Page 6 of The Elusive Earl (The Bad Heir Day Tales #3)

CHAPTER SIX

“Why work in here?” Morna asked as Graham rose from behind the ornate library desk. “You’ll catch your death, Graham MacNeil.” She tossed him one of the plaid blankets draped over the chairs at the reading table.

Graham caught it one-handed, the other hand still holding a quill pen. “Burning candles at midday is a sacrilege. The light is abundant in here, whereas the study is…”

She saw in his eyes what he would not say. The study was dark and low-ceilinged, with thick midnight blue velvet drapes over the single window. Much like the hold of a ship. Compared to the library’s chilly expanse, the study was oppressive and probably overstuffed with memories too.

“The study needs airing,” Morna said. “The next half-mild day, I’ll see to it. I didn’t know you wore spectacles.” They gave him a scholarly air and made the blue of his eyes even more intense.

He set his quill pen in the tray. “A shopkeeper does nearly as much bookkeeping as a steward does, what with some customers buying on credit, others in cash, and some in kind. The ledgers become a court of last resort when disputes arise.”

He came around the desk and draped the plaid about Morna’s shoulders. The wool was warm from having hung before the fire and imbued with a hint of his heathery scent. Graham’s hands brushing over her shoulders were… confusing.

“Do you still own that spice shop?” she asked.

“I do, and a bit of good acreage. Don’t tell King George, but I also conduct some discreet trading beyond the shores of Australia.” He stood close enough that she could see a smudge on the right lens of his glasses.

“Is that legal?”

“If the transportees and exclusives waited on England to send them out everything they needed, they’d never survive. The first lot nearly didn’t. What we can’t make for ourselves, we’re learning to procure in a more timely fashion. The MacNeil plaid does become you, Morna MacKenzie.”

She removed the spectacles from his nose and polished them on the wool draped over her arm. “I’m glad you kept a shop, glad you took to commercial trading. You have some charm and a head for numbers. Shopkeepers need both.”

He watched her polishing his spectacles. “We all got on as best we could. I should probably sell my little business.”

She passed his glasses back to him. “If you’re making a profit, why on earth would you sell?”

“Because I am a rubbishing earl now.” He tucked the spectacles into an inside pocket of his jacket and gestured to the sofa. “I read the solicitors’ reports, as outdated as they were, and I’m reacquainting myself with the situation here, though not quickly enough. Grandpapa had me in mind as a general steward for John, and thus I’m somewhat acquainted with the basic running of the place—the places, rather, there being more than one property and dozens of tenancies—but other than that…”

Morna took a corner of the sofa. Graham settled into the nearest wing chair. A hassock was positioned such that had they been of a mind to, they could have shared it, as they’d shared many a hassock in youth.

“You aren’t sure you can manage both the overseas business and the earldom?” Morna asked.

“I don’t know if I can trust the people I’ve left in charge of the overseas holdings,” Graham said. “They are good enough fellows, but the cat is definitely away, and mice will be mice. Life in the Antipodes hones one’s practical tendencies.”

“Then you plan on remaining in Scotland?” The question was out, unrehearsed, but much considered. Was home still home to Graham-the-Earl? A man who spoke of five thousand miles as a comfortable distance might be discontent rambling the few thousand acres of his family seat.

Graham rose and retrieved a stack of folded papers from the desk. “I should say that my plans are uncertain, that I’ve come back to see to my obligations, and then I’ll reassess the situation. Many a transportee chose to remain in the Antipodes rather than return to Britain. Others wandered on to the Americas, and still others took a notion to see India.”

“You saw India.” She envied him that adventure, much to her surprise. “Everybody who speaks of the place says it’s breathtaking.”

“Parts of it are, and the mountains in the north will put the fear of the Almighty in you, if rounding the Horn hasn’t already. Unimaginable heights, Morna. The Highlands aren’t even foothills in comparison.”

“Not good for sheep, then.” Though Graham had clearly been fascinated.

He smiled. “Not good for anything but snow, ice, rocks, and awe.” He considered the stack of papers in his hands and sorted through them. “You can read a description here.”

She took the single sheet. “This is your handwriting.”

He nodded and seemed abruptly absorbed with studying the portrait of the third countess, who held pride of place above the desk.

Morna examined the document he’d given her. My dearest Morna, My travels have taken me, of all places, to India, which has to be the noisiest place on earth and also the most imbued with exotic scents…

“You wrote to me?”

