Page 50 of Enlightened
And Murdo left Culzeans, never to return.
Murdo was quiet on the way back to Curzon Street, and David was too. The events of the last hour weighed heavily upon them both. David had believed they were going to Culzeans to talk to Kinnell, perhaps to begin a negotiation. He hadn’t expected an irrevocable confrontation. Now he sat in the carriage, sharp anxiety for Murdo churning in his gut, his too-vivid imagination conjuring images of Murdo with a bullet hole in his head, falling to the ground, again and again.
“Why did you do it?” David said at last, puncturing the silence. “What were you thinking?”
Murdo turned his head. He was strangely calm, though his jaw had an obstinate thrust to it.
“It wasn’t planned,” he said. “Not that it hadn’t occurred to me—it had—but not as something I would actually do.”
“What did you plan, then?”
Murdo shrugged. “A more subtle threat. Kinnell’s estate, Marloch, is burdened by sizeable debts. I thought I’d let it be known I was minded to acquire some of them and take Marloch for myself.”
“Then why the change?”
“Two reasons. It would take months to implement that sort of plan. Once I laid eyes on Kinnell tonight and thought about what he’d likely done to his wife today, I wanted to do something to stop him now.”
David could understand that. He’d wanted to lay into the bastard with his bare fists and show him what it felt like to be beaten. “What was the other reason?”
“Seeing my father and Hartley. I felt the noose tightening, and I realised that I needed to do something drastic if I were to free myself.”
“You’ve put your life in danger just to free yourself from your engagement?” David exclaimed.
“I count it a good result,” Murdo said, with a distinct edge to his voice. “My engagement has been brought to an end and in a way that paints me as the villain and the lady as entirely blameless. What more could you want, David? Surely that’s enough, even for you?”
“That you live to see it?” David hated that his voice trembled with emotion. He felt rather than saw the glance that Murdo shot him, his big body suddenly very still and watchful.
“I’ll live to see it,” Murdo said after a pause. “Kinnell won’t go through with the duel.”
“You can’t be certain of that.”
Another shrug. “Even if he does go through with it, I’ll win, and he knows it. I’m an excellent shot—I’m well known for it. It’s one of the reasons everyone was so aggrieved on his behalf tonight. They thought it unsportsmanlike of me to put a man with so little ability in the position of having to challenge me.”
“And if you win, you’ll be a murderer,” David said bitterly, though in truth, he did feel better to at least know that everyone expected Murdo to prevail.
“If that happens, I’ll flee to the continent,” Murdo said. He leaned closer, putting one long, gloved finger beneath David’s chin and tipping it up, forcing David to meet his ink-black gaze. Murdo smiled crookedly, though there was still a hard look about his eyes that puzzled David. “And if my lover—mymalelover—accompanies me, it’ll be the biggest scandal in twenty years.”
Even if that was nonsense talk, it made David’s heart beat a little faster. A wave of mingled excitement and anxiety washed over his heart, and on impulse he reached for Murdo, pulling him close enough to bring their mouths together in a desperate kiss, needing to feel Murdo warm and alive against him.
For an instant, Murdo hesitated, as though surprised, then he sighed against David’s mouth and wound his brawny arms tightly round David’s leaner body, deepening the kiss.
When he finally pulled back, breathing hard, it was to say something that David wasn’t expecting.
“So—when were you going to mention that Sir William Lennox is your Will?”
David stared at him in astonishment. It was dark in the carriage, but he’d had time to get used to it, and he could make out the glitter in Murdo’s eyes and the faintly belligerent set of his jaw. Was this the cause of the suppressed anger David had detected since they’d left Culzeans?
“You know about him?”
“I’ve known for ages. You told me months ago about Will, the boy who broke your heart, the boy from the big house in Midlauder. It didn’t take much effort to discover who owned the big house in Midlauder.”
“You were checking up on me?”
“I wondered about my competition, yes.”
“Competition?” David repeated. “How could Will possibly be competition? He broke with me years ago. Tonight’s the first time I’ve seen him in nearly ten years.”
“I saw the way he looked at you,” Murdo retorted, suddenly intense.