Taken by the Laird (22 page)

It might be troubled, but Brianna had never felt tormented by it. Bree had felt its urgency, its determination to show her something, even though she could not figure out what it was. Everything had been so vague. A locket, the whip, the picture of the sailing boat. She did not know if they were all connected, or if each one carried some separate message.

Brianna started up the steps, but Mrs. Ramsay caught her arm, clearly bothered by her mistress’s intent. “M’lady, I doona think ’tis safe. Ye’d best wait fer Laird Glenloch to return.”

“I don’t think so,” Bree replied. Mrs. Ramsay might have ruled Glenloch for many years without a master in residence, but as long as Brianna was here, she was the woman in charge. “ ’Twas likely only the wind.”

Mrs. Ramsay tried to deter her once again, but Brianna gave her a reassuring smile and proceeded.

Holding her shawl tightly around her shoulders, she ascended the stairs. It was mid-afternoon, and though the light was fading, the windows at the opposite ends of the main gallery provided adequate light for her to see her way. She glanced across the floor, expecting to see a pile of broken rubble, but there was nothing, no indication of what had crashed.

The filmy light of the ghost was conspicuously
absent. Brianna walked past all the rooms along the main gallery, including those where the ghost had led her. Then she looked inside the rooms she had not explored. They were just unoccupied, unremarkable bedchambers, and none of them had any breakage that Brianna could see. She closed each door behind her and headed down to Amelia’s room, where it seemed the ghost most often visited.

Brianna pushed opened the door and stood just under the lintel of the bedchamber, looking inside. The entire floor was cold, but Amelia’s chamber seemed chillier than any other room. On quick glance, naught seemed to be out of place. The room looked just as it had the first time Brianna had entered, except that no phantom was hovering about.

Bree exited the room, and the door slammed shut behind her. Only then did she see the hazy light of the ghost, hovering in front of the heavy doors that led to the tower adjacent to Amelia’s bedchamber.

The ghost vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

Goose bumps came up on Brianna’s arms, and she turned around and went back in the direction she’d come from. There was no reason to stay up there, waiting for the phantom to reappear, for none of its actions seemed to have any purpose, in spite of the urgency she always felt from it.

Brianna hesitated. The ghost had never led her into danger…There was obviously something it wanted her to see, for why else would it have drawn her up there to investigate? Perhaps there was something about the tower itself.

Intending only to collect a lamp from Hugh’s bedchamber across the gallery, she went inside and was hit with a sharp pang of loneliness. She would sleep there only one more night, and then it would be time to go home. Killiedown seemed so very distant now, its bedchambers cold and empty.

She picked up the linen sheet from the bed where they’d slept together and pressed it to her face. Hugh’s scent was on it, and Brianna closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, memorizing all that she could about him…the texture of his hair, his thick lashes, the scar on his cheek, his big hands with their roughened knuckles…

And how those hands had felt when he feathered his fingers across her breasts.

She swallowed back a foolish yearning for what could never be. He had promised to take her to Killiedown Manor, and there was little doubt that he understood her reluctance to remain at Glenloch. He must also realize that she belonged at Killiedown. Brianna did not think he would invoke his husbandly right to Claire’s property, but would allow her to keep possession of Killiedown, and see to it that the deeds for all of Claire’s properties were put into Brianna’s name. Alone.

At yet she did not find that conclusion comforting in the least.

She took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her stomach. Claire had provided well for her, and everything would be better once she was home. Until then, she needed a diversion from her cheerless thoughts.

She lit a lamp, then carried it out to the gallery, looking both ways for signs of the filmy apparition that had
led her there in the first place. Other than the eerie silence, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Brianna crossed to the doors that barred her way from the tower adjacent to Amelia’s bedchamber, and found them unlocked this time, when she was certain they’d been locked before.

Puzzled by the change, she cautiously pushed one open and stepped inside the cold, bare tower, onto a landing of sorts. Lifting the lamp, she could see the rough stone walls that had been mortared in place several centuries before. A circular stone staircase hugged the wall, climbing as far as the top, and descending all the way down to the ground. Brianna cringed at the near certainty that Amelia must have climbed that very staircase to the parapet at the top of the tower.

She swallowed her unease and quickly turned to look through the narrow window that overlooked the north road, the route Hugh would soon travel.

The road was empty and looked quite desolate with the bare trees in the fields to the west, and the new falling snow. ’Twas only a few flurries now, but Brianna knew the snowfall could become much heavier, and Hugh might not be able to get back to Glenloch.