He lifted the stack of papers. “Once a quarter, one page. If I’d permitted myself more, I would have used every sheet of paper in the shop.”

Warmth bloomed that had nothing to do with the plaid around Morna’s shoulders and everything to do with Graham gone suddenly shy.

“Why not send me the letters?” One a year would have been an annual highlight, a reason to rejoice and hope and write back. Two would have been endless delight, and four… Ire that had receded in recent days sent Morna pacing before the hearth. “Why waste the paper at all if you never meant to post the damned things?”

“I forgot that you swear,” Graham said, which nearly earned him a smack on the back of the head.

“I can swear fluently in four languages and commend you to the devil in three more. I will soon demonstrate if you don’t answer my question. Why not post the letters, Graham?”

He remained in his chair, which might have been an insult from St. Didier, but from Graham, it was reassuring proof of familiarity.

“For all I knew, Morna, you were taking Edinburgh by storm. I could not be writing to another man’s intended, could I?”

“You could, you daft man. We’ve known each other since infancy. I worried about you so…” A proper tirade wanted to burst the banks of Morna’s self-restraint, but another thought intruded. “Nobody let you know what I was about, did they?”

She sank back onto the sofa, considering Graham and the pile of letters he yet held.

He shook his head. “‘The ladies are well.’ Four words, and the solicitors sent them along rarely. St. Didier went so far as to inform me that you enjoyed good health, and that Lanie did, too, but for her eyes. His letters tended to arrive in December, and one year…”

“One year?”

Graham rose. “The ship carrying that mail went down, a not infrequent hazard, and how I survived until the solicitors’ epistle arrived in March, I do not know. I cleared acres of ground and had blisters on my blisters that summer.”

Summer in December, because the seasons were reversed in the southern hemisphere. Everything topsy-turvy.

“I was so angry with you,” Morna said slowly, the words burdened with more sadness than rage. “For years, I told myself you deserved whatever fate held for you, but then Peter would have another one of your little notes, and I memorized each word.”

“Angry with me.” Graham nodded again, as if he was having trouble grasping the sense of the conversation. “Because of Grandmama. I understand.”

“For pity’s sake, Graham, not because of Grandmama. She was in torments, every joint aching, and her only relief was to be drugged into oblivion, and then she’d waken with a pounding headache to go with the dreadful rheumatism. She didn’t want to abandon Grandpapa, but other than that, life was misery for her.”

Graham stood before the fire, gazing into the flames. “She should not have died as she did, Morna. I realize you hold me responsible, and well you should.”

Something about this discussion was off. Graham’s remorse was sincere, but yet held a hollow note, a note of detachment or resignation where defensiveness should have been. Lanie would have been able to discern the subtleties. Morna could not.

She rose and joined him before the hearth. “Anybody could have measured out an extra spoonful of that medication or forgotten the precise hour of the previous dose. We were all in and out of Grandmama’s bedroom of an evening, and she liked the company. Lanie loved her stories. Peter adored that Grandmama listened to him in a household where nobody else had time for a chatty boy. I told her my troubles, and you read to her by the hour. For all that she was nearly bedridden, her apartment was a busy place.”

“You don’t blame me for causing her death?”

“I did. I do, but you’ve served out your sentence, and after a few years, I had to admit that anybody could have made a similar mistake. John said so, often, but then, John was never very far from his flask and occasionally muddled. He would come down dressed for Sunday services on Saturday and look everywhere for the book sitting open on the sideboard.”

“Right. John was easily distracted and frequently forgetful. I want to tell you something, Morna, and I want you to promise first that you’ll consider what I say honestly, without bias or wishful thinking.”

He was very serious about this disclosure, whatever it was. “I promise to try, Graham.”

He stood straight and addressed the third countess. “I did not kill Grandmama.”

Morna understood from his carefully neutral tone that he was testing her. That her next words mattered a great deal. And that he’d just taken a risk of some sort.

“Let’s sit,” she said, grabbing him by the wrist and steering him to the sofa.

“I tell you I was wrongly convicted, and you want to sit?” Despite the question, Graham took the place beside her on the sofa.

“If I believed you unassailably guilty,” Morna said slowly, “I should have said, ‘Don’t lie to me,’ or, ‘You did kill her, and you confessed to the crime.’ I did not say those things.” She gathered her courage in the ensuing silence. “I did not even think them, Graham, but I am confused.”

