Page 4 of The Elusive Earl (The Bad Heir Day Tales #3)

CHAPTER FOUR

The remnants of Birnam Wood, made tragically famous by the Bard, lay not ten miles distant from the MacNeil family seat. “And how appropriate is that?” St. Didier muttered, letting himself into the library.

The room was cold and would be cold on a mild summer day. High ceilings, stone walls three feet thick, a single unlit fireplace in the center of a row of six tall windows… This had probably been the original castle’s great hall centuries ago, and something of the fortress yet clung to the space.

Though Peter, swaddled in a MacNeil plaid shawl as he lounged at the reading table, was hardly the Highland warrior of old.

“Good afternoon,” St. Didier said. “Sitting there, absorbed in your reading, you look much like your brother when he was younger.”

“I meant to take this up to my sitting room,” Peter said, rising and waving his pamphlet. “Fascinating stuff. Steam will usher in a new age of prosperity for all. We simply need to dig enough coal to create all that steam.”

“And coal miners will live like kings? When has it ever worked that way, MacNeil?” St. Didier kept his tone light, but a debate on the topic of progress would sour what was left of his mood. “The coal burned in Wales to make all of our marvelous steel has so polluted the local skies, rivers, and land that even the farmers had to take to coal mining, because their acres became unfit to produce food. When mining is the only occupation to hand, the wages tend to be less than generous.”

Peter took off his shawl and folded it over the back of a chair. “Clearances by any other name. I grasp your point, but still… Those same mines are already using steam power to move coal around, you know. If steam can move coal, it can move anything. The principle is really quite simple, and it all comes down to heat making air expand.”

He spoke with the enthusiasm of the evangelist, and perhaps some evening over port, St. Didier would brace Peter on the costs of all that marvelous speed—ruined land, ruined air, starvation, slums, the best and brightest leaving home shores for even a chance at a decent life.

“Dunhaven’s call upon the local marquess apparently went well,” St. Didier said, rather than attempt a debate with a true believer. “The marquess was gracious.”

“MacHeath’s a good sort.” Peter picked up two more pamphlets from the massive desk occupying a corner of the room. “A bit distant, but a substantial improvement over his uncle. The old marquess was a great one for tradition. Wanted a son to carry on the title, but even a lively young wife could not oblige him. The notion of a mere nephew inheriting sat ill with him.”

“Was the younger MacHeath on hand when your grandmother died? I don’t recall seeing him about at the time.”

Peter eyed his pamphlets. “Sebastian was here. He sometimes was allowed to visit during summers. He’d have been at university by then, or on the way. Enough years lie between us that our paths didn’t much cross, but I do recall him wandering about the countryside. Not exactly gregarious, but we made allowances because he’d been sent to dwell among the barbarians.”

The insult was softened with a grin, and yet, St. Didier was annoyed. Raise the topic of a family tragedy, and people shied off the subject any way they could.

“Would you happen to recall who recommended the services of that physician to your grandmother? Theophile Ramsey was his name.”

Peter ceased fussing with his precious pamphlets. “Does Graham know you’re asking these questions?”

“Yes.” A slight exaggeration. Graham would know soon. Graham, if he ever emerged from his present fog of besottedness, would ask similar questions himself. “I will be looking into your cousin John’s demise as well.”

“In God’s name why?” The affable, harmless young fellow had become keenly focused and no longer affable. “This family has been all but cursed with misfortune. My parents, John’s parents, carried off by the damned influenza in the same winter. Grandmama’s death turned into an unnecessary tragedy, Grandpapa expiring of sorrow and shame, then John… What possible benefit could arise from dredging all those lochs of grief?”

If Graham hadn’t accidentally killed the aging countess, somebody else had, perhaps on purpose. That somebody else might well perpetrate more tragedy to keep the truth submerged. The earnest proponent of galloping past inconvenient truths might eventually figure that out for himself—especially if he’d been responsible for the old woman’s death.