She walked down a few steps and looked out the window that faced the opposite tower at the south end of the castle, and the buttery at its base. The snow in the area appeared undisturbed, and Brianna could see no sign that there’d been any activity there the night before. The free traders had covered their tracks well.

She felt entirely isolated, but told herself the feeling that crept up her spine was not loneliness, but merely
uneasiness, caused by the prospect of spending the night alone, with only the Glenloch Ghost for company. Shaking off the disquieting notion, she climbed back up to the landing and left the tower, wondering what possible reason the ghost had had for bringing her there, and whether it was connected to any of the other things it had shown her.

Perhaps the phantom wanted Bree to recommend that the tower be taken down so that when it collapsed—as it surely would one day—no one would be hurt. She would be gone when it happened, so it wasn’t really any of her concern. But she would not want to learn someday that Ronan or some other innocent had been injured by falling debris.

She pulled closed the door to Amelia’s bedchamber and returned to the main floor of the castle.

M
agistrate Lachann Sinclair was a tall, blond fellow with fresh good looks, much younger than Hugh had anticipated. And he was no fool.

The magistrate had a number of questions that Hugh answered honestly, adding what he thought was pertinent information. There was no reason that Sinclair should not know about the strong southerly current that ran just north of the castle, a current that would have drawn Kincaid quickly from a more northerly site, drawing his attention from Glenloch as the site of the man’s demise.

Sinclair took Hugh’s statement, and then went outside and looked at the body, still lying covered in the wagon. He returned a few minutes later and sat down at a long wooden worktable in a room with two large windows that faced the harbor. He indicated that Hugh should take a seat across from him.

“It looks as though Mr. Kincaid took a bump on the head and then…” He looked directly at Hugh.
“What? Fell into the sea? Or was pushed.”

“What of the docks here?” Hugh asked. “Is there any chance he might have gashed his head somehow, then fallen into the water?”

“There’s nearly always someone about,” said Mr. Armstrong.

The magistrate agreed. “I don’t see how such an accident could have occurred without someone witnessing it, Laird,” he said. “I believe someone must have hit him and thrown him over. Mischief, pure and simple.”

“Free traders,” said Armstrong, solemnly.

Pennycook snapped irritably at him. “Well, who else would it be, Berk?”

“We’ll need to have the coroner take a look at him, and there’ll be an inquest,” said Sinclair. “Laird, I’ll need to have you come back for it. And Lady Glenloch as well.”

“No,” Hugh responded, feeling unexpectedly protective of Brianna. “I will not expose my wife to any questioning.” Especially not from the all-too-attractive Mr. Sinclair.

“Laird, I’ll need to ask her what she saw.”

“I just told you what she saw,” Hugh replied, keeping his voice low and even. “Lady Glenloch is not available for any inquest.”

Sinclair shuffled the papers on the table before him. “What if I were to come down to Glenloch and speak with her personally? In your presence, of course.”

Even worse. “I see no need for it. I’ll not have my wife disturbed any further. Seeing that dead man was bad enough—”

“Laird Glenloch, I assure you my questioning will be short and to the point. There is no need for concern.”

Hugh suddenly heard himself sounding like a jealous husband. Which was absurd. He stood up and went to the window. “Fine. If you can keep it short. And delicate.”

“Aye, Laird. Thank you. I can ride down tomorrow, if that suits.”

Hugh gave a quick nod, then Sinclair glanced at Armstrong and Pennycook. “If one of you would drive Laird Glenloch’s wagon to the coroner?”

While that was done, Hugh arranged to return later to collect his horse. He decided to leave the wagon in Stonehaven, for it was much too cumbersome for the trip back to Glenloch over the snowy roads.

He left the customs office and walked toward the livery with the intention of buying another horse. Brianna would soon need one, although he had no intention of taking her back to Killiedown Manor just yet. If his prized bachelorhood had been taken from him, he intended to get at least one more night’s pleasure from its loss.

Taking a direct route to the livery, Hugh did not need to veer far from the harbor. He neared the Ship’s Inn, but stopped suddenly at the sight that greeted him. He quickly turned back and hastened away in the direction from which he’d come. Then he turned a corner in order to conceal his presence from the man he’d seen coming out of the inn.

‘Twas Roddington.

Hugh wondered what the likelihood was that Rod
dington just happened to be in Stonehaven on the day after Kincaid had been murdered. Hugh had verified that Kincaid hadn’t been on board a patrol ship, nor was it likely that he had fallen accidentally into the sea without witnesses. There could be only one way for him to have received that wound on his head. It had been no simple accident.

