Chapter 32
“Who’ll know we know what?”
Ellie looked over to where Mairi stood. She’d been so focused on Struan and his news that she didn’t even hear her sister open the door to the backyard.
“Our father’s done something awful.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Mairi said dryly.
“Can we please continue this conversation anywhere but here?” Struan asked. “If anyone else joins us, we may as well talk about it on the dance floor.”
“There’s a park not too far away. I can get the gate key,” Mairi offered.
“And who else has one of those? I’d prefer to talk in private.”
“Where?” Elspeth asked.
“My townhouse.” He held up a hand before Ellie could object. “Both of you will come and both of you will be free to leave after we talk. Christ.”
“Good. I’ll call a carriage.”
Ellie jumped at the new voice, which turned out to be Kai, who stood there with Calan, Thane, and Duncan.
“Is anyone actually still at the party?” she asked.
“Too many,” Duncan replied. “We thought we’d be of more use out here, though. Since we’re supposed to be watching…things,” he finished awkwardly with a side look at Mairi.
Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice. Since Kai was already hurrying down the narrow passage to reach the main street to hail a hired carriage, Struan ordered Thane to return to the house and make sure no one had remarked on their absence.
“Then what?”
“Keep an eye on McGregor.”
“Lucky me.” Thane disappeared into the house.
“Ladies.” Duncan offered his arm to Mairi, who allowed him to lead her to where Kai had just gone. Struan offered his arm to Elspeth. Calan stalked behind them all like a tiger.
“I’m sorry you don’t have a cloak,” Struan told her. “But I’d rather not have you go back in alone and I don’t know where to look for one.”
“Just don’t allow anyone to steal the necklace,” she said. “Since it’s yours after all.”
“It looks better on you.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, then quickly promised, “We’re not friends again. I’m still mad at you.”
He sighed. “I know.”
Struan’s townhouse was more like him than Linneliath was. They gathered in the library, and Ellie wandered around, looking at all the books until everyone sat down. She noticed a whole shelf of books on mining and geology.
Finally everyone took their seats by the fire.
“Are we all aware of the whole situation?” Struan asked.
Ellie shot one panicked look to Mairi, because there was certainly one aspect of the situation that Struan didn’t know. She hoped.
Mairi shook her head slightly.
“I know what you’ve told me and that’s enough.” Duncan stood. “Why don’t we leave you three to talk. We’ll be in kitchen if you need us.”
“You’re hungry again?” Kai asked his friend.
“I’m always hungry.”
The soldiers left, and Struan sat down in the large, worn leather chair. He looked tired. “Miss McGregor, as I told your sister earlier tonight, I think your father tried to kill me.” He explained the situation to an utterly unsurprised Mairi, then said, “Was there anything you wanted to ask me?”
Mairi said, “Do you think that he wants you dead to cancel his debt to you? Since I assume there’s no written agreement that says Pest will be suitable payment.”
“None. There is a record of the original loan, though it’s safely back in Linneliath.”
“I suppose it’s worth asking if you have other disgruntled customers. I didn’t think that you were a money lender.”
“There’s no reason you would. It’s not typical for those in my class, is it?
My family has been well off for generations, and most of my predecessors felt that it was duty to assist others, which could mean financial assistance in the form of either loans or small gifts, depending on the situation.
Typically the loans were to longtime tenants or neighbors, people who are vouched for or well-known to the lender.
My father drilled it into me that I ought to carry on all of our family traditions.
” Here he looked pained, though Elspeth wasn’t sure why.
“So I naturally continued the practice of lending money when needs arose.”
“But I don’t understand,” she said, “because wouldn’t that mean that you knew my father previously?”
“That was my mistake,” he said. “It would be more accurate to say that I thought I knew him, based on his claim that he knew my father. In my defense—and it’s a weak defense—I was young.
I had in fact only just turned old enough to manage the funds myself.
I suppose I was trying to live up to the family name.
And it is true that one of the initial loans that I made was to your father, who couldn’t get credit from any other reputable lender, a fact I discovered too late.
I wouldn’t have done it if I had known.”
“But you did,” said Elspeth. “And then you extended the term of that loan.”
