Page 11 of The Elusive Earl (The Bad Heir Day Tales #3)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Dunhaven, good morning.” Sebastian, Marquess of Dunkeld, nodded at Graham from atop a horse nearly as big and dark as True. “We heard you were back from Edinburgh. Not much of a trip to town, was it?”

Graham turned True to fall in step with the marquess’s gelding. “A bit of Auld Reekie goes a long way. Why aren’t you in London yet?”

The morning was brisk rather than bitingly cold. Spring was creeping up, with earlier sunrises and later sunsets and a subtle softening in the air.

Dunkeld glanced off to the south, beyond the glistening ribbon of the River Tay, past the forested hillside on the opposite bank. “When you’d served your sentence and were free to come back, did you leap upon the first passing ship?”

“I wanted to.”

“And yet, you didn’t. You dithered, you made excuses, you tidied up affairs that were already in order.”

His lordship was in a mood. “If I deliberated, Dunkeld, I did so for a procession of instants. I did not dither. I gather you have been deliberating?”

The horses ambled along beneath stately pines, the carpet of needles making their passing nearly silent. A slight breeze whispered above. To the immediate left of the track, the hillside fell away down to the river. To the right, the slope rose sharply toward the magnificent edifice Dunkeld should have called home. A gorgeous parcel of earth on a day that promised to be gorgeous as well.

“I am told I should marry,” Dunkeld said in the same tones he might have announced a determination to subsist on cod liver oil. “My aunties are nigh incapable of discoursing on any other topic.”

Those aunties, Hibernia and Maighread, were local institutions. They’d been sweet little old ladies for as long as Graham could remember, also prodigiously well informed and not above putting vicars, marquesses, or any other variety of wayward fellow in his place.

“They want to see you settled,” Graham said, feeling some sympathy. “The war is over, time to find a bride.”

“Something like that, but finding a bride isn’t like picking out an afternoon horse from the newest lot on offer at Tatts.”

To some, finding a marital partner was exactly like that. “You don’t mind the prospect of a wife and family so much as you dread the ballrooms of Mayfair. A daunting proposition indeed.”

Dunkeld directed his horse around a fallen branch. “I wasn’t good enough for them when I was merely the old man’s heir. He had a young wife, and any season, she was expected to announce that she was with child. I was the backward Scottish boy, then the difficult officer, and now…”

“You are in the habit of following orders and doing your duty, but what is the use of having the ruddy title and the castle and the whole lot if you can’t ignore the occasional order too?”

Dunkeld sent him a brooding glance. “I’m the marquess now, and the blighted penny press has already started speculating about when I’ll leave my ‘spectacular Highland aerie and swoop down upon London’s loveliest,’ delighting hostesses and gracing Almack’s with my dashing presence.”

“Don’t, then. Deliberate. Go build a castle that’s actually in the Highlands. You have the blunt.”

“Castles are bitterly hard to heat, as we both well know.”

This discussion was not about castles. Something drew the marquess to the Mayfair whirl, and something else made him reluctant to involve himself. Reluctant to stay, hesitant to go. Graham could understand the reluctance. Mayfair did not deserve Dunkeld’s attention, given how he’d been treated by polite society earlier in life.

Rubbing the hostesses’s noses in their hypocrisy was beneath Dunkeld’s dignity. He would not care an empty whisky bottle for their opinion of him now.

What if Morna disdains even my friendship? That question had kept Graham deliberating for months, even as he’d made his way homeward.

“This involves a woman,” Graham said slowly. “A woman you esteem but who did not return your regard. You dread to think she’ll consider you now, because if she does, you won’t consider her.” And yet, Dunkeld was torn and tempted. What a coil.

Dunkeld kneed his horse around a huge fallen pine. “Something like that. The lady and I were cordial previously, but it was a long time ago, and we grew apart, though we were never… That is, we didn’t…”

“You behaved yourself rather than get shown the door. Always the prudent course. My younger brother is taking the prudent course with young Lanie, and it’s nigh killing him, poor sod.”

“The aunties predict a wedding for those two by midsummer.” The buried thread of envy in the marquess’s observation might have passed unnoticed, but Graham had been listening to Peter extol Lanie’s virtues by the hour. Repressed longing was arriving along with spring itself.

