The Devil Wears Plaid

by Teresa Medeiros

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve been here, is it?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “My grandfather first brought me here when I was nine. Told me the whole tragic tale. He was the one who found them, you know, after Mags—my mother’s auld nurse—told him they were headed down the mountain to elope on the night they disappeared. Poor Mags went half-mad with grief for a while after they were found.”

  Emma felt a flare of mingled pity and anger, imagining the boy Jamie had been standing in that exact same spot, his dark hair falling in his eyes as he was forced to relive the final desperate moments of his parents’ lives. “What on earth was your grandfather thinking? Why would he lay such a heavy burden on such young shoulders?”

  The corner of Jamie’s mouth quirked in a smile that was both fond and rueful. “My grandfather is a harsh mon, but a fair one. He never believed in shying away from the truth, no matter how unpleasant. He knew the truth could kill you, you see, but he also knew it just might keep you alive. If I was going to have to dodge the Hepburn’s arrows for the rest of my life, he wanted me to know why.”

  “Is there any chance they might have simply stumbled upon some heartless band of robbers? Was anything of value missing when they were found?”

  Jamie’s eyes darkened. “Only one thing—the necklace my mother always wore. Her own mother had given it to her before she died and she was never seen without it. But it wasn’t silver or gold. It was naught more than a worthless trinket smuggled out of the dungeons by one of our ancestors on the night the Hepburns captured the castle. It wouldn’t have been of value to anyone but a Sinclair.”

  Emma paced away from him, so caught up in her pondering that she forgot she might be trampling the very spot where his parents had breathed their last. “Did anyone else know their secret besides the auld nurse? Could someone else have betrayed them? Someone who wanted the feud to go on?”

  She turned to face Jamie. With the moonlight playing over its stoic planes, his face looked as if Michelangelo himself might have hewn it from a block of the finest Italian marble. She had never seen him look so beautiful… or so ruthless.

  “Your grandfather believed the earl had something to do with their deaths, didn’t he?” Her voice faded to a stunned whisper. “And so do you.”

  “I know he would have rather seen his son dead than wed to a Sinclair.”

  “Do you honestly believe the earl could have murdered your mother—and his only son—in cold blood?”

  “Had them murdered, more likely. The Hepburn always keeps someone around to do his dirty work for him.” A bitter smile played around Jamie’s lips. “He’s been trying to rid himself of me since the day I was born. Trying to wipe out all evidence that his precious son was ever fool enough to love a filthy, no-good Sinclair.”

  If there had been a stump or even a particularly inviting stretch of grass available, Emma would have sank down on it just to give her unsteady knees some relief.

  Jamie’s vendetta against the Hepburn wasn’t just about greed or even claiming an inheritance he believed he’d been denied. It never had been.

  It was about justice. Retribution. Avenging the blood crying out from the very soil beneath their feet.

  “If it was revenge you wanted, then why didn’t you just shoot me in the abbey that day and be done with it?” she demanded, her heart already beginning to ache as if he had.

  “He took something that belonged to me. So I took something that belonged to him.”

  It took Emma a dazed moment to realize he wasn’t just talking about the earl taking his mother’s life. “The necklace,” she breathed. “You’re not just after the man’s gold, are you? You want the necklace. You want him to admit he was the one who had your parents murdered.”

  Jamie’s silence was all the answer she needed. He had claimed the necklace was nothing but a trinket, worthless to anyone but a Sinclair. Which, she supposed, was not an exaggeration since he was willing to sacrifice everything—including her—to recover it.

  “You must have waited your whole life for this chance. Why now?” She shook her head helplessly, the words spilling directly from her battered heart. “Why me?”

  “If it had been up to my grandfather, I never would have come back to the Highlands. But when I did, I discovered that he was no longer strong enough to lead his own men. He’s dying, you see. His time is running out. He’s lived for twenty-seven years with half the people on this mountain still believing it was a Sinclair hand that committed those murders. I won’t let him die with the shadow of that suspicion still hanging over him. I owe him that much, especially after all he’s done for me.”

