A Gentleman's Deception at the Lyon's Den

Chapter One

Catriona MacKenzie stared glumly from her window. Despite the weather, which was sunny and clear, her spirits were low this morning. Summer was a time of rejoicing, where days were long and evenings longer, and her family came together at the castle with much love and laughter.

From her room in the tower, she could see the dense forest that surrounded Bonnyrigg Castle and hear the calls of the birds wheeling over the treetops.

Perhaps her eldest brother Callum was out there, going about his daily tasks, and pretending to himself that the news their father had shared with them last night was a bad dream.

Just as Cat was pretending. As she was sure all the MacKenzies were!

She watched her second eldest brother Rory stride across the lawn to the forest, his auburn hair glinting in the sunlight.

He was probably going to find Callum, so they could discuss solutions to the problem.

She wished them luck. As far as Cat was aware, there were no solutions. Not in the long term anyway.

Donal was next, the youngest of the three brothers, standing still a moment to enjoy the new day, and then looking about him. He noticed her watching, and she waved from her window. He waved back, and she could see his wide smile.

“What are you doing up there?” he demanded. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs serving up the porridge for breakfast?”

It was Cat’s job to help the servants with the breakfast, and porridge was her specialty. Thick and creamy, with honey and cream for those who liked things sweet, or salt and milk for those of a more stoic disposition.

“Is everyone else at breakfast?” she asked instead of answering his question.

“Not all of them,” he called back. His smile faded into a worried frown. “I’m looking for Callum and Rory. Have you seen them?”

Cat pointed in the direction Rory had gone, and Donal waved a hand in acknowledgement and headed off. She watched him disappear into the trees until she was alone again.

This summer, her brothers and their wives were all here for what was meant to be a time of celebration and joy; a time Cat looked forward to every year.

But last night had been very far from joyful or celebratory.

The MacKenzie family had been gathered together at the long dining table in the great hall.

Wooden beams crisscrossed the ceiling above, blackened from centuries of roaring fires, and the walls were covered with weapons that had once been used by the dukes of Bonnyrigg to protect their land and their people.

The table groaned with food while the sounds of chatter and laughter filled the space.

Everything seemed perfect to Cat until halfway through the meal, when her father, Maxwell MacKenzie, the current Duke of Bonnyrigg, suddenly rose to his feet.

He was still a strikingly handsome man with his graying dark hair and dark, intelligent eyes, and Cat had always thought he could fix any problem, no matter how insurmountable it might seem.

She had rarely seen him cast down, although she had seen him weep with happiness.

But as Maxwell had stood before them the night before, it looked as if he had the weight of the world on his broad shoulders.

Shocked, the noisy room had become quiet, even the children silenced. Cat had known then that something was very wrong.

“I have news that will shock you all,” her father had said quietly, solemnly, and then had proceeded to tell them what it was.

Callum, who resembled his father to a marked degree, had paled, a pinch forming between his dark brows.

Rory, the next in line, with his mother’s auburn hair and blue eyes, had turned red with anger.

Donal’s thoughtful, handsome face had gone blank as if he were having difficulty comprehending what their father was saying.

As if he didn’t believe it could be true.

And finally Luna, their mother, her once bright hair streaked with white, had reached up a hand to take Maxwell’s in her comforting grip, her blue eyes swimming with tears.

It had indeed been a sobering moment, and as she sat at her window Cat could hear her father’s words repeating in her head.

“Your grandfather, the old duke, was a canny man. He did his best for Bonnyrigg and for his two daughters. Then I came here as the new gamekeeper, and I met your mother. She was a feisty lass, and I fell in love with her.” He smiled down at Luna, their gazes tangling.

“And I with you,” Luna whispered. “You saved me from a life I hated, and I thank you every day for that.”

Cat had heard the story many times, how Maxwell the gamekeeper had encountered Luna on his first day at Bonnyrigg, trying to escape her room with a makeshift rope.

Luna, who had to marry before her younger sister, was famously picky when it came to her suitors.

When her father, the old duke, had lost patience with her and insisted she marry a man she loathed, Maxwell had stepped forward.

He had declared his own desire to marry her, knowing he was able to offer her a future that would give her the freedom that she so desperately craved with a man she loved.

She had accepted Maxwell the gamekeeper with all of her heart.

The old duke reluctantly agreed. Mainly to please his youngest daughter, Jennie, who could not marry before her sister and was in love with James, Earl of Strathmore.

So Maxwell and Luna had gone off on their travels.

But the old duke had made the couple promise that upon his death they would leave their freedom behind and return to Bonnyrigg to take up their rightful place as custodians of the castle and the title.

As he had no son to inherit, he would make Maxwell the next duke and Luna would be his duchess.

“The old duke,” her father had continued on, and he was no longer smiling, “was a clever man, but unfortunately he was not so clever in his youth. When he was a lad, he fell into debt and borrowed money from Sir Hector, our neighbor. He thought nothing more of it, expecting Hector to ask for repayment when he needed it. But Hector never did ask, and over the years the matter was forgotten.” He had paused, his face bleaker than Cat had ever seen it.

“Forgotten until now. Last week, I learned that thirty years ago Hector passed on the old duke’s debt to another man in repayment of a loan of his own.

I do not think he did so maliciously. Perhaps carelessly.

Hector has sworn to me that he trusted the man and did not understand that he, in turn, would pass on the debt to another and then another and so on.

Until finally it was taken by someone who wishes us only ill. ”

“Who is this man who wishes us ill?” Callum demanded.

Maxwell’s expression grew grim. “Lord Armytage.”

