by Karen Ranney
No doubt the McCraight daughters would concentrate on the most attractive of Bealadair’s features, not those with more historical significance. The house was a treasure known throughout Scotland and England.
Would Connor, as an American, realize the depth of his good fortune? Would he acknowledge the responsibility of being a steward to the great house? It was for him to protect his heritage for the next generation.
Why hadn’t he married? Another question that hadn’t been answered to her satisfaction. How very odd that he hadn’t. He was at the age where a man would’ve had a wife and several children by now. Why hadn’t he?
He didn’t consider Scotland his home. Perhaps he would after he had the opportunity to get to know his heritage. Would anyone show him the portrait gallery?
It was really none of her concern. She wasn’t a McCraight. She simply occupied a strange and novel place at Bealadair. Neither fish nor fowl, but something in between. She wasn’t a servant, exactly, but neither was she a member of the family.
Nor did she have any right to be curious about the 14th duke for all that he hated being called that.
According to Elsbeth, the rest of the family didn’t rise until midmorning, or until half the day was done as far as he was concerned. He could accomplish a hell of a lot by noon, but evidently accomplishment wasn’t a goal for his relatives.
What did they need to do? Everything had already been done. They had land. They had possessions. They had a standing in the community. They had a house to live in, one that amazed him with its very size.
He left the family dining room and found himself at the base of the staircase.
The foyer was paved in stone squares that looked as if they’d been polished for a few hundred years. It was so shiny that he could see the reflection of the soaring ceiling in it.
Snow had accumulated on the glass of the cupola. He bet on a fair day that sunlight blazed through the glass, illuminating the area and the double staircase with its mahogany trim.
He’d seen stairs like that only once, on a plantation in Georgia. He’d thought, then, that the architect had to have been touched with whimsy to create such a marvel. Other than the landings, this staircase didn’t look as if it was anchored to anything, either.
The plantation had burned to the ground, but Bealadair had lasted hundreds of years. In fact, the house had an air of permanence about it, as if it had sunk its foundations deep into the soil, becoming part of the landscape.
You can’t burn me out, the house seemed to say.
He nodded to the footman standing at the door, almost like a sentry at his post. The young man was tall, equipped in the Bealadair uniform of dark blue, and standing at attention, his gaze on a spot far away.
“Do you stand there all day?” he asked.
The man blinked and focused on him. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Something had to be done about that title.
“Why?”
“In case anyone needs help at the door, Your Grace.”
Connor glanced outside. “I doubt anyone is going to be visiting today, don’t you?”
The young man looked confused.
“Who says you’re to stand at the door all day?”
Now the footman looked scared, as if the answer to that question would deliver a hammer blow to his head.
“Mr. Barton, Your Grace. The majordomo.”
“Where is Mr. Barton now?”
“He’s got a touch of the gout, Your Grace.”
Were all the senior staff ill? No doubt Elsbeth took up the slack with Barton’s duties as well.
Connor took pity on the footman. “Do you know where Mr. Glassey’s room is?”
“He’s in the guest wing, Your Grace. In the Turquoise Room.”
“You’re going to need to be a little more specific than that,” Connor said. “Since I don’t know where the guest wing is.”
The young man gave him directions. As Connor turned toward the stairs, the footman spoke again.
“But I saw Mr. Glassey go into the library a few minutes ago, Your Grace. It’s down the main hall, second door on your right.”
Connor thanked him and headed in that direction. As long as he stayed in Scotland, perhaps he could find something more important for the young man to be doing than to be guarding the door.
He found Glassey rightly enough. The solicitor was sitting at a large desk in front of what looked to be a wall of windows, the view nothing but white with a few touches of dark green to mark where trees were standing.
The room was unlike anything he’d ever seen or, for that matter, imagined in a private home. He could envision this library in a place like his alma mater, Rutgers, or even in the Austin capitol. Not in the Highlands of Scotland.
The ceiling looked to stretch to the top of Bealadair, the room nearly as wide as it was tall. Two spiral staircases, one leading to the first floor, the other to the second, sat on either side of the room. Ladders on rollers rested in front of twelve-foot-high mahogany bookcases.
Each bookshelf looked to be labeled in block lettering. Animal husbandry, adventure, art—he caught those titles before his attention was once more drawn to the ceiling. Here, magnificent mahogany arches framed a stained glass roof patterned in a mosaic of jewel-like colors.
The glare from the snow merged with the yellowish light from gas lamps burning throughout the room. Coupled with the oversized fireplace on the far wall, blazing merrily, the result was a room that was cheerful and bright, not to mention comfortably warm.
“It is amazing, isn’t it?” Glassey said. “It was your uncle’s favorite room. And mine, for that matter.”
When Connor still didn’t say anything, Glassey continued. “It’s due to the dedication of your various ancestors that the room is what it is.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call this just a room,” Connor said, directing his attention to the solicitor. “How many books are here?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps your uncle did, but I haven’t found any records that indicate the number of volumes. I imagine it numbers in the thousands. Perhaps Miss Carew would know. She’s very conversant about Bealadair.”