In spite of Roddington’s presence and his long history of deviousness and malevolence merely for its diversionary value, Hugh could not dismiss his suspicion that MacGowan was involved in some way, too. But putting together the pieces was not going to be easy, not if he wanted to keep secret his duty-free brandy business.

MacGowan and Roddington had a connection in Glenloch’s free trade, exclusive of Hugh, just as he’d wanted it. And now he wondered how nefarious their link had become. Hugh puzzled over possibilities, wondering if Stamford was here as well, or if Brianna’s guardian had already left the area.

Hugh watched as Roddington climbed into a hired coach with a driver and two footmen, who would surely find it necessary to clear drifts of snow off the road. He continued to wait through some delay, and then suddenly, Malcolm MacGowan stepped out of the building with the innkeeper. The estate manager climbed into the coach with Roddington as the innkeeper handed a small bag to one of the footmen, then returned inside his establishment.

Hugh was dumbfounded. He’d come to believe that MacGowan and Pennycook were the villains here, but
Roddington’s presence put an entirely different twist on the matter. He could not help but wonder if Malcolm MacGowan had some history with Jasper, other than the obvious, and that possibility turned his stomach.

If Hugh had been on horseback, he might have followed the two as they drove away, but since he was on foot, he approached the inn and went inside. The innkeeper greeted Hugh immediately.

“I beg your pardon,” Hugh said, swallowing his distaste as he spoke, “but I believe I just missed meeting an old friend. The Marquess of Roddington.”

“Oh, aye, my lord,” the man replied. “He jus’ drove away.”

“I might catch him if I hurry. Where is he bound?”

“Dundee,” the innkeeper said. “Though the roads are no’ good, the marquess said he had urgent business there.”

“Ah, then I will not be meeting him, for my path leads elsewhere.”

“If he returns, shall I tell him you called?”

“Aye,” said Hugh. “Tell him Lord Stamford was looking for him.”

“What did ye see up there?” asked Mrs. Ramsay when Brianna returned to the main floor of the castle. The servants were putting on coats and gathering their things as they made ready to return to their homes in Falkburn.

“I couldn’t find anything broken. But I didn’t go up to the attic.” She didn’t mention the unlocked tower doors.

“Best to stay away from there,” the housekeeper replied. “’Tis the ghost’s favored place.”

Bree had not found that to be true, but she didn’t suppose any of the servants spent enough time on the upper floors to know.

“’Tis nearly dark,” said Mrs. Ramsay. “We’ll be goin’ now, m’lady. P’rhaps ’twould be best if ye came into Falkburn with us to await the laird.”

“No, I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Besides, I’m not afraid.”

“Oh, but—”

“No, really. I’ll be fine here,” she said, pulling on her old coat. “And Laird Glenloch won’t be much longer, I’m sure.”

Mrs. Ramsay gave a questioning glance to Brianna’s coat. “M’lady?”

“I’m going outside for a bit.”

“But—”

“Just for some air. A short walk. I won’t go far.”

“But ’tis almost dark, m’lady.”

Brianna ignored Fiona’s worried entreaty and went to the main entrance of the castle. She let herself out the front door and walked a few yards down the drive, under the canopy of tall, barren trees that grew on either side. The drive had been cleared of snow, but would soon be covered again if the flurries continued at the present rate.

She did not want to think about the possibility of Hugh being waylaid in Stonehaven, and reminded herself of the kiss he’d given her before leaving. If that could be any indication, he would make certain to
return to Glenloch tonight. And though Brianna knew she should try for indifference, she sincerely hoped he did.

Turning to look up at Glenloch, Brianna saw the windows of Hugh’s bedchamber in the newer section of the castle, added many decades after the original keep and castle towers had been built.

Uninterested in the different kinds of stone and mortar that were used, or the particulars of Glenloch’s unique architecture, Brianna circled around the building until she came to the north tower. A thin, jagged crack scored its length from the ground to its peak, and the high, crenellated parapet was worse than decrepit. Large chunks of stone were gone, and had fallen in huge pieces that were lying on the ground at her feet.

Staying in close proximity was obviously dangerous, for the tower looked as though more stone might fall from it at any moment. And Brianna thought it might split in two with a strong wind. She took several steps back while gazing at the ancient structure, at the curved, moss-covered stone façade and the tall, narrow arrow loops that were strategically placed at every level.

