Highland Bachelor 02 - This Laird of Mine (12 page)

The jeweler was impressed with the size and clarity of the three stones. “They are exceptionally fine stones. I will give you thirty shillings Scot.”

“If they are truly fine stones, then you will pay me what they are worth,” Jules replied in response to the jeweler’s offer.

“I cannot,” he replied with a hint of sadness. “My clientele will have a difficult time paying even the price I am paying you. I am sorry. This is my best offer.”

A sort of numbness crept over Jules then, the kind of numbness that would help him do what must be done. With a nod he agreed.

The jeweler’s lips pulled up in a smile as he studied the ring once more. “Since I do not keep this kind of money on hand, you will need to go to the goldsmith with me.”

Forty minutes later, Jules emerged from the goldsmith with a small fortune in coins filling the black satchel he’d removed from his horse. He could pay his creditors, and he could support himself for a while longer, perhaps until the estate started to generate income again.

Perhaps.

He was ready to assume that risk, but he could not knowingly saddle anyone else with the poverty that was inevitably to continue at Kildare Manor for some time. No one deserved that kind of life, especially not a wife.

His wife.
He had one last stop to make before the city shut down for the night. He proceeded down High Street toward St. Giles’ Cathedral. Inside the church, he walked down the marble aisle toward the reverend, who lifted stubs of candles from the candelabras, replacing them with fresh tapers.

The scent of flowers, incense, and fresh beeswax drifted to him, enfolding him in their fragrance. As Jules made his way forward, a ray of late afternoon sunlight struck the stained glass windows, bathing the cathedral in a rainbow of colors.

Jules found himself relaxing as a sense of wonder warmed him in places he had not realized were cold. The radiance from the multicolored light filled him, lifted him up, and for the first time in a very long while he felt like his own life was not the enemy. He had come here looking for answers. He no longer feared the answers he would find. If Claire truly was his wife, then they would move forward with that knowledge.

And if she were not . . . Jules’s steps faltered as he realized he hoped for the former outcome. The woman intrigued him as no other had. She was captivating, puzzling, a mystery that needed solving. Did he need marriage to solve that puzzle? Perhaps not, but at that moment it did not seem like the curse it had when she’d first arrived at Kildare Manor.

“Evening,” the reverend, a man in his late sixties with white hair and keen gray eyes, greeted Jules.

Jules bowed, then stepped forward. “Pastor, I need your help.”

The man smiled. “That is why I am here. How can I be of service?”

“I need to know the specifics of a certain wedding ceremony that supposedly took place here a few weeks back.”

“The office has the records of ceremonies that have taken place here.” The reverend gazed at him with curiosity. “Whose ceremony do you need information about?”

“Mine.”

The older man’s eyes widened. “Come.” He motioned toward the pew at the front of the aisle. “Sit and tell me more.” When they were seated he asked, “You do not recall your own marriage?”

“It was a proxy marriage.”

“Ahh,” the older man said, knowingly. “When did the marriage take place?”

“I am not sure precisely, but sometime earlier this month. In the last two weeks.” Jules could feel the reverend’s gaze on him, studying him. For a moment Jules tensed. What did he see? Could he see what his father must have always seen when he looked at Jules? Did he see the emptiness inside him? The lack of any goodness?

The reverend’s gaze softened. “Your purpose here?” His voice was understanding, inviting.

Jules responded to that invitation. “To discover if the marriage truly took place.”

The reverend stared at him with eyes so keen Jules had to look away. Could the man see more than Jules wished to reveal?

Jules sat taller in his chair. “I need to know the truth.” He returned his gaze to the reverend a moment later.

The man nodded, his eyes shifting to somewhere behind Jules. “Let us go to the office and see what is recorded in the register. Shall we?”

Jules stood and followed the reverend out a door along the back wall of the cathedral that led down a long hallway.

As they walked the older man asked, “If you give me the names and a description of the bride and your proxy, I might be able to find the information you seek in the register sooner.”

“The bride is Claire Elliot. She is in her early twenties, bright red hair, tall for a woman, intelligent.” Jules startled at the last word. It wasn’t really a descriptor, and yet it was. Claire was intelligent, and challenging, and frustrating all at the same time.