Graham had also been listening to Morna’s silences, savoring her smiles, exchanging pleased glances with her down the length of the supper table. When had life ever been so sweet and so complicated?

“Well, you’d best go to London and get it over with, Dunkeld. If nothing else, you can assure yourself that you’re immune to the lady’s charms now. Let her watch as half the heiresses at Almack’s swarm you each week.”

Dunkeld made a face. “She’s not the Almack’s type.”

“You haven’t seen her for years. You don’t know what type she is now.” Graham was guessing, but if the marquess had crossed paths with his previous interest in the autumn, he’d hardly be dithering now.

“I’m friends with her brother. She’s faring well enough.”

“Right. Brothers are always impartial and thoroughly well informed. Just ask mine what day of the week it is. If you want the most accurate, up-to-the-minute report on a lady, always ask her brother.”

“Go back to Australia.”

That idea had no appeal, but neither did it terrify him, provided Morna made the journey as well. “When you’re ready, you’ll go south,” Graham said. “I deliberated until I was doing little else but watching the horizon, Dunkeld. I eventually decided it was better to know than to torment myself with speculation. I could not concentrate to read what books the ship possessed. I did not pass the time with the other passengers. I was short-tempered and forgetful, and—”

“And if you’d had aunties on hand, they would have nodded knowingly every time you misplaced your spectacles or nearly sat upon one of their damned cats napping in your favorite reading chair.”

Kenneth no longer assumed he had napping privileges in the study’s wing chairs. “Trust that your dignity and your honor will be equal to the challenge and get it over with, man.” Easy to say, now that Morna had kissed Graham witless, declared her allegiance, and threatened the unthinkable should Graham thwart her decrees.

“Dignity and honor are lousy bedfellows.”

“No, they are not, not when compared to taking some passing bit of distraction to bed, not when the alternative is to marry just to keep your aunties from plaguing you.”

Dunkeld’s dark brows drew down. “You have a point.” They rode on in silence until they came to another path crossing the track. Dunkeld halted his horse.

“What made you come home, Dunhaven? The best that can be said is you were treated badly here, but the MacNeils were managing in your absence.”

“Treated badly, despite killing my own grandmother?”

“Nobody thought you’d intentionally done her harm. The aunties are very clear on that. You might discuss it with them when you look in on them in my absence.”

“I might. First, I’ll ask my own family what they recall. Do I conclude you are resigned to traveling south?”

Dunkeld turned his horse through half a walk pirouette. “I suppose I am. You are glad you came home, aren’t you?”

I am now. “Yes. I haven’t answered all the relevant questions yet, but the most important matters are falling into place.” Soon, if all went well, falling into bed with Morna might figure among those important matters. She was very clear on her decisions, was Morna MacKenzie.

“Morna has forgiven you?” Dunkeld asked, fussing with his horse’s mane.

Graham tossed the marquess’s words back at him. “Something like that.”

“Your smile could not be more satisfied, Dunhaven. You’ll have the aunties betting against your bachelorhood.”

“Let them. They are a delightful pair, and we MacNeils hold them in great affection.”

Dunkeld finished turning his horse onto the uphill path. “I considered courting Miss MacKenzie, you know. She’s a profoundly impressive lady, and I flatter myself she thinks well of me.”

Such was the magnanimity of Graham’s present mood that he felt mostly pity for Dunkeld. A bachelor afflicted with a bad case of the deliberations was seldom thinking clearly.

“She holds you in high regard,” Graham said, which was the simple truth.

“She was too sensible to settle for a cordial match when she’d long since given her heart to another. If you break her heart again, I will personally thrash you to flinders, Dunkeld.”

“You’ll have to argue order of precedence for that undertaking with Peter and St. Didier, should the occasion arise, which it will not.” Ever. To be certain of Morna’s regard was the greatest blessing to come Graham’s way, well worth sailing halfway around the world for.

Dunkeld gathered up his reins. “I’m off to make travel arrangements, then. You will look in on the aunties?”

“Regularly, and if you leave them your direction, I will pen the appropriate dispatches.”

Dunkeld nodded, then sent his horse ambling up the track, a man in no hurry whatsoever.

