Page 19 of Enlightened

Chalmers sank back into his pillows, exhausted after that relatively lengthy exchange, and fell into a light, fitful slumber.

Mrs. Jessop popped her head in again while he dozed. She carried a tea tray, which she set down on the sideboard. She poured some tea for David, dosing his cup with both milk and sugar before passing it to him. It wasn’t at all how he liked it—but he drank it down gratefully while she checked on Chalmers. There was a cup for Chalmers too, though not of tea, in his case. Mrs. Jessop sat it on the nightstand beside his bed, ready for when he woke. Then she tiptoed from the room again.

At length, Chalmers stirred. He grimaced, almost comically, when David pointed out the draught beside his head, though he let David help him sit up straighter, the better to drink it down.

David held the cup to Chalmers’s lips and the older man accepted most of the contents before leaning back against his pillows again.

“So, I have a favour to ask you, David.”

“Name it.”

“It is to do with Elizabeth.”

David didn’t pause. “I guessed as much.”

Another wait while Chalmers gathered his strength again. David was coming to learn his dying friend’s rhythms, and they were heartbreakingly slow.

“I had a letter last week from Charles Carr, my brother-in-law. He is the solicitor administering Elizabeth’s trust.”

“Yes, I remember.” Although David was one of Elizabeth’s trustees, so far he’d had no need to perform any duties since Donald had taken that burden on his shoulders after David’s accident. “Is there a problem?”

“It’s Kinnell. He’s been to Charles’s office. He was asking questions about Elizabeth.”

David stared helplessly at his friend, trying not to betray how profoundly this news, that Elizabeth’s husband was so close to her, scared him. He’d experienced firsthand what Kinnell was capable of when he had his wife in his sights.

“Charles doesn’t think it means Kinnell knows about the trust, or even that she’s in London,” Chalmers continued. “Kinnell may have just gone to see him on the off chance—he knows Charles is family—but equally, he could have been watching Charles’s offices.”

Charles’s office, where Elizabeth went to collect her trust income every month.

David searched for something reassuring to say, but before he could come up with anything, Chalmers spoke again.

“I want you to move the business of administering the trust to another solicitor—preferably in another city altogether, if Elizabeth can be prevailed upon to leave London. Only one of the trustees can deal with this.” He paused and sent David a regretful look. “David—I know it isn’t fair to ask you, but I can’t ask Donald. Not with Kitty as she is.”

“Is that all?” David asked. “No need to apologise, old friend. Consider it done.”

“I shouldn’t be asking you,” Chalmers replied unhappily. “I know you’re not fully recovered.”

“Well, I don’t need to be for this. It so happens that Lord Murdo leaves for London tomorrow, and I’m sure he’ll be willing to take me with him in his carriage, so I’ll travel like a king and be in the capital within the week.” He paused briefly. “And I’ll do what I can to persuade Elizabeth to move elsewhere. She needs to get out of Kinnell’s reach. I’ll write to let you know how I get on.”

Chalmers sighed, a soft gust of mingled relief and sadness. “Thank you. Though I doubt I’ll see any letter you send me once you’re there.”

“Of course you will—”

Chalmers waved an admonitory finger at him. “No lies, David, please. Not between us.”

David swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat, then forced himself to nod, and Chalmers managed a weak smile in reply.

The silence that followed was broken only by Chalmers’s laboured breathing. David watched him, noting the tiny facial clues—the faint furrowing between his brows, the tightness of his mouth—that hinted at the pain he was suffering.

After a while, Chalmers roused himself to speak again. “She talks a lot about this Euan MacLennan. I think they may be living in the same house.”

His tone was neutral, impossible to read.

“I believe so.”

A brief lull, then, “Do you think she loves him?” Chalmers’s gaze was troubled.

“I don’t know,” David said. Then, driven to honesty: “But I know he loves her. And he is a good man. As far from Kinnell as a man can be.”