Uncertainly, Cat had glanced at the other faces about the table and noted that her brothers’ wives, Penelope, Grace, and Agatha, looked worried and watchful.

Little Maxwell, Donal and Agatha’s son, was sucking on his thumb, and Callum and Penelope’s daughter, Henrietta, had her fair head bent and was making patterns with crumbs of bread.

“Lord Armytage?” Callum repeated. “I have heard of him. A mean and greedy fellow. Didna his own daughter run away from him?”

“He is no’ well liked,” Rory agreed. “And now we are in debt to such a man?”

“I’ve heard he lives in a house like a fortress,” Donal said. “Refusing any requests from his tenants for help. ’Tis a miserable place.”

“He’s probably counting his piles of money,” Agatha added.

“All of that is true,” Maxwell had agreed when the table fell silent again. “I have made enquiries, and Armytage is a hard man to reason with. But unfortunately we now have no choice but to do so.”

“But why?” Cat had asked innocently. “Can’t we pay him back the original loan and be done with him?”

The smile her father had turned on her was fond but sad, and her heart sank even lower.

“I wish it were that simple, Catriona,” he said.

“Under the terms of the original loan that was agreed between the old duke and Sir Hector, interest was to accrue for every year the amount remained unpaid. No one expected it to run this long. Now the sum owing is . . .” He had swallowed.

“Such a sum that I find it impossible to repay. We could live on bread and water for years and still not manage to satisfy Armytage.”

There had been a long silence as every one of them tried to understand the enormity of their situation.

“How did you find out?” Callum said, struggling to come to grips with the facts. “When it was years ago? Why has this happened now?”

“Lord Armytage has written to me. He has demanded the amount be repaid. In full.”

“But surely we can find the money from somewhere?” Donal burst out. “Even if we have to sell some of the estate—”

“No,” Maxwell interrupted quietly. “It is an enormous amount.” He took a deep breath. “Thirty thousand pounds.”

A horrified silence had fallen over them. Cat could not begin to imagine that amount of money. How could they ever repay it? Her father was right; it was impossible.

After a moment, Penelope, Callum’s wife, had spoken up.

“Can you not use some secret of Lord Armytage against him? Threaten him if necessary.” Her pale eyes looked dazed.

Beneath her gown, her belly swelled with her unborn child, and Cat imagined she was picturing them evicted from the castle and left to roam penniless throughout the land.

Perhaps Penelope had also remembered Maxwell’s instruction to Callum to marry a wealthy wife, which Callum had disobeyed.

Not that Maxwell had held that against either of them.

He loved all of his daughters-in-law. But perhaps this was a moment when he might be wishing that at least one of his sons had married an heiress, instead of giving their hearts free rein.

“Have no doubt, Penelope, I have tried to find some hold on him,” Maxwell said, but gently.

“I have chased rumor and gossip down every wynd and close, but I could find nothing that was not already known. The man will not budge. He wants the money or the castle and the land that goes with it. And he insists he is within his rights under the law.”

“This is Hector’s fault!” Rory’s voice had risen angrily as his quick temper caught fire. “He should be helping us!”

His wife, Grace, had put her hand on his to steady him. “Can Hector help us?” she asked Maxwell, her dark hair a little tangled from her earlier walk in the forest with her husband.

“He hasn’t the funds,” Maxwell had said. “And he had forgotten all about it. He is as shocked as I am, and as sorry.”

“If we cannot reason with Armytage and we cannot pay him back, then we must find another way,” Donal had declared hopefully.

His wife, Agatha, had agreed, her bright-blue eyes blazing. “Yes, we need a scheme! You say he lives like a hermit, but he must have someone. Has he family? One of them may be persuaded to help. Is there a wife or daughter he is fond of and who will speak to him on our behalf?”

Maxwell had considered the question. “Apart from the daughter who couldn’t abide him and ran away, I believe he has a grandson.

I suppose he will inherit Armytage’s fortune when he dies, but from what I hear, the lad abides in London and spends his time gaming and drinking.

He will run through Armytage’s money in no time.

That would serve Armytage right, if it were not our money he was wasting. ”

The MacKenzies had continued to try to think of ways to escape this awful trap they had fallen into so unexpectedly.

The conversation circled around and around, but the only thing they could decide upon was a prompt visit to their solicitor in Edinburgh and possibly a court case.

Which would, according to Maxwell, at least give them some breathing time, even if would likely just delay the inevitable.

“I have written to James,” Maxwell had said when they had exhausted every possibility. His brother-in-law, Luna’s sister Jennie’s husband, was the Earl of Strathmore. “He is a clever man and is acquainted with a great many legal people. He will help.”

“And so we wait?” Callum had said glumly, reaching to take his wife’s hand.

“Aye, we wait,” Maxwell had agreed soberly.

And now here Cat sat in her window, staring out at the view she loved.

The memories of last night crowded her head making it ache.

She tried to imagine a different life. When her grandfather had died and her parents returned to Bonnyrigg, she had been a mere babe.

Unlike her brothers, she had grown up here in the castle and assumed she would be here always.

A tear rolled down her cheek. Impatiently, she dashed it away. She would not grieve yet. There must be something she could do, there must be!

Her thoughts alighted on this grandson of Armytage’s.

The waster and scoundrel. Was Agatha right?

Could he be worked on in some way? Could she persuade or pressure him until he agreed to help them?

Her family all said she was very persuasive.

It couldn’t hurt to find out, could it? Cat had never been to London, unlike her three brothers, who had all traveled south and stayed with their Aunt Jennie in the capital.

Perhaps the time had come for Cat to follow in their footsteps and at the same time pay a visit to this young man and work her wiles on him.