He lowered the towel again. “After breakfast. How far is it from here to where the phaeton went in?”
“About half a mile. Walking distance, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s just beyond shouting distance, which is what I was asking. Even if he called for help, none of ye here would’ve heard him. And we’ll ride, I reckon. I had Jupiter brought down. And I saw ye still have Peaches.” The chestnut mare would be nearly thirteen, still serviceable for a lady’s mount, and it had felt… comforting when the old girl had nickered at him from her stall. At least someone didn’t have bad memories of him from his last days in Scotland.
“You should take that down,” she said abruptly.
“I beg yer pardon?” He turned around to look where she gazed. “Oh, that. Nae, I like it where it is.”
The portrait had to have been painted shortly after Rebecca and Ian had married, for the young lady seated in the garden still had the angles and hopeful blue eyes of a young lass. And she smiled, as she used to smile at Callum—a look he’d seen but once since he returned. He liked her smile.
“It’s a portrait your brother commissioned of his wife. It’s not appropriate for you to have it in your bedchamber.”
“I dunnae give a damn if it’s appropriate or nae. I once carried a torch for that lass. I like it. It stays.” He faced her. “Now, do ye want to find someaught else to argue about, or do ye wish to go down for breakfast?”
For a long moment her light blue eyes held his gaze. “If you carried a torch, it didn’t burn very brightly,” she finally said. “Not until after you noticed that someone else also carried one.”
He could debate whether Ian had carried a torch or an abacus, because he would have been willing to wager that his brother had written more calculations than poetry over the merits of the match, but he kept his mouth shut about that. It was done and over with, except for the pieces he needed to gather and sweep into something that made sense. “It may nae have burned bright,” he returned, “but it burned so hot and deep it’s nae gone out yet.”
“You came back for revenge. Not for me.”
That stopped him. He’d become more comfortable with lying—or “diplomacy,” as Rory Boyd had termed it—but lying to Rebecca was another animal entirely. “Ye broke my heart, lass. For ten years I looked for reason to hate ye, because I couldnae forget ye. When I read about Ian, I decided ye must have had someaught to do with it, because that fit the tale I’d built around ye.”
“So you hate me.”
“Ye were there for that kiss yesterday, aye?” he asked dryly.
“Youtriedto hate me, then,” she amended, still looking annoyed. “I only spoke the truth that night, you know.”
Callum swallowed back his immediate retort. “Aye. I ken. I was a drunken boy. I also told ye—every one of ye—the absolute truth. Only where I listened toye,ye never listened tome. So aye, I came here for revenge, and I thought to sweep ye up with the rest of the devils who killed Ian. But firstly ye’ve a daughter who looks like him,” he said, clearing his throat as his voice broke. “Secondly, I’m fairly convinced that while ye likely encouraged Ian to tangle himself up with Dunncraigh, ye didnae have anything to do with killing him.”
She gazed at him in silence for a moment. “And the kiss?”
He began to feel like he was leaving his belly exposed to a knife blade, and that she held the weapon. Picking up his gloves, he moved around her for the door. If he knew anything about Rebecca, though, she would hound him until she had an answer to her question. Drawing a breath, he left the bedchamber for the hallway. “Mayhap it wasnae hate I felt,” he muttered, and descended the stairs for the breakfast room and the welcome interruption of Mags and her pack.
***
Rebecca stood back on the road, the reins of both horses in her hands, as Callum made his way down the shallow bank to the edge of Loch Brenan. The broken ruts in the road where the phaeton’s wheels had turned were softer-edged now, almost invisible after a year of weathering, but she knew they’d found the right place.
“It was raining that night, ye said?” he called up,wading into the water as if he didn’t care that he wore expensive Hessian boots, not to mention a fine linen shirt and buckskin trousers. At least he’d taken off his jacket and waistcoat, but that was likely for reasons of buoyancy rather than concern over his garb.
“Yes. It had been, all that day. The weather didn’t clear until the next afternoon.”
“How far out was the phaeton?” he asked, continuing forward until the water rose to his chest.
On the shore, the black wolf paced back and forth, whining and clearly trying to summon the courage to jump in to join her master. “Only the top of the seat showed above the water,” she returned. “Another five or six feet beyond you.”
With a nod he faced forward again and continued into the loch. She had no idea what he might be looking for; Loch Brenan hadn’t caused the accident. It had only been there when the carriage ran off the road. But he was after a conspiracy that didn’t exist anyway, so the idea that this needed to make sense to her had flown away with the geese.
“About here?” he called again.
“Yes. I believe you’re standing right where the left front wheel would have been.”
“And where was Ian?”
She looked away up the road. “Why are you doing this to yourself? To me? Do you think I’m enjoying this?”
“Nae, I dunnae. Where was Ian found?”