“As am I. I have gone over and over the events of that night. I reviewed the sequence with St. Didier at the time and questioned the staff until they nearly ran away at my approach. All I know is, I gave Grandmama but the one dose in her tea, at the usual hour. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Then why confess?”

“I did not strictly confess. I agreed that the sheriff could produce witnesses and evidence that would result in my conviction. The doctor’s testimony alone would have convicted me. I was responsible for the evening dose, and Ramsey was desperate to avoid blame for the countess’s death.”

“I never liked him. He was kind to Grandmama and seemed to know his medicine, but he was too cold for such a young man. Too scientific. He and Uncle Brodie still correspond, though heaven knows what about.”

“I suspect Ramsey was smitten with you, and sending me halfway around the world suited his plans nicely. Grandpapa thought my theory ridiculous.”

“Grandpapa did not believe in your guilt. He muttered about needs must when the devil drives, but never anything more than that. Whom do you suspect?”

“The simplest explanation is that the physician was wrong. Grandmama did not die of an excessive dose of the poppy. She had a heart seizure or some sort of paroxysm and died in her sleep.”

“John suggested that too. Said medicine is alchemy, even in these modern times, but Dr. Ramsey claimed the deceased bore no evidence of a heart seizure or paroxysm.”

“He would say that, wouldn’t he?”

Graham still held the stack of letters, and Morna kept the one he’d given her. The conversation was ranging very far afield from India and unsent mail, but then…

“You believe Ramsey was correct, don’t you, Graham?”

“I believe Grandmama was essentially poisoned. The question is by whom, and was it intentional? We were all in and out of her apartment, you’re right about that. Grandpapa also stopped by every evening to bid his countess good night, and when he did, they were usually alone together for at least a quarter hour. They conferred in the morning as well. Footmen and maids came in and out, and the housekeeper frequently brought a tea tray up.”

“Why didn’t the sheriff’s man look into all of that?”

“He could have, but would John, Peter, or Grandpapa have survived transportation?”

Graham put the question to her quietly, and the answer was plain enough: No, of course not. John hadn’t been frail, exactly, but he’d been partly fey and partly tipsy. Grandpapa hadn’t lasted another six months amid all the comforts of the castle, and Peter had been a stripling with more pride than sense.

“St. Didier was on hand that summer too,” Morna said. “Do you suspect him?”

“I do not, for the simple reason that he’d have no motive whatsoever. My job was to prove my own innocence, but proving innocence is impossible—how do you prove you did not commit an act when you have no alibi? If somebody had to be transported, I was the most fit candidate.”

“And that,” Morna said, brandishing his letter at him, “is why I am furious with you.”

“You’re furious with me?” He had the sense to be cautious rather than amused. “Might you explain?”

Morna rose before he could take her hand or she could seize his. “You’ve known me your whole life, Graham MacNeil. I’ve stood beside you in the graveyard and suffered through your attempts to learn polite dancing. When you had a lung fever, I read to you until I was hoarse, and when I beat you in horse races, I never bragged about it before others. You closed the door to friendship in my face when all this trouble erupted, and for that, I have not yet forgiven you.”

Graham stood and looked down at her as if he were translating that tirade from a complicated foreign language.

“I kept my distance,” he said, once again remote and severe. “Damned right I did.”

When Morna would have made an exit in high dudgeon, Graham took her wrist and stuffed the rest of his letters into her hand.

“I apologize for keeping my distance, Morna. If I had it to do over, I’d do the same again. Be angry if you must, but believe that my intentions were honorable.”

Morna was too near tears to come up with a pithy retort. Sticking out her tongue would not do, and throwing his letters into the fire would cause her lifelong regret.

“Honor makes a cold bedfellow, my lord . I wish you the joy of the company you chose. I’ll see you at supper.”

“That could have gone better.” St. Didier emerged from between the shelves of biographies and foreign translations. “Not a complete disaster, but hardly a victory for Scottish manhood.” The man made not a sound on a wooden parquet floor that routinely creaked and groaned.

“Shut your gob,” Graham said. “Morna will calm down.”

“If so, she will be the first woman scorned in the history of womanhood to do so. You hadn’t planned on giving her those letters, had you?”

“I planned to burn them. Hadn’t got ’round to it yet.” Graham had been considering burning them, for perhaps the hundredth time or so. They were a connection to Morna and a record of a heart struggling with banishment.

