Her eyebrows dove together, her soft-looking lips compressed tightly. “You most certainly cannot think to reside here with me and Maggie.”
“I most certainly can,” he returned.
“Waya should stay with us,” the bairn put in, givingthe black wolf a vigorous scratch between the ears. “Her fur is very rough.”
Rebecca’s fair skin paled further. “I am not—”
“Office?” He pointed toward the room where Ian had once kept his books and correspondence.
“Yes, b—”
“In there,” he cut in. “Pogue, my bags will be arriving shortly. I’ll take the master bedchamber and connecting rooms.” Deliberately he glanced back at Rebecca, very much doubting that she’d moved out of those rooms in the past year.
“I… Of course, Master Call—I mean, Lord Geiry.”
“Hold a moment, Pogue,” Rebecca countered, and with a damp swoosh of her lavender skirts led the way into the office.
“Waya. Guard,” Callum murmured, and the wolf extricated herself from the bairn’s clutches to go sit staring at the front door. He’d been reining in his temper, his words, his desire to lash out so tightly that his muscles practically groaned as he followed her. If she still thought of him as the short-tempered, adventurous boy she’d once known, she’d just made a very large mistake. He looked forward to pointing that out to her.
The office had always been neat, and as he walked inside all the books were still lined up precisely on the shelves, while an open ledger lay parallel to the edge of the desk, a pencil perpendicular to that atop the pages. It almost seemed as if Ian was still there, and had only left the room a moment ago. He shook off the sensation. Rebecca seated herself behind the desk as he closed the door, shutting them in. So she wanted the position of power; she could take it, as far as he was concerned. He hadthepower.
“You cannot stay here,” she said abruptly, slamming the ledger closed. “It’s not proper.”
Callum leaned back against the door. “That’s how ye greet a dear friend ye havenae seen in ten years?” He gazed at her until she glanced away. “Ye look proper, still dressed in half-mourning colors even, but I’m beginning to have my doubts about yer sincerity.”
“You may have been my dearest friend a decade ago. You are not any longer. And don’t you dare blame me for that.” She smacked the flat of her hand against the desk, likely wishing it was his face. “I have no greeting for you. Leave, Callum. No one wants you here.”
“I want me here, and I reckon that’s what matters. I’m the Earl Geiry now, lass, whatever ye thought might happen.”
“Whatever I thought might happen?” she echoed. “I thought it would be your cousin James and his family taking the house, but I would hope they would have given more than two minutes’ notice before they threw my things out of the bedchamber where I’ve been laying my head for the past ten years.”
He folded his arms across his chest, lowering his head to gaze at her directly. “I’d suggest ye nae go complaining to me about being thrown out of aroomwithout notice. I left the fucking country with what I bore on my back and naught else.”
“Language, sir!”
Aye, he’d have to mind his language, and his temper. Kentucky had been a bit more rugged than Inverness. Aside from that, he had a task to accomplish, and he’d do well to remember that bellowing and punching might not be the best way to accomplish it. Not at the beginning, anyway. Not until he knew the name of every man—and woman—who’d had a hand in killing Ian.“Do ye have any more children?” he asked brusquely. Margaret had changed things, in ways he couldn’t even begin yet to foresee. The angel of death he’d meant to become had someone to protect, now.
“No, we—I—don’t have any more children. Ian sent you letters. Did you not receive them? He spent a great deal of money to track you down.”
“I dunnae ken why he would, being that he issued an order and I followed it. But aye, I received his letters. I didnae read them. I used ’em for kindling.” The first letter had been a shock when it had arrived, a little better than five years ago. As far was Callum was concerned, he’d moved himself as far across the world as he possibly could from the Highlands, and once there, as deep into the woods and hills as the terrain and the natives would allow. And then Ian had somehow found him. Now he wondered if his brother had written to announce the birth of his daughter. It didn’t matter, of course; until five minutes ago he hadn’t wanted anything to do with bairns from his brother’s happy marriage. Until he’d set eyes on the delicate, defenseless sprite.
“You never read any of them?Anyof them?”
She looked at him, her gaze traveling from his worn boots and breeches up to his jacket with one button missing, before she met his gaze again. He knew the appearance he presented, and he didn’t much care what she might think of him. This wasn’t about him, and it was only about her if she’d had something to do with Ian’s death.
Callum narrowed his eyes. “I dunnae reckon what I did out in Kentucky has any bearing on anything. Though I did miss seeing any lettersyemight have written me. I had a yen to burn some of those, as well, but they nae did arrive.”
“I never wrote you.”
If he hadn’t hated her for ten years, that might have wounded him. As it was, he shrugged. “Just as well. I’ve more interest in what ye might be up to today, anyway. A wee bird told me, for example, that ye’ve had Donnach Maxwell calling on ye. The Duke of Dunncraigh’s firstborn, no less.”
“Who is this wee bird?” she demanded, clearly exasperated. Good; that made two of them. “You said you only returned to Inverness this morning.”
“Aye, I did. Dunnae dodge the question, Lady Geiry. Do ye mean to wed the Marquis of Stapp? Has he been whispering to ye about how easy it’ll make managing yer fleet if he marries ye, since ye’ve had all yer businesses entwined for ten years now?”
She lifted her chin, which would have been haughty if she didn’t still have hair and water running down one side of her head. “I am a widow. I believe whom I choose to see is my own business, and none of yours.”
He nodded. “So it is. Unless he’s been having that conversation with ye for longer than a year.”
