Page 75 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Duff was the eldest of the McCallister siblings at six and twenty.

He was tall, barrel-chested, and wore his reddish-brown hair cropped short.

While attending the University of St. Andrews, he’d become obsessed with a game they played over on the mainland called golf, in which you tried to hit a wee ball into a hole using a set of clubs made of wood and iron.

Catriona followed; Meaghan did not. Duff led her to an oriel window at the end of the corridor with a cushioned bench seat beneath it. Their little brother, Callum, was already there.

“Look,” Duff said, gesturing across the frosty moor. “It’s Father’s new tenant. The Englishman.”

Catriona peered at a black-clad figure making his way toward the gamekeeper’s cottage at the top of the hill. He had something grasped in one hand. It was long and skinny like a walking stick, but he wasn’t using it as such. “Does he play golf, too?”

Duff gave her a strange look. “What makes ye ask that?”

She gestured toward the window. “Isnae that a club he’s carrying?”

“No, ye eejit,” Duff said. “’Tis a shovel. He doesnae go anywhere without it.”

“That’s odd,” Catriona observed, then recalled that she seldom went anywhere without a shovel herself.

But that was different. She was an archaeologist.

“Ye don’t know the half of it.” Duff paused, making his voice deep. “’Tis the same shovel he used to murder his betrothed.”

Catriona snorted. “Murder his betrothed—what nonsense!”

She knew Duff was trying to scare Callum, who was only twelve. Surely enough, when she slid her gaze to her youngest brother, his eyes were wide as guineas.

“’Tis true,” Duff insisted. “He’s known as the Sussex Shovel Slayer.

They say he isnae right in the head. That he’s prone to flying into a rage over the smallest thing.

One night, at a ball, he caught his betrothed smiling at another man.

” Duff paused, letting the tension build. “She was never seen again.”

Callum inhaled sharply.

Catriona narrowed her eyes at her elder brother. “She was never seen again, eh? Sounds as if they never found the body.”

“They didnae,” Duff confirmed.

She gestured out the window toward the Englishman, who had just reached the door to his rented cottage. “Then what evidence is there that he was the one to do it?”

Duff gave her a baleful look. “It’s obvious. He goes everywhere with that shovel.”

“Everywhere?” Catriona crossed her arms. “Are ye telling me he brought it to this ball?”

Now Duff looked annoyed. “Yes! I mean, no. I mean, probably!”

Catriona smirked. “If he killed her with a shovel, in the middle of a ballroom, then why isn’t he in gaol?”

“Quit yer blethering, woman, and let me tell the story!” Duff turned to Callum, who still looked a trifle skittish. “Bow Street was closing in upon him, so the Englishman did the only thing he could do—flee to the ends of the earth itself.”

“So, he came here,” Meaghan said, strolling over. “You cannot imagine how much I’m looking forward to getting off this infernal rock.” She leaned forward, peering out the window, then squealed. “Ooh, look! It’s the viscount!”

“Viscount?” Catriona gave Duff a wry look. “Do you mean to tell me that the Sussex Shovel Slayer is a lord?”

Meaghan spoke before Duff could respond. “I haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about. But the man Father leased the gamekeeper’s cottage to is definitely a lord. William Marley, Viscount Templeton.”

Catriona gave Duff a baleful look. “Templeton is in Devonshire, is it nae?”

Duff shrugged. “What of it?”

“Then why is he known as the Sussex Shovel Slayer?”

Duff threw up his hands. “It’s obvious! His bride-to-be must’ve been from Sussex, and that’s where he killed her.”

Catriona was about to retort that the only thing that was obvious was that Duff was full of shyte when Meaghan turned to her with a cat-who-got-the-cream smile. “I met him, you know.”

It seemed her sister was hoping to get a rise out of her, but Catriona could not have cared less. “Oh?”

“Mm-hmm.” Meaghan’s gaze returned to the window. “He asked to see your little trinkets. Mama summoned me to show him.”

“Trinkets?” Catriona didn’t care two figs that their mother seemed bent on giving Meaghan a chance with this English lord. But she took umbrage at her life’s work being dismissed as trinkets. “I’ll have ye know that’s the biggest hoard of Viking artifacts ever found on the Isle of Skye!”

Meaghan didn’t get a chance to respond because Callum tugged at her sleeve. “What was he like? The Englishman.”

Meaghan paused, tapping her lip with one manicured finger. “He’s not what you’d call conventionally handsome. He has a bump on his nose, for one thing. He’s almost as tall as Duff, but with a lanky build. But all in all, I wouldn’t say he’s unattractive.”

Callum huffed. “I dinnae care what the man looks like! I want to know if he’s… ye know. Odd.”

“Oh, very odd, to be sure! He asked dozens of questions about Catriona’s little bits and bobs, but didn’t reciprocate any of my attempts at flirtation.”

Catriona tilted her head. “If ye found him odd and not particularly handsome, why were ye trying to flirt with him?”

Meaghan gave her a look that said, are you a complete numpty? “He’s a viscount. There’s a lot I can tolerate if it means being a viscountess.”

Catriona gave her sister an incredulous look. “Even if he killed his former betrothed?”

Meaghan shrugged an insouciant shoulder. “No one’s perfect.”

Catriona was in the process of rolling her eyes so far back she was worried they might get stuck when their mother strode into the corridor. “Two men are here, requesting to see the artifacts. I need one of ye to show them.”

“What manner of men are they?” Meaghan asked, clearly entertaining hopes that another pair of lords had come knocking at their door.

Their mother waved a hand. “Working men, judging by their accents.”

Meaghan wrinkled her nose. “Oh. Well, I can’t do it. I have to finish seeing to Catriona’s trunks.”

“I’m the one who has to see to my trunks,” Catriona shot back. “Ye dumped all my things on the floor! I need to put a few of them back in.”

“Mama!” Meaghan shot their mother a pleading look.

“You do it, Catriona.”

“What about…” Catriona glanced around. Duff and Callum had made themselves scarce.

She tried to appeal to her mother. “I cannae. I at least need to pack my notebooks, and—”

Her mother gave her a quelling look. “Ye can spare ten minutes.” She seized her daughter’s wrist, drawing her in close. “And don’t breathe a word about who, exactly, discovered those artifacts.”

Catriona sighed. As if this hadn’t been hammered into her head.

But when Catriona muttered, “I ken,” in a defeated voice, she discovered that her mother had already turned on her heel and left her standing in the corridor alone.