The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

by Stephanie Laurens

  She pottered about the room, circling the big table at its center, checking and noting the pots on the shelves running above the bench that lined the walls.

  After several long minutes, Thomas stirred. Straightening in the doorway, he murmured, “Will you be staying here?”

  Without looking his way, she nodded. “I don’t plan on leaving until Alice gets here, and even then, I’ll only be going to the herb garden with her.”

  It was interesting, she supposed, that she could accept his protectiveness—for that was what was behind his hovering presence—without any real irritation. Only from Marcus would she have accepted such a question with any similar degree of equanimity. Even had it been her cousin Sebastian, future head of their house, who had voiced it, she would have responded with a decided snap.

  But there was someone lurking with murderous intent, possibly not in the house but at least on the estate. That was reason enough for protectiveness in any true man—and even more in he who was destined to be her consort.

  He studied her for a moment more, as if debating, then sound drifted down from the ground floor; the corridor that led from the stable yard to the front hall was, more or less, directly above them. He drew his hands from his pockets. “That sounds as if Alice has arrived. I’ll go and fetch her.”

  Lucilla didn’t bother pointing out that Alice had to know the way to the still room—she’d been the healer’s apprentice for at least two years.

  Instead, she used the peace—both around her and in her mind—to formulate a program for the day.

  When Thomas ushered Alice—a thin, pale woman in her early thirties with long fair hair and gentle blue eyes—through the door and Alice promptly bobbed a curtsy, Lucilla smiled and waved her up. “No need for that—we’re both healers, and we need to work together. Curtsying, you’ll discover, will only get in both our ways.”

  Alice’s lips quirked; she fought to stifle a giggle and didn’t entirely succeed.

  Lucilla let her smile deepen. “Excellent. Now, sit down”—she pushed one of the two tall stools toward Alice and claimed the other for herself—“and tell me how far along in your studies you are.”

  Before Alice could speak, Thomas said, “I’ll leave you two to it.” When Lucilla looked at him, he met her gaze. “I’m going for a ride around the estate.” He glanced at Alice. “To see what else has changed since last I visited.”

  To see if there are any other odd things going on.

  Lucilla heard the words he didn’t say. She nodded, then watched him turn and stride away.

  Once he’d gone, she looked at Alice. “Did he ask you to stay with me at all times?”

  Alice blinked, then regarded her as if she were clairvoyant. “Yes.”

  Lucilla smiled. “Don’t worry. I happen to think that’s a very good idea.”

  The Carricks had lost one healer; she saw no reason to risk another. While she might be safer with Alice, Alice would also be safer with her.

  “Now,” she prompted, “tell me how far Joy has taken you. Has she had you making any of the complex tonics?”

  CHAPTER 8

  He’d agreed to be Manachan’s eyes and ears, and the only way to get a decent view of the estate was from the back of a horse. Manachan had always ridden his acres, usually going out three or more times each week, regardless of the weather. He’d kept in close touch with all the clan families, had known how each of the farms was faring at any given time. Even when Thomas had last visited the manor some two years before, Manachan had still been riding out regularly. Thomas didn’t like to think how deeply, if silently, his uncle would be fretting over his inability to get out and about.

  A nagging sense of unease had driven him to ensure that Lucilla would always be with others, but now that was taken care of, clan duty called.

  He’d sent word to Sean that he intended to ride; Phantom was saddled and waiting in the yard. Accepting the reins from Mitch, who had been waiting with the big gray, Thomas noticed a smaller horse—a neat bay gelding—also saddled and waiting. The saddle was a side-saddle.

  He was about to mount when Niniver hurried out of the house.

  In a black velvet riding dress, with a small cap set atop her blond head, she came forward with a surprisingly determined stride. “Thomas—are you just going riding, or will you be calling at the farms?”

  He paused, then admitted, “The latter.”

  Niniver halted a few paces away and met his gaze. “I often stop by the farms—do you mind if I ride with you?”

