The look she gave him physically hurt his heart. Sad, angry, hopeful, and resolved all at the same time, it made him wonder ifherheart had room left for him in it. She’d been through hell over the past fourteen months, and he’d arrived to make things worse, to put more of a burden on her.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said quietly, and he pretended not to be holding his breath as she leaned against his shoulder. “In your scenario, they killed Ian because he was on the verge of exposing the way they’d begun taking money and making agreements without his or my father’s knowledge.”
“Aye,” he agreed, knowing she hadn’t yet reached the point.
“And they deliberately killed him first, because if they’d killed my father first the business would have gone immediately to me and thereby to my husband. This way, Ian died, keeping my inheritance out of MacCreath hands. And then the other partner who’d begun to suspect wrongdoing could be killed, giving me said inheritance. In their thinking I become available, and I own what they want. They killed my husband and my father in order to get… me.”
“In order to get their hands on yer father’s share of Sanderson’s,” he amended, displeased by the bleak tone in her voice. She did understand it all. That was good for him, he supposed, but it couldn’t possibly be comfortingto her. “I dunnae reckon they gave a damn about ye otherwise.”
“They will,” she stated, straightening again. “Whatever you have planned, Callum, I’m with you.”
He nodded. A few days ago the idea of having her as a willing participant, ready to use herself as bait to snare the monsters, would have seemed a boon. Now, though, he didn’t want to see her put in danger, despite the fact that she had as much reason to want vengeance as he did. Perhaps more. But when she declared that she was with him, it wasn’t revenge that came to mind. It was long, sweaty nights, and days filled with laughter. And suddenly he didn’t as much want to gettovengeance as he wanted to getthroughit.
Chapter Twelve
Rebecca smoothed her skirt. Standing just outside the ballroom doors, her arm over Callum’s, she tried to convince herself that it wasn’t fear tickling at her spine, but anticipation. Whatever happened inside that noisy, warm room, he would protect her. She knew that as well as she knew her own name.
But she would have to chat with Donnach Maxwell, and very likely the Duke of Dunncraigh. She’d known them for better than ten years, and had considered herself friends with the Marquis of Stapp. For heaven’s sake, she’d come a hairsbreadth from agreeing to marry him.
Another chill crept up her spine. What if she’d done it? What if Callum had decided to wash his hands of the lot of them and stay in Kentucky? When she signed the marriage registry, giving Stapp her property, she might well have been signing away her own life. And Margaret’s.
“Dig yer fingers in if ye need to, Rebecca,” Callum murmured from beside her. “I’ll nae let ye out of my sight. Ye have my word.”
She lifted her shoulders. Dunncraigh and Stapp would be the same men she’d known for the past years, but she was no longer the same woman. Sheknew.Yes,the only proof they owned at the moment was a short letter from a dead man and Callum’s declarations, but those were enough. Everything Callum had said, all his suspicions back before he’d left Scotland and now that he’d returned, carried a strong logic. Yes, she’d tried to attribute his anger and his warnings to jealousy and pride, but she saw the truth now.
All the kind, considerate offers to help her keep Sanderson’s profitable and growing, arranging for the “improvements” they’d known her father had been pursuing, the amended documents saying that majority approval and not unanimous approval was all that was necessary to make changes in the business. They’d been taking over little by little, and she’d been grateful for it.Grateful.Well, she wasn’t grateful any longer.
“Are ye growling now?” Callum whispered. “That might scare ’em a bit.”
That made her smile despite her nerves. “I’m not growling. I’m just… I’m tired of their smugness and false friendship,” she whispered back. “And I’m angry about what they’ve taken from me while they smiled and offered sympathy.”
“I ken. Dunnae seem too disdainful, though. They thought they had ye all wrapped up with a wee bow. Now they’ll have to run with the rest of the hounds if they want to win ye. We need them to make a mistake. Someaught we can use against them.”
“I know. I won’t forget.”
“And ye look like a goddess,” he continued. “As soon as we’re done here I aim to take ye out of that gown and have my way with ye.”
This time a completely different kind of shiver went through her. After better than a year without a man in her bed she craved him, but she couldn’t blame it purely on loneliness. Donnach had several times offered to—howhad he phrased it?—keep her company through the long evenings. No, this was about Callum, and how she felt in his arms. How she wanted to feel that again.
For heaven’s sake, she was eight-and-twenty, nine years married, and with a young daughter. She knew better than to be smitten. She certainly knew better than to be smitten with Callum MacCreath. Perhaps it was just that she trusted him. She always had, really. The answer didn’t quite suffice, but it would do for now.
The couple in front of them vanished into the ballroom, and a moment later the butler took her invitation. “Lady Geiry and…” The servant looked from the handwritten amendment she’d made to the card to the tall, broad-shouldered man standing beside her. “And Lord Geiry,” he continued.
Holding her breath, she let Callum guide them into the noisy, bright, far-too-warm room. Three blazing chandeliers hung across the high ceiling, while more dozens of candles stood along walls and tables and the two mantelpieces. Most of the heat came from the blazing fires in the pair of fireplaces and of course the two hundred guests wandering through the ballroom and the adjoining drawing room and informal sitting room.
Rebecca had no idea why the room’s lighting had so much significance, but the flames gave her something on which to focus while she mentally readied herself for all the sideways glances and behind-the-hand whispers.
Over the past month or so she’d been to a few luncheons, a recital, and that one evening at the theater. Many of these people she knew fairly well, but hadn’t seen since she’d left Society to go into mourning. And now she’d reappeared—on the arm of the brother of the man she’d buried.
In London that would have been horribly scandalous,and might even have seen her given the cut direct. Here, of course, the rules were different. She squared her shoulders.
As far asanyof them knew, Callum was here as the Earl of Geiry first, her brother-in-law second, and nothing at all third. But she had to at least imply that there was a third thing, however much it might dent her reputation with the handful of London residents present. Donnach needed to have a reason to feel pressured to act, and she meant to give him one.
While Callum hadn’t disagreed with the fact that she’d been cut out of the Sanderson family and the MacCreath families with the skill of a woodcarver, laid out vulnerable for a Maxwell feast, neither had he pointed out what would likely have happened if he hadn’t returned. But it was those thoughts that had her waking up startled, and very glad not to find herself alone in the bedchamber she and Ian had once shared. The moment she married Donnach she would have become a liability. They couldn’t have her becoming suspicious about Ian’s and her father’s deaths once she saw the full scope of what they’d done with the company.
And then there was the secondary, more awful bucket of possibilities. If she had decided to refuse Donnach, they would have to do her in before she could marry anyone else—thereby handing her shares of Sanderson’s over to her husband and his family. With her gone, her part of the company would go to Margaret. A spirited, naïve poppet surrounded by hungry, murdering hyenas.
“Smile, lass,” Callum said, leaning closer to her. “We’re three steps ahead of the Maxwell now. We need to keep it that way.”