A smile lifted the reverend’s lips. “You need say no more. I remember her well. She was nervous about the marriage.”

The man remembered her. The marriage was real. He and Claire were married.

“She was nervous? Why?” Jules hadn’t expected that.

The minister arched a graying brow. “She was getting married, yet her groom was nowhere in sight. I am sure there was much to be fearful of, particularly if the two of you had never met.”

“We hadn’t.”

The reverend nodded. “You can see why she might have been a little afraid?”

Jules was spared from answering as they entered the reverend’s office. The man who held all the answers moved to a cabinet along the back wall, and withdrawing a key from the folds of his robes, he opened the lock, then removed a heavy book and set it on the crude desk nearby. He flipped the weathered pages open to the back of the book and scanned the entries, running his finger down the rows of neatly printed names until his finger stopped near the bottom of the page.

Jules’s muscles clenched as he waited in the silence for the words. “And Grayson? What did he look like?”

Without looking up, the minister said, “I am acquainted with Grayson. I can attest that it was he who stood next to your bride.”

All the evidence pointed to the fact they had married.

“Here it is. Miss Claire Elliot and Lord Kildare, Jules MacIntyre by proxy. And it’s signed by a Mr. James Grayson.”

For a moment, an image flashed through his mind of a red-haired girl standing at the altar, her pale, slim hands at her sides with no one to support her as she married a total stranger. She had every right to be afraid. But suddenly he wanted to know why she had done it.

She’d said she had no choice.

She had no choice but to marry a penniless laird with a dreadful reputation and no notable estate? To any rational human, her behavior would seem mad. Yet he knew her to be quite sane.

So why had she married him?

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” the reverend asked.

Jules couldn’t help himself; he laughed, an angry, self-deprecating sound. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

The reverend studied him with a thoughtful gaze. “Sometimes, when we are searching for certain truths, it is best to start at the beginning.”

T
he beginning
.

It seemed like a wise place to start.

Jules returned to Kirkwood’s office the next day. He already knew part of what the solicitor would tell him—that he had a wife. The knowledge that Claire somehow belonged to him filled him with as much satisfaction as it did fear.

He had no time to reflect on the thought as Kirkwood ushered him into his office. “Congratulations, milord, for you indeed are married.”

Jules accepted the papers Kirkwood held out to him. The marriage documents, no doubt drawn up by Grayson, just as Claire had said. At the bottom of the document he could clearly read Claire’s name, her handwriting neat and fluid, alongside his own bolder hand. Yet he had never signed these documents. Or at least he had not realized what the documents were when he’d trusted Grayson and signed the marriage papers without reading them.

Jules raked his hand through his hair. Anger at Grayson for betraying his trust mixed with sorrow over the man’s death. Grayson had been more like a brother to him than a business associate. How could he have betrayed a kinship that went deeper than blood?

“Have they buried him yet?” Jules asked, once again meeting Kirkwood’s curious gaze.

“Not until tomorrow.”

Jules straightened, recovering his composure. “Then that is when I will pay my respects.” He nodded toward the open ledger on the man’s desk. “Have you uncovered anything unusual in Grayson’s finances?” Jules asked as he took a seat in the chair nearest the desk.

Kirkwood did not sit behind the desk. Instead he perched on the edge, his expression dark. “Yes. It is most disturbing, too.”

“Go on,” Jules encouraged the solicitor when he hesitated.

“There was a rather large deposit to his account twenty-three days ago.”

“How large?” Jules asked.

“Five hundred shillings Scot.” Kirkwood shuffled through the notes on his desk. “Paid to him by your father.”

Jules frowned. “My father? Are you certain?”

The older man nodded. “I traced the transaction back to your father’s solicitor. He paid James Grayson to arrange your marriage to Claire Elliot. It appears he went to great lengths to find you a suitable bride with that first name.”

“How did he accomplish that? And when? He’s been dead for more than three weeks.”

Kirkwood checked the papers before him. “The transaction was recorded two days before his death.”