  “And if the earl agrees to give you this necklace in exchange for me, if he all but confesses to the murder of your parents, just what are you planning to do then?”

  Jamie shrugged. “The authorities will never believe a Sinclair or arrest a Hepburn so I guess I’ll take the necklace to my grandfather, then sit back and wait for the devil to come collect the Hepburn’s rotten soul.”

  “Without any help from you?” Emma had never known it could hurt so much to laugh. “Do you honestly believe that?”

  “I don’t know.” He scowled, still possessing enough grace to look sheepish.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, her laughter dying on a broken note. She might have had a hope of competing with silver and gold, but she couldn’t compete with this. No matter how desperately Jamie wanted her, he would always want the truth more. She would never be anything more to him than a pawn to be moved about the board at his discretion until he could capture the king.

  For the first time, Jamie’s stoic countenance showed signs of cracking. “The earl won’t live forever, either, you know, and I refuse to let that bastard take his secrets to his grave. This may be my last chance to find out what happened in this place on that turrible night. Can’t you understand that, lass?”

  He reached for her but Emma backed away from him, no longer able to trick herself into believing there was any shelter or solace to be found in his arms. He was a far greater danger to her now than he had been when he stood in that abbey with a gun in his hand.

  She should have heeded the warning he had tried to give her back at the campfire.

  The truth really could kill you. Or at least break your heart.

  “You were right all along, sir,” she said coolly, squaring her chin to hide its trembling. “Your parents did make the greatest mistake of their lives when they fell in love.”

  Gathering her skirts, she turned and started back across the glen, deciding she would rather brave the ghosts drifting through those woods than the ones still lurking in Jamie’s heart.

  Chapter Twenty

  A FURIOUS HOWL ECHOED THROUGH the high-ceilinged corridors of Hepburn Castle. Doors came flying open with maids and footmen popping out of them like startled jack-in-the-boxes to see who—or what—was making such a tremendous racket.

  As the dreadful din swelled, shattering the tense hush that had hung over the castle since the earl’s fiancée had been abducted, the three Marlowe sisters came running in from the garden, their freckled faces flushed and their bonnets all askew. Their mother trailed after them, her pale face drawn with a heartbreaking mixture of terror and hope, while their father emerged from the conservatory, his cravat untied and a glass of half-finished port dangling from his unsteady hand.

  Ian had spent most of the morning closeted in the library, reviewing the estate’s account ledgers and avoiding the stricken eyes of Emma’s family. When he heard the racket he came rushing into the corridor without bothering to snatch up his coat, even though he knew his uncle would most likely chide him for appearing in public in his shirtsleeves. Even if the castle was under attack or on fire.

  Especially if the castle was under attack or on fire.

  It turned out the only one under attack was the lanky lad being dragged through the cavernous entrance hall by a thick shock of his bright yellow hair. Silas Dockett, his uncl
e’s gamekeeper, was the one doing the dragging. The boy had clamped his thin hands around the man’s meaty wrist to lessen the pressure on his scalp. His booted heels tattooed out a desperate rhythm on the slick marble floor, fighting for purchase. A steady howl poured from his throat, punctuated by a blistering stream of curses questioning both the temperament and virtue of Dockett’s mother.

  Appalled by the casual violence of the scene, Ian fell into step behind the man. “Have you lost your wits, man? What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  Without missing a beat of his stride, Dockett drawled, “Package for the master.”

  By the time the gamekeeper reached the earl’s study, his curious followers had swelled to a virtual parade with Ian in the lead, several of the bolder servants and Emma’s mother and sisters padding the middle and Emma’s father bringing up the rear, staggering slightly.

  Dockett didn’t wait for the flustered footman standing at attention outside the door to announce him. He simply flung open the door with his free hand, dragged the boy across the study and dumped him in the middle of the priceless Aubusson carpet.

  The boy scrambled to his knees, shooting Dockett a look of raw hatred and cursing him in a burr so thick most of the oaths were mercifully indecipherable.