“I ask these questions,” St. Didier said, “because the truth itself is a benefit. Lead is poisonous. The Romans knew that, ignored it, and might still be ruling the Mediterranean had they faced the truth instead. My family’s title was heading for escheat. I knew it, I planned accordingly and have independent means and security to show for my willingness to face facts.”

“You sound like my grandfather.”

“I’m flattered. A formidable gentleman.” One unconvinced of Graham’s guilt and sufficiently influential to ensure the verdict was transportation for a mere seven years rather than hanging or a longer sentence.

“John’s death was an accident,” Peter said, propping a hip on the desk. “I found him. Such a beautiful morning. Birds singing, the long, slow dawn turning the rising mist golden over the water. Two fawns had come down to drink with their mama, and I recall wishing that Graham was home to see it. He’d been gone for more years at that point, but those thoughts—missing my brother—still assailed me. The loch—lochan, more like—is a glorified farm pond. Graham and John used to race around it on foot.”

While the younger cousin no doubt watched and wished he were older and faster. “Go on.”

“The pond has plenty of trout, but fishing the Tay is better sport. I saw something dark bobbing in the shadows beneath the overlook, and at first I thought a grand old fish had met its reward. What I saw was John’s hair and his shoulders. He’d taken his coat off and left it on the overlook—there’s still a bench up there—and apparently got too close to the edge.”

“He’d been in the water all night?”

Peter crossed his arms. “How would one tell?”

“From the appearance of the deceased. Water in the lungs?”

“No examination in that regard was performed. John was much given to rumination. He could sit for hours peering at books or old maps or the stars. When I found him, he had a great bump on his forehead.” Peter touched his brow right below the hairline. “We assumed he’d been tippling and stargazing and tippling some more—he slept under the stars often enough— took a bad step, slipped, and fell to his doom. If he wasn’t killed by the fall, he drowned shortly thereafter.”

No nosy Edinburgh physician on hand to insist on an inquiry, much less an autopsy. How convenient if the cause of death had been a push rather than a tipsy misstep.

“How did you know he’d been tippling?”

“One does, when sitting and contemplating, and the sizable flask in his coat pocket had only a few drops left. John was not abstemious, though he could forget to eat sometimes.”

A stray thought intruded on conjectures about lines of inheritance and impatient young men. “Did John have enemies?”

A portcullis of banked caution came down over Peter’s usually genial features. “Why ask that?”

“Somebody should have considered that question. The solicitors were running the estate, but John was still wealthy and titled. The Scots are known to nurse grudges for generations.”

Argue that, young man.

Peter pushed away from the desk. “John loved heraldry and the chivalric code, spoke medieval Latin, read law Latin like it was the Society pages. He was uniformly pleasant when in a mood to converse. He was incapable of offending anybody to the degree you suggest. Late for supper, invariably, if he showed up at all. Distracted, most of the time, but he no more possessed enemies than he did friends. He was happy, or at least content.”

How many times had Peter told himself he was also content? “A steward turned off for chronic inebriation nearly killed my great-aunt and waited two years to do it.”

Peter gathered up his pamphlets. “Perhaps the English have some capacity for treasuring their injured dignity. Who would have thought? How fortunate I am, to have plenty to do, family to love, and a long-lost brother returned from far away. My cup runneth over, and thus I need not ride roughshod over other people’s woes merely to pass the time. Until supper, St. Didier, and please do feel free to explore the collection at your leisure.”

Peter saluted with his clutch of pamphlets and made for the door. Not a fribble. Could look and flirt the part, but beneath the banter and humor lay a bone-deep shrewdness.

St. Didier had had the same thought about Graham MacNeil shortly after they’d met.

Peter paused at the door. “The pond is at the bottom of the hill, St. Didier. You take the path that runs north of the stable, and it will angle downhill after about fifty yards. Have a look. Make up your own mind.” He departed, pamphlets in hand, no haste whatsoever.

