Chapter 19
He had been cold to her. Unnecessarily so.
Ewan knew this, and yet, as he stared out his study window at the hills and mountains rising in the distance, he could not imagine having done any differently.
The alternative was to tell her how he was feeling, to express the fears that lurked in his heart, and which he saw crystalizing every time she laughed at something Christopher said.
And yet, he knew that by pushing her away, he was only speeding up what he was afraid was inevitable: When Cassandra would choose his brother over him and insist on an annulment.
One of these days, she would be so lonely, that she would let slip to Christopher that her marriage was unconsummated, and then he would strike.
But no.
He said he does not want her.
That he is not ready for marriage.
Ewan had to remind himself of these things, but even as he did, they rang false. Christopher might say one thing, but he had always been a man who had known how to lie to get what he wanted. Was that not why he was such a proficient gambler?
There was a knock on his door, and Ewan shook himself.
“Enter,” he said, and the door opened to reveal his brother.
Ewan swallowed, then sat up, hoping that none of the emotions that had just been tearing through him showed on his face as he gestured to the chair across from him.
“Please, sit,” he said.
Christopher crossed the room and sat before him, hooking his ankle over a knee and sitting back luxuriously.
His expression was mild, but there was something glinting in his eyes that Ewan did not like.
“What can I do for you, brother?” he asked.
“If I am not mistaken,” Christopher said, “you are not overly pleased by my return.”
Ewan blinked, then frowned. He suddenly felt a creeping hotness in his face.
“What are you talking about?” he said gruffly. “Of course I am pleased by your return! What kind of man do you take me for?”
Christopher raised his eyebrows. “The jealous kind.”
There was a long, tense silence. Then Ewan said, “I do not know what you are talking about.”
Christopher leaned forward, a frown unfurling on his lips. “I am talking about your marriage to my intended, Ewan. The fact that you stole what was mine from right under my nose.”
Anger, but also another, more ugly emotion, flickered through Ewan. Guilt.
“I did not steal what was yours,” he muttered. “We thought you were dead, Christopher. Her father had to be appeased.”
“And yet, how am I to be appeased?” Christopher snapped.
“It was not my fault that the storm took my ship. And yet, I returned home to find that I had been punished by my brother for nearly dying. Do you know how difficult it was to stay alive out in the water, brother? Do you have any conception of what I suffered? And yet, I held on, knowing that I would come home to a loving wife and brother.” His eyes were very still.
“Except that is not what I returned home to, is it? No, I return to find that my brother has taken my wife for himself, and now I am forced to watch as they make a home, and a life together. While I… I have nothing.”
Emotions crashed through Ewan, almost too fast for him to keep track of.
His first instinct was to get angry. After all, his brother might not have conjured the storm that had shipwrecked him, but he had chosen to go on a sea journey just weeks before his wedding.
Ships were notoriously dangerous, especially in Scotland, where summer did not seem to even out the oceans.
He had risked his life for nothing, simply to get away from his responsibilities.
And then he had returned, claiming that he had not been ready for those responsibilities.
Ewan had every reason to be furious at him for his about face.
But there was another emotion lurking underneath this one, and it stilled his tongue.
It was guilt.
Because part of what Christopher was saying was true.
He had taken Christopher’s fiance. He had married her, without waiting even an appropriate period of time.
And while he did feel that it had been the right choice at the time, maybe he would have made a different one, would have refused to marry, if he had not found her so beautiful and alluring.
And that was where the guilt was coming from.
Ewan desired Cassandra. He had desired her from the first moment he had seen her stepping into the lake.
Perhaps that was why he had been so easily talked into marrying her.
And even now, it pained him more than he could say to imagine what it would be like had Christopher not disappeared, had he had to spend a lifetime watching her be married to his brother.
Ewan’s mouth was very dry when he spoke.
“If I have wronged you, brother, then I apologize.” He looked Christopher square in the face.
“Unfortunately, I cannot now undo what has been done. Cassandra and I are married, in the eyes of God and man.” From the lack of skepticism on Christopher’s face, Ewan felt reassured that she had not mentioned the lack of consummation.