“Would a wee dram settle your manly nerves?” St. Didier asked, crossing to the sideboard.

St. Didier’s needling was doubtless offered as an attempt to restore Graham’s composure, though the tactic wanted subtlety.

“Feel free to indulge. I have ledgers to see to. One wants a clear head when tending to the accounts.”

“Your head is so muddled at the moment, Dunhaven, that one plus one equals fifteen.”

Not my head, my heart . Graham hadn’t been expecting Morna to confront him so soon, hadn’t grasped the nature of her complaint against him. He certainly hadn’t meant to put her in possession of all those damned letters.

Unsent letters. “Morna is canny. She’ll sort out motivations and reach her own conclusions. She didn’t want me to be the guilty party.” Some consolation.

A lot of consolation, actually.

“She didn’t care if you were guilty or innocent,” St. Didier said, pouring himself a tot from a decanter on the sideboard. “To her, the death was accidental. You’ve introduced the notion that it might have been intentional.”

How delicately St. Didier avoided the word murder . “She’ll get to the next part: The death was very probably accidental, but allowing me to be transported for a fatal accident I did not cause was an intentional act. Somebody should be nervous that the innocent earl has returned to the scene.”

St. Didier nosed his drink. “Whisky always tastes better in Scotland. Has more character and less bite.”

“We’ve been making it longer than you have in the south. Ale is better in England. I could leave.”

St. Didier stared at his drink for a moment. “If you blow retreat, you have accomplished nothing.”

A rousing altercation with Morna wasn’t nothing. “You assume the guilty party knows they precipitated Grandmama’s death and knows I had nothing to do with it. Another possibility suggests itself.” After years of pondering. “The guilty party might not know they’re guilty. Grandmama would ask anybody to pour her a spot of tea, simply to give her caller something to do. If that caller had been Grandpapa or Peter, Grandmama might have also asked them to top up the cup with a tot of the poppy.”

“Because her medicines made her forgetful and muzzy-headed? Would a tot or two extra have killed her?”

“I don’t know. She was old, she was in constant pain, she ate little. I believe a call on Dr. Ramsey is in order.”

St. Didier set his drink on the sideboard. “I’ll leave for Edinburgh in the morning. My mother’s decline was long, painful, and slow. I quickly learned how to wring answers from the physicians.” A rare touch of ire infused St. Didier’s resolve.

“Peter and I will take the ladies shopping. You are welcome to join us, or you can bide here—guarding the fort—among one of the finest collections of Scottish medieval manuscripts in the whole of Britain. You like all that heraldry folderol, and John would be pleased to know somebody was appreciating his treasures.”

“Shopping.”

“Aye. Ribbons and bonnets and fabric and boots. MacNeil plaid is all well and good, but a lady also likes some variety in her attire.”

“Bonnets.” St. Didier made a face such as a boy might aim at cold, unsalted neeps.

The door opened, and Morna strode in. She held a volume bound with the green leather typically used for ledgers.

“Read this,” she said, thrusting the book at Graham. She nodded coolly to St. Didier.

“What is it?” Graham asked.

“The contents speak for themselves. Nothing urgent.”

Whatever the book was, the handwriting was Morna’s. “I’ll be traveling into Edinburgh next week,” Graham said, setting the book on the desk. “I was wondering if you and Lanie might like to join me and Peter in the excursion.”

Ah. He’d surprised her. Perfect auburn brows drew down. “An excursion.”

“A raid on the shops, a passing skirmish with the solicitors, a call upon a certain Dr. Theophile Ramsey.”

The russet brows rose. “You were wondering…?”

St. Didier sauntered forth from the sideboard. “Dunhaven was hoping. The word he sought was ‘hoping’—hoping you would accompany him, and he’s willing to put up with Peter and Lanie as well for the sake of appearances.”

The wretched man was trying to be helpful and perhaps succeeding. Morna looked amused.

“Lanie would enjoy the outing,” she said, “and I’m not about to let her go without me. She’ll buy every scrap of yellow silk in Edinburgh because the texture is so pleasing, without a thought to the horrid color.”

Morna retreated as abruptly as she’d arrived.

St. Didier raised his glass. “To Scottish manhood, in victory and defeat.”

“To blazes with you.” Graham collected the green journal and left at a dignified stroll.