“Damnation,” he murmured, standing to go through the bookcase on the opposite wall. Shakespeare, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and a first edition ofRobinson Crusoeby Defoe made him wonder whether Dunncraigh read or simply wanted to give that impression. The rest of the tomes were almanacs, treatises on the different breeds of sheep, grain supplies during the Peninsular War, and a few others where even the title made him sleepy. He shook them out just to be certain, but found nothing.
Where, then, would a duke keep information he didn’t want anyone else to have? He wouldn’t have given a ledger or journal to Stapp, because he would have wantedto control them. The items could be back at Dunncraigh, he supposed, the duke’s fifteen-thousand-acre estate just north and west of Fort William, but they’d been taken from Inverness. It didn’t make sense that he would transport them.
Aye, he might have burned them, but as he took over the business shares of two men who’d been involved for longer than he had, Dunncraigh might have found a use for accounts and private thoughts, completely aside from anything incriminating.
Where would they be, though? The office would be the most protected spot, but also the most obvious. The master bedchamber? Servants would have the run of most of it. Still, though, he wouldn’t get another chance to look.
Hefting the satchel, he shifted the horse statue and slipped back out into the hallway, reaching back in to lean the equine against the door so it would fall over and leave it shut. He wanted Dunncraigh to know someone had been inside, but he didn’t relish being found out by some footman while he was still upstairs.
Someone coughed close by, and he ducked into the shadows beneath the main staircase as the butler passed through, collected a tray from the hall table, and continued on his way. After tracking down deer in thick brush, moving silently up the stairs felt fairly simple, and he reached the top before the butler returned to take his station in the foyer.
Well, he wouldn’t be leaving that way, then. Callum had never been upstairs in Maxwell Hall, and it took trying five doors before he found what had to be the master bedchamber. Two large stag heads faced each other across the room, the larger one with its antlers reaching nearly to the ceiling directly over the large bed, and the other over the fireplace on the opposite wall.
More striking was the large brown and gray bear head above the door. If the animal had come from Scotland it would have to be over four hundred years old, so it seemed more likely Dunncraigh had purchased the trophy from someone who’d been to America. Either way, he hadn’t killed the beastie.
The head above the far window, though, made him pause. A white wolf, lips curled back to show sharp fangs, yellow glass eyes snarling at him.
Like the bear, wolves had long ago been killed off in Scotland, though there remained rumors from time to time that some drover or shepherd had seen one high up in the Cairngorms. This specimen had likely come from the same place as the bear, but the fact that Dunncraigh had of all things a wolf up on his wall, seemed… prophetic.
Hell, he’d killed wolves himself when they’d gone after the cows in their compound’s small herd, but he’d never made a fucking trophy out of an animal. And he’d damned well never display an animal he hadn’t even killed. But that was Dunncraigh, he supposed, taking credit where he’d earned none.
The complete masculinity of the room surprised him a little, perhaps because it made him realize that his own bedchamber looked nothing like this one. The lighter curtains and wallpaper, paintings of heather and thistle, the carved wooden rabbits and foxes on the shelves—that had to have been Rebecca’s influence, because he couldn’t imagine Ian bothering with any of it. Clearly the Duchess of Dunncraigh held no sway in this room. He was rather glad to say that Rebecca’s touch was everywhere in his.
Pulling his mind back to his task, Callum rifled through the single bed stand and then the trunk at the foot of the bed. Nothing. The short bookcase beside thefireplace held nothing of interest, either. These were all places, though, the servants could reach. Someone as cautious as Dunncraigh wouldn’t put anything possibly damaging where anyone else could see it.
He made his way into the dressing room, filled mostly with hats and boots, and drawers with fresh cravats, shirts, and kilts. The valet would likely know more about the room than the duke, but he rifled through everything, anyway. After this, Dunncraigh would likely have men stationed every ten feet inside the house and around its perimeter. Callum wouldn’t be getting in here again.
And still, nothing. Swearing, he shoved the drawer holding the kilts closed, ready to slam the large wardrobe doors closed over it, but something shifted. Opening it again, he pulled everything out. Just heavy wool in the black, green, and red of Maxwell. Frowning, he pushed the drawer hard again. Something distinctly slid from back to front, but the velvet-lined box was empty.
Pulling the drawer out completely, he put it on the floor and crouched in front of it. As he looked at it from the side, the inside seemed more shallow than it should have been, but only by an inch or so. Unless he was imagining it because he wanted it to be so.
With a deep breath he pushed his forefinger down on the front right corner of the bottom piece. Nothing. The same with the back right corner. Then he pushed down on the front left corner, and it gave. The opposite corner lifted. He dug his fingers into the small space, caught hold of the bottom piece, and pulled it up.
An accounts ledger and a smaller journal lay side by side in the shallow, velvet-lined space beneath. For a half-dozen heartbeats Callum simply stared at them. Then he scooped them up, opened the ledger to see Ian’s neat handwriting, and shoved them both into thesatchel. “I’ve got ye now, ye bastard,” he growled. “We’ve got ye.”
Moving quickly, he left the master bedchamber for the back of the house, looking for one of those open windows and a convenient trellis. He might have what he wanted from here, but Dunncraigh still had Rebecca far too close to him. And however much he’d paid the maître d’, he trusted himself more. He might not be able to perform a rescue without her punching him or chewing his ear off, but he could damned well watch over her until she was home safe.
And then he—they had some plans to make.
Chapter Seventeen
When Callum paid the maître d’ at Alba Gàrradh to watch over her, Rebecca decided he should have added a few more pounds to ask for discretion. She put her hand over her glass as the man leaned over to refill it with Madeira for the fourth time. “No, thank you,” she said.
“Did ye find the pheasant to yer taste, milady?” the tall fellow pursued. “That was a prime one. Hung for five days.”
“It was very fine, thank you,” she returned, wishing she could motion him to go away. She could certainly find him if needed. He’d barely moved more than ten feet from the table over the past hour.
“If ye’d like,” the man pursued, “I can show ye where we hang the game bir—”
“Go away,” the Duke of Dunncraigh said. “If we need ye, we’ll summon ye.”
The man swallowed and bobbed his head. “Of course, Yer Grace. I didnae mean to disturb y—”
“Now.”
Ignoring the exchange, the duchess reached out and put her hand over Rebecca’s. In the past she’d found thegesture comforting, a signal that she wasn’t alone, that people in the Highlands cared for her even if she was an Englishwoman by birth. Now, however, Rebecca had to wonder if Eithne knew what her husband and son had done, and even if she’d approved of the venture. And she made herself smile, anyway.
“I wish ye wouldnae be so stubborn, Rebecca,” the duchess said in her soft voice. “Ye could come stay with us, and nae even the worst gossip in Inverness could so much as raise an eyebrow at ye.”