“But I would like to make amends to you in any way that I can. Name it, and it shall be done.”
Christopher sat back in his chair, and something loosened around his mouth and jaw.
“If you mean that, then there are some ways you can make this up to me,” Christopher said.
“I have… debts… that are in need of fulfilling. I was going to use some of the dowry that came with my wife, as well as the stipend you had promised me on the occasion of my marriage, to pay off these debts. They are not large, but they hang over me. If you were to pay these, brother, then I would consider your own debt paid.”
“It is done,” Ewan said, before he had even had a chance to fully process what his brother had said. But even as Christopher’s face split into a smile, Ewan did not regret his rashness.
Christopher’s debts might be larger than he was making them out to be, but it would give him peace of mind, and perhaps restore their relationship, to feel that this business had been resolved between them.
And perhaps, a small voice in the back of his head said, he will also leave Cassandra alone now.
Ewan shifted in his chair. Was that why he had agreed so readily to pay off his brother’s loans? Because it might mean Christopher would lose interest in Cassandra?
“Thank you,” Christopher said, standing. “I shall provide you with more information forthwith on how those can be settled.”
After he was gone, Ewan decided to stretch his legs. However, the gardens did not provide as much peace as he would have liked. Within a few minutes of strolling through them, he encountered Lord Pembury, who was striding purposefully in his direction.
“Your Grace.” Lord Pembury bowed before him. “I was just looking for you. I came to bid you farewell. Lord and Lady Whitmore and myself are leaving this afternoon. I shall accompany them back to Edinburgh, where we shall consider everything you have told us about farming in the Highlands.”
“Very good,” Ewan said, nodding to him. “I trust that I was able to convince you of the efficacy of the drainage systems, and of keeping them in the public domain as long as possible.”
“You certainly made a compelling case,” Lord Pembury said. And although his words were vague, his smile was genuine. He held out his hand, and Ewan shook it.
“In regards to another, more delicate matter…” Lord Pembury cleared his throat, not yet releasing his hand. “My daughter…”
“What about her?” Ewan asked, too sharply. He immediately regretted his tone. But Lord Pembury did not look angry.
“I simply wanted to thank you for your gentlemanly behavior,” Lord Pembury said.
“I know that Lord Christopher’s return must be shocking and confusing, but I believe that you made the right choice at the time.
We could not know he had survived his dreadful shipwreck.
” He hesitated. “But I hope you are aware, Your Grace, that if you leave a door open, then you should not be surprised when another man walks through it.”
Lord Pembury gave him one last, meaningful look, then dropped his hand.
“Thank you again for your hospitality and for your fascinating ideas.”
He then turned and left. Ewan watched him, a vague feeling of unease stirring in his stomach. If even Lord Pembury had noticed Christopher’s attentions to Cassandra, that did not bode well.
But at least it told him that it had not been in his head.
If you leave a door open, then you should not be surprised when another man walks through it.
Ewan could not help but think of Lord Pembury’s snide and true comment.
Would paying off the debts be enough to keep his brother away from his wife? And was Cassandra similarly in need of dissuading?
She, unfortunately, was much harder to read than his brother.
***
These thoughts were still weighing on Ewan that evening as he visited Annabelle.
She was more subdued than usual as he tucked her into bed and then read to her from one of her favorite collections of fairytales.
She didn’t laugh at the sections that usually sent her into fits of giggles, and she barely even flinched when he got to the darker bits.
When he was done, he set the book on her nightstand and looked at her seriously.
“What is wrong, darling?” he asked.
Annabelle’s eyes were wide as they gazed back at him.
“Is everything going to change now that Uncle Christopher is back?” she asked. Her voice sounded thinner than it usually did, and quieter, as if she were afraid of the question even as she asked it.
Ewan’s heart began to beat a little faster. “What do you mean?”