“Steam engines can explode,” St. Didier said to the cold, cavernous room. “One ignores that fact at one’s peril.”

“Is Sebastian well?” Lanie asked, knitting needles clicking.

Morna considered the question and the speed with which Lanie was knitting.

“The marquess’s objective was to make us feel welcome,” she replied, gaze on the view below the window. “He achieved his goal and did so in plain sight of the castle staff.”

“Not what I asked, sister mine. Was he overly hearty? Was his congeniality the braw, bonnie laddie variety, or the real thing?”

“I haven’t your nose, Lanie, or your ear. I would say Sebastian was genuinely glad to see Graham.” Lanie could hear anxiety in a voice that to Morna sounded perfectly cheerful. The tread of Morna’s foot on the steps, according to Lanie, could convey fatigue, ire, joy, or determination.

“We are all glad to see Graham,” Lanie retorted. “What else did you notice about Sebastian?”

The countryside beyond the parlor window wasn’t covered in snow, but winter yet held sway. The towering pines marching up the hill across the river looked grim rather than impressive, and the sheep in the pastures would need their dingy wool coats for months to come.

“Sebastian looked homesick to me,” Morna said slowly. “As if he has already left Scotland in his mind and embarked on the business of missing it, yet again.” Graham, by contrast, was not homesick. Whatever feelings he was keeping tucked out of sight, he wasn’t pining for Australia.

Not even a little.

“Perhaps Sebastian misses England.” Lanie started on a new row, her handling of the needles exquisitely competent. “He all but grew up there. He has to have friends among the English, perhaps even a lady friend.”

Morna liked the marquess, and joining in the local parlor game of speculating about his marital prospects struck her as, firstly, a dull business and, secondly, disrespectful. “Leave the man his privacy, Lanie.”

“One can have too much privacy. What is fascinating you outside the window, Morna?”

“You can see where I’m standing?”

“Something is blocking the light that should be coming through the window. I can hear Eustace purring on the hassock, so he’s not sitting on the windowsill. You are the logical alternative, and you’ve been standing there since you joined me.”

“Shall I ring for a tray?”

“The tray is on the sideboard, waiting for the footman to remove it.”

Lanie had put it there, no doubt. When she was on familiar ground, lack of sight was little impairment for her.

“Graham is on the path to the lochan.” Only as she spoke did Morna realize she’d been watching for him. He hadn’t come in from the stable, and he wasn’t enjoying a stroll in the garden. He’d apparently already been to the family cemetery, and now he’d make himself revisit the site of John’s death.

“Why would he…? Oh. To say a farewell to John? Dreary undertaking.”

Gossiping about the marquess was dreary. For Graham to make himself see the place where John had breathed his last was brutal and probably necessary.

“I’m going out,” Morna said. “I’ll see you at supper.”

“Perhaps Graham needs privacy too, Morna.”

He needed a friend more. Traitorous thought. “I’ve tried to keep my distance,” Morna said. “He hasn’t apologized, hasn’t explained, hasn’t shown any indication of remorse for his behavior, but he’s not that man anymore.” He was Graham and not-Graham. A dislocated version of the memory, to use his term.

“He’s too serious,” Lanie said. “The old Graham was merry. Not uproarious, but witty and sweet. This Graham doesn’t smile in his voice.”

“He doesn’t smile much otherwise either.” The sadness in him gave a woman pause. He was home at last, blessed with a title he’d never thought to hold, owner of a veritable fortune, and yet, the sadness had not left him.

“You don’t smile much either, Morna, unless you’re talking to Kenneth or Eustace, and a less worthy pair of reprobates never set paw upon carpet.”

They’d been little more than kittens when Graham had been transported. They were venerable now and given to sleeping away their days. One orange, one black with white points. Huge and lazy, with stentorian purrs. Good friends to Morna while pretending complete indifference to each other.

Graham moved at a steady march, then disappeared into the forest. “Don’t let Eustace slurp from the cream pot.”

