Chapter 24
Thane cared deeply about his friends, but their imminent arrival brought the brief idyll he had with Catriona crashing to a halt, like a ship grounded on a hidden shoal. Except it wasn’t really hidden, because both of them knew the forbidden intimacy couldn’t continue. It never should have started.
On seeing the men riding in the distance, Cat’s whole demeanor changed in the course of a moment. It wasn’t anything overt—just tiny things like her chin lifting, her shoulders rising, and a coolness covering her expression.
“I’d best go make myself presentable,” she said without inflection. “If they’re here, Aunt Tacita will likely be along soon in a carriage.” The faintest wash of pink in her face let him know that she was not actually calm about this. But was it embarrassment? Shame? Anger? That he couldn’t say.
“Wait,” he told her. “Before you go. How do you want to handle…what happened?”
She looked at him in what seemed to be completely honest surprise. “Nothing happened. Nothing that concerns any of them. Or in fact anyone at all. So we’ll say nothing.”
She left down the spiral stairs. Thane very briefly considered the long drop down over the parapet, decided it wasn’t for him no matter how maddening Cat was, and went down the more conventional way to prepare the house for his visitors.
Calan and Struan rode in through the gates, and Thane hurried to greet them.
He was slightly surprised to see Struan had come, though an instant later, he regretted his reaction.
Struan had always been there for him during the war.
His character hadn’t changed after his injury, just his appearance.
And perhaps his general mood. But he’d always help when there was a need.
“Struan,” he said, briefly embracing his friend. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“My life’s not too busy at the moment,” Struan replied, deadpan. “How are things here?”
“Quiet, at least in terms of Miss Ross’s safety. No word of any strangers about, and not even a hint that her attacker knows where she is.”
“Good.” Calan was looking around the courtyard, but he was clearly thinking hard. “She’s all right here, then? Not clamoring to get out?”
“She’d love to go back to her home, but she’s intelligent. She knows it’s not wise until we can identify who’s after her.” Thane paused. “I almost wish we could leak out the news, and maybe draw the man here, where we control who can get in and out.”
Struan shook his head. “Too risky. We know the man is willing to kill others along with Miss Ross. The last thing we need is for someone to taint the food supplies and poison half the castle.”
“You’re cheery.”
“I think the worst so I’m not surprised by what happens. That’s all.”
“Is it just you two?”
Calan shook his head. “Tacita is following in a carriage, escorted, of course. She offered to ride but Duncan wouldn’t have it.”
As expected, the carriage arrived an hour later, and Thane was surprised to see not just Tacita and Duncan, but Kai as well.
“Kai, what are you doing here? I thought you were staying in Edinburgh.”
“I’d planned to. But I got an idea about something and pursued it. And I think I’ve got the answer to why Miss Ross is being targeted. It’s not about her politics.”
“Wait. I just sent you a letter based on a hunch I got after speaking with Cat, I mean Miss Ross, about potential reasons men have to kill. She mentioned that her mother settled a trust in her name… I thought someone might be after it…”
“Great minds think alike! We had the same notion.” Kai looked pleased for a moment, but then his expression turned.
“However, the situation is worse than you imagined.” His eyes went cold, and Thane saw the tiniest glimpse of another side of Kai.
The young man was normally easygoing to the point that most people assumed he was harmless.
He wasn’t. When Kai felt a deadly response was necessary, he never hesitated.
“We’d better gather everyone and have it all out, then, yes?” Thane wanted to know exactly what Kai knew so they could plan their next steps. Protecting Cat was essential, and it seemed they finally had the key to discovering who was after her.
* * * *
Cat had never felt more unsettled. She embraced Tacita when she came into the great hall. “Oh, I missed you so much!” She wanted to sob all over her aunt.
“That bad, was it?” Tacita asked wryly. “The place looks quite lovely to me.”
“Oh, Kinlochlie is a fine house, and everyone is very kind. You’ll meet Thane’s sister Effie. She’s wonderful. Come, I’ll show you to your room. This place is nothing but rooms; he could host a battalion without doubling up.”
“Let us hope it does not come to that,” her aunt murmured.
The ladies were to come to the large parlor at noon. “Sort of a council meeting,” Tacita said. “The men have all been working on your…problem, and I believe there’s been some sort of breakthrough.”
“They didn’t tell you on the way?”
“Only bits and pieces. They wished to all be together, with you present, before sharing.”
“I see.” Cat didn’t see, but within the hour she’d at least know as much as they did.
“I’m sorry I missed your birthday, lass,” Tacita said. “I hoped to be here in time.”
Cat nearly choked. In time to witness Cat’s utter breakdown and then her ruination, courtesy of Thane? “Effie made a cake,” she managed to say, her voice not shaking at all.
The enormity of what she’d done last night was starting to sink in. She still didn’t regret it, but to assume that she was…unchanged…by the events would be a lie. She prayed Thane wouldn’t blab to his friends about his conquest. Men did that, didn’t they?
No. He wouldn’t. He asked how she wanted to handle it and she told him in no uncertain terms that there was nothing to handle.
In this disturbed and distracted state of mind, she joined the group at noon.
The men all greeted her politely, and Thane behaved exactly as he always did, which was some relief.
She glanced at him once, trying very hard not to remember the way he’d felt in bed.
She looked at the floor quickly. Never think of that again, she told herself.
Easier said than done.
Luckily, the men had begun to talk, each one giving his report on the progress he’d made in the matter of her attacker.
Through his steady work with the newspapers and the magistrates’ offices, Duncan had more or less eliminated the possibility that any other woman in the city was being similarly targeted.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Tacita said. “How horrible to think of others suffering from such hate.”