“My uncle’s ward,” Connor said.
Glassey nodded, stacked his papers, and stood.
“What, exactly, is a ward?”
The solicitor smiled. “A dependent. In Miss Carew’s case, her father and His Grace were good friends. When he and his wife perished in a train accident, His Grace took in Miss Carew. She had barely escaped death herself.”
“So she’s not a relative of any sort.”
“No,” Mr. Glassey said, frowning at him as he moved from the desk. “However, she is to be accorded all the care and politeness you would show your cousins, Your Grace.”
The solicitor’s instant assumption that he was going to treat Elsbeth rudely irritated him.
“She isn’t drawing a salary.”
“No, I don’t believe she is.”
“That stops today. I want her paid. Figure out what would be a fair amount for a highly skilled housekeeper, Glassey, and pay her that.”
“I will, sir,” the solicitor said, although he looked surprised at the request.
“You don’t have to move,” Connor said when he realized that’s exactly what Glassey was doing.
“Of course I do, Your Grace. It’s your desk. Your room.”
He wasn’t going to call it his. Nothing about Bealadair was his. He hadn’t earned it. He hadn’t built it. But he knew, even without starting the conversation, that Glassey wouldn’t understand.
Instead of moving to the desk, he stood where he was.
“If you hadn’t found me, what would you have done?”
The solicitor looked confused. “I would have continued to look for you, Your Grace.”
Connor shook his head. “If I hadn’t been born, if my father hadn’t had any male heirs, who would own all this?” His hands stretched out to encompass the library and beyond, to the whole of Bealadai
r. “My cousins?”
“No, Your Grace. The title is reserved for male heirs by letters patent.”
He wasn’t an attorney. Nor was he conversant in English law. He had to depend on Glassey to tell him what was what, but it seemed as if the solicitor was willfully not understanding him.
“So they couldn’t inherit?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“And if there wasn’t a male heir?”
“Then I imagine the title would be placed in abeyance. But, Your Grace, you are here. You are the heir.”
He nodded. “And this is mine to do with what I wish?”
Glassey only stared back at him.
He’d gotten used to the man’s beady-eyed look after traveling half a world with him.
Connor made his way to the window, surveying the white world before him. The rolling landscape beyond the lawn looked to be covered in cotton, hinting at hills and hedges. To his left, the earth formed a V shape leading down to the river. Woods to his right had a fairy-tale appearance with ice creating a curtain of stalactites from the branches.
This was not his home. This wasn’t his land, for all that it was his father’s birthplace.
He’d been born on the XIV Ranch with his father and a grizzled ranch hand in attendance. As he’d been told, Matt Thompson had a lot of experience with pulling calves, and it looked like he was going to have to use it in helping to birth the last of the McCraight brood.
His mother, as stubborn a woman as he’d ever met, had decided that she didn’t need anyone other than one of the maids with her. He’d been born ten hours later, the largest of the six McCraight children and—as his father would attest—the loudest.
Something squeezed around his chest. What would Graham have thought to see him here? Would he have apologized for never mentioning Bealadair in all those years? Would he have said anything about why he’d named their home the XIV Ranch?
He’d gotten a blow to the chest when Glassey had first told him he was the 14th duke. What if Elsbeth was right and the name of the ranch was some sort of reference to Scotland, to the possibility that he might be the next in line?
He’d never know, just as he’d never know what Graham would think.
“Is it mine to sell?” he asked.
“Your Grace?”
He turned and looked at the solicitor. “Is the house mine to sell?”
“Yes, Your Grace. But . . .” Glassey’s voice halted.
Connor had known, ever since learning that he was his uncle’s heir, that he wasn’t going to remain in Scotland. Instead, he was going to divest himself of the property and use the proceeds to benefit the ranch.
If Glassey had been paying attention all this time, he would’ve figured that out. Connor had been uncomfortable ever since learning he had a title. Some of the ranch hands had snickered and he could just imagine what they were saying behind his back. A man who put on airs wasn’t welcome in Texas.
“You can’t do such a thing, Your Grace.”
He didn’t take kindly to people telling him what he could or couldn’t do. Not unless that person was either his father or his colonel. Since Glassey was neither of those people, he ignored the man.
“The property is entailed,” Glassey said. “For the 15th duke. It can’t be sold.”
“Then you just lied.”
He folded his arms and waited for Glassey to explain his way out of that.
The other man looked to his left, then his right, then back to his left. Connor had once questioned a ranch hand accused of theft by another man. He’d had the same kind of shifty eyes, while his accuser had met Connor’s gaze and hadn’t looked away.
“No, Your Grace,” Glassey finally said, “I didn’t lie. Castle McCraight is the only part of your inheritance that’s entailed. Everything else can be sold.”
“Bealadair and the land?”
The solicitor nodded, although he looked pained to have to admit it.
“But Your Grace . . .”
“I want to sell it, then.”
Glassey was looking a little pale.
“If you can’t arrange that, I’ll find someone who can.”
“I’ll make inquiries, Your Grace.”