She studied the low building that abutted the base of the tower, likely an ancient pantry or kitchen that had been added sometime after the original tower. She had avoided it on her arrival at Glenloch, for its stone walls had collapsed, and the entire broken-down structure seemed impenetrable, overgrown as it was with a thicket of brambles. Its condition appeared only slightly worse than that of the buttery in the south tower, but Brianna guessed the smuggler’s room would have been
reinforced internally over the years, keeping it intact for the free trading.

Skirting a wide berth around the decaying building, Brianna walked around the north tower, viewing it from this new vantage point, trying to see if she could get a glimmer of what the ghost might have been trying to show her. But there was nothing special there that she could see. This part of Castle Glenloch looked just like any number of castle ruins she’d seen in Scotland and England. She could not imagine what—

Amelia’s bedchamber window was in a newer section of the castle, but it was adjacent to the old tower. If Amelia had climbed the north tower on the day she’d died…Perhaps that was why those interior doors were kept locked.

Brianna knew very little of the details surrounding the late Lady Glenloch’s death, and she had avoided dwelling upon thoughts of it. The poor woman’s terrible sorrow, and the despair that had driven her to take her own life were just too disturbing.

If Brianna had had any inklings about Amelia’s fall, she’d thought it had occurred from the south tower, which was more accessible than the one closer to her own bedchamber. But having been inside that tower and seeing those steps, now she did not know.

Bree gazed up at the ragged parapet of the north tower and tried to understand what point the ghost was making in reminding her of Amelia’s tragic death. It had happened several years before, and had naught to do with Brianna—especially since she would be leaving Glenloch on the morrow.

She concluded there was naught to be learned from Lady Glenloch’s death, nothing new that the ghost could show her. Quite possibly, all the other things it had uncovered and shown Brianna were meaningless, too, though its aura of urgency persisted. Brianna tried, but could not dismiss the feeling that she was missing something important.

Bothered by her unsettling thoughts, Bree hurried around the back of the castle toward the scullery door, stopping abruptly when she caught sight of the stable yard. Hugh was just coming in, riding his gelding and leading a second saddled horse alongside him.

A profound wave of relief struck Brianna at the sight of him. He was tall and strong, and more powerful than any man she’d ever met. Even Glenloch’s ghost stayed away from him, and yet Brianna could not.

Hugh dismounted when he saw her and walked toward her, and she resisted the urge to run to him, to enfold herself in his capable arms. She would not allow herself to dwell upon the promise she’d felt in his kiss that morn, for ’twas all too fleeting a pledge. A mere portent of one last night to be spent in his bed.

“You didn’t bring the wagon,” she said.

Hugh gave a shake of his head, keeping his eyes upon her, their heat and desire unrelenting. Brianna felt her knees weaken under his perusal.

“It would have taken hours longer to get home,” he said, his words full of meaning. “I bought a horse for MacTavish to ride instead.”

She stepped up to the mare and patted its forehead as she composed herself. She did what was so familiar
to her, assessing the qualities of a horse, determining its breeding value. “ ’Tis still a sturdy beast,” she said more calmly than she felt, “though she’s past her prime for breeding.”

“Aye. But the price was right, and we needed another mount for MacTavish—as well as for you. For when we travel up to Killiedown.”

Bree swallowed a surprising wave of disappointment. If only he had said he had no intention of taking her to Killiedown…that he wanted her to stay…

‘Twas too ridiculous a thought to entertain. She was a most inconvenient wife, and he was the husband she’d never planned for, never wanted.

Hugh turned the horses and started for the stable. “I believe our wedding supper awaits. I’ll meet you inside after I see to the horses.”

Hugh had been engaged to Amelia for six months before they married, and yet he’d hardly known her when they met at the altar of St. George’s. He’d been young and hadn’t had the slightest idea what to do to make a wife happy. Hell, he’d have settled for the smallest form of contentment from her, but even that had not been possible, especially when it became clear that he would never make her a mother.

That particular failure set Hugh up for additional derision from his father, who had ridiculed him for his lack of mastery over his wife, and his lack of potency in the bedchamber. As though Jasper had enjoyed so much success. Hugh’s mother had borne only one child, and her husband had spent the rest of his life punish
ing her as well as his son for his many dissatisfactions with them.

The old laird had been a bloody varlet, something Hugh had vowed never to become.

He took care of the horses as he thought of his new wife, a woman he knew far better than he’d known Amelia on their wedding day. Finishing in the stable, he collected the package he’d brought from Stonehaven and closed up the stable. He went up to the castle, looking forward to his next hours with Brianna far more than he should. He let himself in through the scullery entrance and smelled the mingling scents of their supper, but he was not hungry for the food left by Mrs. Ramsay.