by Arnette Lamb
Softly she said, “A lasting peace may hang in the balance, Duncan. Please tell me what you did to solve the problems.”
He put a hand to his forehead as if to rake his hand through his hair. Just as his fingertips touched the wig, he stopped. Again she played a guessing game about the color of his hair. Brown, she decided, same as his eyebrows.
“I made an offer of marriage for Roxanne Birmingham.”
Miriam remembered the framed likeness of the countess of Kildalton that hung in the portrait gallery at Sinclair’s. Captured for eternity with a maidenly smile and haunted brown eyes, the jet-haired beauty had looked infinitely lonely to Miriam. The earl seemed haunted, too, at the mention of his lost love. But Miriam had to know just how deeply the baron had offended Duncan Kerr. Only when their pride had been salved could she engineer a peace that would satisfy them both.
Compassion came naturally to Miriam; she’d learned early in life to say good-bye to those she loved. “Your countess was a beautiful woman. I’m so sorry she died.”
Brackets of anger framed the earl’s mouth. “I wish the baron had shared your sentiments. He mourned the loss of her as countess of Kildalton—grieved over losing the title more than the passing of the woman.”
Miriam looked beyond his pain to decipher the essence of his meaning. “Are you saying the baron tricked you into offering for her in order to get your title?”
“No.” He shook his head sadly. “I made that folly on my own.”
Folly? According to the baron, his stepdaughter had wanted the match. He, however, had wanted her to marry a wealthy merchant who resided in London. The baron had bragged about using Duncan’s first marriage contract for kindling. “What did the baron say? Did he refuse your first offer?”
On a half-laugh, the earl said, “He tossed the contract into the fire, but I had a duplicate. Roxanne cried and locked herself in her room until he relented.”
So, on the matter of the contract, Duncan and Sinclair both told the same story. It was a small step, but a significant one, for it meant they could occasionally see things from the same perspective. “Roxanne loved you.”
He grew pensive. “I suppose. She’d known me all of her life. She was a shy, quiet lass who favored books and chess and country life.” A sad and guilty sheen appeared in his eyes. “She wed me to escape a marriage to a London merchant the baron had arranged for her.” In a barely audible murmur, he said, “No great passion blazed between us, but we were comfortable. We were friends.”
Miriam compared the two households, so different in ambience and style. The peaceful order of Kildalton contrasted with the noisy disarray of Sinclair. The word “friend” lingered in her mind. For a short time, Roxanne had been fortunate in her marriage. “I imagine you made her very happy.”
Fondness wreathed him. “She gave me Malcolm.” He grinned, looking unexpectedly handsome. “Although at times I’m tempted to give him back.”
Miriam’s heart ached. For five short years, she’d been the joy of her parents’ life. But a Dutchman cum English king and a band of merciless Highlanders had stolen her family and all she’d held dear. Without even a reprimand, the Glenlyon Campbells had gone on their merry way. But not forever.
Shelving those thoughts for later, she said, “He’s a fine boy. Thanks to you, he knows more about the great men of England than most of the queen’s ambassadors. Thank you for encouraging him to respect Saladin’s religion.”
Like casting off a cloak, he threw off his melancholy. “There’s a braw laddie. That Saladin almost ran me through with that wicked scimitar of his. Did he tell you about pinning me to the curtain wall?”
A second truth. Miriam smiled. “He’s made great progress in only a few years.”
“I don’t understand.”
She did something she’d never even considered before meeting the earl of Kildalton; she told a stranger about that day at the slave market in Constantinople.
Pale with shock and indignation, he crossed his legs and said, “You mean the man bidding against you would have … have unmanned them?”
“Yes. They would’ve become eunuchs before you could’ve said, ‘hand me a flippity-flop.’”
“To think I defended the Muslims to Malcolm. I’ll not make that mistake again.”
His misguided vehemence wouldn’t do at all. “’Twasn’t religion but custom that almost cost the twins their manhood.”
