A MacKenzie Clan Gathering

by Jennifer Ashley

  Hart didn’t need the money and had no reason for this fraud, but a good detective would check Hart’s financials and then decide. If Fellows were to conduct the investigation correctly, he’d need to do such things. All must be aboveboard. He knew full well the state of Hart’s finances, however, because Hart hid nothing from him these days. Even if there were a question, Ian would know the answer. Ian carried the all the figures from the entire estate’s accounting ledgers in his head.

  Fellows removed a small camera from his coat. Hart’s wife, Eleanor, had given it to him, for use in Fellows’s detective work. Eleanor loved photography and was quite good at it, and she enjoyed trying out every brand-new photographic gadget invented.

  This camera was quite small, but had a special attachment that would hold several plates at once. The plates then could be developed in a darkroom, which of course Eleanor had set up here.

  The photographs turned out sharper when the photographer used bright, electric lights, which the gallery did not have, but Fellows turned up the gaslights to full illumination and clicked away with the camera. He took pictures of every blank spot, of the damaged frames and canvases, the door, the lock, the dirty boot prints on the carpet. Hopefully some of the footprints were the villains’ and not simply the local constable’s.

  As Fellows lifted the camera from the last shot, he turned to find Ian standing a foot away.

  Fellows had learned not to jump at Ian’s sudden appearances. His half brother could move quietly for a man so large.

  “Ian,” Fellows said, tucking the camera back into its case. “Thank you for the telegrams. Your assessment was helpful.”

  Ian neither acknowledged this nor modestly waved it away. “Can you catch them?”

  Fellows gazed up at the blank walls. “I’m going to have a bloody good try.”

  Ian gave him a nod, as though he approved. “I’ll show you what I found,” he said, and walked away, assuming Fellows would follow.

  Fellows, having learned that Ian was a more thorough investigator than all his sergeants and inspectors put together, did.

  * * *

  The next morning, Beth wanted to go to the station herself to retrieve her first husband’s brother, but there had been too much to do at the house. She hadn’t wanted to neglect Lloyd Fellows, who’d so quickly come to help, so she’d asked the majordomo to send the carriage.

  The man who stepped from the coach upon its return so resembled Beth’s late husband, the vicar Thomas Ackerley, that she paused on the stairs for a heartbeat of astonishment.

  Once the man raised his head, however, after the footman took his hat and his battered satchel, the exact likeness faded. John was slightly leaner than Thomas, more tanned, a bit taller, and had more of a toughness about him. Beth’s first husband had been quite strong in mind—his parish had been in a rougher part of Bethnal Green—but he’d always been soft of face and body.

  Beth had met John Ackerley exactly twice. The first time had been when she’d married Thomas. John had been the admiring younger brother, happy that Thomas had found a wife. The two brothers had been kindness itself, something the very young Beth had been starved for.

  After Thomas’s death, John had traveled to London from his missionary station in Africa to help erect a stone to his brother and make sure Beth was all right. By that time, Beth had been established as a companion to the wealthy woman who was to eventually leave Beth her fortune. John had been married, eager to return to his mission, and satisfied that Beth would be well.

  John had written a few years ago of his wife’s death from a heart ailment, and then again recently when he’d decided to retire and return to England.

  I have moved about the world a good deal as you know, he’d written, and learned many things, some of which might interest you. I would like to visit your husband and your good self, if I may, not to impose my company, but to ensure myself that you are well, and to see if I can do anything to assist you and his lordship.

  Beth had read the letter out to Ian. She’d thought Ian would not like the idea, but to her surprise, Ian had shrugged and said of course John should come. He was of Beth’s family, and there was no reason not to see him.

  Beth had penned a reply, John had said he’d be in England by August, and Beth had invited him to the family gathering in September.

  Now, here he was.

  “John,” Beth said as she stepped off the stairs. She caught the hand he held out to her.

  John smiled, making him look more like Thomas again. “Dear little Beth. My, how good life has been to you. I suppose I must call you Lady Ian now.”

