“I sent for you an hour ago,” she returned, keeping her voice low.
“It’s only six o’clock, Lady Geiry. I was dead asleep,I’m afraid, and the office had to send someone to my apartment to wake m—”
“Did you know Callum MacCreath was on his way back to Scotland?” she interrupted.
He blinked. “No. I most assuredly did not. The first I knew of it was yesterday when he summoned me to that accounting office of his. Bloody Highlanders.” He flushed. “I beg your pardon, my lady.”
“I told you not to send any more letters seeking him,” she returned, ignoring his atypical profanity. Callum MacCreath could make a saint curse. “You’ve ruined everything.”
“The law is the law, my lady, as I explained before. The title requires an heir. And he is the heir.” He frowned, his thin brows furrowing. “If it wasn’t him, it would have been James Sturgeon. Or someone else, if not him. Things must be settled by the book. You are aware of that.”
“Of course I am. I just… I just didn’t want it to behim.” For years she’d tried to forget that last night, until she’d finally realized she would be much better off remembering how angry and hurt and insulted she’d been, rather than how fond she’d been of the stupid man—boy—for the ten years previous to that.
When she’d first caught sight of him yesterday, she’d barely recognized him. Taller and broader across the shoulders, he looked like he’d spent the last ten years doing hard labor. The worn clothes certainly supported that, despite what he’d said about not needing Ian’s money. He looked even more handsome, the hard masculinity of him firmly defined. But that dark, cynical glint in his two-colored eyes—that was new. As was the way he’d trod over her plans as if they, and she, didn’t even exist.
“May I ask, my lady,” Mr. Harvey said, making her jump, “what it is you require of me? It is quite early.”
She clenched her hands together. “Yes. How do I get rid of him?”
“‘Get rid of’? In what way, my lady? Because if we’re discussing something… nefarious, I cannot—will not—be a part of—”
“Stuff and nonsense,” she snapped. “He walked in here and claimed my daughter as his ward, and refuses to allow her to leave his care. Surely I have a higher claim on my own offspring.”
“Ah. No, I’m afraid you do not. Lady Margaret is Lord Geiry’s niece, and in the absence of her father—his brother—he is her guardian.”
That panic she’d felt yesterday when he’d announced that she could go wherever she pleased, but Margaret would stay, hit her all over again. Maggie, Lady Mags as the Highlanders called her, was all she had. Her only claim on what her life had been like prior to last year, the only bit of home and hearth and warmth she had remaining to her. The only part of Ian she could see, other than the portrait hanging in the library.
“But there must be something I can do,” she protested. Being in the same house with Callum, even for one night, had upended ten years of calm and peace, ten years of her being the lady she knew she could be beneath the scraped knees and stupid mad adventures. For heaven’s sake, she’d tried to hit him, when nothing in ten years had ever stirred her to such violence. Even Ian’s death, while it had brought her to tears and grief, hadn’t filled her with such… fury.
“I’m not certain how to advise you, my lady. Or whether it’s proper for me to do so.”
She faced the solicitor. “Why not? Or does he have your loyalty?”
“He let my entire firm go from his employment yesterday, Lady Geiry, so I owe him nothing.” He paused, tugging at his jacket again. “In fact, while I still work with some of Dunncraigh’s properties, I have no dealings with anyone connected to this household, unless you’d care to secure my services. You do still have several holdings, thanks to your father’s will, I believe, and they remain yours until marriage. Some of them, even after th—”
“Yes, I’d like to secure your services,” she interrupted. Men and their deals. She’d tired of them ages ago. “Draft whatever papers you need me to sign. Your first priority is to extricate my daughter and me from the clutches of that man.”
He bowed. “I shall return shortly, then. Good morning, my lady.”
“Yes, yes.” She waved a hand at him. “Without delay.”
Once he’d gone she sank onto the couch and gazed out the window, laying her head along her outstretched arm. All night she’d tossed and turned, dreaming of being attacked by wolves and of Ian swimming about Loch Brenan, except that his face was blue and mottled as it had been when they’d found him, but another man had been standing on the far side of his grave, looking at her with two-colored eyes.
A soft tap sounded by the door, and she looked up. The black wolf gazed at her, large yellow eyes unblinking. She gasped, straightening. After a moment the animal swung its head toward the stairs, and then turned toward the front door as Callum reached the foyer. He paused in the morning room doorway to eye her much as the wolf had.
“Pogue,” he said, still looking at her, “I’ll be out for an hour or so. If Lady Margaret isnae here when I return,ye can expect the lot of the household staff to be handed their papers.”
“She’ll be here, m’laird,” the butler returned from somewhere beyond her view. “Ye have my word.”
“And where are you going?” Rebecca asked, annoyed that he’d stifled a plan she hadn’t even had time to consider. Blast it all, they should have fled last night—though the wolf no doubt prowling the halls would have made that nearly impossible.
“Pogue says there’s a horse in the stable hasn’t been ridden for over a year,” he returned, pulling on his gloves. “Thought I’d put him through his paces.”
“No one rides Jupiter,” she retorted, before she could stop herself. For heaven’s sake, if he wanted to go riding and then broke his neck, that would be his own fault. It would certainly remove several of her worries.
He grinned, the expression making her breath catch just a little and doing something she didn’t like to her chest. “I’ll risk it. I dunnae reckon ye’ll weep tears for me if I’m killed.”
“Not a single one.”
