Page 12 of Undercover Infidel

“Sounds idyllic, but how does Gus fit in?” she asked.

“That’s complicated.”

Her eyes scrunched. “Oh, my apologies.”

“Not at all. However, if I tell you the story, you must swear not to repeat a word of it.”

“I wouldn’t want you to betray a confidence.”

“It’s just that it isn’t common knowledge yet, although I suspect it soon will be.”

Her smile was that of someone about to learn a great secret, which I suppose she was.

“As it turns out, after Ash’s grandmum died, his grandfather had a great love affair with the housekeeper, Agnes. Some months later, along came Mairi…”

She gasped. “Which means Gus is Ash’s cousin?”

“Correct.”

“That’s brilliant!” The smile left her face. “You said it isn’t common knowledge.”

“Mairi knew, of course, but Ash and Gus didn’t until Christmas.”

“This year?” she asked.

“That’s right. It was actually Ambrose who let it slip. I suppose he thought Ash had figured it out at some point, which he obviously hadn’t.”

“Mairi is the housekeeper now?”

I confirmed it. “Not that Ash wants her to be. In fact, he tried to talk her into joining us for Christmas dinner. However, there’s the matter of the rest of the staff. Ash wanted her to tell them in her own time.”

“That’s nice of him. Both parts.”

“Yes, well, Ash is, above all things,…nice,” I offered.

“When he isn’t assassinating people.”

I laughed out loud. “No, I suppose his victims wouldn’t think so.”

“I bet the four of you were hellions.”

“Quite. We were determined to uncover every secret, climb every tree, and generally cause as much havoc as possible.”

She laughed like I had. “Boys and their mischief.”

“We were legendary,” I admitted with a half smile. “What about you? Were you always the serious academic, or did you have your wild days?”

“I was insufferably straightlaced,” she said with surprising candor. “The girl with her nose always in a book. Top of my class, perfect marks, never broke a rule.” She kicked at a small rock on the path. “I didn’t know how to be anything else.”

Her admission stirred something unexpected in me—curiosity about the woman behind the professional façade. What would it take to loosen those tightly held restraints? What would Lex be like with her inhibitions lowered, free from the structure she seemed to cling to?

When I looked up, I found her watching me with an intensity that suggested she’d followed my thoughts. Heat flared between us, unexpected and unwelcome. She broke eye contact first, suddenly fascinated by a stone gargoyle perched on a nearby wall.

“Do you know much about the history of Scottish noble houses during the Jacobite era?” I asked, steering us toward safer ground.

“Only the basics. Many Highland clans supported the Stuarts, while others allied with the Crown. After Culloden, there were brutal reprisals.”

I guided her toward a section of the castle that jutted out at an odd angle from the main structure. “This wing was added during that period. The eastern wing was damaged during a skirmish in 1745 when government forces suspected the Carnegies of harboring Jacobite fugitives.”