Chapter 27
Edward heard the horses long before he saw them. Heavy hooves on frost-stiffened ground. Too many for a unneighborly call. Too purposeful for a casual visit. The sound echoed strangely against the half-ruined walls of Strathmore, bouncing through the courtyard like a warning bell.
He stepped out from the north wing, coat half-buttoned, sleeves rolled up from hauling furniture just as the column of riders came into view over the rise. At their head rode Nigel Blackwood, Duke of Glenmore.
Behind him trailed four mounted bailiffs, cloaked against the wind, their faces set in that blank officious expression common to men who come to take what is not theirs. One led a mule burdened with what looked like cases of documents and ledgers. Edward’s stomach tightened.
Isla had only just finished settling the last of the returning staff in the guest suites, the house still smelled of smoke and stew.
Mhairi was shouting at someone in the kitchen about the thickness of porridge.
Everywhere people shifted shapes of furniture and blankets, trying to carve out a semblance of order from devastation.
Now Glenmore arrived, bringing a new kind of fire.
He dismounted with a fluidity that suggested long practice in stepping onto other men’s land.
“Wexford,” he said, as if they had parted not hours ago at his own stables. “I trust the accommodations here are … improving?”
“Strathmore stands,” Edward said. “That is improvement enough.”
Glenmore’s smile was thin. “For now.”
Alistair appeared at Edward’s side, wiping soot from his hands. He carried the tight, wary look of a man who had been bracing for a blow he could not quite predict.
“Glenmore,” he said curtly. “You’re far from your own hearth.”
“And closer to yours,” Glenmore replied. He gestured to the mule, and one of the bailiffs stepped forward with a heavy leather satchel. “I come with business.”
“At this moment?” Alistair snapped. “We are recovering what we can from a fire.”
“Yes,” Glenmore said blandly. “A regrettable incident. Fortunate your people escaped with their lives. Though the property, I fear …” He let the unfinished sentence drift like smoke.
Edward watched Isla approach, skirts still dusted with ash from her earlier work. Isla’s face was carefully schooled, but Edward saw the tension in her jaw.
“What business?” Alistair demanded.
Glenmore nodded to his men. The bailiff opened the satchel and produced a sheaf of documents, sealed and tied.
“Your creditors,” Glenmore said, “have all agreed to allow me to negotiate on their behalf. Given your … straitened circumstances, they felt a unified approach would be wise.”
Alistair’s face drained of color. “Negotiate?”
“Yes,” Glenmore went on. “A consolidation of debts. A single payer, rather than a dozen hounds at your heel. I can settle all of them, every last pound and relieve you of the burden entirely.”
Alistair stared at him. “On what terms?”
Glenmore’s smile sharpened. “Strathmore Castle. The lands, the title attached to the seat, and all holdings that were not already mortgaged to the eyebrows.”
Isla gasped. “You cannot! Alistair would never sell Strathmore!”
Edward stepped closer to Isla instinctively, one hand hovering near hers though he did not touch her outright. Glenmore’s gaze flicked to the gesture, then away.
“Unfortunately,” Glenmore said, “your brother may disagree with you.”
He withdrew yet another folded document from the satchel and flicked it open with a practiced hand.
“I have here,” he said, “a letter signed by the Duke of Strathmore, expressing his willingness to enter discussions about the sale of the estate, for a significantly higher sum, I grant you, than the lowered post-fire value. But an offer all the same.”
He held the paper out. Alistair snatched it. Edward saw the tremor that ran through his fingers as he scanned the page. Then Alistair crushed the letter in his fist.
“That was written before the fire,” he said through his teeth.
“Which,” Glenmore said mildly, “makes it all the more fortunate that your debts have become … painful. A fire, however destructive, often opens the mind to possibilities.”
Edward intervened then, because Isla looked ready to throw herself bodily at Glenmore and Alistair looked ready to hurl himself to the gallows.
“You are correct,” Edward said coolly, “that the fire has reduced the value. Drastically. Unfortunate, as you say for Strathmore.”
Glenmore inclined his head. “Reality does not bend to sentiment.”
“No,” Edward agreed. “But it does bend to scrutiny. One wonders how quickly the creditors approached you after the fire. Almost as if they expected it.”
At that, Glenmore’s eyes hardened. Not a full give-away but enough to confirm Edward’s suspicions. Isla moved then, stepping forward with a steadiness that belied the fury snapping in her eyes.
