Chapter 12
The beginning.
It seemed like a wise place to start.
Jules returned to Kirkwood’s office the next day. He already knew part of what the solicitor would tell him—that he had a wife. The knowledge that Claire somehow belonged to him filled him with as much satisfaction as it did fear.
He had no time to reflect on the thought as Kirkwood ushered him into his office. “Congratulations, milord, for you indeed are married.”
Jules accepted the papers Kirkwood held out to him.
The marriage documents, no doubt drawn up by Grayson, just as Claire had said.
At the bottom of the document he could clearly read Claire’s name, her handwriting neat and fluid, alongside his own bolder hand.
Yet he had never signed these documents.
Or at least he had not realized what the documents were when he’d trusted Grayson and signed the marriage papers without reading them.
Jules raked his hand through his hair. Anger at Grayson for betraying his trust mixed with sorrow over the man’s death. Grayson had been more like a brother to him than a business associate. How could he have betrayed a kinship that went deeper than blood?
“Have they buried him yet?” Jules asked, once again meeting Kirkwood’s curious gaze.
“Not until tomorrow.”
Jules straightened, recovering his composure. “Then that is when I will pay my respects.” He nodded toward the open ledger on the man’s desk. “Have you uncovered anything unusual in Grayson’s finances?” Jules asked as he took a seat in the chair nearest the desk.
Kirkwood did not sit behind the desk. Instead he perched on the edge, his expression dark. “Yes. It is most disturbing, too.”
“Go on,” Jules encouraged the solicitor when he hesitated.
“There was a rather large deposit to his account twenty-three days ago.”
“How large?” Jules asked.
“Five hundred shillings Scot.” Kirkwood shuffled through the notes on his desk. “Paid to him by your father.”
Jules frowned. “My father? Are you certain?”
The older man nodded. “I traced the transaction back to your father’s solicitor. He paid James Grayson to arrange your marriage to Claire Elliot. It appears he went to great lengths to find you a suitable bride with that first name.”
“How did he accomplish that? And when? He’s been dead for more than three weeks.”
Kirkwood checked the papers before him. “The transaction was recorded two days before his death.”
It took a second for the words to sink in, and when they did, Jules stood, no longer able to contain himself in the chair. He stood there for what felt like an eternity, breathing hard.
“Milord, are you well?” the solicitor asked.
Seven months had passed since his release from gaol. Seven months. Had his father not tormented him enough for one lifetime? Instead of coming to the gaol to release his own son, he had plotted and planned yet another horrific event.
Except Claire wasn’t horrific. She was gentle, intelligent, and passionate. If he were honest, she was everything and more than what he had created “Claire” to be.
Jules startled at the thought. He had created Claire.
Not his father. So how had his father implemented a plan that Jules had set into play?
It made no sense . . . except, a sudden thought occurred to him.
He had created his false bride five weeks ago.
James Grayson knew about her two weeks before his father had paid for the marriage to take place.
Two weeks. It was enough time for Grayson to send word to his father and for his father to arrange . . . whatever he had arranged.
Why? The word thrummed through Jules’s brain. He had absolutely no idea why his father would do such a thing, or even whether the man had considered his actions to be a benefit or yet another manipulation.
“Shall I get the physician?” Kirkwood asked, his face wreathed with concern.
“No.” Jules shook off his thoughts. “I am well.” He took another moment to collect himself, then turned back to the older man. “Did you find anything else?”
Kirkwood frowned. “Not in his financials, but when I talked with one of his friends, he said Grayson had been meeting often with someone in a black, hooded cloak down at The Doric, an inn on Market Street. I have a feeling that Grayson’s meeting, your father’s actions, and the hooded figure are all somehow connected. ”
Agreeing with Kirkwood’s conclusion, Jules asked, “Who is this mysterious person?”
“That,” Kirkwood said, “is what we do not know.”
Jules looked at a clock on a nearby cabinet. “Then I must discover that information myself. Perhaps this cloaked person can shed some light on why my father would pay Grayson to orchestrate my marriage.”
“Indeed,” Kirkwood replied, still frowning.
“If you discover anything more,” Jules said, heading for the door, “you know where to find me.”
Kirkwood sat at his desk as Jules shut the door behind him. Jules needed to find a hackney to take him to Market Street.
