Thirteen #3
“My lady is in need of rest,” St. Clair said, shoving away from the stone wall, turning, and climbing back up to resume his seat. “If you think you’ll be sending us on our way anytime soon, I am bound by concern for my lady to disappoint you.”
Well, of course. Michael had stuck by St. Clair against all odds, and now the favor was being returned.
“I could not have the Baroness St. Clair’s welfare on my conscience,” Michael said. “My wife’s situation is burden enough. Matters here could get messy.”
“So what will you do?”
“Two things. First, I will enlist what allies Brenna has—Elspeth, the parson, the MacLogans, a few others—to restore her standing in the community.”
St. Clair rose and traversed the parapets until he reached the conical roof over the staircase. “And second?”
Michael looked away, because the damned fool was about to scramble up on the roof until he could touch the flagpole, as Michael had many times in his boyhood—his foolish boyhood. The very top of the roof was a flat space maybe two feet across, the flagpole anchored in its center.
“Second, I’m going to do what my uncle should have done years ago and move heaven and earth to clear Brenna’s name.”
In a half-dozen nimble steps, St. Clair was up to the flagpole. “The view is unbelievable,” he said. “You are a wealthy man, Baron Strathdee, if you are lord of this vista.”
All Michael wanted was to be lord of his own castle and of his lady’s heart. “I am a wealthy man, and you are not a mountain goat. Getting down is trickier than getting up.”
St. Clair traversed the slope of the roof, arms outstretched like a circus performer. He’d trod a similar path in France, disaster on all sides and no margin for error, and as in France, he came to a safe landing and made it look easy.
“One is left with a question, my friend,” St. Clair said, his cadence ever so slightly French.
“I know,” Michael said. “I bloody goddamned know: Why didn’t Angus make any effort at all to bring to justice those who stole from my wife, and from the entire village?”
Hugh and Dantry had apparently had enough of the frigid pleasures of the loch, for they both climbed onto the shore and used their shirts for towels.
“You suspect Angus?”
“I’m supposed to suspect her cousins,” Michael said. “They had motive and opportunity. They were the ones who allowed her to be unescorted on a road not always well traveled. The horse she was riding was found near their holding, and they made no defense of her either.”
“Complicated,” St. Clair said, a wealth of pity in a few syllables. “Perhaps your uncle conducted no investigation because he did not want to deprive Brenna of her only close family.”
“Or perhaps he did.” Because Brenna had counted six armed brigands after her money, surely enough to overpower her, as well as Neil and Hugh.
St. Clair’s eyebrows rose in an eloquent reconfiguration of the available facts.
“You suspect Angus of stealing from the entire village and maligning his niece-by-marriage into the bargain? Of casting suspicion on her cousins too? For what purpose? He has no need of coin, he has a Scotsman’s loyalty to clan, and he’s your only close family. ”
That last part, about being Michael’s only close family, was what hurt the most.
“Somebody took the trouble to get Brenna’s horse up here from Aboyne, left the saddle and bridle on so there’d be no mistaking the animal, and made sure the beast was found near the MacLogan holding. That makes no sense.”
“If thieves are desperate enough to steal from an entire village, then they sell the horse, saddle, and bridle down on the coast,” St. Clair concluded. “Unless they’re trying to implicate the MacLogans.”
An unhappy, speculative silence spread, broken only by the pennant snapping and whipping in the breeze.
“I expect Angus back from Aberdeen tomorrow,” Michael said. “I thought I’d search his quarters before then.”
“Not by yourself,” St. Clair said in a tone that suggested pulling rank was yet within his abilities. “You’re distracted, you’ll miss the obvious—”
The door scraped open, revealing Elspeth Fraser looking flushed and unhappy.
“You’ve missed him,” Michael said. “MacLogan and his brother are already scrubbed as clean as soap and cold water can make them.”
Elspeth put Michael in mind of that quote about a woman being little but fierce, and she wasn’t having any of his teasing.
“Never mind the daft MacLogans. I cannot find Maeve, and was hoping she’d taken herself up here to sketch.”
“She’s not with us,” Michael said, “and she’s not with Brenna, and evening will soon descend. St. Clair and I have been up here for a good half hour, and we haven’t seen her leave the castle. Find Lachlan, search the stables, talk to Cook, and, for God’s sake, hurry.”
Dinner was a quiet business, with the Baroness St. Clair carrying most of the conversation. She quizzed Brenna on how wool was woven, the various Brodie plaids, and the accoutrements necessary to create a formal Highland dress ensemble.
While Brenna was so upset, she barely tasted her lamb and potatoes, and Milly St. Clair took over the duties of hostess for her.
As a friend would have.
“You might consider wearing the colors of Clan Sinclair,” Michael said. “Brenna can show you the plaid, and it wouldn’t take long to have a kilt made up. Sinclairs have been in Scotland for centuries.”
“You’ve sewn kilts, then?” St. Clair asked over a bowl of trifle.
“I’ve been measured for my share.” Michael’s reply was served with an indulgent smile in Brenna’s direction, a husbandly smile, and yet it would do him no good.
They were doomed to have a rousing argument, and Michael likely knew it.
Brenna rose without giving Michael a chance to hold her chair.
“In the interests of allowing all and sundry to get a good night’s sleep, I’ll suggest Lady St. Clair and I withdraw at this point. We’ll be in the solar, gentlemen.”
“You’re preoccupied,” Lady St. Clair—Milly—observed as they made their way down the corridor.
“I’m furious.” One could be honest with friends.
“Maeve’s a little girl, and far from home. Of course she’ll explore, and she came to no harm.”
These were the arguments Brenna anticipated from Michael. She did not want to hear them from her friend.
“She came to no harm this time.” Because Angus was in Aberdeen, because Elspeth had known to keep a close eye on the child.
Because Michael had raised the alarm the instant he’d realized Maeve was missing. Brenna didn’t want to be fair about that, but in the disagreement she intended to have with her spouse, she’d have to acknowledge that much.
“We are tired,” Milly observed as they reached the third floor. “Would you be very offended if I sought my bed and left you to the company of the teapot?”
“You are well otherwise?” This mattered to Brenna, that Milly be in good health. It mattered very much.
“Fatigued, but otherwise thriving. I suspect Sebastian will abandon the port with unseemly haste.”
“And Michael will join me soon enough as well.”
Milly stifled a yawn, then fussed the drape of Brenna’s tartan shawl. “You were terrified for that child.”
Brenna was terrified for all the children, though in Angus’s absence, she’d relaxed her guard.
“The little ones can so easily come to harm.” Saying the words provoked an ache in Brenna’s throat, an ache where tears ought to be and never had been.