Annabelle looked down at her hands. She was picking at her cuticles, he noticed. “Only that Uncle Christopher was supposed to marry Cassandra,” Annabelle said. “And now that he is back, I am afraid that she will marry him instead, and then she will no longer be my new mother.”
Ewan’s mouth had gone very dry. “She will not marry your uncle,” he said swiftly. “Whatever gave you that notion?”
Annabelle shrugged. “It is the kind of thing that would happen in a fairytale. She would have to go back to the brother she was supposed to marry.”
“That is not how it works,” Ewan said gently. He smiled at her to reassure her. “Once two people are married, nothing can undo that bond. Do you understand?”
Annabelle nodded, and she looked marginally happier as she lay back against her pillows. “That is what Cassandra said, too,” she murmured, as her eyes fluttered closed. “She promised she would not marry Uncle Christopher. She promised she would not go anywhere.”
“She will not be going anywhere,” Ewan said, and he pulled his daughter into a hug. Even in her sleepiness, she hugged him back. “I promise you as well.”
He could hear the vow as he made it, and he knew, as he left her room several minutes later, the candles snuffed out and his daughter gently sleeping, that he would not break it. Cassandra would not be going anywhere. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Several minutes later, he was in his study, and had just sat down to a night cap of port when there was a knock on the door. When it opened, he was surprised to see Alaric.
“This late?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, as Alaric crossed the room and sat down heavily in the chair across from him. “It must be serious.”
“It is serious,” Alaric said, grimacing. “I have been in Inverness.”
Now both of Ewan’s eyebrows shot up. “Have you? I did notice that you were absent today.”
“Something just did not sit right with me,” Alaric said, shaking his head. “With your brother’s sudden return, his story of the shipwreck, the dramatic clinging for life on the broken mast… I felt there was something amiss.”
It took Ewan several seconds to understand what his friend was saying.
Alaric continued softly, “And I have had word from a friend that he thought he saw Christopher in Inverness at a tavern not a week ago.”
Finally, Ewan found his voice. “You think… he is lying?”
It had not even occurred to him to consider that Christopher was lying.
But it would not be the first time.
“I do not know,” Alaric admitted. “But I do think that something is fishy about all of it, and I wanted to find out more. I spoke with the harbormaster you spoke to, and he did confirm the story, but his memory of it seemed hazy, almost as if he was trying to remember details that someone had told him to memorize.”
Ewan’s eyes narrowed. “Did you speak to any other men who work at the docks? Or any sailors? Did anyone else remember a shipwreck?”
“I did,” Alaric said. “And while some swore there was a shipwreck, others seemed not to have heard of it.”
“Well, it could very much be the case that some sailors heard of it and others did not,” Ewan said fairly.
“It could be,” Alaric said, rubbing his brow. “But something seems off. No one really wanted to speak with me, and I often got the impression that they were laughing at me behind my back, like they had taken me for a fool.”
Ewan said nothing for a long moment. Alaric’s accusation was serious, and without more evidence, he did not know what to think. His friend had a strong intuition, but he would need more than a feeling before he could believe that his brother would lie about something so sinister.
“Let us say, for a moment, that you are right,” Ewan murmured. “My question would be, why would Christopher lie? What does he gain from it? If he did not want to marry Cassandra, he could have just told me.”
“Maybe he was afraid you would not allow him to call off the engagement. Since it would have harmed Her Grace’s reputation.”
“I would not have been pleased,” Ewan admitted. “But I do not think I would have forced him to marry if he truly did not wish to.”
But even as he said it, he was not sure. If Christopher had tried to call the wedding off a few days before, he could imagine himself telling his brother to get over his cold feet and get on with it.
“But he is back now,” Alaric said. “And I would wager that he has asked for money.”
Ewan looked up sharply. “How do you know that?”
Alaric shook his head. “Because I heard talk in Inverness of his many debts.” His eyes seemed to grow darker in the flickering light of the fire in the grate.
“I do not think your brother has returned out of love for you, Ewan. I think he has returned in desperation, realizing he needed Her Grace’s dowry more than he thought. ”