Graham guided True back the direction they’d come and, when the path leveled out, gave his horse leave to canter. He’d missed too many suppers—and breakfasts and lunches—with Morna already, and every single one still left to them was precious.

“Down you go,” Graham said, hands around Morna’s waist.

Morna hardly needed the assistance dismounting, but the pleasure of grasping Graham’s shoulders, then hopping off her horse to find herself more or less in his embrace, was too tempting to pass up.

He grinned down at her, then kissed her. A sweet, good-morning buss that lingered for only a moment.

Morna leaned against his chest. “We’re supposed to be inspecting the boundary walls.”

“My boundary walls are crumbling by the moment. Besides that, Peter has been conscientious about inspecting the walls in spring and autumn. Said Grandpapa would have expected that of him.”

Graham’s arms were around her, his embrace loose, his hand cradling the back of her head. A sense of feasting after famine overcame Morna whenever they touched, of being granted a heart’s desire that might all too easily be snatched away again. They had been as distant as two people who cared for each other could be, and to have Graham back now, back and close , was ineffably precious.

“Why the sigh, Morna mine?”

“Because you brought me here simply to enjoy the view and made up that bit about inspecting the walls to guard your dignity. I will always prefer your company, Graham. Given a choice, I will be with you, inspecting walls, sitting by the Tay with an idle fishing pole, or calling on the vicar.”

That chore yet awaited them, but Morna would take it on gladly, provided Graham accompanied her.

She felt him absorb her words, consider them, and store them away. That distance, that hovering memory of long and difficult separation, would haunt them both.

“We don’t take each other for granted,” Graham said. “A good thing, I suppose.”

Good, but dearly earned. Morna stepped back. “The view is magnificent.”

Many yards below, the Tay crashed and roared in spring spate over boulders and rapids. Far beneath the overlook, a deep pool hinted of deceptive calm. Across the river, soaring pines in majestic ranks mounted a steep hillside, and a canopy of celestial azure overarched the whole. An oak bench, silver with age, tempted any passerby to tarry a moment and admire the view.

“We should put a railing up here,” Graham said, taking her hand. “A good, stout rail. The bench invites people to linger, though the drop is dangerous.”

“You’d be accused of disrespecting the legend.”

Graham peered down at the river below. “The water’s deep enough, if a man jumps at exactly the right spot. He’d have a good chance of surviving, provided he wasn’t submerged in that cold for long.”

Morna shuddered at the thought. A local lass had supposedly fallen in love with a crown officer. The lady’s Jacobite brothers had taken exception to her choice and chased the unfortunate officer to the edge of the precipice. He’d leaped and lived, and the lady had subsequently eloped with him.

A triumph of love over national grudges, which wasn’t the typical outcome for Scottish romantic ballads.

“Build the railing,” Morna said. “John’s fate will be reason enough.”

“Good thought. Besides, I’m the earl. I have both the right and duty to make myself the object of talk. Walk with me?”

She loved him for asking and hoped the day soon came when he realized he didn’t need to. They collected the horses and took the path that wound back toward the castle.

“I had a thought,” Graham said, and the very casualness of his tone suggested the thought mattered to him.

“About?”

“A sort of get-it-over-with thought.”

“Get what over with?” Could he be alluding to desire? Morna’s attraction to Graham was as physical as it was emotional—and growing by the day. She curbed her carnal urges with the certain knowledge that once that dam burst its banks, restraint would become yet still more challenging.

“I know what you’re thinking, Morna MacKenzie, and that is another discussion entirely.”

“We will have that other discussion soon, Graham, and it will be notably brief. I desire you shamelessly.”

He muttered something short and impolite. “I am the most fortunate of men, then, because your regard is reciprocated tenfold, at least. My present concern is the parade inspection—of me. Dunkeld’s aunties broadly hinted that my best course is to throw wide the castle doors, so to speak, and let all and sundry come to gawk. Calling on the neighbors one by one is time-consuming and boring. I know that much after exactly three afternoons of tea and chat. Why not invite the whole horde to the castle to look me over at once?”

A parade inspection… of him. Morna mentally kicked aside the images that term inspired. “Dunkeld’s aunties are a pair of shrewd veterans of the social battlefields. They would not make such a suggestion lightly. Tell me about the boring part.”