  “Not at all, John. You’re family.”

  “I confess I can think of you only as Thomas’s gentle Beth. I am happy to find you in better circumstances, my dear. And I am looking forward to meeting the brilliant Lord Ian Mackenzie.”

  “Who is about somewhere,” Beth said, waving her hand. “I sometimes lose him in this vast place. Our own house up the road is smaller and more cozy.”

  “Ah, but this is a fine house.” John looked around in admiration. A huge pedestal table stood in the center of the staircase hall, the stairs rising around it. Eleanor always ensured that a giant vase of fresh flowers was kept on this table, no matter what the season.

  The walls rose with the staircase, high into the house. Paintings lined the way, beautiful ones by Mac and other artists, many of them family portraits. Beth was glad Ian had stopped the thieves before they’d reached the stairs.

  Noise erupted at the front door, and Ian Mackenzie himself strode in. He was surrounded by men who worked for him at the distillery, and they were all, including Ian, arguing loudly about something.

  When Ian lost his inhibitions, he could shout at the top of his Scots’ voice as well as any of his brothers. Right now he was in full volume, turning to face the man who managed the Mackenzie distillery.

  “Do it now, man! Before ye lose another forty barrels of the bloody stuff. Shite and fucking hell.”

  Ian’s face was red, golden eyes glittering with rage. Two dogs circled at his feet, peering anxiously up at their master.

  Beth hurried to him. “Ian, whatever is the matter?”

  Ian could curse like a sailor, especially when his shyness deserted him and fury took over. He was seldom enraged anymore, growing angry only at threats to his children or Beth, or the Mackenzie family in general, but it occasionally still happened.

  “Ian?” Beth tried again. “We have a guest.”

  Ian didn’t see John behind Beth—or if he did, the man was of no consequence to Ian at the moment.

  “Forty barrels, ruined from rot that nobody bothered t’ notice,” he snapped. “I didn’t notice. How the bloody hell could I not have? I notice everything.” Ian’s face had gone scarlet, his jaw tight. He brought up his hands and started scrubbing them through his hair. “Everything,” he repeated. “Everything.”

  Oh dear. Ian couldn’t go into what he called a muddle now—not in front of John Ackerley.

  In a muddle, Ian would fixate, either repeating a phrase or doing a task over and over again, as though he were an automaton stuck on one setting. He didn’t go into muddles much anymore, having learned to stop and breathe before emotions overwhelmed him.

  Beth reached up and took his hands, closing her fingers over his. She looked into his intense golden eyes. “Ian. Think.”

  The touch broke Ian from wherever he’d been about to go. He clamped down on Beth’s hands, took a long breath, and fixed his gaze on hers. For a moment, he was aware of only Beth, his rock in the swirling storms of his life.

  After a few tense moments, Ian leaned down to nuzzle Beth’s cheek, and she felt his lips.

  When he straightened up, his face had returned to a normal color, though the anger in his eyes still sparked as he looked down at her.

  “If I did not notice the barrels gone bad,” he said in a firm voice, “then they must not have been bad. I would have remembered.”

 
“Aye,” his steward said, sounding relieved the shouting was over. “Ye do have a way of seeing all things, me lord.”

  Ian didn’t look away from Beth, directing his words to her and her alone. “Someone did it deliberately. Forty barrels of Mackenzie malt, down the spout.”

  “Deliberately?” Beth asked, perplexed. “How could someone do it deliberately?”

  The steward answered. “Or there are many ways, me lady. Insects, certain oils or acids—one man can ruin another’s trade if they set about it right.”

  “But who would?” Beth knew that Scotsmen who dealt in whisky could be competitive, but she couldn’t imagine the boisterous men she’d met from other distilleries destroying another’s yield on purpose. They wanted to best one another, but fairly.

  Ian shook his head, kept shaking it. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think the thieves did this?” Beth asked. “Or their colleagues? They steal the paintings while another group of them spoils the whisky?”

  Ian stopped. She saw the wheels inside his brain begin to move, the anger fade as fascination with the problem took over.