  Did he? Of Manachan’s four children, Thomas knew Niniver the least. Manachan overlooked her, too—but then he also largely ignored Norris, and even Nolan; when it came to his offspring, Manachan had a highly blinkered view, and that view was focused on Nigel. Then again, some would argue that, as laird, Manachan had always had so much to do with being father to the entire clan that he’d only had time left for one child and, naturally, that had to be his heir.

  But if Niniver knew the farms and families… He inclined his head. “I would appreciate the company.”

  Niniver smiled, the gesture shy and fleeting, and turned to her horse. Mitch held the bay steady as she climbed the mounting block, then scrambled into her saddle.

  Thomas mounted; settling Phantom, he waited. When Niniver trotted forward to join him, he swung Phantom’s head down the drive. “Which way should we go?”

  Niniver cast him a careful glance. “Do you want to do a circuit of all the farms?”

  “That was my intention.”

  Looking ahead, she lifted her chin. “In that case, we’ll do best to go east first, and then circle to the south. That way we’ll end with the Forresters, and then the Bradshaws last of all.”

  Thomas vaguely recalled the eastern farms. He nodded. “You lead. I’ll follow.”

  With a brisk nod, Niniver nudged her bay into a canter. Thomas kept pace and they rode out into the morning.

  An hour later, as they headed toward the western farms, that “You lead; I’ll follow” replayed in his head. Who would have guessed that Niniver was…as deft a manipulator as her father?

  Thomas was fairly certain that was where she’d inherited the knack; if anything, he would have said that her subtle, quiet “steering” was even more effective than Manachan’s often brash and blatant maneuverings. But as her direction aligned with Thomas’s own interest, far from resenting her interference, he was glad of it. She showed him where to look and eased his way in learning all he’d ridden out to find.

  At every farmhouse, she was welcomed with genuine smiles and warmth; even the workers they came upon in the fields were transparently glad to see her, and very ready to pause and chat and tell her—and Thomas, too—how their labors were progressing and how each saw their own corner of the estate.

  Although they hadn’t seen him for two years, the farmers still knew him and counted him as one of the laird’s family. He’d come to ask their opinions, with Niniver beside him, and so they spoke without restraint. If there was a prickliness, it was directed at Nigel—the “young master” as they termed him—not at Thomas or anyone else. While no one mentioned Nigel’s trips off the estate—that wasn’t their way—all the comments were restricted to what was wrong here, in their world.

  The further he and Niniver rode, the more farms and holdings they stopped at, the more the problems mounted. None were major enough to be classed as emergencies; the lack of seed for planting was arguably the most worrying. Many of the gripes were merely minor irritations, but if left unaddressed, would fester and grow.

  Most of the farms nearer the manor ran small herds of sheep, while the more southern and western holdings specialized in woodcutting and logging. Two farms ran cattle; three had goatherds. Again and again, Thomas heard the same comments, the same tune sung—that of a lack of interest and support from the manor. Bit by bit, a pattern emerged—one where Nigel was insisting that the farmers got their beasts or produce to market and secured the usual best price for the same, bu
t without the help the manor had provided in the past, often acting as agent and helping to arrange transport.

  As one farmer dourly stated, “Hisself wants us to do it all, but still pass the usual cut back to the manor. More, if our prices go down, he still wants the same amount. So now we do all the work, and he gets to sit in state on the manor’s coffers.”

  Another explained, “We know as it’s the clan’s money and not just the laird’s, but still…it’s not fair.”

  Yet another stated, “This wasn’t how it used to be in the old laird’s time.”

  From that point on, Thomas looked even more carefully, and what he observed only increased his concern. Children wearing clothes they’d outgrown. Women in faded and patched gowns. Mothers who looked, to his eyes, too thin—certainly not as buxom as he recalled. Even some of the men showed signs of losing weight.

