Her gaze bore into him. “One I can depend on? I think not, my lord.”
He deserved every word, and more. No matter how noble his intent years ago, he’d obviously hurt her far beyond what he’d believed. Bitterness had edged her words when she’d said neither she nor her children had any reason to trust men. She made it clear that he had done nothing to make her feel differently.
What in God’s name had Campbell done to her? Worse than what he’d done?
He couldn’t help himself. He lifted his hand and ran a finger down her cheek, feeling its softness.
She flinched.
Pain twisted inside him. He stepped back, nodded, then went down the stairs, straight out to the stable.
He’d delivered his message.
It was time to go home.
Chapter Three
Janet remembered Braemoor’s words. She remembered the intense look on his face, as if he were willing her to believe him.
But she knew she couldn’t. She did not think she could ever believe a man again. She certainly never intended to depend on one again.
Her first thoughts were for the children. She dismissed Molly and promoted a lass who’d worked in the kitchen. She’d always been kind, and kindness was the quality that Janet wanted most.
She also had a battle with Reginald, who’d wanted to move down into her husband’s room. She’d said no, that the children would move there. She wanted them close, and she installed young Colin’s bed in her own chamber. She found the lasses a puppy—a herding dog—from one of the drovers, and a kitten from the barn cat.
Grace’s face lit like a thousand candles in the night.
She immediate snuggled the puppy in her arms as Annabella took the kitten.
With shining eyes, Grace looked up at her. “What should we name him?”
“That is up to you. The three of you have to agree on both names.”
“I want one, too,” Rachel said, looking uncharacteristically disgruntled.
Janet hadn’t thought about three animals. Now she knew she should have.
“They belong to all of you,” she said. “You can take turns playing with them. Then we will see.”
Rachel looked only a trifle mollified. She went over to Grace and started to pet the puppy. “He is a wee thing.”
“He will soon be large enough to be trouble,” Janet said wryly.
“Oh, he will never be trouble,” Grace said. “He will be very, very good.”
“We can call the kitten Princess,” Rachel offered.
Annabella objected. “That’s ord’nary. She is not ord’nary.”
“Why don’t you wait a few days,” Janet interjected. “Then you can come up with two very fine names. You can make up lists.”
The lasses looked at each other. Grace, then Rachel, nodded. Annabella stuck her chin out pugnaciously. “I want to name the kitty.”
Janet looked at the two older lasses. They nodded.
“All right, then,” Janet said with mock seriousness. “You can tell me your decisions next week.”
When she left the room, the three were crooning over their new charges, giggling as she had never heard them giggle before. She leaned against the door outside for a moment, just listening, particularly to Grace. Of the three, she had always seemed unable to be a child and regarded every person with a wariness that disturbed Janet.
When she went downstairs to fetch some milk and bread for the animals, she overheard the cook arguing with a tradesman about the bill and she stepped in.
He glared at her. “I willna be sendin’ more goods here.”
After he left, Janet questioned the cook.
“Ain’t no one been paid for months,” she said. “I would leave except for my husband herds sheep and we have a croft here. If I left, we’d both be driven from the land.”
Janet went from there to Reginald’s room. He had taken over the management and the books without asking her. She had allowed it because she wanted the time to spend with the children. Now she felt ready, and well enough, for war.
He wasn’t there. He was off on a hunt, said his wife Louisa as she nursed her baby who would soon be six months old.
Janet grinned down at the child. Children delighted her. Their innocence gave her joy. She would like several more children, in fact, despite the pain of delivery. Louisa had said she never wanted another. But that feeling usually wore off.
“He looks well,” she said.
“Aye,” Louisa said shortly.
“You will ask Reginald to find me when he returns?”
“Why?”
“I want to go over the books with him.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that? It’s a mon’s business.”
“It’s my son’s business, his inheritance.”
Louisa glared at her and Janet left. She should have checked on things before now. She went down to the stables. One lad was feeding the horses. The barn itself was in need of cleaning; the stalls were filthy.
She went down the aisle. The horses looked thin.
“Have you been feeding them their oats?”
“We donna have any,” the boy said.
She remembered his name. Kevin. Kevin McDougal.
She went over to one of the stalls. The animal stuck his head out and she ran a hand down his neck as he nickered softly. She used to ride frequently but Alasdair had disapproved, as he disapproved of so many things she enjoyed. She might as well have been locked in her room. Why hadn’t she rebelled?
Because she feared Alasdair would take it out on the children. They had always been the weapon he’d used to control her.
“Why have the stalls not been cleaned?” she asked.
Kevin looked rebellious. “There is only me. I canna do everything.”
“I will help you, then.”
“You, my lady?”
“Aye, I’ll not have them stand in this filth. And I will see if I can get you some help.”
Kevin did not look optimistic at the prospect. “Lord Reginald said no one was needed.”
Reginald was not a lord. He was the honorable Reginald Campbell. Janet wondered who had instructed the lad to call him lord. Was it pretension? Hope?
