The footman returned and offered her a glass on his tray. “For you, my lady,” he said, waiting for her to take it.
A glance at Iain told her he’d arranged for it. Taking the glass, she looked at the deep amber color before sipping it. The brandy from their dinner at the hotel. It matched the color scheme in the furnishings and decorations around them. If it seemed obvious that he knew what she liked to drink, he covered it well by sending the footman over with glasses for Nairn and Caro.
“A brandy I found if you do not mind having it before our meal,” he explained. “Nairn has tried it.” They walked over towards Clare and joined them in the seating area that broke the huge area into manageable smaller arrangements.
Clare took another sip of the excellent brandy and wondered what was happening here. She should be angry to have been duped into coming here. She should be furious to see him at all, let alone now that he had been honored, again, by the king. And yet, the break between them had been a clean one, made gentler when the huge payment was deposited in her bank for his purchase of the properties. Rather than paying her the amount first offered, as she expected, he’d paid her the last one—the one that was most advantageous to her. When he’d done that rather than refuse the deed, at first Clare railed at his probable involvement after all. He’d warned her time and time again he would do what was necessary to get what he wanted.
Tempted at one moment of weakness or another in the last weeks to return it, she instead began plans for building a new location. Inconvenient? Aye, but the additional monies he’d paid would fund the difference in costs.
She wanted to believe it was to soothe his conscience, but when it came to business, she did not think he had one. It was her conscience that was the problem here—for she’d known since the day after she’d sent the deed to him that a gentleman’s agreement between him and Jonathan had existed after all.
The slip of paper on which a few scribbled lines confirmed his claim had fallen out of a larger portfolio. She’d been examining a collection of notes and documents from the time his first offer arrived through the latest one and the paper was easier to lose than to find. Written in Jonathan’s hand, it outlined the basic agreement between the two of them. The date was from before his death, during the time of dissention in their marriage when she’d faced doubts and regrets about her choice to turn away from her family and marry him. She knew he’d been excluding her from many discussions and had truly never realized this was exactly as Iain had insisted—a gentleman’s agreement and more.
Duncan offered his resignation when she showed it to him. He had filed the paper away when Jonathan had died, remembering now the initial discussions of it with Jonathan. In the face of ensuing events, and in the face of her absolute refusal to consider selling to Iain, he had put it in the files and never mentioned it to her.
That little piece of paper forced her to accept that the perfect marriage in her memories, even the relationship she had with Jonathan about business matters, was not the one they had in truth. Knowing that truth had not been an easy matter to deal with. But it had freed her from some of the regrets and doubts of the past.
It had not, however, helped her sort out the complicated mess of feelings involving the man seated next to her. Iain had shown her such joys and adventures and teased her with possibilities and then schemed to get what he wanted. Endangered children for it.
I was one of them, Clare. Bloody hell, I grew up on the streets. I fought my way out and would never use my strength against bairns.
She could see him as he’d spoken those words to her—not the relaxed, recently-ennobled man but the one whose gaze flashed as he denied his involvement. She’d been so intent on stopping his plan that she had not even realized he’d said this.
Desperate. Disgusted by her accusation. Giving up trying to explain when she’d insisted. She’d not wanted to believe that the man who had introduced her to pleasure and had shown a lighter, gentler part of himself could be the villain she thought him to be. However, the message he’d sent through his man Cairns and the gradual return of her students to her school and even more attending did not lie—he’d fixed it once she’d made her offer.
I grew up on the streets. I fought my way out and would never use my strength against bairns.
“Lady Clare?”
Her name drew her thoughts back from their flight of memories and she realized, from the silence in the chamber, he must have said it more than once. Caro’s mouth tightened as she tried to give Clare some message, but Clare had been too deep in thought to know what it was. She lifted the forgotten glass to her mouth and sipped it.
“Is it not a very good brandy, Caro?”
“Mmmmmm,” was her sister’s only response.
“I imagine Lady Clare is still recovering from the shock at being lured here without knowing it is my house.”
“I am more surprised by the title, Buchan—” Nairn stopped and nodded. “Ardgour.” He lifted the brandy in salute. “Congratulations on the title.” After they’d all raised their glasses, he asked his true question. “So, tell us how this happened. I know it’s unseemly to ask, but I fear I am curious.”
“A real dilemma for you, eh?” Iain laughed. “Considering the extent of our involvement in recent months, I do not mind overmuch. But,” he said, then paused.
“My lord, dinner is served.”
“Thank you, Puggles.”
Clare looked at the butler to see if Iain was teasing him in some way, but the man’s blank face suggested otherwise. He turned in the doorway and waited for them to proceed. When Iain stood, she expected he would offer his arm to Caro’s as the ranking woman. Instead he leaned forward and offered it to her.
“I am taking a page from Nairn’s book and setting my own rules in my own house.”
She could not refuse him, no matter the questions that bubbled up from within about what had happened. It was an intimate dinner, clearly meant as a first approach, for his own reasons, and the only one who would be embarrassed would be her.
“Puggles is the happiest one in the household over the new title. His pompous behavior will not be reined in now,” he whispered once they’d passed by him on their way into the dining room.
She laughed at it and yet she knew that servants could be more concerned with the prestige and standing of their household than the lord or lady who held the title. And though butlers could be pretentious, she knew that Archer—and any self-respecting lady’s maid—would be far worse.
True to his word, Clare was seated at his side which worried her a bit. She was still not sure of his aim, other than to impress her. Or impress Nairn, who continued his easy manner with Iain. Now, she supposed, he was an equal of a sort. Equal in status with her father. That made her want to laugh. Certainly more than a tolerable knight, he was a peer and a sinfully wealthy one at that. How others in the peerage would take to an earl who was unashamed of his wealth and his relentless pursuit of it and deeply and personally involved in trade, she could not predict.
“I did not see your man at the planning council meeting in Leith, Lady Clare.” He waited as the footman ladled some of the soup into his bowl.