  The Carrick estate had never been wealthy; its farms had never enjoyed the degree of prosperity of those to the south, in the Vale. But the Vale was managed on different principles, as a much tighter, more inclusive whole. That wouldn’t have suited the Carrick clan, where the families were more fiercely and pridefully independent, but they’d always managed. Manachan had always ensured that they did.

  But with Manachan ill and no longer able to manage the reins, it was clear things were falling apart.

  Although Thomas didn’t hear a single good word about Nigel, not even any neutral comments, the entire clan still held Manachan in high regard, and, to a large extent, that was protecting Nigel from concerted complaints and open opposition.

  To the clan families, Manachan was still in ultimate charge with Nigel his temporary and less-able agent; although none precisely stated it, it was clear the families all believed that the current state would, with time, pass, and then Manachan would put right all the things that had gone wrong.

  Together with Niniver, Thomas visited the Forresters, and then the Bradshaws. Forrester, who logged the northwestern forests and also cropped several large fields, confirmed all that Thomas had learned from others. The management of the estate was, if not yet in disarray, certainly unraveling.

  The Bradshaws were considerably improved. Thomas sat at their dining table and let Bradshaw explain the full implications of the estate’s crop farmers not yet having received any seed stock.

  “We’re too late, now, to get more than one crop this year, when usually we’d have two.” Bradshaw paused, then more diffidently said, “And the way the manor’s been talking, it sounds as if they’re going to insist we pay the usual tithe, as if we’d had the two crops and not just one.”

  Thomas didn’t need to ask what strain that would place on the farmers. Struggling to mask the degree of his disquiet, he nodded. “I’ll make sure the laird knows.” He couldn’t promise that Manachan would put things right and adjust the levy on the farms, yet neither could he suggest that Manachan wouldn’t. Or, as it might well be, couldn’t.

  For all his bluster and belligerence, Manachan had never allowed the clan to be harmed, and most especially not by any action of the manor. That wasn’t how clan and lairdship worked.

  After asking to see the Bradshaw children, on the pretext of having promised Lucilla he would bear tidings of them back to her, and confirming that all five were entirely recovered, he took his leave. Niniver said her goodbyes and followed him outside; from the smiles, even from the children, she was clearly a favorite visitor at the isolated farmhouse.

  They mounted their horses and headed back to the manor.

  Halfway back, there was a rocky shelf of land, a lookout of sorts. Niniver turned onto it and drew rein.

  Following in her wake, Thomas pulled up alongside her.

  They both sat and looked out over the fields. In the middle distance, the manor squatted like a dark deformed goblin amid its screening trees, its slate roofs looking rather like a hat. Remnants of morning mist still hung over the fields to the west, smudges of soft lavender against the dark green of the forests.

  The sun was high overhead. Thomas’s stomach suggested the time was somewhere about noon.

  Niniver drew breath. “So.” She glanced at Thomas, her blue gaze sober and direct. “Did you see?”

  He thought better of her for having dropped all pretense that she hadn’t been guiding him throughout the excursion. “Yes.” He looked at the fields. He hadn’t been trained to manage this sort of an estate, but if this had been his inheritance, he would have been seriously concerned.

  He was seriously concerned, because these people were his clan.

  “Papa needs to know.”

  He looked at Niniver. “You know. You’ve known all along. Why haven’t you told him?”

  Her lips twisted, and she faced forward. Her mount shifted, and she reined the gelding in. “Because I’m his daughter. I’m not his heir.” That was stated without rancor. “And now Nigel is in charge.”

  A moment passed, then she met Thomas’s eyes. “You’re mine and everyone else’s only hope of putting all the issues you’ve seen today before Papa. He’ll understand. Nigel…doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to understand.”

  Thomas paused, then said, “I hadn’t realized, not until this morning, just how completely Manachan has handed over control.”

  Her expression unreadable, Niniver swung her gelding around. “Papa has been too ill to do anything, not for nearly a year. But once he understands what’s going on, he’ll know what needs to be done.”

