“Millwool is your livelihood. If ye lose it, ye let your people down. What will happen to them?”
He began pacing again. “If I dinna offer it up as collateral, we will all find ourselves in the slums anyhow. I need my sheep to keep Millwool running. They’re our main source of income. I have full confidence that once I have them back, I will be able to pay off the bank note within a couple of years’ time. And in doing so, no harm will come to Clarissa or my flock. All will be well. We will just need to figure out a way to get Kitt to return to America. I will be damned if I have to see him show his face around here after what he has done.”
“Ye are certain ye will be able to return the bank’s funds?” Nicholas asked.
“One hundred percent.” But even as he said the words his mind ticked through the numbers and how much wool he would need to sell to repay the note along with the income needed to provide for his people.
Malcolm stood. “I shall poke about in town. See what I can find out about the louse in the short-term. Someone has to have information.”
Alexander nodded. “Thank ye. I will get my affairs in order today and will go to the bank first thing in the morn. The funds should be in my hands the day after and then we can take care of Kitt.”
“Mayhap we can show him what happens when he comes to Scotland and tries to weasel his way into society,” Gunn suggested, grinding his fist into his palm.
The friends chuckled.
“I am no’ sure those lengths will be necessary.”
Gunn looked disappointed.
“But we can ne’er ken what lengths may need to be taken,” Alexander quickly added.
Nicholas stood and moved towards the door. “If we are done here, brothers, I must go to my wife.”
“Och, certainly.”
The friends hooted and hollered in jest.
“Ye lot are uncouth. My wife wants to stroll the gardens. I promised her I would.”
Nicholas’s love of gardens was known to all, but Alexander believed it was the company of Gwen that would hold Nicholas’s attention and not the flowers and shrubbery of Millwool’s gardens.
“Enjoy your walk.”
“I shall take my leave as well,” Malcolm spoke up.
“Care for some company whilst ye do your digging, Malcolm?” Finlay asked.
“If ye like. Just let me do the talking.”
Everyone exited the study and scattered into different directions. Alexander looked around the corridor, empty now that his friends had departed. He wanted to go find Clarissa, bury his head in her neck and forget about all his troubles. To seek comfort in her arms. He exhaled loudly into the empty space.
The things he wanted to share with her, do with her. Until he had his livelihood back, they were all just distant dreams that he had no right wanting. But his heart had other ideas. No matter how much he told himself that Nicholas would never allow a union between them, visions of her on their wedding day, their wedding night, her pale skin flushed as she lay beneath him, later visions of her belly, round with their child—all those images flooded his mind.
He smacked the wall, trying to clear his head and headed back into his study, pulling his books from the drawer and slumping into his chair to go over Millwool’s numbers for the umpteenth time, knowing they had not changed from the last time he had done so.
A vision of Clarissa laid out on his desk before him had him pushing back from his books and heading to fill his glass with the strongest whisky he had. Quickly, he knocked back the amber liquid, letting the burn warm his throat and chest as he refilled his glass.
He was certain Clarissa felt the same way he did. She had alluded to it on multiple occasions and the promenade that Gwen slyly arranged between them solidified it.
They only needed to convince Nicholas that his sister would be safe in Alexander’s arms. Surely, his best friend must realize by now that he would never do anything to put her in harm’s way. He had vowed as such on multiple occasions. And once he had his sheep back, his income would no longer be in question, so he would be able to provide Clarissa a stable life deserving of her station. She would be a duchess after all.
Clarissa Campbell, Duchess of Argyll. He smiled as the title rolled off his tongue.
He liked the sound of that.
