Chapter 11 #2
Malcolm moved with remarkable speed for a man who had seemed frozen moments before.
He crossed the room in three long strides and placed himself bodily between his daughter and the visitors, his arms slightly spread as though to shield her from harm.
“Moira, return to the nursery at once. Mrs Douglas, take her upstairs immediately.”
But Mrs Douglas stood as though turned to stone, staring at Kinsman with an expression Elizabeth could only describe as horror mixed with recognition. The Scotsman's gaze shifted to the nurse, and something flickered across his weathered features. Recognition, certainly, but also calculation.
“Ah, Mrs Douglas. Still in service, I see.” His tone carried an edge that made the simple observation sound like a threat. “Ye're a long way from Skye, woman. Does the air of England suit ye better than Highland wind?”
The nurse seemed to collect herself with visible effort, drawing herself up to her full modest height. She took Moira's hand in a grip that looked almost painful in its intensity. “Come, child. Come away from here this instant.”
“But Papa, I want to stay with—”
“Go, Moira. Now.” Malcolm's voice cracked like a whip, brooking absolutely no argument. “Do as you are told.”
Moira's eyes filled with tears at her father's harsh tone, but she allowed herself to be pulled toward the door.
The moment the door closed behind them, Malcolm whirled on the visitors with fury barely contained beneath a veneer of icy control.
“You have said quite enough. You have frightened my daughter and distressed my household. Say whatever you came to say and be done with it, then remove yourselves from this property.”
“Och, there's fire in ye after all.” Kinsman’s smile turned uglier.
“I was beginning to wonder if ye had any spine beneath that English gentleman's polish.
I've come for a private word, MacKinnon. Just the two of us, man to man. About unfinished business from the troubles. About debts unpaid and promises broken. About things that should have been settled long ago but somehow never were.”
“I have no private words for strangers who appear uninvited at my door making wild accusations and veiled threats.” Malcolm's voice shook slightly despite his evident attempt at control.
“I do not know you. I have never seen you before in my life. Whatever you think you know, whatever grievances you believe you hold, you have directed them at the wrong man.”
“Have I indeed?” Kinsman tilted his head, studying Malcolm with the air of a man examining a curiosity.
“Perhaps I have. Or perhaps ye've gotten very skilled at playing the innocent.
Either way, I think ye'd be wise to grant me that private audience. There are matters that need discussing. Things that might prove most uncomfortable if they were to become common knowledge among your English neighbours and in-laws.”
Malcolm's face had gone white as the frost outside, but whether from fear or barely suppressed rage Elizabeth could not determine with certainty. “Get out. Both of you. Get out of this house before I have you thrown from the property.”
“No need for violence, my dear sir,” Wickham interjected smoothly, though his eyes gleamed with unmistakable satisfaction at the chaos he had helped create.
“We shall take our leave peacefully enough. Mr Kinsman merely wishes you to understand that he has information that may be of considerable interest to you. Information concerning your claim to the estate and title you bear so confidently.”
“Out!” Malcolm's voice rose to a shout that shook the windows. “Now, before I forget myself entirely!”
Kinsman held up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender that was itself insulting in its insincerity.
“Peace, man. We're going as requested. Ye'll be wanting to speak to me sooner rather than later, I think.” His gaze slid meaningfully to Elizabeth.
“Especially awkward if those truths were to reach the ears of that fine gentleman who was asking all those pointed questions. Darcy, was it? Aye, I thought so.”
The two men departed finally, Wickham's practised ease a stark contrast to Kinsman's satisfied swagger.
Malcolm remained rigid as a statue until the sound of hoofbeats faded entirely into the distance, then quite suddenly his legs seemed to give way beneath him.
He sank into the nearest chair as though his bones had turned to water.
“Mr MacKinnon?” Elizabeth moved toward him with genuine concern, her earlier doubts momentarily swept aside by the naked distress in his face.
“I do not know that man.” His voice came hollow, as though from a great distance. “I swear to you, Elizabeth, upon everything I hold sacred, upon my daughter's life itself, I have never seen him before. I do not know what he wants or why he would make such accusations.”
Elizabeth found herself believing him despite all reason counselling caution.
She could not say why precisely, but the anguish in his face seemed far too genuine to be mere performance.
Men who practised deception did so with more polish, more control.
This was raw fear and confusion. “Then why would he claim such intimate knowledge of your past? What does he hope to gain by these accusations?”
“I do not know.” Malcolm ran both hands through his hair in a gesture of such profound distress that it made him appear suddenly younger, more vulnerable.
“There were so many displaced during the Clearances. Families torn apart, fortunes destroyed, old grievances that festered for years afterward. Perhaps he mistakes me for someone else, or perhaps—” He stopped abruptly, his jaw working as though physically preventing words from escaping.
“Perhaps what?” Elizabeth prompted gently when he did not continue.
“Perhaps there are those who would seek to discredit my claim to the estate for their own purposes.” He looked at her directly for the first time since the men had departed, and in his eyes, she saw something that might have been fear.
Elizabeth felt cold despite the fire burning steadily in the grate. The room suddenly seemed darker, more oppressive. “That is a most serious accusation to make without proof.”
For the first time, Elizabeth saw genuine vulnerability in the man she had agreed to marry. Not the careful control he usually maintained, not the charming warmth he displayed in company, but real, naked fear for his future and his daughter's security.
“I believe you,” she heard herself say, though even as the words left her lips she wondered at their truth.
He ceased his restless turning about the room and faced her with something like desperate gratitude. “Do you? Even after all Mr Darcy's questions and my confrontation with the two men?”
“Even so. Yes, I believe you.” But even as she spoke the reassurance, doubt whispered insistently at the edges of her conviction. Malcolm's distress was undoubtedly real, as genuine as anything she had witnessed.
But there was no mistaking the evasiveness he had displayed when faced with Mr Darcy’s questioning either.
What if Mr Darcy had been right to ask his careful questions?
What if his concern had not been mere interference in matters that did not concern him, but genuine knowledge of something seriously amiss?
The thought came unbidden and unwelcome.
Guilt flooded her immediately. She was engaged to Malcolm, and she ought to trust him without reservation. Wishing for another man’s counsel and judgment above her betrothed's own protestations, felt like a betrayal of the most fundamental sort.
And yet the wish would not be banished.
For a brief, traitorous moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would feel like to have Mr Darcy investigate this matter with his characteristic thoroughness.
To know that if he examined Kinsman’s accusations and found Malcolm blameless, then blameless Malcolm truly was beyond any shadow of doubt.
She realised with a start that left her almost breathless that she trusted Mr Darcy's judgment more than she wished to admit, perhaps more than was entirely proper for a woman engaged to marry another man.
More, if she were honest with herself, than she trusted her own judgment in this moment of confusion.
“I should see to Moira,” Malcolm said heavily, breaking into her troubling thoughts. “She will be frightened by my harshness. I must explain that I meant no cruelty, that I was only trying to protect her from those men.”
“Yes, of course. She needs her father's reassurance.”
He departed without another word, leaving Elizabeth alone with her tumbling thoughts and growing doubts.
The afternoon crept by with uncomfortable slowness.
Elizabeth attempted to occupy herself with reading in the drawing room, but the words swam meaninglessly before her eyes no matter how many times she reread the same paragraph.
Her mind would not settle, turning endlessly over the morning's events.
Finally, unable to bear the pretence any longer, she set aside her book and made her way toward her father's study, thinking to borrow a different volume that might prove more engaging.