  He lifted Beth’s hands to his lips and kissed them, but absently. Ian was already at work in his mind, on the search for the culprit. “Love, I need to—”

  Ian broke off as his gaze came to rest on John, who was standing quietly at the foot of the staircase. Ian stared at him, becoming more and more focused as he noted every detail about the man.

  “Ian, this is John Ackerley,” Beth said quickly. “My brother-in-law. John, Ian Mackenzie.”

  “Delighted to meet you.” John stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you, my lord. I am very grateful to you for allowing me into your house.”

  Chapter Four

  Ian didn’t like him.

  He didn’t know why he instinctively did not like John Ackerley, but as the man held out his hand, the last thing Ian wanted to do was shake it.

  When Ian had told Mac about the letter John had sent Beth about his impending visit, Mac had given him a wise look.

  “The trouble with taking a beautiful woman to wife,” Mac had said, rubbing one of his brushes with a rag. They’d been in Mac’s studio, in London, high up in his house, where Ian had gone for refuge. “Is that we constantly believe all other men in the world want to take our ladies away from us. We’re usually right, but we can’t let on that it worries us.”

  As always, Ian thought what Mac said was daft, except the part about all men wanting their beautiful wives. All men should want Beth.

  Ian didn’t truly believe Beth would run after John Ackerley. The man was a missionary, had been in love with his wife, and by his photograph, was a somewhat rotund gentleman with graying hair and beard. On the other hand, Ackerley wasn’t mad. Not obviously anyway.

  “What you do,” Mac had advised, “is treat Beth like a queen. Let her know she is the center of your world. But don’t hover too closely—this can make a woman’s awe of you turn to amusement and even irritation. Give her enough attention that you charm her but not so much she wants to see the back of you. ’Tis a very fine line to walk.”

  “Beth already knows she’s the center of my world,” Ian pointed out.

  “Aye, but you need to show her that once in a while. Show her you can give her what no other man can.”

  Ian didn’t understand the relationship between Mac and Isabella—it was turbulent, the two thinking nothing of loud arguments that rattled the house. The next moment, they’d be madly loving again. Mac threw wild parties with wild people, which Isabella took with aplomb, and then the next day, they’d shut the door to the world, retreating into quiet coziness with their children.

  Ian hadn’t sought his brother for guidance so much as to calm his troubled mind. Mac’s studio, filled with the scent of paint and oil of turpentine could relax him. Even watching Mac paint, his brother clad in his usual kilt with red kerchief on his head, was soothing. As much as Ian didn’t understand the fuss about art, he enjoyed watched Mac’s brush sliding paint smoothly across the canvas, creating objects in only a few strokes, bringing a whole world to life from nothing.

  “Go home and take Beth to bed,” Mac said. “That will make you feel better, if nothing else.”

  At last, a bit of advice Ian could agree with. He’d put action to word.

  As Ian stared now at John Ackerley’s outstretched hand, he recalled every last nuance of the conversation with Mac and every detail of its aftermath with Beth.

  Beth hovered next to him, her tension palpable. She was afraid Ian would do something odd, such as walk away without speaking or return to his worry about the distillery and ignore John utterly.

  Ian wanted to walk away. As a younger man, he’d often turned and run from a crowd, especially when all eyes were upon him. He hadn’t known what to do with that unnerving focus on him, how to respond. Removing himself from the situation had been the best solution.

  Ian had learned to stand his ground, had learned how to calm himself. He could now at least pretend to react in the correct way.

  Ian reached out, clasped Ackerley’s hand, and gave it one brief, hard shake. The other man’s eyes widened at Ian’s powerful grip, and he flexed his fingers when they withdrew.

  “Is there somewhere we can speak together, my lord?” John asked as he rubbed his hand. “I have been so long away from home that I am eager to catch up with my old friends.”

  Ian and John were not old friends—Ian had just met the man—but he admitted a strong curiosity about this gentleman who’d known Beth long ago. Ian nodded and gestured up the stairs. “Our sitting room.”

