everything could be changed or fixed or proven untrue, he could be the perfect man for her. Between their companies and the breadth and width of their investments, from the way they enjoyed each other and challenged the other, it could be good between them.
The sad truth of the matter was that nothing could ever work between them and on the morrow it would end.
He would win and she would walk away, and stability would return to her life and safety to those she cared for.
Her life would go on, without him.
Chapter Eighteen
Three weeks ofbloody hell.
Iain paced along the pavement in front of his office, but it did not give him the ease it usually did.
Clare had left that morning not to be heard from until yesterday’s unexpected arrival here, while he was out there. Iain stared across at the harbor’s opening to the firth and the sea. She’d left when Cairns explained his whereabouts, but his employees remained in an uproar for hours after his return near dawn this morning.
No one knew what had brought her there or why she would not consent to setting up an appointment. Everyone remarked on her pleasant manners and how she sat politely and waited. So few ladies of quality visited that she made quite the impression doing so on her own, without the contingent of men she’d brought along the first time she’d deigned to step through his door.
Cairns spoke of nothing different or new in his reports on her—she’d attended very few public events and had done most of her work from the office she maintained in her house. Though Mrs. Hunter visited the school and orphanage on an almost daily basis, it seemed Lady Clare avoided it.
At Iain’s direction, no other offers had been made on the embattled properties. He’d spoken the truth when he’d revealed that it had been her late husband’s idea to sell them to him. Hell, Jonathan Logan had been the one to approach Iain about the possibility. It had been just after a council planning meeting about expansion coming to the harbor and town and Logan expressed the interest. Their men had made a few exploratory bids and such, for Iain very much wanted that land, and he had shaken hands with Logan just three weeks after he’d first expressed interest. And the man was dead before Iain could sign a contract for it.
Three weeks later.
Glancing up at the sound of the wheels of a coach rattling over the cobblestones, he saw it was not Clare’s. Instead it was a large cart and not a coach at all. The driver tilted his head as he passed, for most knew him here on the docks. He was not like the posh owners who ruled from their luxurious country houses or estates—he lived up in Edinburgh and worked here every day when he was not traveling.
Three weeks.