“Is this what it is?” she asked quietly. “All of this …” She gestured to the blackened wing behind her. “… because my mother chose another man over you?”
Glenmore stiffened. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“What nonsense,” he said sharply. “You imagine I nurse thirty-year grievances like some jilted boy?”
Isla reached into her apron pocket and withdrew the bundle she had carried since morning, the salvaged letters. She unfolded the top one, the charred edges trembling in her fingers, and held it out.
“You wrote to her,” she said softly. “Nigel. You called her dearest. You signed yourself hers. You told her she had ruined you for other women.”
Glenmore’s face drained of blood. For a heartbeat, the courtyard seemed to freeze. Edward watched the letters as if they were live powder. Isla’s hands did not shake now; her voice did not falter.
“She kept them,” Isla said. “She hid them in a chest. She did not burn them. Whatever her choice was, she kept you in her thoughts enough to keep your words, perhaps to read them again.”
A sound escaped Glenmore, not quite a breath, not quite a choke. His gaze darted to the letters again, then away, then back, as if he could not decide whether to look at them or flee from them.
“She kept them,” he repeated hoarsely.
Isla nodded. “It pains me to admit it. But yes. She must have cared for you once.”
Glenmore swallowed hard. He looked, for the first time since Edward had known him, like a man who had been struck, hard and deep, where it mattered. The bailiffs shifted uneasily. Alistair looked disgusted, wounded, curious, and afraid all at once. Edward decided the time was right.
“If Strathmore is for sale,” he said, “I will buy it.”
Four pairs of heads snapped toward him.
Isla stared.
Alistair blinked rapidly. “You … what?”
Edward stepped closer, keeping his voice level. “If the estate must be sold to settle debts, then let it remain in the family by marriage. I will pay the creditors. You will retain Strathmore as your ancestral home. You can rebuild without Glenmore’s interference. This feud can die here.”
But Alistair, foolish, stubborn, prideful Alistair, shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I will not be kept by a brother-in-law. I will not have people saying Strathmore survives only because Wexford threw a coin purse at it.”
“This is not charity,” Edward snapped. “This is family.”
“Family?” Alistair shot back. “We are Drummonds. We stand or fall on our own legs. I will not sell Strathmore to you.”
Edward swore inwardly. The refusal, perversely, steadied something in him.
Alistair was many things, reckless, burdensome, blind but he was not a liar, nor a plotter in some grand scheme to fleecing the Ravenscrofts.
That, at least, was settled. Glenmore had gone still, watching the exchange with unreadable eyes. Then, slowly, he looked at Isla again.
“The letters,” he said. His voice sounded older than Edward had ever heard. “May I …?”
Edward braced himself, but Isla stepped forward and placed the packet in his hands.
“You may,” she said.
Glenmore held them as though holding fire. He unfolded one with hands that were not as steady as before. His eyes scanned the familiar script. His own words, from years when his hair was dark and his pride unbroken. When he reached the signature, something in his expression cracked.
“She kept them,” he whispered again, wonder and grief wrestling in his voice. “All these years …”
The bailiffs looked profoundly uncomfortable. One cleared his throat but Glenmore did seem to hear him. At last, he closed the letters and turned to Alistair.
“I will make you an offer,” he said hoarsely. “Not as a creditor. Not as a rival. But as a man who once loved your mother once. Who … who still does though I lost her.”
Alistair’s jaw tensed.
“I will take these,” Glenmore said, lifting the letters slightly, “in settlement of your debts.”
Silence fell like a dropped stone.
“You cannot mean that,” Alistair said, stunned.
“I do,” Glenmore said. “I want no money. No property. Only the right to pay my respects to her.”
“Absolutely not,” Alistair spat. “You think you can stroll into our family crypt and …”
“Alistair,” Isla said sharply.
He turned to her, incredulous.
But Isla stepped between them both, her voice lowering.
“If Mother cared for him once,” she said, “and he for her then let him look upon her grave. What harm does it do? What does it cost us?”
“It costs us dignity,” Alistair hissed. “It gives him—”
“It gives him closure,” Isla said. “And it frees Strathmore from ruin.”
Edward saw it then, the final blow that Isla’s compassion dealt to Glenmore. Her words were not sentimental. They were true. Glenmore’s feud had been fueled by a wound no one else had acknowledged. He had expected hatred. He had not expected grace. Glenmore lowered his head.
“Will you allow it?” he asked Isla softly, ignoring Alistair entirely.