Whence Came a Prince (48 page)

Never in his sixty years had he been so humiliated. By his own overseer—his own man—standing up for a
scoonrel
like Jamie McKie within earshot of his new wife and sons. The shame of it was not to be borne. Lachlan shouted an oath to the dark heavens, his words swallowed up by the wind.

The family carriage was far behind him by now. He would not torture himself imagining their conversation. The five of them had arrived in Lockerbie on Sunday and gone straight to their lodgings at the Kings Arms. He’d not bothered to see after his lambs, pastured a mile from the bustling town. Among twenty thousand sheep, how could he have located a few hundred? It had been Duncan’s job to see the lambs readied for the English dealers come Monday’s sale.

“And my job to bring home the silver.” Lachlan gripped the heavy purse beneath his shirt, his rage easing only slightly at the heft of it. The lambs had sold for a good price. But what of the rest of them, spirited
off to Glentrool? “
My
lambs,” he fumed, aiming his exhausted mount past Kirkconnell. “
My
silver.”

It was not until Duncan delivered the bill of sale in his hands yestreen that Lachlan knew the truth.
Received for four hundred lambs
 … Duncan had neither flinched nor apologized when Lachlan accused him of treachery. Half the folk in the sellers tent must have heard him threaten to withhold Duncan’s pay for the term.

“ ’Tis just as weel,” Duncan had told him, his voice maddeningly calm. “I canna take silver from a man I canna respect.”

Livid, then and now, he’d bellowed, “You’ll not work for me another day!”

“I’ll not wark for ye anither hour.” Then Duncan had walked off.
Walked off.

There were too many witnesses; Lachlan had no choice but to let Duncan leave the tent unchallenged. Where the man went was none of his concern. Let Duncan walk the twenty miles home. At least he’d not stolen Walloch. The horse was stabled at the Kings Arms, waiting for his master.

Duncan Hastings would show up at Auchengray soon enough, wool bonnet in hand, begging for his old position. Where else could the man go? Lachlan would see him well humbled before he’d fee him again. And make certain he suffered for his disloyalty.

Jamie would pay for his crime as well. A bill for the selling price of three hundred lambs would be sent by post to his nephew. Better still, to the lad’s father. Let Alec McKie see the duplicity of his useless heir, and his sister, Rowena, the
sleekit
ways of her favored son.

Walloch straggled onto the road for Auchengray. “You’ll not slow down now,” Lachlan growled. “ ’Tis five o’ the clock, and I’ve had nae dinner.” And what would Neda Hastings have to say about her husband’s perfidy?

Thunder rolled across the skies over Auchengray as the signpost appeared. Lachlan straightened in the saddle, his pride returning. He was still a prosperous landowner, was he not? Still the laird of his keep? When his sons and wife arrived later, he would remind them of that fact. The key to the thrifite hung round
his
neck. No one else’s.

Deaf as he was, Willie still heard Lachlan’s approach, for he stood waiting at the end of the drive. The auld man had a nervous look about him, though he managed a shaky bow. “Walcome hame, sir.”

Lachlan dismounted, ignoring the stiffness in his joints as he handed over the reins. “I’ve ridden him hard, make no mistake.” He did not wait for a reply but marched toward the front door, relieved that Willie didn’t ask where Duncan might be.

When Lachlan leaned into the front door, expecting it to swing open, his shoulder met a solid wood obstacle.
Locked?
The door was never locked, for good reason. Who would dare rob Lachlan McBride of his worldly possessions?

“I have what ye need, sir.” Hugh, his valet, stood behind him on the lawn, holding out a stout iron key. “ ’Tis meant for luck, walkin’ across yer ain threshold whan ye return from a raik.”

Lachlan rolled his eyes as he snatched the key from Hugh’s hand. “Luck indeed.” He unlocked the door, then flung it open and was taken aback when no one was standing there to greet him.

“Neda?” He strode down the hall, certain he would find his housekeeper hard at work in the kitchen, even though no tantalizing smells wafted his way. He had a taste for roasted goose. Surely it could be prepared on short notice.

But the kitchen was empty. Worse, the hearth was cold. He felt the chill of it climbing up his back as he stared across the abandoned room, not a bite of food in sight. “Neda?” he called again, certain of an answer. None came.