“I was at war,” he reminded her. “There was little I could do while on the Continent except for short times of leave. It was unwise to have the loan go unpaid for such a long time, but it couldn’t be helped.
And the sad fact is that your father is terrible with money.
He doesn’t view a loan as an opportunity to earn more money with an initial investment.
That’s what a loan should be. He instead views it as some sort of windfall, a magical pot of gold unconnected to the ordinary rules of men and finance.
He thinks he’s found treasure each time, and he spends all the money as fast as he can.
That’s what he did with the loan I gave him, and what he had done with other loans in the past, as I’ve come to find out. ”
“I think it must be a sort of sickness,” said Elspeth.
“That’s a good way to think about it. I don’t want to say that it’s not his fault, because he made the choices that he did over and over again, even knowing the consequences.
But it is true that he seems to feel some sort of compulsion that warps his good sense, and turns it into a type of greed.
Gamblers are like that. The kindest thing to do would be to never give him a coin again. ”
Mairi smiled, though without mirth. “He wouldn’t think it a kindness.”
“Even if I forgave the entire amount that he owed to me,” Struan said, “there are other lenders in the city to whom he owes a considerable amount. I’m afraid that debtors’ prison is probably his future.
It will leave your family in ruins, destitute.
Other than Ellie, of course, so long as she chooses to be my wife. ”
Elspeth understood that he had no intention of stepping in and playing hero in order to save her father or her stepfamily.
It would do no good to save them, because they would not view it with gratitude.
They would merely take it to mean that all of their choices were ultimately the correct ones, with fate keeping them afloat yet again.
“I think that debtors’ prison will probably be a rude awakening for him, and while I can’t say that I am entirely unsympathetic to my stepmother or Averill—”
“I am,” Mairi muttered.
“—it’s true that everyone besides Mairi was perfectly content to treat me as a servant and not offer much in the way of support, whether monetary or bonds of family love.”
It was painful even now to admit all of that.
Elspeth had spent such a large portion of her life pretending that was not so.
She had desperately wanted to believe that if she worked hard and didn’t cost her father anything, and didn’t make a fuss, she would somehow be considered worthy in his eyes, an acceptable compensation for losing the person he truly loved.
But the truth was he never thought about her enough to even consider whether she was worthy or not.
She had saved him the trouble of having to do so by being so self-effacing that she disappeared as a person.
All she had been was a useful pair of invisible hands, hands that made sure they cost nothing to keep.
But she could perhaps salvage something out of her disaster of a marriage.
Elspeth said, “I have a proposal for you.”
Struan raised his eyebrow. He said, “I thought we were past proposals. The first one didn’t work out so well.”
“A business proposition, then,” she clarified. “The truth is, I need your help. We need your help.”
He sighed. “If you need help, you could just ask. You’re my wife. Whether you like it or not.”
“It’s not me who needs help. It’s Mairi.”
“What?” Mairi asked, not prepared for this.
“She seems to be a capable young woman.” Struan looked at Mairi suspiciously. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to blow up Parliament or something like that. I happen to know that the League for the Advancement of Scottish Women does not condone violence.”
“I’ve never blown up anything,” Mairi protested. “Yet.”
Elspeth shook her head. “We know Father’s loans are now with men far less reputable than you, and once again, Father is unable to make the necessary payments. Mairi is concerned that Father will attempt another…non-monetary form of repayment, since it worked for him in the past.”
He nodded. “I suspected that possibility as soon as you read me Mairi’s letter. I sent word that day to tell Calan and Duncan to keep watch.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Mairi said, “Watch me?”
“To keep you safe, yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“They didn’t impede your daily life, Miss McGregor. You didn’t even notice them, did you? And you never would have, unless something occurred to force their hand. Only then would either of them have stepped in, and only to ensure your safety.”
Mairi looked furious, but she said nothing.
Elspeth said, “I don’t think we should wait to see if my father will do a terrible thing twice in row.”
“So what is your proposition?”
“Fund Mairi’s travel to some destination where she may start her life over, out of the reach of our father.”
“Where?” Struan asked Mairi.