Ruark stood at the window across the table from his father’s solicitor, who was tucked quite eagerly into a meal of bannocks spread with molasses. Ruark had beendistracted for the last half hour, staring outside at the parkland, half reading Mr. McCurdy’s pile of papers, half woolgathering before he’d forced his thoughts back to the task at hand unprepared for the news just delivered to him. What Ruark found on Stonehaven’s balance sheets stunned him.
“You are telling me, Stonehaven’s coffers are nearly empty?”
“Except for what you put there, my lord. You could sell the last of the Roxburghe fleet of ships. TheBlack Dragonitself would be of interest—”
“ ’Twill be a bloody cold day in hell before anyone gets his hands on theBlack Dragon,” Ruark said. “What has happened here in thirteen years?”
The lines of strain tightened around McCurdy’s mouth. “This place has fallen on rough times. His lordship lost a fortune when other investments failed this past year. The crops and rents haven’t produced enough to pay the debts. Then the village fiscal embezzled the rest, though we’ll never know for sure where that went.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead, my lord. Six weeks before your father died. He tried to leave here during a snowstorm. Duncan caught up to him, only to find him dead, frozen solid beneath his horse and no gold to be found. Thieves most likely got it all. He left a wife, three sons, and a wee lass behind.”
Ruark didn’t know the details behind the fiscal’s death last winter, except the eldest son, Rufus, was one of the hostages taken with Jamie.
“Your father got himself involved with some shady dealings, my lord.” McCurdy then remarked that in his opinion all power politics was apt to be dirty business as evidenced by the current situation involving his brotherand the young woman held hostage at Stonehaven.
Ruark turned back to the window, his mind sifting through Stonehaven’s financial problems to something more subtle. “Have you been able to find any information on Elena Kirkland Lancaster, Lord Hereford’s dead wife, or on Kirkland Park, her ancestral home?”
He had not expected McCurdy to know anything given the time constraints from when Ruark had asked, and was surprised when McCurdy replied, “I didn’t find much about the wife, but her ancestral home and the entire area around Redesdale sits on land that was once part of a larger crown charter of the barony granted to Lady Hereford’s great-grandfather by Charles the First. The patent, the deed of settlement, has since expired.”
“Then none of Kirkland Park is tied up in entail.”
“The grandfather was a smart old codger, though. He put the family’s wealth in trust just after Lady Elena gave birth to her daughter. All of the funds are vested in consuls, an annuity that pays its six percent to the estate yearly.”
“Then someone has to know the girl is alive, or Hereford would not be receiving funds. Who controls the trust?”
“Friar Tucker does,” a feminine voice said from the doorway.
Recognizing it, Ruark turned into the room. McCurdy clamored to his feet, nearly spilling a cup of tea on his shiny blue satin breeches.
Rose stood in the shadows backlit by the gray light coming through the corridor’s window. He could not see her face, only the shape of her shoulders and waist, the curve of her hips and breasts perfectly feminine. Her hair seemed to pull color from the darkness.
“My apologies,” she said. “Mary implied breakfast wasbeing served and you were in the dining room. I had not expected to find anyone else here.”
’Twas a lie, he knew, since Mary had been the one to send the solicitor to the dining room to await Ruark.
McCurdy bowed clumsily over his arm. He looked first at Rose then at Ruark. “If you wish to finish breakfast, you may do so in the library, McCurdy,” Ruark said without looking away from Rose.
The solicitor grabbed up his plate, and with a nod to Rose left the room by way of the glass doors that let out into the garden.
“Would you care to sit?” Ruark said when she joined him near the window, and then she took her place at the head of the table.
Ruark hesitated. Perhaps she didn’t know that was his place. She folded her hands and peered up at him. Her eyes widened. “Have I sat in the wrong chair?” she suddenly asked.
He reassured her that she should remain where she was and took the one next to hers. She glanced down at her hands, gathering her thoughts, and he seized the moment to study her, to examine again the fundamental softness of her profile and his own desire to protect her.
“Rose . . .”
She inhaled deeply then gave him her full attention. “Friar Tucker controls Kirkland Park through a trust set up by my great-grandfather,” she said. “His father was vicar there for decades. I have an aunt living in France on my mother’s side who appointed him trustee. I learned about her a few years ago when I learned about my great-grandfather’s will.”
He studied her. “Go on.”
“He told me that when my father found me, he would have taken me from the abbey. But Tucker convincedhim my anonymity protected all our interests.”
Every muscle in his body tightened. “Your father has always known where you were?”
She swallowed. “My great-grandfather’s will states that if by one and twenty, I should ... die, control of Kirkland Park and all its assets stays in the trust and everything is willed to the church. Father could never wed me to anyone for he would risk losing control of everything to my husband. He never feared I would wed for no union would be legal without his permission.”