Hugh appeared behind him, quiet as a ghost. “Pardon me, sir, but Mistress Hastings has flit tae her new hame.”

Lachlan turned on him. “
What
new home?”

“Kingsgrange, sir. She’s tae be their hoosekeeper.”

He stared at his manservant, too shocked to speak. If Neda was gone, then Duncan did not mean to come back.

Anger and fear rubbed inside him like two sticks starting a fire. “Leana!” he shouted abruptly, marching through the kitchen and out the back door. His daughter lived in her garden. She would not be hard to find.

But Leana was not in the garden or in the orchard. Neither was Eliza, her shadow.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of one of the new maids brought from Edingham at Morna’s request. She stood by the corner of the house like a fawn about to bolt in search of its mother. “You, lass.” He motioned her toward him. “Where are my daughters? And my nephew?”

“Th-the McKies are … g-gone, sir.”

“
Gone?
” He fell back as though the clap of thunder overhead had struck his chest. “Do you mean to say they’ve left for good?”

He could not tell if the maid was nodding her head on purpose or trembling so violently that it shook on its own.

Jamie and Rose were bound for Glentrool, it seemed. Chasing after the lambs and taking their bystart of a son with them. “Leana, then. Where is my older daughter?”

“Sh-she … she …”

Irritated, Lachlan prodded her. “She
what
, lass? Can you not say two words?”

“She … Miss McBride … left. Wi’ the ithers.”

Fat drops of rain began splattering on the toes of his dusty boots as he stared at the maid in disbelief. “I have been gone but
three days
, and already my household is dismantled?”

“Their maids left as weel, sir. Annabel. And Eliza.” She lowered her head as if ashamed to share such news. “Yer daughters said the servants were the only
tocher
ye gave them.”

Biting back an oath, Lachlan left her standing in the rain and marched through the vacant kitchen, ignoring his growling stomach. Morna would be home shortly and attend to supper. He found a candle and carried it into the gloomy spence, inhaling the scent of books and leather and whisky. Outside his window, the skies darkened as the rain unleashed its fury.

He moved slowly across the room, squinting in the darkness, holding his candle aloft. When the faint light fell on the hearth at his feet, he stopped, arrested by the strange fire laid before him. Stones and glass
were neatly stacked, as if waiting for the touch of a flame. Except they would never burn nor keep a house warm.

A stone fire.

Lachlan’s innards began to churn. An unco practice among kintra folk, meant to convey ill luck to the landowner. Who could have done it? Willie knew the auld ways but would not dare speak a curse against his master. Neda was too righteous, and Leana cared nothing for such cantrips.

He stared at the false fire with a growing sense of dread. Had Lillias Brown been inside his house? The thought made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Nae, the witch would never be so bold.

Rose.
She was the only one braisant enough.

“My own daughter.” He breathed out the words, not quite believing them. Staring hard at the window, he imagined Rose climbing out, as custom dictated. She was the one who’d locked the door, then. For ill luck.
My own daughter. My unfaithful Rose.

Kicking the stones with his boot, he knocked apart the cursed fire, attempting to destroy any power it held over him. When he bent down to claim the heaviest of the rocks, his silver tumbled out of his shirt and onto the floor. “Och!” He snatched up the doeskin purse, then balanced stone and silver in each hand, like the scales of justice. “And did you curse me, lass? Did you curse your own father?”

Fueled by rage and a pain too great to bear, he threw the rock with all his might, shattering the window glass. Shards flew across the floor as rain poured through the ragged opening.

“Lachlan!” Morna stood in the doorway, eyes and mouth agape. “Whatever is the matter? We’ve just walked in the door …” She stared at the rocks and glass piled at his feet, the broken glass beneath the window, then finally looked up to meet his gaze. “What—”

“My household has conspired against me.” As he chronicled the list of those who’d departed Auchengray while the rest of them were at Lammas Fair, Morna’s ruddy skin turned the color of bleached muslin. “So you see, my wife, we will require a new housekeeper. And Malcolm will serve as overseer.”

He took a full breath, only now beginning to feel his heart beating again. Though four family members had fled from his door, four new ones had moved in. No true loss, then. As for the others, they were mere servants. Replaceable.

Lachlan gestured toward the broken glass. “Have Willie sweep this up. And board the window.” While Morna hurried off to find him, Lachlan poured a dram of whisky and sank into his chair, feeling every minute that he’d spent in the saddle.