“Truly?” His brows shot up and his green eyes glittered with interest. “Do tell me more about the Byzantines. Malcolm wrote a glowing piece on Suleiman, you know. The Magnificent.”
As she drank from the mug, Miriam phrased a dissertation on the politics of King Ahmed III, but stopped short of speaking when she realized the earl had gotten her off the subject of his marriage agreement. Had he done it on purpose? She searched his pleasant features for a sign of subterfuge. She found a curious, handsome man. Surprised by the observation, she said, “’Twould bore you to tears.” When he looked as if he would argue, she said, “Another time, then. But now we have the matter of Baron Sinclair’s claims to discuss.”
“Claims?” he scoffed. “That brigand takes what he wants and burns what he can’t carry. You must stop him.”
The baron’s opinion of the earl had been patently similar. He claimed Duncan Kerr was a deceiving Scotsman cut of the same ruthless cloth as his father, the Grand Reiver. Avery Chilton-Wall had corroborated the statement. The duchess of Perth had deferred to her duke, who’d curled his lip and ranted about the despicable crimes of Kenneth Kerr. By turn, each man had cursed the seventh earl and condemned, by heredity, the eighth.
Miriam discounted the magistrate’s opinion and thought the duke spoke to hear himself talk, but the baron’s comparison of the current earl of Kildalton to his cruel father troubled her. Duncan hadn’t led those raids on Sinclair’s land, Ian had. Yet as the Border Lord, her lover had been accused of nothing more than turning a cow’s milk sour and stealing the affection of women prone to melancholy. If the earl was hiding a darker side, she’d be surprised and disappointed. Judging character was her strong point.
In some aspects, the baron and the earl were alike. Both wanted peace, but their approaches to the problems were vastly, culturally different. One similarity lay in the fact that they both hired out their raiding, which she intended to stop. The other problems between them required all of her expertise.
Expecting an outraged reaction, she said, “He wants you to return his stepdaughter’s dowry.” He wanted Malcolm, too, but Miriam wasn’t ready to broach that appalling topic.
The earl fell back in his chair, his hands dangling over the arms. “Now that would start a war a dozen Border Lords couldn’t finish.”
Caught off guard at the mention of her lover, Miriam moved to set her mug on the table, but it slipped. Trying to catch it, she only succeeded in tumbling it. “Oh!” Pewter clattered against the hearth. The remaining drops of beer sizzled on the warm stone.
“I’ve frightened you,” he said. “Do forgive me. But I told you about Ian. He’s no ghost.”
She grabbed the fallen tankard and put it on the table. You hurt my feelings, she wanted to say. You laughed at me. You called me fanciful. She’d come here to help him, and he’d made a fool of her. She’d been treated with disrespect before. Then, as now, she must put aside her personal feelings and get on with the job.
She took a deep breath and thought about her reward. “You didn’t frighten me, and I agree with you.”
His interested gaze held her immobile. “Do you know him well, Miriam?”
She tried to stop herself from blushing. She failed.
He grinned.
Annoyed at herself for equivocating and piqued by his amusement, Miriam picked up the thread of the conversation. “We were speaking of the dowry.”
“Roxanne willed her land, which lies between here and Hadrian’s Wall, to Malcolm. She, too, wanted peace. Everyone does. Except the baron.”
Years of practice
had taught Miriam to ignore bickering insults and find the solid, legal facts on which to build a compromise. “Have you her wishes in writing and properly witnessed?”
He leveled her a look that said, What do you take me for, a niddering poltroon who favors brook trout to women? But he said, “Of course. I have the other copy of the marriage contract, too.”
Through the jumble her thoughts had become, real success beckoned. “May I see the papers, please?”
He grasped the chair arms, sprang to his feet, and went to the desk, all traces of a limp gone. Pulling a key from his breeches pocket, he unlocked a drawer. Paper rattled. When he returned, he handed her two rolled documents, aged and beribboned.