“I do believe you will already find it empty.”

Morna stroked a hand over the cat’s head. “Wretch. You encourage him, Lanie.”

“The cream will curdle if it sits too long, right, Eustace?”

Morna left them to being mutual bad influences, grabbed Grandmama’s cloak on the way out the door, and made straight for the path to the pond. She ought to leave Graham his privacy, and she ought not to trust him, and she had every reason to be angry with him.

But he’d arrived only yesterday , and he’d already been to the cemetery—alone. He’d been prepared to face MacHeath’s rejection—alone. He’d made the journey to the Antipodes without an ally or friend in sight.

Now he was back, trying to reconcile himself to myriad losses and changes, and most of that miserable work he’d have to do on his own as well. Morna, by contrast, had endured the past eight years comforted by familiar surroundings and loving family, no surfeit of violence aimed her way.

She did not feel guilty, precisely, but rather… what? Worried? About Graham?

“I can spare him an hour’s rambling around the pond.” He was apparently in the habit of taking on all challenges as solo combat, and Morna well knew how difficult breaking that habit could be.

“Half an hour,” she said, as the path turned downhill. “If he’s so inclined.”

She found him sitting on the bench at the overlook, staring across the water.

“Graham?”

He patted the place beside him. Morna took the seat gingerly, feeling halfway foolish and halfway relieved to have caught her quarry.

Graham produced a flask and offered it to her. She took a wee nip, feeling all the disorientation he’d described earlier. Same Graham, same bench, possibly even the same flask, though the whisky was much smoother than the brew he’d toted around years ago. She passed the flask back, and Graham held it up before them.

“To our John,” he said.

Morna remained silent, though once again, for no reason, no reason at all , a lump filled her throat. Against all sense and determination to the contrary, she let her head rest against Graham’s shoulder.

Three breaths later, Graham’s arm came around her, lightly, half resting on the back of the bench. By invisible degrees, the nature of his touch changed, from tentative possibility to solid half hug. Morna allowed it, assayed her reactions, and found that foremost among them was simply comfort.

She had avoided this place for years. Avoided this pretty, peaceful view. Avoided the cemetery, avoided all the paths and rambles and fishing spots she and Graham had frequented.

Graham’s affectionate nature had been one of his most attractive qualities. He had been a hugger, a kisser of cheeks, a patter of hands. Happy to dance with spinsters, beauties, or grannies. Morna hadn’t seen the current Graham so much as pat his horse.

That he could still be affectionate was a relief, and also—what was wrong with her?—a quiet joy. They might have a rousing donnybrook at supper and remain at daggers drawn for decades thereafter, but for one moment, Morna allowed herself to rejoice that Graham was beside her.

Not the old Graham or the new Graham, but her Graham, the one she’d promised herself she never wanted to see again.

A danger unique to Australia about which nobody said much was the lack of women. The older transportees claimed that women had been all but harvested from London’s more unsavory streets and transported for any excuse or credible accusation—shoplifting a scrap of lace, public drunkenness, seditious utterings, and away they went for sentencing.

The unfortunate females had been packed off to the transport ships, where their best option often included a voyage-long liaison with a ship’s officer.

Option being a towering euphemism. Graham had watched these transactions, sometimes literally, and felt nearly as great a sense of bewilderment as he’d had when first accused of Grandmama’s death. The situation had been little better in the immediate surrounds of Sydney, but the business of enduring penal servitude, even the conditionally pardoned variety, had proved both exhausting and absorbing.

With Morna’s head on his shoulder, and her warmth beside him, Graham untangled one of the puzzles of his past. He’d known all those other ladies hadn’t been Morna, and that had been justification enough for keeping his hands to himself.

They didn’t have her quiet smile, her surprisingly hearty laugh, her ferocious talent with a scold.

They also offered mere pleasure, the satisfaction of a physical urge. To undertake that satisfaction without any sense of shared joy—of true caring—had been beyond him. As a younger man, racketing about at university, wasting his days on what he’d thought of as adult pursuits, his perspective had been different.

