Page 53 of Enlightened
“Do not react to my father’s jibes,” Murdo said to David. “He’ll only do it more. He enjoys riling people.”
The marquess laughed then, a soft, appreciative sound. “You know me so well, Murdo,” he said. There was a pause—a few heartbeats—and then his faintly amused expression faded into something undeniably sorrowful.
“You were the only one, out of the three of you. The only one I had real hopes of.”
“What rot,” Murdo said mildly. “There are no two sons more obedient than Harris and Iain. I am the only who ever defied you.”
“And you are the only one with wit, with ability. You are the only one who sees the world as it is. Oh, Harris will get the title and the lands. What of it? You could have had so much more than that. You could have been a kingmaker, Murdo. You could have risen to the highest reaches of power.Thatis what I wanted for you! That is what this marriage was about—and youknowthat! When I brokered it for you, you were in agreement—”
“You mean, I did not protest,” Murdo put in.
“Do not play the puppet with me. You intended to come back to London and follow the path we’d always talked about.”
“Become like you,” Murdo said, expressionless. “Rise through the ranks, the real influence behind the public face of government.”
“Yes, and you could’ve done it. But, instead, you went running off to Scotland—tohim”—he gestured at David—“and ignored all the summonses I sent you. Why?”
“I came to my senses.”
“Came to your senses? You will never be received in polite society again! You think any of those men who like to invest in those schemes that make you so much money will send you a brass farthing once they hear of this scandal? You will be apariah, Murdo.”
Murdo shrugged. “True, but there is nothing to be done about it now.” He paused. “It’s amusing, actually. For all these years, you’ve held the possibility of ruin over my head, and here I go and do it by myself. All that power you had over me, and until tonight, I never realised how flimsy it really was. All I needed to do was renounce everything you ever gave me. Which wasn’t so very difficult once I realised how little I wanted it.”
“You’ll be well satisfied, then, now that you have nothing,” the marquess snapped.
“That’s not how I see it.”
The marquess glanced at David, understanding dawning. “I see,” he said, adding after a moment, “Well, I wish you’d told me rather than falling on your sword like this. I’m sure we could have come to some sort of accommodation. There aren’t many beds of married love in this city. It’s not so difficult to arrange a house, privacy—”
Murdo laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement this time. “You don’t expect me to believe you’d have come to anaccommodationwith me? You, who always said a man keeps secrets at his peril.”
The marquess’s lips thinned. “If you had told me—”
Murdo didn’t let him go further. “If I’d told you, you would have done everything you could to sabotage it,” he snapped. “And anyone who stood in your way would have been destroyed.”
The marquess fell silent. He didn’t protest or indeed say anything.
Murdo turned to David. “Here’s a story for you: when I was boy, I lived for the summers. We spent them at Kilbeigh, in Argyllshire—my mother and my siblings and me. Not my father. He was always too busy in London.” He turned to his father. “It must be years since you were in Scotland.”
The marquess said nothing, and Murdo turned back to David. “When I was sixteen, I told my father I wanted to stay at Kilbeigh. Manage the estate for my brother Harris, who was to inherit the title. That way Harris could stay in London and take his seat in the Lords. I thought that would satisfy my father’s desire for one of his sons to follow in his political footsteps. I knew Harris would be perfectly happy, so long as his allowance was being paid.”
“Harris isn’t like you. He hasn’t the wit for politics,” the marquess interrupted, but Murdo ignored him.
“My father surprised me,” he told David. “He was encouraging. He said that he would arrange for me spend some time with Mr. Mure, the senior land agent at Kilbeigh, to see if I liked the work. I was sent to Kilbeigh on my own, in the family carriage. I felt like a man for the first time in my life.”
David wanted to tell him to stop. He knew something was coming that was awful, and part of him didn’t want to hear it—except that he knew Murdo needed to say it, and he needed David to be his witness.
Murdo smiled at him, and his gaze was unbearably sad. “One day, after I’d been home a few days, Mr. Mure told me we were going out early. I was to be saddled and ready for seven o’clock the next day. I remember getting dressed that morning, wondering what the day would bring. As soon as I got down to the stables, I knew—” He broke off.
“What?” David said, prompting him. “What did you know?”
“I knew that something was wrong,” Murdo continued, swallowing. “There were redcoats in the stable yard, and a clerk from the sheriff’s office. He had legal papers. Once we were on our way, I asked Mr. Mure what was going on, and he told me that it was an eviction. I didn’t know what to expect. Certainly not the burning down of an entire village.”
Oh God, no.
David’s heart wrenched as he remembered another conversation, in another drawing room, months ago. David had spoken of the clearance of the highlanders from their ancestral lands. Had accused Murdo of exactly this.
“You’re a highlander, aren’t you? The son of the laird himself. Did your father evict any of his tenants from their homelands to make room for sheep? Burn down any houses?”