  “I’m sure you’d rather refresh yourself and rest after your journey,” Beth said quickly. “I’ve had a room prepared for you in the guest wing, John. An entire set of rooms, actually, all to yourself. Shall I show you to them?”

  Both Ian and John turned to stare at her. Beth was being a polite hostess, ready to offer comfort to the weary traveler. However, John made no sign he wanted to rest and change his clothes. He wanted to talk to Ian. Ian wanted to talk to him, so he made the gesture up the stairs again.

  Beth held up her hands. “Very well. I will withdraw. I will have your things put in your suite, John, to be there when you need them. You and my husband speak as long as you like.”

  She understood. Ian’s heart warmed.

  Without further word, Ian led Ackerley up the stairs to his wing of the house.

  As they passed the Ming room, Ackerley glanced inside. “I say, do you mind if I . . . ?” He trailed off.

  Ian waited to hear the rest of his sentence, but Ackerley obviously wasn’t going to finish. Ackerley seemed to pause for a response—what, Ian had no idea—then when he got none, headed into the Ming room.

  Ian followed with some impatience. If Ackerley had meant he wanted to see the bowls, why hadn’t he simply said so?

  Ian began the tour of his collection in the usual way. He pointed to a bowl from the very early Ming period, the 1360s. “The first one is here.” He swept his arm to the right. “Then this way.” He’d categorized the bowls by period and date, and within that, by size. Small bowls rested on upper shelves, larger on lower. Glass doors on the shelves kept out dust and clumsy fingers of ignorant visitors.

  Ackerley stood in the middle of the room and turned in a circle. “Good heavens. You bought all these?”

  “Bought or traded.” Ian had gained the reputation of a hard but fair negotiator among collectors.

  Ackerley wandered to a far cabinet, beginning completely out of sequence. “Have you been to China?”

  “No.” Ian’s travels had taken him to France and Italy but no farther. Whenever he grew curious about the world beyond that, he read books. His children were too young yet to travel great distances, and Ian never wanted to be very far from them.

  John let out a laugh. “I imagined you bartering for bowls in some dusty backstreet in Shanghai.”

  “No, with dealers in London.
”

  “Ah. Of course.”

  “Is that how Ming bowls are sold in China?” Ian asked. Seemed a haphazard way to do it, especially with such valuable stock. No, Chinese gentlemen must have shops, like those found in London and Paris, where dealers in rare porcelain sold their wares.

  “Actually, I have no idea,” Ackerley said. “I never saw a Ming bowl when I traveled the East. I was in China and India after my time in Africa, as always, collecting souls for God.”

  Ackerley had been a missionary, taking English Bibles, morality, and hygiene to the darkest corners of the world. Ian had to wonder how the natives of these places had responded to the ignorant good nature of John Ackerley.

  Ackerley was standing here alive and well, so obviously the native peoples hadn’t killed him. He was proud of himself as well, Ian could see. Ian had grown up around pride—it was the one emotion he had little trouble identifying in others.

  Ackerley wandered the room, gazing at bowl after bowl, entirely out of order. He asked no questions, pointed out no details, only looked.

  “You have arranged them very precisely, haven’t you?” Ackerley asked after a time.

  Ian pointed again to the first bowl. “Starting there, with early Ming. Middle period, late middle, and late.” His arm moved as he took his pointing finger around the collection. “The last one is from 1641. I have heard of a bowl from 1642 that I will look at after Hart’s birthday. In London. Not in a backstreet in Shanghai.”

  He stopped, waiting to see whether Ackerley noticed he’d attempted a joke. Beth would have laughed, and then kissed him. Ian would have to remember to tell her about it later.

  Ackerley’s expression didn’t change. “It is important to you, the dates?”

  Why wouldn’t they be? “Aye,” Ian answered. Did the man think he should pile the bowls in a jumble?

  “And only bowls, Beth tells me. Not vases or pots?”

  “No.” People asked him this all the time. Ian could not put into words why bowls—small, round, perfect—satisfied him when vases did not.