Graham glanced back at his horse. “They all ask the same questions, Morna. How was the journey? Am I glad to be back? Nobody wants to be rude, but the curiosity is obvious. I am an oddity. MacIver said it plainly enough: The young people never come back. They take ship and are never seen again. I came back, and it’s as if every neighbor must pinch me in person and sniff my hair to see if I reek of brimstone. I hate it.”

Visiting the neighbors required travel over a twenty-mile radius, leaving out those who bided in Perth, but a formal ball—even an informal assembly—would be an ordeal of a different sort.

“Let’s think about it,” Morna said. “The next full moon isn’t for three weeks. We can take a day or two to consider supplies, accommodations, the menu. Spring isn’t the easiest time to feed a hundred Scots in a celebratory mood.”

“I figure closer to a hundred and twenty-five, because they’ll all come, Morna. They’ll come to have a gawk, and then, I hope, I can get on with what matters.”

Morna tugged him to a stop and kissed him. “You are getting on splendidly, Graham MacNeil, and I like this idea of celebrating your return. Dunkeld’s welcome toward you is common knowledge by now, so your invitations will be accepted. Now, before plowing and planting, with much of the lambing done, is an excellent time for a gathering.”

He hugged her, and they remained close until Tempi shuffled an impatient hoof.

“You truly like this idea?” Graham asked, walking on and again retreating into studied casualness.

“The result will be to save you a lot of jaunting around, swilling tea, and being agreeable, despite the whiff of brimstone in your hair. We haven’t had a celebration at the castle for ages, and I’m sure Dunkeld’s aunties will help.” Lanie would shudder at the idea of permitting an invasion of the castle, but Peter might jolly her past her reluctance.

“The aunties will run the whole maneuver,” Graham said. “They were spouting off names of guests and buffet suggestions nineteen to the dozen. Let’s talk it over with Peter and Lanie and see if they’re game.”

Considerate of him. Crowds were a challenge for Lanie. She managed well enough in the structured confines of a church service and put up with the churchyard routine, provided Morna or Peter remained by her side, but she was more at home in a quiet parlor or around a family supper table.

“Speaking of Lanie,” Morna said as the edge of the woods came into view. “Might we tarry a bit?”

Graham paused. “We can tarry all day, though I’m rather looking forward to lunch.”

“Lanie and I had an interesting discussion regarding the events surrounding Grandmama’s death. You should talk to her.”

“I haven’t wanted to. I am reluctant to approach Brodie, too, but when it comes to Lanie… She was a child, Morna. A child already hurting, one life had treated harshly in many regards.”

“Lanie doesn’t see it like that. Yes, we lost our parents, but so did you and Peter, and we had each other. Yes, she lost most of her vision, but she has keen hearing, a keen nose, and protective family. She wants to know what happened to Grandmama, but she hasn’t felt comfortable raising the topic with you.”

Graham nodded once. “She thinks I killed Grandmama, however accidentally. That’s what everybody was supposed to think.”

The hint of frustration in Graham’s voice suggested that the bold and brave plan he’d concocted as a younger man now struck him as precipitous, which it had been.

“Lanie cannot place you at the scene of the crime, Graham. She recalls Peter coming up with the nightly posset, but doesn’t recall him leaving. He could chatter forever when he had a wiling audience, and Lanie simply fell asleep in her chair by the fire.”

Graham studied the ground, a damp conglomeration of dead leaves, pine needles, rocks, and the occasional snowdrop.

“I vaguely recall Lanie curled up in the chair. I wouldn’t swear to it. Peter wasn’t on hand. The fire had burned down, so the room was in shadows. I was a bit late with the tray because I’d become involved in a hand of whist with Grandpapa.”

He brushed the toe of his boot over the bracken underfoot. “I had to rouse Grandmama for her last cup of tea. She was fast asleep, which sometimes happened, but we’d agreed it was better to wake her for her medicine than have the pain rouse her an hour later and torment her all night. She barely woke up enough to finish her dose and was back to sleep immediately. I tucked Grandmama in and went on my way. The candles had already been put out, else I might have taken more notice of Lanie.”

“Lanie reported being stiff and sore upon waking.” Morna thought back, plagued by elusive details. “She said even the air felt wrong, and Grandmama was snoring. Lanie went across to her own room and woke the next morning to Grandpapa shouting.”