  Before he could climb the rest of the way to his feet, the gamekeeper gave the boy’s ear a brutal cuff. The boy collapsed back to his knees, a fresh trickle of blood coursing down his rapidly swelling jaw.

  “Mind that cheeky tongue o’ yours, mate, or I’ll cut it out for you, I will.”

  “That will be quite enough,” Ian snapped, striding forward to place himself between the gamekeeper and his quarry.

  Ian had never cared for the man. After the untimely death of his uncle’s previous gamekeeper, the earl had returned from a trip to London with Dockett in tow. Ian suspected his uncle had plucked the hulking East Ender from the bowels of the London slums for the very qualities Ian most despised in him—brute strength, unquestioning devotion to whoever paid his salary and a sadistic penchant for cruelty. A sinister scar ran from just beneath his left eye to the top of his upper lip, drawing his mouth into a perpetual snarl.

  Dockett gave Ian a look that left little doubt he would be just as pleased to cuff him bloody if the earl would allow it. But Ian coolly stood his ground and the man was forced to back away.

  The earl rose from his chair, peering over the desk at the boy as if he were a piece of sheep’s dung someone had scraped off the bottom of their shoe. “And just who is this upstanding young fellow?”

  “I found ’im lurkin’ outside the dovecote, m’lord,” Dockett said. “Claims ’e ’as a message from Sinclair.”

  “Oh, my baby!” Mrs. Marlowe cried, clapping a hand to her ruffled bosom. “He’s brought word of my lamb!”

  She began to sway on her feet, going as white as a sheet. Two of the footmen lurking by the door rushed forward to shove a delicate Hepplewhite chair beneath her. As she collapsed into the chair, Ernestine began to fan her with the Gothic novel she had been reading in the garden while Emma’s father drained what remained of his port in a single gulp.

  “Well, don’t just sit there bleeding all over my carpet, lad,” the earl said. “If you’ve a message to deliver, then spit it out.”

  Ian stepped back as the boy staggered to his feet, plainly the worse for wear after Dockett’s manhandling. Still glaring daggers at the gamekeeper, the lad swiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand before tugging a rolled up and slightly battered piece of foolscap from the inside of his jacket.

  The earl reached across the desk and plucked the missive from the boy’s hand with two fingers, his upper lip curling with distaste. While he took his own sweet time retrieving a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles from his blotter and perching them on the tip of his nose, Mr. Marlowe rested a trembling hand on his wife’s shoulder. Ian couldn’t tell if he was doing it to comfort her or steady himself.

  The earl used one yellowing fingernail to slide the leather band from the tube of paper. “Let’s see just how much of my hard-earned gold the insolent lad plans to steal from me this time,” he said, snapping the paper open with more than just a hint of unseemly glee.

  Even from where he stood, Ian recognized the untidy scrawl. He’d seen it often enough on school assignments and on notes addressed to him, many of them containing private jokes and clever little sketches of their classmates designed to make him laugh.

  As his uncle scanned the missive, an expectant hush fell over the room. The servants kept their eyes glued to the floor, thankful no one had remembered to order them to return to their duties. Mrs. Marlowe revived from her near swoon and rose to her feet, pressing a lace-trimmed handkerchief to her trembling lips. The Marlowe sisters huddled together in a nervous knot, their freckles standing out in stark relief against their fair skin.

  Finally Ian could no longer bear the suspense. “What is it, my lord? How much is he demanding for her return?”

  His uncle slowly lifted his head. A rusty sound rattled up from his throat. For one chilling moment, Ian thought it was a sob. Then it came again and Ian’s blood ran even colder.

  His uncle was laughing.

  They all gaped in astonishment as the earl collapsed into his chair, his papery cheeks growing even more sunken as he gasped for air.

  Ian took an involuntary step toward the desk. “What is the meaning of this? Are his demands so outrageous?”