What a swaggering ass he’d been.

Sitting on the bench beside Morna, Graham felt a touch of vindication and an easing of sorrow.

Morna beside him, breathing in synchrony with him and not even knowing she was doing it, was an occasion of both pleasure and joy, even as Graham told himself he was paying his belated respects to John.

“What’s your best memory of him?” Morna asked.

Graham thought back over a childhood as happy as it could be for orphaned cousins. “John got me drunk when I was thirteen. Said it was his duty as the elder of us to explain to me the hazards of the bottle, though I knew only that I was being offered more than the occasional nip. I waited and waited for him to embark on some great diatribe—he was bookish even then, and we were fishing the Tay—but the sermon came in the morning and without a word. Never before or since has my head ached that badly. Temperance eludes my grasp, but moderation has ever been mine to claim, thanks to John. He could be painfully practical, when he chose to be.”

Graham hadn’t forgotten that memory—one did not forget misery or wisdom of that intensity—but he’d neglected it. “What about you?”

“He proposed to me. Waited until you’d been gone several years, by which time you would have had your conditional pardon. John offered marriage, said he’d long admired me, et cetera and so forth, another diatribe. The marriage he offered would have been, in his words, platonic. He’d already offered his heart to wisdom and to Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and to her alone would he pledge his passion. I was nonetheless welcome to be his countess, his friend, his hostess, and chatelaine.”

Graham nearly removed his arm from about Morna’s shoulders, but caught himself. “You demurred?”

“Of course I demurred. The offer wasn’t coming from a sober man, but rather, from a lonely one who was also in thrall to his flask. No woman wants to be taken to wife by half measures or out of pity.”

Questions fluttered in Graham’s mind like seagulls at a ship’s taffrail.

Did Morna want to be taken to wife at all ? By full measures? Who else had proposed to her?

Was a man rendered unfit as a husband simply because he was lonely?

Would she reject a similar offer from the present earl?

Steady, laddie. “John was lonely, you are right about that. His letters to me were positively gloomy at times, and yet, I read them until they fell to pieces.”

“Because you could hear his voice in the words.”

“Aye.”

Chilly afternoon was sliding toward wintry evening, the shadows on the water becoming black on silver, and yet, Graham did not want to leave. John had died a dozen yards below, though on the old oak bench, something precious was being revived.

Hope, peace, trust… Graham wasn’t certain what to call it, but he and Morna were having the sort of conversation they’d reveled in years ago. Confidences exchanged, life considered with the benefit of a friendly ear. Some friendly touches. Courage fortified.

“We should be getting back,” Morna said, making no move to rise.

“Wait,” Graham said. “We’ve company.”

Morna lifted her head to peer across the pond at the stag delicately sipping in the shadows. Ripples fanned out from where he stood, two hooves in the water. When he’d had his fill, he lifted a magnificent head, his chin dripping.

“One does not hurry royalty,” Morna said. “What a splendid creature. He’ll be losing those antlers any day.”

As she spoke, the great beast stepped out of the water, came about with majestic grace, and slipped back among the bracken and trees of the hillside.

“I wish Lanie could have seen him,” Morna said.

“She has memories, I hope.” Graham rose and offered Morna his hand. She took it, stood, and let go of him.

“Her memory is as faultless as her nose and her hearing. Some of that acumen is because of her poor eyesight, but she’s also a little sister. I’m told they have powers that Wellington’s spies would have envied.”

“As do younger brothers.”

The moment passed, as such moments did with Morna, and Graham knew better than to be greedy. He knew better than to ask why she’d followed him and whether John’s proposal had tempted her. She’d have been a countess, wealthy, the ranking lady of the shire until MacHeath put his boot in Mayfair’s marquess mousetrap.

The questions could all wait for another quiet moment. The joy remained, so wide, precious, and dear that Graham said not a word for the entire walk back to the castle.