Callum grinned. “It feels like the Highlands, ye mean.” Waya trotted down the stairs, shoved her nose into his knee, then pawed at the closed front door. “Ye smell it too, aye, lass? Wild and rain.” When Pogue hesitated to push the wolf out of the way so he could open the door, Callum did it himself, and Waya slipped outside in front of him.
“Ye might consider taking one of the lads with ye, m’laird,” the butler commented. “Or waiting until this afternoon, to see if the weather clears.”
“I’ll risk it. We’ll be back in an hour or so. Nae visitors and nae a man—or woman—leaves while I’m away.”
“Aye. We’ll keep watch.”
The white mop galloped down the stairs, but skidded to a halt in the doorway. Evidently Reginald didn’t like rain weighing him down. Stepping over the black-eared terrier, he hunched his shoulders against the biting rain and collected Jupiter from the waiting groom.
“Let’s go, Waya,” he said, swinging into the saddle as the wolf set off at a gallop down the drive.
The rain didn’t bother the wolf, and it didn’t trouble him, either. He needed to clear his head. Vengeance had been much easier when he didn’t care about anything else. Before he’d known Margaret existed. Before he’d realized that Rebecca was another victim of Dunncraigh’s, and not an adversary of his.
This morning in looking through Dennis Kimes’s notes he’d found the list of seven properties Dunncraigh had acquired over the past decade. The more significantones he’d purchased over the past eighteen months or so. A small building just off the port at Dover, another in Southampton. Property just south of Dover along the water—for a dock, perhaps? To someone looking for it, it said that Dunncraigh wanted offices in every major port, private docks for Sanderson ships out of sight of the harbormasters… Power without the mess of having anyone regulating it.
Of course Ian and George would never have stood for it. While to him it said—screamed—motive, though, it was all he had. A note from his brother, and some property purchased in the company’s name. He couldn’t prove the purchases had been made without the permission or knowledge or approval of the duke’s other partners. He couldn’t prove much of anything at all.
If he couldn’t go at them directly, though, he needed to do it as Rebecca had suggested—via the courts. The damned Maxwell had covered his tracks well, but the duke had only known he had someone moving against him for the past few weeks. Before that he’d removed Ian, and then he’d removed George. The problem, or so Dunncraigh had thought, was ended. All he needed was to bring Rebecca into his clutches, buy off James Sturgeon, and he would have control of what would, under his ownership, become the second-largest shipping conglomerate in the world. Second only to the East India Company.
He’d taken Ian’s ledger, and more than likely whatever notes George had made. Had he destroyed them, though? Or kept them in case some legal tangle appeared and he needed them? Dunncraigh would have no reason to do away with them, because he’d done away with their owners.Hm.
Of course that had changed now that he’d arrived from Kentucky and made his threats. Callum angledJupiter back toward the harbor as he considered. He needed to pay Maxwell Hall a visit. And he needed to make certain Dunncraigh wouldn’t be there to greet him when he went calling.
A heavy splinter flew off the bakery sign beside his head. He ducked instinctively as the hollow sound of a rifle firing cracked into the street, half muffled by the rain.
Callum whipped around, counting off seconds in his head as he searched rooftops and alleys. Waya had circled back close behind him, no doubt sensing trouble. With the rain pushing scent out of the air she would have trouble finding a single shooter in a large town full of men, and he didn’t want to linger long enough to give the would-be assassin another chance.
As he reached twelve he kicked Jupiter in the ribs, sending the stallion pounding up the street the way they’d come. With Waya on his heels he retreated to the nearest alley, then jumped down from the bay. Tying off the reins on a piece of fence, he squatted down beside the wolf. “Hunt, Waya. Let’s see who shot at me, aye?”
Her head went down, shoulders up, in classic stalking pose. They’d hunted people before, though rarely and never in a town of thousands. As she glided soundlessly around the corner he reckoned the odds were equal that she’d find the shooter or a rat. Setting one foot into Jupiter’s stirrup, he stood on the saddle then jumped up to grip the nearest eave. Pulling himself onto the roof, he crouched, making his way toward the corner where he’d come into the shooter’s view.
The buildings here were close enough together to touch in places, and moving from one roof to the next was more a matter of keeping an eye out for loose shingles than anything else. Once he had a view of the street he settled lower, trying to figure where the shot had originated. Below people walked to and fro, huddled against the rain and utterly oblivious to the fact that a murder had nearly occurred just five minutes earlier.
Spying the bakery sign, he shifted one rooftop over. The shot had to have come from within a foot or two of where he crouched. Turning, he found a spot on the roof just turning dark from rain—as if someone had been lying there, waiting. “Damnation,” he muttered, taking a last look for anything left behind before he dropped to the eave and then down to the street.
“Good heavens,” a thin lass said, backing away as he landed in front of her. “What the devil?”
“Aye, the devil,” he returned darkly, as Waya padded back to join him.
The girl gasped, grabbing for her companion’s arm as Callum and the wolf returned to the alley where he’d left Jupiter. In a sense, this was the best thing he could have expected. He’d annoyed or worried one or the other of the Maxwells to the point that they wanted him dead. They’d tried bribery, twice, some more direct suggestions that he go back to Kentucky, and now they’d moved on to a more permanent solution to their troubles.
He’d wanted them too worried about him to try anything else with Rebecca, but it seemed more likely that the best he could hope for was to make them reckless. Having someone shoot at him in the middle of Inverness in broad daylight definitely fit his definition of reckless—but it also seemed rather… chancy. How had they known he would be riding there today? Aye, he rode most mornings, but he didn’t always take the same path. That bored him.
Or did they have possible assassins lurking throughout the city? As the Maxwell, Dunncraigh certainly wielded enough power with his clan to convince a fewof his men to kill. Even if their intended target was part of clan Maxwell, himself.
The other possibility, of course, was that this had been a distraction, something to keep him away from MacCreath House. That idea shot dread down his spine, and he sent Jupiter into a dead run back across the bridge, Waya sprinting behind them.
He skidded to a halt, jumping down from the bay and striding for the house. “Any callers?” he demanded, as Pogue pulled open the door.
“Nae, m’laird. It’s been quiet. Yer coat?”
The butler reached for it, but Callum ignored him as he pounded up the stairs. “Rebecca? Mags?” he called out, shoving doors open as he went.
“We’re in the nursery,” Rebecca’s voice came from the end of the hallway, and he let out the breath he’d been holding. She emerged as he reached the door, and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into a tight embrace.
“Thank God,” he muttered, lowering his face into her hair.
“What in the world’s happened?” she asked.