She was beginning to see the depth of the problems facing her. She’d been lost in a mixture of conflicting emotions during the past few days. She’d been intent on quieting the fears of Alasdair’s daughters, of relishing the time she had with Colin. Her sense of freedom had warred with guilt that she’d not done better with her marriage.
But she had no intention of handing over her son’s estates to the care of the Campbells. Reginald was an ambitious, mean-spirited man and his wife, Louisa, was his match. Their only redemption was their infant, David.
She sighed, wishing for an ally. Any ally.
If you need a friend …
She needed so much, most of all a friend. A trusted friend.
Neil Forbes was not that. He could never be that. The devil take him for appearing out of nowhere. She’d tried to banish him from her thoughts over the years, but it was for naught. She kept remembering standing next to him in the stables at Braemoor. He’d known each of the horses. He’d never let them be neglected.
Janet wished she’d known more about what was going on. But her husband had all but kept her a prisoner. The cook had disregarded her orders in favor of those of the dowager countess. She’d been able to teach the bairns, to play with them, to care for them. And only that because her husband had so little concern for them. As long as she kept them away from him, he rarely interfered, except for commanding that they sleep apart from her. He did not want clinging children, he’d said often enough.
In the beginning, she’d protested. Then she discovered that the more she protested, the more he took it out on the bairns. But, she wondered, mayhap she should have tried harder.
But her heart had been wounded, first by Neil, then by her father’s and brother’s deaths, and finally by her husband. How many times had
he told her how inadequate she was? She had made the children her world.
She couldn’t do that any longer. To make their world safe, she had to make her own safe.
Until now, she hadn’t realized how immense that task would be.
She knew nothing about managing an estate, and she did not trust anyone in the family to do it for her.
And now she’d just offered to muck out stalls. As if that would help in any measurable way. But mayhap in a small way. A beginning. A small stab at control, at independence.
A pitiable one.
Still, she felt excitement well inside her for the first time in years.
Mayhap mucking out the stalls would help muck out her mind.
Upon his return to Braemoor, Neil spent several hours with Jock, who was one of four tacksmen at Braemoor. They leased property from the marquis, then in turn rented it to the crofters. Three of them, Neil suspected, cheated their tenants. Jock was the one honest one who cared about the people who rented from him.
As the new marquis, Neil had the right to cancel the leases held by the tacksmen. Contracts varied throughout the Highlands; this one continued only through the lifetime of the marquis. Once a marquis died, the contracts were no longer valid.
Jock could lose his livelihood and he knew it. He fidgeted until Neil said, “Sit down, Jock.”
Jock sat down, looking as if he were facing the hangman. “Did I do something wrong, my lord?”
Neil studied him for a moment. He was a fine-looking man, tall and strongly built with a shock of red hair and honest blue eyes. Neil knew he was in his mid-thirties and was a distant kinsman; he’d inherited the position of tacksman from his father, who’d died five years earlier. Like Neil, he had no wife; unlike Neil, there was no reason for that to be true. At least as far as Neil knew.
“No,” he finally said. “I wanted to thank you for looking after Braemoor while I was gone.” He hesitated, then offered, “Would you have a glass of brandy?”
Jock looked as if Neil were about to poison him. Afraid to take it. Afraid not to take it.
Neil sighed. Rory had had such an easy relationship with people around the estate. It must be a talent, having friends. A talent he’d never cultivated. He’d been too busy walking the sharp edge of a knife. He poured a dollop of brandy into a cup and handed it to Jock.
“I wanted your opinion,” he said.
“My opinion?” Jock replied dumbly.
Neil realized then he’d never once asked for the man’s opinion since he assumed management of Braemoor. Before Rory had left, Neil had never been quite sure of how much control or responsibility he actually had, and he’d been bitter that Rory, not he, had inherited.
He’d always believed he had a love for the land and husbandry that his predecessors had not. They’d cared only for the money the estates had brought. Rory had cared, but Neil had not known that until it was too late. Neil had done what he thought was expected: extract what he could from the earth and try to do little harm in the process.
Then Rory’s body—or what was thought to be Rory’s body—was found on the coast, assumed to be the latest victim of the Black Knave, and suddenly Braemoor became Neil’s. The poor relation, the orphaned bastard, was suddenly lord. He’d visited all the crofts, but he hadn’t known how to put the tenants at ease. He hadn’t been able to express his concern for them. He hadn’t been able to translate his hopes to them.
He felt like a fraud, and knew they must feel the same.
But now over the months he’d developed a plan, one he hoped would help every soul who lived on Braemoor.
Poor Jock looked like he was about to be consumed by a dragon. He clutched the cup with hands so clenched they were white.
“Ye are no’ goin’ to be clearin’ the land, are ye?” Jock finally ventured, obviously convinced that was the reason for this interview.
“Nay,” Neil said. “No one will be evicted.”
Jock’s frown cleared but his brows remained furrowed. Neil couldn’t blame him. His uncle, the old marquis, had paid precious little attention to either the lands or the tenants. During Rory’s brief tenure, he acted the fool and indicated no interest at all in Braemoor. In truth, Rory had no reason to care about it. Neil had been given full responsibility, and he’d thought then that it was merely because Rory hadn’t wanted to be bothered. It wasn’t until later he’d discovered that Rory had thought he would be a good steward of the land.