Cat, sitting next to her aunt on the settee, reached over to squeeze her hand. “Indeed.”
Calan had been watching the men who had signed their names to the threatening letters sent to Cat, as well as Patrick Melrose.
“I uncovered nothing to suggest he is involved,” Calan said. “Nor the other men, unfortunately.”
Struan nodded. “I was helping Calan. I believe we can safely eliminate all those names.”
“So where does that leave us?” Cat asked. “It’s all well and good to know that most of the citizens of Edinburgh didn’t want me dead. But it only takes one madman.”
“Perhaps I can offer a different angle.”
It was Kai who spoke, and Cat noticed him look to Thane. The men seemed to share some hidden communication.
“What is it?” Cat asked, suddenly quite sure that it was bad news.
Kai stood up, addressing everyone. “Following a guess I had, which it turned out was also on Thane’s mind, I conducted some research along quite a different tack.”
“You’d been damnably hard to track down in the city,” Duncan said. “Always out when I called.”
“Sorry. I had to go to a lot of places and find the right people to talk to.” Kai took a breath. “Here’s the gist. I believe that Miss Ross is in danger not because of her politics, but because of her name.”
“What?” Cat asked.
“She’s vulnerable precisely because she is the last Ross of her generation.
After Brodie’s death, there are no more known male heirs who can claim direct descent.
Somewhat unusually, according to the family’s traditions, the next in line is not the oldest male heir of the following generation—which doesn’t seem to exist in any case.
Aunt Tacita was very helpful in providing me with some information.
” Somehow, it felt perfectly normal for him to address the woman as Aunt.
“I couldn’t fathom why you wanted it,” Tacita admitted.
“You were kind to allow me to pursue my hunch,” Kai told her.
“To get to the point. The heir isn’t the next available male in the family.
Rather, it’s the closest blood relation to the previous heir, whether male or female.
As Brodie’s twin, Catriona is indisputably the closest. And that means on her twenty-fifth birthday, which just happened, she is due to inherit nearly all of the family holdings, whether real estate or chattel. ”
“No, that can’t be.” Cat shook her head.
“I could have saved you all that work. You see, my mother informed me that I had a small trust set up in my name, which I have control over for my lifetime. She was a very forward-thinking woman. She told me she arranged it that way so I wouldn’t ever be at the mercy of another.
She certainly would have had no need to do that if I were an heiress. ”
Thane seemed about to say something, then didn’t.
“What?” she nearly snapped.
“Just that…your mother made those arrangements when Brodie was alive,” Thane said, too gently. “When he was the heir.”
The simple statement hit Cat like a cartload of bricks. The grief she continually tried to push away rushed over her again. Brodie. Alive.
“Yes. I suppose that’s true,” she said softly.
Her mother made those plans because she thought Brodie would be alive and able to take on the responsibilities of inheritance.
And of course she also would have assumed that Cat and Brodie’s bond would mean that Brodie would be watching out for her as a brother, thus making it unnecessary for her to worry about anything.
“She was already ill when we got the news of Brodie’s death, so she ignored…
matters she otherwise would have addressed.
If we hadn’t had Aunt Tacita living with us, I’m not sure either of us would have managed to brush our hair, let alone deal with matters of the law. ”
Duncan said, “Perhaps we should let Miss Ross rest for a while, before we continue.”
“No, no, I’m quite rested.” She waved a hand to dismiss the idea that she needed a moment, like some fragile creature.
“Are you,” Thane muttered, and Cat had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him. This was him being circumspect?
“The good news is that there’s a clear solution to the problem,” Kai went on.
Cat looked at him. He did appear optimistic. “And what is that?”
Kai nodded. “I’ve spoken to a few different solicitors in Edinburgh, just to ensure that we’re understanding the law correctly. And it’s not that complicated. All you have to do is get married.”
Cat stared at the young man, so earnest, so bright.
“You want me to what?” she asked.
Kai said, “Marry. Listen, it’s quite simple.
The moment you’re married, your husband takes control of everything you own and everything you could own in the future, so he would get everything and you’d be perfectly safe.
There’s no more incentive for any attempt on your life.
” He smiled at her, evidently completely unaware of the nonsense he’d just spouted.
“Wouldn’t the husband just become the target?”
“Mmm, unlikely. With your inheritance being controlled by him, if he died, the law would follow his will. So that would mean you’d get whatever was settled on you, and whoever his heirs are—whether they be your children or his siblings or perhaps cousins—the point is that the inheritance rules all change the moment you become femme covert.
And whoever is after your fortune will have to sort through your husband’s legacy, and it would be practically impossible that he’s anywhere on the list of heirs.
So he’ll give up at that point. I’d hope. ”
Cat felt as if the floor was giving way beneath her feet, inviting her into an abyss. She looked at all the men, and realized that they had most certainly discussed this before she and Tacita got to the room. “Are you all mad? I’m not getting married just to not die!”
“What’s so bad about marriage?” Duncan asked tentatively.
She whirled on him, about to enlighten him on the cavalcade of evils the institution of marriage brought upon hapless women. But before she got more than two words out, Thane stepped between her and Duncan.
“They’re just explaining the situation,” he told her. “You don’t need to do anything yet.”
“Anything? I’ve only been given two options: wedding cake or death.”
“You’d really choose death?” he asked curiously. “Over cake?”
“I’d rather go to hell than go to the altar!” Cat declared. Then she stormed out, not quite making it to the door before tears started streaming down her cheeks.