Her palms grew damp as she unfurled one of the yellowed parchments. Adorned with official seals and illuminated by an overly fanciful scribe who favored primroses and broad-leaf ivy to the more traditional cinquefoils and Celtic knots, the marriage agreement confirmed her dowry: the land from Hadrian’s Wall north to Kildalton. Reading the other parchment brought a thickness to Miriam’s throat. In her own swirling hand, the late countess of Kildalton had indeed bequeathed the disputed land and her pearl necklace to Malcolm. Her clothing, embroidery frames, and bride’s chest she had passed on to her younger sister, Adrienne.
Miriam dropped the documents in her lap where they again curled into rolls. A pearl necklace. The simplicity of a dying mother’s one personal gift to her infant son made Miriam want to cry.
“Well?” said the earl, impatience making him look very much like the portrait of the Grand Reiver that hung in the keeping room. When, she wondered, had she stopped seeing him as the bumbling earl? The answer banished her pity. She’d begun seeing the earl as a man the instant he’d begun to behave like a kind and decent fellow instead of a niddering poltroon who favored brook trout to women.
“What’s wrong, Miriam?”
“Nothing,” she rushed to say. “These are quite in order. It was very clever and generous of you to ask only for the land your father took as Roxanne’s dowry. You made amends for your father’s crimes when you could have asked for more.”
He stared at the smoldering coals in the hearth, giving her an unobstructed view of his elegant profile. He seemed so at home in the room filled with books, heavy furniture, and Kerr memorabilia.
“I wanted an end to the dispute,” he said at last.
Casually, she said, “Where is Adrienne?”
He turned so fast he almost slung the spectacles off his nose. “Uh … I wish I could tell you. Unlike her sister, Adrienne was ever headstrong. I couldn’t possibly hazard a guess about where the lass has gotten herself to.”
Disappointed, Miriam strummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. He was lying. “According to her personal maid and the baron, Adrienne considered you her brother. Both say she spent weeks here after the death of your wife. She came here often until the time of her disappearance.”
“Did you meet anyone at the baron’s who didn’t want to leave his house?”
He had a point. Miriam recalled the overcrowded parlor, the elbow-to-elbow dining, the young men sleeping three to a bed, the girls packed like herring in a barrel. The poor harried servants. Miriam’s heart went out to each of them. But she couldn’t let her personal opinion hinder her investigation. Big families always suffered. So did orphaned children, the little girl in her said.
Swallowing back self-pity, she said, “We were speaking of the whereabouts of Adrienne Birmingham. Did you kidnap her?”
His mouth drawn in a tight line, his eyes narrowed, the earl stared at the documents in Miriam’s lap. “I’m hardly the type.”
Miriam wasn’t so sure anymore, now that she knew him better. “Then what happened to her?”
“She was in love with a fellow named Charles—a glazier, I think, from Bothly Green.”
“Did he make your spectacles?”
He started, his over-large eyes blinking behind the lenses like a startled maiden. “No. The tinker gets them for me.” With obvious reluctance, he added, “You could ask after Charles in Bothly Green. They say the innkeeper is a fountain of information. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Can or will?”
He finished off the tankard, then licked the foam from the corners of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. “I doona know anything else.”
She gave him a refill, hoping another pint would loosen that tongue. Besides, he became more charming when he lapsed into that Scottish burr. Much like another man she knew with a deeper, huskier voice. But thoughts of her lover were too distracting. The Border Lord had no place in this discussion.
“Find Adrienne’s fellow and you’ll most likely find her.”
The baron had said nothing about Adrienne having a beau, but he had looked guiltily at the magistrate, Avery Chilton-Wall, who’d cupped his private parts at the mention of Adrienne, the woman he’d wanted for his mistress.
The earl reached for the tankard. “We can share mine. Will you make Sinclair return my spotted cattle?”
She took great pleasure in saying, “Yes. If you’ll give me the certificate of ownership and tell Ian to stop raiding Sinclair land.”