During those months, though, he’d tried to do what he could for the tenants but had felt unable to make any real changes that would improve their lives. Now, for the past six months, he’d been developing a plan. He finally had all the parts ready. Six months of work, of planning.
Rory’s marriage had brought additional land to Braemoor, land already cleared of tenants, mostly through the carnage committed by Cumberland.
Neil planned to entice some of his current tenants to move to those lands and tend cattle and sheep. Braemoor’s lands would continue to be farmed. He knew there were too many families on Braemoor to survive only through farming, but if some would voluntarily move, then Neil could make the best use of all the lands now under Forbes control.
He just had to make the offer attractive enough to entice some of the young men to move miles away. He’d already decided to provide cottages, a cow and other livestock to anyone willing to move. He would give them a percentage of the profits of the sale of stock they tended.
It would mean that those who stayed could keep more of their yield.
Ultimately, he planned to offer to sell plots of land to the crofters tending it. He’d already checked with a solicitor. ’Twas legal, if unprecedented. He knew it would not be popular among the land owners—nor with Cumberland—which is why he hoped to keep his plans quiet for the moment.
His proposal, he knew, was revolutionary. The land would not produce as much revenue as it would if he cleared it all off. But he should have enough to pay the taxes, and that was all that mattered to him. He had no need for money, clothes, jewels, or riches. Though his title and lands drew people to Braemoor, and no end of offers of marriage, he knew they did not seek him out. He had not wit nor charm, nor social graces, but that bothered him not a whit. He did have a passion for making changes.
He outlined his scheme for Jock, whose eyebrows furrowed closer and closer together.
“A share of the profits, my lord?”
“Aye,” he said simply.
“A cottage? Livestock?”
“Aye.”
“Why would ye do tha’?”
“Because the prospect of having a share of one’s own labor should make our people more productive.”
“The prospect of losing wha’ they have would be havin’ the same effect.”
“Fear instead of reward?” Neil asked. “I donna believe so.”
“I ha’ never heard of the like,” Jock said suspiciously.
“Nor have I,” Neil admitted, permitting himself a small smile. He hoped it came out that way. God knew, he seemed to scare everyone to death, even wee lassies. That experience still stung.
Suspicion oozed from the man sitting across from him. The tenants had received little from the Forbeses over the years except demands for more and more rents. “Wha’ about the other tacksmen?”
Neil had been watching them carefully for the past year. He did not want them at Braemoor. “I will not renew their leases,” he said. “I will pay off the remaining terms.”
“They will no’ be happy.”
“They’ve been cheating the crofters.”
Jock looked surprised, and Neil realized the man had not thought he knew what was going on at Braemoor. In truth, he knew everything that was going on.
“I want you to take over their leases,” Neil said. “You are a fair man. I can trust you, and more importantly, the crofters trust you.”
“But ye be wantin’ some to leave.”
“The land is too crowded. There is not sufficient land on Braemoor
for all the sons being born here. I am offering a new opportunity for them to start households of their own on vacant land. I hope you can persuade some of them.”
“For a cottage, and a cow and space to garden, I am thinking ye will have some volunteers.”
“We will run cattle and sheep on the new lands and put most of Braemoor into grain, build our own mill. The crofters can have gardens of their own and keep all but ten percent, which will come to me.” He hesitated, then added, “Eventually, I want to enable them to purchase their land for a fair price.”
Jock’s eyes widened. He dropped his caution. “Are ye flummoxing me?”
“Nay, Jock. I have too much land for any one man. I ha’ no children to leave it to. I want it in the hands of those who’ve worked it all these years.”
Jock stared at him in shock.
“This last is between you and me for the time,” Neil said. “My hold on Braemoor may be tenuous. I do not want word reaching Cumberland and give him reason to suspect my loyalty to his wishes.”
Jock nodded, still obviously dazed. Still not altogether comprehending.
“Will you talk to the other tenants—except about the sale of land?”
“How do I know ye will keep your word?” Jock said.
It was an unusually brave thing for a tacksman to say, and Neil respected him for it. “I shall put it in writing if you wish,” he said. “It will be a contract.”
“I donna put much stock in that,” Jock replied. “The nobs always find a way around it.”
Neil had to smile. That had been his experience, too. “What would you like?”
“I will have to think on it.”
“Then you do that, Jock. And talk to the others. Will you do that?”
Jock hesitated, then said grudgingly, “No harm in tha’.”
“Now will you drink with me?” Neil asked.
Neil found himself going to the cottage once inhabited by Mary Forbes, who had grown herbs for the tower and for the nearby village. It had a deserted, forlorn look. He knew he should give it to someone; it was a waste such as it was. But it held secrets that he’d been loathe to give up.
The furniture was still in place, even plates and cups. It had been rumored that Mary was a witch, and no one had wished to test the theory. The devil looked after his own.
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