“A not uncommon start to our day,” Graham said. “I am not sure Lanie’s recollections gain us any insights.”

He would say that. “She can place Peter at the scene, Graham. You see that much.”

“Peter would never have intentionally harmed our grandmother, and the nightly posset was his little job. Gave him an excuse to make his final report of the day to Grandmama and put him on equal footing with me in the sickroom. He would never wish the countess harm.”

“We’re beyond the point where intentions matter, Graham. Lanie wants to know what happened , just as you do, just as I do.”

Graham resumed walking. “At what cost, Morna? I thought I would sail home, interrogate Ramsey, put a few pointed questions to the old cook, read John’s diaries, and see a pattern of events. St. Didier was to abet that cause, but his sole contribution to the whole undertaking has been to suspect Peter. I cannot put upon my younger brother’s shoulders both responsibility for Grandmama’s death and blame for sending me off on a transport ship.”

Morna fell in step beside him. “I certainly don’t want to see Peter in the dock.”

“Let’s plan a party instead, then, shall we?” Graham took her hand. “I will think about Lanie’s recollections and tell her my own, but the burning need to uncover every last detail is fading, Morna. I am more and more inclined to let mishaps be mishaps, be they here, in Edinburgh, or in London.”

No, he wasn’t. Graham would fret over Lanie’s memories, ask her about them, and come to his own conclusions. He doubtless had St. Didier making inquiries in Edinburgh, and he hadn’t left the castle grounds on his own since his most recent return.

He was putting on a show of good spirits for Morna’s sake. The least she could do was return the favor.

“The ballroom will take days to heat,” Morna said. “And we’ll need a fortune in candles.”

“And a fortune in libation. St. Didier can do some shopping for us while he enjoys Edinburgh.”

For us. For the MacNeils and the MacKenzies, for Graham and Morna. For us. A cheering thought indeed. Morna left the woods determined to put the cheering thoughts foremost, even as she knew the past continued to haunt them all.

“Why in the name of all that is fragrant are you shoveling sheep shit?” Peter asked, surveying the dim and malodorous confines of the stone byre.

Graham paused in his labors to take a pull from his flask. “Because it’s Scottish sheep shit and, better still, MacNeil Scottish sheep shit. Then too, the work has to be done. It was this or cut peat.”

Peter made a face. “Spare me. Old Lochie is fussier than a bishop with his wine collection when it comes to the peat. ‘The hill isn’t ready,’” Peter barked in a quavery tenor. “‘The hill is too dry.’ ‘Work here; no, don’t cut there.’ ‘That bank wants careful leveling.’ ‘Why can’t you work any faster, laddie-o?’”

“But we have ample peat,” Graham said, taking up the handles of the full wheelbarrow and running the load up a set of ramped boards into the waiting cart. “The lot of it is perfectly cured, and cutting peat gives all the young people a chance to flirt and gossip.” Some parts of the job were considered women’s work, others for the menfolk, but there was always work enough to go around.

“I heard some gossip,” Peter said, shifting to stand upwind of the wooden cart. “Brodie says we’re to have a formal ball with all the trimmings. No stated purpose other than conviviality.”

Grandpapa would have made a comment of that nature—always mindful of the coin.

“Brodie’s report is for once accurate.” Graham remained in the sunshine, enjoying the sensation of the wind on his face—the particularly Scottish breeze that wasn’t quite cold, but certainly not mild either.

“If I continue to do the pretty household by household,” Graham went on, “I’ll be an old man before I’ve called on even the nearest neighbors.” Only a slight exaggeration. “Morna has approved the idea of a formal ball as my presentation to the shire. I wanted your thoughts on the notion before we started sending out invitations.”

Peter wrinkled his nose. “Don’t let Uncle Brodie near the ladies’ punchbowl, whatever you do.”

Little brother wasn’t growing up. He had grown up, and that was both wonderful and sad. “You don’t seriously think he’d spike the ladies’ potation again?” He’d pulled that stunt at some assembly several years ago and caused such an uproar that even St. Didier had passed the tale along.

“Uncle’s version of humor still has a bit too much of the naughty schoolboy about it,” Peter said. “Morna threatened to banish him to Mull if he ever did anything like that again.”

