These were assaults with malicious intent.
Bloody hell. He was willing to take the risk for himself, willing to be on his guard and await an opportunity to catch the culprit red-handed, but he would not risk Hero, Beaumont, or the rest of his household to the very real threat lurking within his own walls.
Someone was trying to hurt him or even kill him. But who?
More importantly, why?
As far as he could tell, only Daphne had anything to gain. However, despite his rejection of her proposal and what must be his obvious attraction to Hero, she didn’t seem to have given up on her plan to marry him. Over the past two days, Daphne had flirted outrageously, trying to win him over. She was obvious in her ambitions, so why hurt him now?
Ridding herself of the more obvious impediment she had in Hero made more sense than attacking him.
Then again, his death would give her everything she ever wanted.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Iheard his grace took a fall from his horse today, Lady Ayr,” Camron Kennedy said that night after dinner as he and Hero played chess in the library while Daphne read aloud from Charlotte Bronte’sVillette. “Is he quite all right?”
“Yes. His pride was hurt far more than his body,” Hero told him absently as she made her move. The evening had been a long one thus far, with only Robert’s niece and nephew for company. Her father stayed abed with Simms ordered not to leave his side, so Hero was deprived of his good-natured buffer.
As for Ian, she didn’t know where he was at all.
“I must say I’m surprised our host wasn’t present for dinner,” Kennedy added, in echo of her thoughts.
Ian had left before tea without a word to anyone regarding his destination or his return. Not even to Dickson. Given his anger earlier, she could only hope he was simply blowing off steam. Mandy had been full of gossip of his tirade to the stable master and grooms. Those who’d been interrogated by the marquess were surprisingly tight-lipped regarding what was said, but the general consensus among the remainder of the staff was that Lord Ayr threatened all their livelihoods if the tack was not kept in better order. One of the laundry maids said she could hear him yelling through the walls.
Granted, Hero wasn’t as familiar with his temperament as she should be, but she couldn’t picture Ian in such a rage. Naturally, when the safety of the household was threatened by negligence, alarm often resulted in a more emotional reaction. Certainly that’s all it was.
“I’m sure that after the veritable deluge we’ve had these past several days, Lord Ayr is merely seeing to the welfare of the estate,” Hero offered as explanation. “I understand a portion of the northern fields were flooded.”
“The work is never done on a property this large,” Kennedy said after a few minutes. “I can’t imagine why Daph wants it so badly. Work, work, work all the time. She’d hate it in the end, I think.”
She pursed her lips but couldn’t keep from asking in a low tone, “Then why does she want it so? Does she truly love it so much that she would marry a man she doesn’t care for just to have it?”
He raised a mocking brow. “You think Daphne wouldn’t enjoy her duties as Ayr’s wife? I doubt she’d mind that part of it at all.”
Swallowing back the bile that rose in her throat at his mocking words, Hero pushed her queen into a bad position, anxious for the evening’s end. Of course, Daphne wouldn’t mind that aspect of marriage, especially with a man like Ian. Any woman would be fortunate to espouse such a handsome, virile man. But Daphne would never truly appreciate him—if she ever got to know him at all. She wouldn’t take his kindness as an asset. More likely she’d see it as a weakness.
Mandy had relayed enough household gossip for Hero to know Daphne had been a strict mistress during her short tenure at Dùn Cuilean. She ruled on the principle of punishment being a stronger motivator for quality of work than reward. If she were to rule by Ian’s side, they would lock horns within days.
Luckily for the castle staff, such a union wasn’t in the cards. Ian would be Hero’s husband soon. Not a marriage of expediency but a love match. Catching her lip between her teeth, she bit back a rush of emotion. How had she gotten so fortunate? It had never occurred to her when Robert died that she might ever find real love. Certainly not so quickly. Certainly not a love so consuming.
Daphne’s voice rose then above Hero’s thoughts and she listened as Daphne read with unexpected passion, “‘No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mold, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.’”
Camron groaned. “Bloody hell, Daph, must you read such balderdash? You are making my head ache.”
“It is not balderdash, Cam,” his sister rebuked, clutching the book to her chest.
Hero agreed with her niece for once. She rather likedVilletteand found the tale’s theme to be far more reaching than some critics thought. The story implied that a person, rather than Fate, was responsible for providing meaning to his or her life. That the power of one's own will could change that Fate into whatever suited one best. It was a formidable concept that had influenced Hero’s decision to return to Scotland.
She’d come to appreciate Plato’s philosophies on Fate and destiny, too, of late.
“I like Lucy,” Daphne continued with heated passion. “The way she struggles to be free and to take what she wants from life. She even questions whether a man is necessary for such happiness.”
“It’s thoughts such as those that get you in trouble,” her brother retorted as he rocked back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “You should listen to Father and be happy with what you have, rather than fighting for something beyond your reach.”
Daphne followed his gaze to Hero and then looked back to her brother with a sneer, but it was enough for Hero to know that Daphne recognized his implication and that she was none too pleased with her progress here thus far. “You’re a fine one to talk. You hate the law and yet there you are, following meekly in Father’s footsteps. Lucy shows that wanting something badly enough and pursuing it wholeheartedly can change your life.”
The front legs of Kennedy’s chair thudded back down on the floor. “As you’re changing yours?”