“Here’s to you, Rose.” He lifted his pewter cup toward the hearth, then drank it down too quickly to be prudent. Heat tore through him. With no food in his stomach since breakfast, the whisky’s potency hit him full force.

“Mr. McBride … ah, Father?” Malcolm stood where his mother had a moment earlier. “Mother said I am to be … overseer?”

Lachlan fixed his gaze on him. “Do you think you can handle it, Son? ’Tis a meikle responsibility for a lad who’s seen but twenty summers.”

Malcolm threw back his shoulders, his bravado as thick as his neck. “I can, sir. Will I be in charge of keeping the ledgers?”

“Nae.” Lachlan wagged his finger at him. “Those will be mine to tally. And the gold, mine to count.”

Malcolm took another step into the hallowed room. “You’ll be wanting to add the money from the lambs to your thrifite, aye?”

Lachlan pushed himself to his feet with some effort. One hand reached for his purse, the other for the key round his neck, as he turned toward the desk.

His thrifite was gone.

Gone.

Like a man who’s been shot, Lachlan stood there, stunned and unmoving.

“Father … where is …”

Jamie.
He cleared his throat. “Stolen. Jamie.”

“Your
nephew?
” Malcolm was beside him at once. “Does he think we won’t come after him? ’Tis our money as well. And Mother’s.”

Lachlan shook himself all over, as though waking from a drugged
sleep. “We will indeed go after him.” He tore into the corridor, where Gavin and Ronald stood, their faces like stone.

Willie tottered round the corner, broom in hand. “Am I tae clean up the glass, sir?”

“Not now. We need fresh mounts.” Lachlan nodded at his sons. “Four of them.”

Morna hovered near the front door, hands fluttering. “I trusted you with our gold, dearest …”

“I ken you did.” Lachlan swallowed the bile in his throat. “By this time tomorrow, we shall have it back.”

Less than an hour later the McBride men were riding hard for Haugh of Urr, already exhausted from a long day of travel and now soaked through by the relentless rain. Apparently Jamie and his women—had there ever been a man with more lasses round him?—headed for Glentrool in a wagon borrowed from Jock Bell. No narrow cart tracks for them. The military road was the obvious choice for a thief with a pot full of gold.

When they crossed the road leading to Edingham, five miles away, Malcolm shouted against the storm, “You still have a hundred lambs in our old pasture, Father. Jamie hasn’t claimed those.”

Lachlan’s spirits were somewhat buoyed at the reminder. “Indeed, he has not,” he hollered back, spurring his mount forward.

By the time they reached the Three Thorns Inn at Carlinwark, men and mounts were drenched, starving, and bone-weary. After a plate of soup, the lads fell onto their mattresses, asleep within minutes. Lachlan stared at the rough walls, the bare floors, the curtainless windows, and missed his spence with its comfortable bed and decanter of whisky.

Above all, he missed his thrifite. Wanted it. Needed it. His fortune—aye, his future—rested inside that pine box.

His nephew deserved nothing. Yet he had taken everything.

My daughters. My grandchildren. My gold.

Lachlan finally willed himself to sleep, thoughts of revenge fueling his dreams. The Almighty would see that justice was done. And what God would not do, Lachlan stood ready to accomplish.

“God speaketh in dreams,” he mumbled to himself, reciting the ancient words. “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men.”

Deep sleep fell upon Lachlan McBride.

But when he woke, what he felt was deep fear. And outrage. And dread.

“We ride for Glentrool,” he told his sons over a hurried breakfast. “By way of Twyneholm and Gatehouse.” More than that he would not tell them. The thunderous voice he’d heard in the night, the dire warning that could not be ignored—nae, his strange and terrible dream was no one’s business.

Malcolm leaned back in his chair, boasting, “We’ll not be long tracking down a man with a wagon full of women.”

Lachlan stood, impatient to be gone. “ ’Tis not the women who concern me.”

R
ose waited on the cobblestones outside the Murray Arms, bonnet in place, prepared to embark on a morning walk with her sister. Tucked inside her reticule was a surprise for Leana. Hidden beneath her plaid was a larger one for the parish kirk. Surely by now Father knew his money box was stolen. She could not get rid of the evidence quickly enough.