Mull was beautiful, but if Uncle pined for lively society a few miles from Perth, he’d be bereft on Mull.

“Brodie will behave,” Graham said, glancing at the sky. “Auntie Hibernia has given me her solemn assurances that this will be a dignified gathering.”

Peter took up one of the shovels leaning against the byre’s outside wall. “Then dignified we shall be, but why not wait until the next assembly? It’s not that far off. Let the neighbors count your teeth there.”

“The assembly rooms would be too crowded for dancing.” Graham pushed the barrow back into the byre, which was a three-and-a-half-sided stone structure with a thatched roof set at a low pitch. Half built into the hillside, the byre would be cool in summer and cozy in winter.

And in need of a good mucking out accordingly, though nothing would rid the place of the smell of sheep, manure, and dirt.

Peter began shoveling on the far side of the barrow. “The ballroom might well be too crowded for dancing. What’s the real reason you’re spending a fortune to put yourself on display?”

“I liked you better when you were content to play with toy soldiers and put frogs in my bed,” Graham said, stabbing his shovel into the mat of dirt, rotting hay, and manure at his feet. “Why must every celebration have a reason?”

“Celebrations don’t need reasons, but excessive expenditures do.”

Grandpapa to the life. “We can afford to indulge. I want to get off on a positive foot and let all and sundry know I’m here to stay.”

Peter worked with the steady rhythm of one familiar with a task. “Is this for Morna?”

“Partly. She’s been running the castle for years. She deserves to enjoy being the hostess.” Closer to the back wall, the going was heavier, and each shovelful carried a whiff of mold.

Scottish mold, though.

“Lanie will detest the notion of a formal ball.” Peter jabbed his shovel at the ground hard. “I’m less than thrilled with it myself.”

Not the reaction Graham had anticipated. “If Lanie’s concern is an inability to waltz, tell her I can’t either.”

“But you can learn.”

“So can she.”

“She might learn to waltz, Graham, but she won’t risk it in a crowded ballroom. Sighted people go top over tail on the dance floor all the time, and that’s usually an occasion for hilarity. For Lanie, a spill would be unbearable.”

“So don’t let her fall.”

Peter dumped a load into the rapidly filling barrow. “If a lady dances with one man, she must dance with all who invite her. Surely you didn’t forget basic etiquette in Australia?”

“So Lanie sits out with me and the other wallflowers.” Except Graham knew that for a young lady to sit out wasn’t the same as for the host or the chaperones to sit out. “We could limit the size of the sets.”

Peter resumed shoveling. “That might work for the dancing, but what about the ladies’ retiring room? I can’t be with Lanie there, and neither can you.”

Why would they need to be? “Peter, what am I missing here? Lanie is the dearest of young ladies, and though she might be a bit reserved in the churchyard, I am certain allowances are made.”

Peter jammed his boot down on the shovel. “Then you would be in error. Lanie is envied, she is excluded, she is gossiped about, and nobody does anything to stop it.” Real anger colored his words. “The vicar’s oldest daughter is the worst, and her mother knows it.”

Vera Conroy had tried to attach herself to Graham’s arm in the churchyard, but he’d feigned a cough and wrenched himself free, then waved a handkerchief about when she would have taken him captive again. Morna and Uncle Brodie had been vastly amused.

“Why has nobody said anything to me about this before now?”

“Probably because it’s old news. Lanie is shy, and some people take that for haughty. Two years ago, she discouraged Nevin Bodeen from paying her his addresses, and Nevin was not best pleased. She was supposed to be flattered that he’d consider marrying a blind woman. The whispering has been worse since then, and Lanie can hear whispers quite clearly.”

Lanie wasn’t shy. Lanie had been the first to greet Graham, pelting across the cobbles to hug him when she couldn’t properly see him. She spoke her mind, and her insights were often keen.

“All the more reason to host a ball,” Graham said. “You and I will dote on our Lanie. St. Didier will do likewise. Bodeen will mind his manners, and Vera Conroy had best behave, or she will find herself figuratively visiting Mull.”

Another large shovelful went into the cart. “She’d hate that.”

“Mull is lovely in springtime.”

Peter worked away in silence for a few more minutes, and soon the barrow was full again.

