“Did you now?” he scoffed, adding, “You’ve had a number of years tae correct what you did, but I’ve yet tae see the MacGregor jewels returned, or the money.”
She winced. “I know, but I convinced myself that I needed it more’n you did. You were young, after all. And you were a man, able to earn money in ways that I couldn’t.”
“Aye, and mayhap that would’ve been no problem if there was only myself tae see about. But wi’ my da’s passing, it became my responsibility tae look after the clan, as well as the upkeep of Kregora. And how was I tae do that, when the college I attended was only a rounding off o’ my education? I wasna there tae learn a trade. Nor could any trade have supported the many mouths I have tae feed, much less make the repairs on that old castle.”
Hearing that, she began to panic. “Lachlan, youhaveto understand! I grew up very poor. My father had been a wastrel and a gambler. My mother died when I was but a baby. There were times when I didn’t know if there would be food enough for another day. I couldn’t go back to how it was before. Your father had been my salvation. With him gone, I was desperate again, don’t you see?”
“Nay, Winnifred, no matter how you look at it, no matter your reasons, you stole from me and no’ just from me, but from the clan. And I’ll be having it all back, every pound, every ring and necklace—”
“The money’s gone.”
Lachlan went very still. His eyes had flared. Considering the amount of money that was taken, and the amount of time that had passed…no, he couldn’t believe it. No one could spend that much money in only three years—unless they lived like a blasted king.
All he could think to say to such an outlandish statement was, “Gone?” Actually, he shouted it.
The widow was flinching. “I didn’t mean to spend it all, truly. I even hid in a small cottage in Bath for nearly a year, going nowhere, doing nothing. But I got so bored, you see. I needed to be around people again. So I decided to play the bountiful widow for a while—under another name, of course, and moved to Northumberland where I bought a house so that I could entertain properly. And I gambled a bit, not much, but—I’m not very good at it, any more than my father was—”
“Enough!” he thundered. “Faith, but you’re talking about more’n a hundred thousand pounds, woman! You canna have spent all o’ that—”
“I still have the jewels,” she quickly inserted. “At least most of them. I’ve only had to sell off a few of the pieces just recently. And there’s the house I bought. I’ll be glad to give it to you just as soon as I marry, and that will be very shortly now.”
“Glad tae give me a house you bought wi’ my money?” he asked incredulously.
He almost laughed. She didn’t even see the absurdity of her offer, or realize that every blasted thing she owned belonged to him. The woman was a twit, a frivolous, self-centered nitwit, and he’d never been around her long enough when she lived at Kregora to actually realize that before now.
“I’m sure my fiancé won’t mind the loss of my house,” she went on to say. “He might even be persuaded to reimburse your funds for me. He’s such a dear man, after all, and quite rich. I’m sure he wouldn’t miss a few hundred pounds—”
“Hundredthousandpounds, lady!”
“Well, that too.”
The door suddenly opened again, and Kimberly poked her head around it. “Do you realize you can be heard down the hall?”
“They can hear me in the next blasted county for all I care,” Lachlan replied heatedly. “Do you ken the lady has squandered away more’n half my inheritance, Kimber? And she has the audacity to suggest her fiancé might replace a hundred thousand pounds of it!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t count on that,” Kimberly replied calmly. “She’s engaged to marry my father, you see.”
40
“Ithink it’s rather funny, actually,” Megan remarked as she dismounted and turned her mare, Sir Ambrose, over to the waiting groom.
That her horse was named after her husband, and before she’d ever met him, was—well, it was a long story. And Devlin certainly didn’t mind the name anymore, though at one time he had.
They had just returned from a ride, where she had told him about the latest development in the MacGregor-Richards situation. Usually she rode in the early mornings, but if she wanted to ride with her husband, she had to make allowances for his busy schedule, and he’d been attending to business all morning—which was why he’d missed the newest scandal-in-the-making.
“And just what do you find funny?” he asked, taking her arm to lead her back to the house. “That I owe the Highlander another apology?”
“No, not that—” She stopped in surprise. “You do? What for?”
“Because I didn’t believe that story of his, about his inheritance being stolen,” Devlin said sourly. “I thought it was just a good ruse on his part to gain him sympathy.”
“Well, ifhewasn’t aware that you thought that, then there’s no need to apologize to him.”
“I feel there is. My assumption about him colored most of my thinking, you see. Had I accepted his story to begin with, I might have treated him differently, might not have jumped down his throat so quickly when the horses went missing, might not have—”
“Oh, dear, you reallyarefeeling are tad guilty, aren’t you?”
He nodded curtly. “A tad.”