  She tapped her heel to the bay’s side and set off for the manor. Thomas swung Phantom around and followed her off the ledge and back onto the bridle path.

  As they rode in single file between the fields, he weighed and considered, but all avenues led to the same unwelcome conclusion.

  It appeared that neither Niniver nor the rest of the clan fully comprehended the change that had occurred. Thomas hadn’t either, not until he’d arrived and realized just how ill Manachan was—and, apparently, had been for nearly a year. If Manachan hadn’t been well enough to act for the clan for nearly a year, then Nigel truly was in charge of the estate. He wasn’t acting as Manachan’s agent, as his father’s right hand, but entirely on his own authority.

  Because of his illness, Manachan had been forced to cede complete control.

  Theoretically, as laird, Manachan could take back what he’d given, but, realistically, could he?

  Given Manachan remained so very weak, the answer to that was no.

  Yes, Thomas would convey to Manachan all that he’d learned—all Niniver had ensured he saw and heard. Regardless of any inclination on his part not to unnecessarily trouble his uncle, Manachan would insist, and as laird, he had a right to know. But in the current situation, what could Manachan do? He could hint or suggest actions to Nigel, but Manachan couldn’t—wasn’t in any position to—ensure those actions were carried out.

  Could he, Thomas, speak with Nigel? Given Nigel’s antipathy toward him, the answer to that was an even more resounding no. Indeed, he had a shrewd suspicion that anything he suggested, Nigel would take pains not to do.

  But even more disturbing, from all Thomas had seen and heard, it seemed that, in succeeding to the duties of laird, Nigel had decided to treat the rest of the clan as if they were his employees—as if they worked for him, rather than for the clan. Rather than in the way the Carrick clan had always operated, as a collective functioning under the overall leadership of the laird—subject to his rule, perhaps, but also entitled to his protection and active support.

  That corruption of the system that had served the Carricks down the generations deeply troubled Thomas. As they neared the manor, he saw the conundrum before him clearly. His clan needed help, needed the relationship between laird and clan to change back to what it used to be. But with Manachan so ill and Nigel firmly in charge, what could he, a clan outsider, moreover one whom Nigel so resented, do to improve matters, to effect the changes that needed to be made?

  The stable yard lay ahead when a point that had be
en nagging in the back of his brain leapt to the forefront. He called to Niniver, “Where are the hounds?” The Carricks had bred deerhounds for generations; there’d always been beasts in and around the manor, but since he’d ridden in, he hadn’t seen one.

  Niniver glanced at him, clearly assessing whether she should trust him or not. Eventually facing forward, she called back, her tone flat, “Nigel sold them.”

  “What?” Thomas was aghast. “All of them?”

  “All that were in the breeding barn. He said they were an unnecessary drain on the estate.”

  Thomas studied Niniver’s profile; as they slowed the horses to a walk, he prompted, “But…”

  Manachan had loved his hounds. If Thomas remembered aright, so had Niniver.

  “Sean, Mitch, Fred, and I moved some to old man Egan’s farm. He had a barn he wasn’t using.”

  So she and the others still had a hunting pack.

  They turned the horses onto the drive. Thomas frowned. “I thought Nigel used to like to hunt with the dogs.”

  Niniver nodded. “He used to. But these days, he and Nolan go into the Highlands to hunt. Nigel said he didn’t need the hounds anymore.” She paused, then added, “Papa’s last bitch passed last summer, about the time he fell ill. He hasn’t asked after another and…I haven’t told him about the others being gone.” Reining in, she met Thomas’s eyes. “I didn’t want to disturb him then, and now he has more urgent matters on his plate.”

  Thomas wasn’t about to argue. He met her gaze and nodded. “Indeed.”

  * * *

  Thomas and Niniver walked into the front hall just as Ferguson, in the stairway hall, raised the padded mallet and struck the gong for luncheon.

  The deep sound reverberated through the house.

  Screams drowned the echoes.

  The shrill sounds of terror sliced through the house, emanating from more than one throat.