Graham dumped the barrow and arched his back. “Hard work is supposed to be a tonic. Whoever said that never mucked out a byre.”

Peter joined him in the chilly sunshine and rested the shovel against the wall. “Or cut peat. I know what you’re doing, Graham.”

“Earning myself a hot bath?” A long hot bath, with plenty of hard, fragrant soap. “I used to dream about Grandmama’s scented soaps. All I had was tallow, lard, and lye when I first got to Sydney, and that was hard enough to procure.”

“Graham, you didn’t go with the peat crew because you seek the jobs that leave you isolated. You wandered the boundary walls by the hour, you cut through the woods on foot to confer with MacIver, and now you’re mucking out the far-flung byres, a job any farmhand ought to be doing.”

To argue—to lie—or to cede what had apparently been obvious to Peter? Graham chose a middle course.

“I am concerned about the incident in Edinburgh,” Graham said slowly. “I seem to be safe enough here at home.”

“And the incident in London, and if you are safe enough, you are certainly giving any malefactors ample opportunities to render you unsafe. Does Morna know what you’re about?”

Insightful, uncomfortable question. “She has forbidden me to travel alone to the distant properties, so she must assume I’m safe at home.”

“Morna forbids you these days?” Peter seemed intrigued rather than amused.

“Aye, and if her reasons are sound, I accept her guidance. Are you forbidding this grand ball, Peter?”

Peter gazed off across the pasture, to the dark line of the trees beyond the stone wall. “I am not. I agree with you that home seems to be a safe place, but if I could find you simply by asking in the stable for your whereabouts, then anybody else could too. We all keep an eye on you, and that’s probably a good thing, but it means you won’t easily find cover if you need it.”

Spoken more like a Jacobite rebel than an earl’s heir. “You should know I intend to ask Lanie about the night Grandmama died, Peter. She doesn’t even recall me coming by, and I barely noticed her asleep in the wing chair.”

“Then what do you hope to gain by questioning her?” The anger was back, banked but fierce. “This harrowing old ground over and over has to stop, Graham. You did what you thought best. You’re home now. Let’s be grateful for that and move on .”

“Tell me something, Peter. Were the candles lit when you brought Grandmama her posset?” Graham put the question as neutrally as he could, though his nape was prickling, and drawing a steady breath took effort. The conversation had lurched into the muck, not because the topic was the past, but because Peter was loath to discuss it.

“Yes,” he said, scowling. “As best I recall—candles blazing. I could see Lanie in her chair, and I could see to set the tray on the sideboard. I am almost sure that the two candelabra on the mantel, the sconce above the bed, and the sconce by the bedroom door were all lit.”

“Good to know.” Disturbing, but good in a backhanded sense.

“The candles were out when you came by?” Studied casualness now filled Peter’s tone too.

Graham nodded. “And I am sure, Peter. Lanie did not put out the candles, and you didn’t. Some time between when you came around with your posset, and I stopped by to serve Grandmama her last cup of tea, somebody else was in that sickroom, and they stayed long enough to put out the candles.”

Peter ceased inspecting the trees. “Please do not question Lanie further on this, Graham. I will take her away from here before I let you do that. She means everything to me. I would kill for her, blaspheme, or dance naked in the streets of Edinburgh, and when I say I will take her far from the castle, I mean it.”

“Lanie might not appreciate being kidnapped.”

“We’d kidnap each other. The English call it eloping. Brodie would approve.”

“Morna would not, and thus you’ll cease such talk. I won’t question Lanie, then, but if she brings up the past, I will tell her what I recall. She clearly doesn’t share your unwillingness to reexamine matters, Peter.”

“Then she’s not as sensible as I’d hoped she was, but none of us is perfect, not even Lanie.” He strode off in the direction of his horse, who’d been cropping grass farther up the hill.

“See you at supper,” Graham called.

Peter waved an arm and kept walking. Graham went back to the reeking shadows of the byre.

Why the unwillingness to examine the past? Why the near panic at any attempt to get Lanie’s version of events? Was Peter protecting Lanie, or perhaps protecting himself?

The byre was thoroughly mucked, Graham’s flask was empty, and his back was one burning ache, and still, his questions admitted of no certain answers.