Putting the tankard aside, he reached for the papers in her lap. His hand grazed her thigh. “Pardon me, Miriam. But I’ve become very protective of what’s mine. I’d best keep it under lock and key. Rest assured I’ll speak with Ian.”
For a moment she sat riveted by the suspicion of a double meaning. But no, the earl was talking about the papers. She scooted back in the chair and watched him stroll to the desk. An image flashed in her mind of another man—a dark stranger sauntering toward her with seduction on his mind and magic in his hands. Passing off the notion as pure fancy, she hid a smile and sipped the fresh beer. The Border Lord was definitely a more virile man.
Duncan rummaged through a stack of papers, sending a occasional feather flying from the desk. “I know the dastardly thing is here somewhere.” Not looking up, he said, “Have you seen evidence of Ian’s raids on the baron’s land?”
If she weren’t careful, she’d lose the ground she’d gained, and parroting the baron’s exaggerated accusations was a sure way to alienate the earl. “I heard testimony from his tenants.”
“Did you now?” He glanced up. The spectacles sat low on his nose, giving her a clear view of his eyes. Framed by thick eyelashes and thicker brows, his clover green eyes glowed with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and the subtle points of his upper lip, the deep indentation that led to the tip of his nose, the perfect turn of his nostrils, the suddenly appealing planes of his cheek and jaw.
“You stayed at Sinclair’s for weeks. He took you to their farms and showed you the destruction?”
Rather than actually hearing him, she read the words on his lips. His very attractive lips. Absently, she said, “I’m not at liberty to say. You tell me what Ian did.”
“You didn’t take the baron’s word for the crimes, did you, Miriam?”
Seeing her name on his lips and reading the accusation in his eyes jolted her. Again he’d snatched control of the conversation and compelled her to reveal what the baron had said. The diplomat rebelled. She had no intention of telling him what she’d seen, for he’d pick the details to pieces, and in the doing, lose sight of the primary issue: solving the problems.
Men, she thought with disdain and impatience. How had they managed to work together long enough to carve the first wheel? A perfectly reasonable explanation occurred to her. A woman had done it. Inspired, she gave him a detail to pick at. “You said you have proof those spotted cattle are yours.”
He snatched up a page. “I most certainly do. Baron Sin can’t be bothered with buying stock and improving blood-lines, not to mention providing occupations for his people. All he cares about is putting beef on his table and wine down his gullet. Here.”
Applauding herself, she said, “You’re very cooperative.”
An arm’s length away, he stoppe
d, his features serene with understanding. “You’re very patronizing, Miriam MacDonald. Am I so transparent?”
Miriam fought the urge to squirm. Partial honesty, she decided, must prevail. “Let’s just say you’re a man with troubles.” Smiling her most winsome smile, she added, “I’m very good at alleviating trouble between men. But only if you help me.”
He threw the paper in the air and laughed. A very charming laugh. “Why do I try to pry information from you?”
Laughing, too, she said, “I don’t know, Duncan.”
He scratched his chin. “You won’t tell me what you saw at the baron’s. But I keep asking.”
“No, I won’t, and yes, you do.”
“Must be the soldiering that makes me want to know what my enemy is up to.”
It wasn’t the soldiering; it was his gender. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. “I’m certain it is, and now that we’ve settled that—”
“You’re patronizing again…”
Miriam sighed. He was dangerously close to understanding her methods. If he did, she might as well give up hope of winning a peace here. Throw him a bone, her experience said, but do it respectfully. “I apologize. It must be all of the company I’ve been keeping. Good lord, the baron’s house is busy.”
She watched his ruffled feathers settle nicely. Then he picked up the paper and handed it to her.
“Would you care for a game of chess?” she asked. “I could set up the board here in front of the fire.” She often drew men into a chess match and let them win. They were always so involved in the individual moves, the strategy, that they invariably dropped their guard. Some of her best sleuthing had been done with a rook in her hand. Such had been the case with Baron Sinclair. For once, though, she’d like to meet a man who could outplay her and keep his secrets.