  “I should say not,” the earl replied. “They’re perfectly reasonable… for a madman!” He pounded on the desk, crumpling the ransom demand in his fist and wheezing himself right into a fresh gale of laughter. “So the lad thinks he’s canny enough to outwit me, does he? Well, we’ll just see about that!”

  Despite his uncle’s unfettered amusement, there was a sparkle strangely akin to admiration in his eyes. Ian had never once seen that look in his uncle’s eyes when his uncle looked at him. The man might deny his bastard grandson with his dying breath, but he also considered him that rarest of creatures in his Machiavellian mind—a worthy adversary.

  “But my daughter, my lord?” Mr. Marlowe stepped forward, the beads of sweat on his brow betraying the effort it was taking to remain on his feet. “What’s to become of her?”

  The earl rose and came around the desk, still looking alarmingly amiable. “Have no fear, Marlowe. Young Emmaline is my concern now and I give you my word that I’ll look after her. I don’t want your wife or your other daughters to worry their pretty little heads about any of this.” He beamed at the girls, who could not help brightening just a bit beneath the unexpected flattery. “Just continue to be patient and I’ll make sure Sinclair gets what’s coming to him. Everything that’s coming to him.”

  Still murmuring a stream of soothing reassurances, he somehow managed to use the sheer force of his will to steer the entire Marlowe family past the gawking servants and right out the door.

  “Wot should I do with ’im?” Dockett gave the young messenger a wolfish look as if he could think of any number of possibilities, none of them pleasant or possibly even legal.

  The earl waved an impatient hand. “Take him down to the old dungeon and lock him up. Both he and his master can cool their rash young heels for a day or two.”

  Before Ian could protest, Dockett started toward the boy, baring his teeth in a feral grin.

  “Wait. Not you,” the earl snapped. “I wish to have a word with you.” He crooked one bony finger at the two footmen who had provided Mrs. Marlowe with her chair. “The two of you can take him.”

  The footmen exchanged another doubtful look. They were accustomed to being ordered to polish the silver or light the carriage lamps, not cart snarling lads off to a dungeon that hadn’t been used in a hundred years.

  At least not to their knowledge.

  But obedience was as ingrained in them as deference to their betters so they finally shrugged and moved to seize the lad by his elbows. He put up a savage strug
gle, getting in a lick that would probably end up blacking one of the footman’s eyes and bloodying the other’s lip before they were able to muscle him out the door.

  When the sounds of their struggle had faded, the earl swept his withering gaze over the remaining servants. “I’m not paying you to stand around and eavesdrop on matters that are none of your concern. Get back to your posts immediately before I dismiss the lot of you.”

  As they hastened to obey, bobbing a flurry of awkward curtsies and bows as they departed, the earl turned and gave Ian an expectant look.

  Ian frowned, growing ever more bewildered by his uncle’s peculiar behavior. He had made it clear from the first moment Ian had set foot in Hepburn Castle that Ian would never be anything more to him than a burden and a disappointment. But that had never before stopped him from confiding in Ian or using Ian as an audience while he gloated over his latest triumph or plotted to avenge some petty slight, either real or imagined.

  “You heard me,” his uncle said coldly. “I have business with Mr. Dockett.”

  “But, my lord, I think we should discuss Miss Marlowe’s situation and—”

  “Private business.”

  Ian stood there for a moment, feeling as if the gilt hands of the ormolu clock on the mantel had somehow gone sweeping backward. He was once again a lonely ten-year-old boy, mourning his parents and desperate for a scrap of his uncle’s affection, no matter how bitter or stale.

  The clock chimed the half hour, breaking the spell and reminding him that he was no longer that boy. He was a man now. The man his uncle’s indifference had made of him. It was his uncle who had taught him how to hate, but he was only now beginning to realize just how well he had learned that lesson.

  His pride still stinging, he offered his uncle a curt bow and went stalking from the study. Before the footman could sweep the door shut, blocking the room from his view, Ian glanced over his shoulder and caught one last glimpse of Dockett standing in front of the desk, his beefy arms folded over his chest and a smug smile twisting his lips.