That morning, Claire left her chamber determined to find Fin.
With Jules gone, the steward might be more willing to answer her questions about the MacIntyre family and this house.
Claire made her way through the rooms, searching, until she finally came upon Fin in the library, seated behind an overly large desk, studying the estate’s ledger.
“Fin,” Claire called from the doorway, not wanting to startle the aging servant.
He looked up. A warm smile came to his face. “Come in, milady. What can I do fer ye?”
“Can I ask you about the ballroom upstairs? What happened in that chamber? Why did Jules forbid me from entering?” she asked in a rush.
Fin’s expression saddened. “I’m nae certain the laird wants me tae share that information with ye.”
She straightened. “I am his wife. If I am ever to help him overcome his past, I must know what troubles him.”
Fin’s mouth quirked. “I canna argue with that.” He waved her into the chamber and toward the chair opposite him.
Claire sat and then waited patiently as Fin studied her. “Ye’ll nae hurt him with this knowledge?”
She shook her head even as her stomach clenched. She would never use the knowledge of what had happened in that chamber against him. “I want to help him heal and make new memories as he embraces his new life as the laird of Kildare Manor.”
Tears came to the old man’s eyes. “I thank ye fer that. All right, I’ll tell ye. It does this old heart good tae see that Jules has finally found some comfort in this world.” Fin swiped at his eyes and turned his gaze fully on her. “But ye didna hear this from me. Understand?”
Claire nodded.
“That chamber was where Agatha, his stepmother, was found dead. I was the one who found her. She was cold and gray. The only sign of what had happened tae her was the overturned teacup and the remains of the tea. The shire reeve who investigated claimed he could smell and taste poison in the liquid that remained in the cup. That Jules had purchased that very combination of herbs in the village the day before led everyone tae accuse him of murder. He was sentenced tae hang.”
“He was cleared of the charges?” Claire shuddered at the thought of what Jules had been through in the recent past.
Fin nodded, but his gaze saddened. “Thanks tae Lady Jane, who testified that Jules was with her at the time of the murder. But even though he was cleared of the crime, there was an outlandish ransom tae be paid.” His old eyes were haunted. “No one tried verra hard tae release him, until recently.”
A lump settled in her throat as she thought about how horrible it must have been for him. “Did Jules’s parents love him?”
Fin’s eyes cleared. “His mother did, tae be sure. With his father, things were more complicated.” The aging steward paused a moment before continuing.
“I think ’twas because Jules reminded him of his dead wife that the old laird kept his son at arm’s length and why it was easy fer him tae send him tae Lord Lennox.
But at the end, I believe his father regretted their estrangement.
” Fin shook his head as though clearing the thought. “Some things just come too late.”
“Do you know who killed the second Lady Kildare?” Claire asked, the bold question burning in her chest.
“Nay.” The steward sighed. “I would have killed her myself when she first wheedled her way into this family if I’d known the trouble she would eventually cause. But the answer is nay. I know nothin’ about her death other than that Jules dinna kill her.”
“Thank you for telling me about the chamber and about Jules’s past,” Claire said.
Fin nodded. “His future looks much brighter now that ye have arrived.”
Claire drew a shaky breath. They had no future together—bright or otherwise. All they had was the here and now. But perhaps, now that she knew the truth about the ballroom, she could find some way to exorcise the ghosts of his past.
Later that day, Claire tried to put thoughts of Jules and his suffering out of her mind as she worked in the soil.
She paused in her gardening to push the escaping tendrils of her hair out of her face, then leaned on her spade and surveyed the rose garden with a sense of accomplishment.
She had rid the ground of every last weed to expose the wildly overgrown stalks.
Her reward for freeing them from their prison of weeds was the sweet, heady scent from open blossoms that reminded her of the summer she had spent learning how to paint roses, over and over again.
She had filled twenty canvasses that summer with the wild pink, red, and orange blooms.
Claire brushed her fingers over a soft, velvet petal.
And just as they had so many summers ago, the blooms caused a riot of inspiration to crowd her mind.
Ideas for how and where to add roses to the ceiling in the ballroom swirled through her head in prismatic colors—a blend of orange and yellow, a light hint of pink around the edges, the stamen a mixture of brown and red, with a light touch of yellow.