Connor interrupted him. “My name is Connor,” he said. “From now on, if you want me to pay any attention to you, you’ll call me by my name. I’m nobody’s grace.”
He didn’t look at the solicitor as he left the room.
Chapter 9
Elsbeth walked into one of the downstairs parlors, the one favored by the McCraight sisters. The patterned yellow silk on the walls had been made in France. Perhaps at one time it was a darker color, but over the years it had faded to a pale yellowish white. Rather than remove the wall covering, they had simply compensated by changing the furniture.
Two years ago, the specially made settees and chairs had been delivered. The upholstery fabric very nearly matched the French silk. Emerald green accent pillows added a punch of color to the room.
The duchess loved to decorate, or modernize, as she called it. She was forever changing either one of the public rooms or one of those occupied by a member of the family. Last year she’d decided that Elsbeth should move from her suite so that it, too, could be altered. Elsbeth had pleaded with Gavin. There was nothing she needed or wanted changed in the rooms she’d lived in ever since coming to Bealadair. Gavin and Rhona had a rousing fight on the subject, but Gavin had emerged victorious. The duchess hadn’t been happy about the outcome, however, and had frowned at her for weeks.
Rhona wasn’t in the Yellow Parlor, thank heavens, but the sisters were. Anise was holding court, marching back and forth in front of the roaring fire.
“It isn’t fair,” she was saying. “I don’t know as much about the older wing as you do, Lara. You should take it, and I’ll show him the family wing.”
Elsbeth knew what they were talking about immediately. Rhona had decided that her three daughters were to give the tour of Bealadair to His Grace—Connor.
Perhaps she should have taken tea somewhere else, but she’d wanted to visit with Muira. Her friend turned and smiled at her, making her feel somewhat welcome. The other two girls had always been a little standoffish, even when she was a child, but they were that way with everyone. It wasn’t as if they had singled Elsbeth out for rudeness.
She nodded to one of the maids, and the girl left the room. In moments she would be back with another cup and perhaps even another tray, one filled to the brim with treats they’d prepared over the last few weeks.
“I’m not going to trade with you,” Lara said. “It’s bad enough that I have to traipse around the house with the man in his outlandish clothing. Why hadn’t Mr. Glassey outfitted him better in London? Hopefully, no one saw him. Can you just imagine what people would say?”
Elsbeth couldn’t allow Lara’s comment to remain as it stood.
“He’s from Texas,” she said. “Of course they don’t dress the same as Scotland.”
“What do you know about it?” Lara said. “You don’t have an eye for fashion. You don’t care what you wear. How do you know what they wear in Texas?”
“Both His Grace and his friend were wearing boots,” she said. “They were both wearing the same kind of hat. And the same kind of coat. Perhaps if it was just His Grace, you could make the assumption that he’s iconoclastic in his dress. But two men? You can only assume that it’s a Texas style he’s wearing. Shall we ask Mr. Glassey? He’ll know.”
Lara looked away, the same as dismissing her. Elsbeth was used to it. Lara had always been that way, behavior that wasn’t isolated to Elsbeth. She treated everyone the same, as if they were beneath her.
When she was thirteen, on the anniversary of her mother’s death, Lara told her half sisters that she considered them upstarts.
“I’m the only child of our father’s true wife,” she’d said.
Ever since that announcement, there had been a separation between the sisters. Lara didn’t seem to care
. The only person she treated well was Felix. She was devoted to her husband.
Elsbeth didn’t like the man. It was difficult to be fond of someone who always looked at you as if he smelled something bad.
“I wouldn’t give any thought to his opinion of you, my dear,” Gavin had said. “Felix is one of those people who doesn’t approve of anyone unless they have a title or significant riches to their name. He is, I’m afraid, a hanger-on.”
His words had surprised her. So, too, the fact that he’d agreed to Lara marrying the man. But, then, Lara always had her own mind. As a child, she would threaten to hold her breath until she got her way. When she had a tantrum, Gavin had always given her a sideways look, shrugged, and walked away.
Felix was absent from the parlor. With no occupation of his own, Felix was often to be found underfoot. He, like his wife, spent a great deal of time in criticism. Yet they never did anything to correct what they disliked. They simply liked to talk about it.
No doubt Felix was occupied in his only interest: his guns. He was quite a good shot, but there was no reason he shouldn’t be, having endless hours in which to practice. When he wasn’t taking one of the footmen away from his duties—in order for the man to toss glass balls as targets for him—he was cleaning one of his rifles.
Even Gavin had commented on the number of guns in his collection.
“I do trust my son-in-law is devoid of a bloodthirsty nature. Otherwise, I fear for our safety. He has enough weapons to arm a rebellion.”
She hadn’t responded. There were times when Gavin spoke only to hear himself talk. She had the feeling, occasionally, that he would have said the same words had she not been in the room.
She did miss him. Did his daughters? In the past few months she’d never heard them mention him, which was a shame. It seemed to her that a person never truly died if you remembered him and shared those memories with others.
“I’ll take His Grace on a tour of the older wing if you wish, Anise,” Elsbeth said.