It took a second for the words to sink in, and when they did, Jules stood, no longer able to contain himself in the chair. He stood there for what felt like an eternity, breathing hard.

“Milord, are you well?” the solicitor asked.

Seven months had passed since his release from gaol. Seven months. Had his father not tormented him enough for one lifetime? Instead of coming to the gaol to release his own son, he had plotted and planned yet another horrific event.

Except Claire wasn’t horrific. She was gentle, intelligent, and passionate. If he were honest, she was everything and more than what
he
had created “Claire” to be.

Jules startled at the thought.
He
had created Claire. Not his father. So how had his father implemented a plan that Jules had set into play? It made no sense . . . except, a sudden thought occurred to him. He had created his false bride five weeks ago. James Grayson knew about her two weeks before his father had paid for the marriage to take place.

Two weeks. It was enough time for Grayson to send word to his father and for his father to arrange . . . whatever he had arranged.

Why?
The word thrummed through Jules’s brain. He had absolutely no idea why his father would do such a thing, or even whether the man had considered his actions to be a benefit or yet another manipulation.

“Shall I get the physician?” Kirkwood asked, his face wreathed with concern.

“No.” Jules shook off his thoughts. “I am well.” He took another moment to collect himself, then turned back to the older man. “Did you find anything else?”

Kirkwood frowned. “Not in his financials, but when I talked with one of his friends, he said Grayson had been meeting often with someone in a black, hooded cloak down at The Doric, an inn on Market Street. I have a feeling that Grayson’s meeting, your father’s actions, and the hooded figure are all somehow connected.”

Agreeing with Kirkwood’s conclusion, Jules asked, “Who is this mysterious person?”

“That,” Kirkwood said, “is what we do not know.”

Jules looked at a clock on a nearby cabinet. “Then I must discover that information myself. Perhaps this cloaked person can shed some light on why my father would pay Grayson to orchestrate my marriage.”

“Indeed,” Kirkwood replied, still frowning.

“If you discover anything more,” Jules said, heading for the door, “you know where to find me.”

Kirkwood sat at his desk as Jules shut the door behind him. Jules needed to find a hackney to take him to Market Street.

That morning, Claire left her chamber determined to find Fin. With Jules gone, the steward might be more willing to answer her questions about the MacIntyre family and this house. Claire made her way through the rooms, searching, until she finally came upon Fin in the library, seated behind an overly large desk, studying the estate’s ledger.

“Fin,” Claire called from the doorway, not wanting to startle the aging servant.

He looked up. A warm smile came to his face. “Come in, milady. What can I do fer ye?”

“Can I ask you about the ballroom upstairs? What happened in that chamber? Why did Jules forbid me from entering?” she asked in a rush.

Fin’s expression saddened. “I’m nae certain the laird wants me tae share that information with ye.”

She straightened. “I am his wife. If I am ever to help him overcome his past, I must know what troubles him.”

Fin’s mouth quirked. “I canna argue with that.” He waved her into the chamber and toward the chair opposite him.

Claire sat and then waited patiently as Fin studied her. “Ye’ll nae hurt him with this knowledge?”

She shook her head even as her stomach clenched. She would never use the knowledge of what had happened in that chamber against him. “I want to help him heal and make new memories as he embraces his new life as the laird of Kildare Manor.”

Tears came to the old man’s eyes. “I thank ye fer that. All right, I’ll tell ye. It does this old heart good tae see that Jules has finally found some comfort in this world.” Fin swiped at his eyes and turned his gaze fully on her. “But ye didna hear this from me. Understand?”

Claire nodded.

“That chamber was where Agatha, his stepmother, was found dead. I was the one who found her. She was cold and gray. The only sign of what had happened tae her was the overturned teacup and the remains of the tea. The shire reeve who investigated claimed he could smell and taste poison in the liquid that remained in the cup. That Jules had purchased that very combination of herbs in the village the day before led everyone tae accuse him of murder. He was sentenced tae hang.”

“He was cleared of the charges?” Claire shuddered at the thought of what Jules had been through in the recent past.

Fin nodded, but his gaze saddened. “Thanks tae Lady Jane, who testified that Jules was with her at the time of the murder. But even though he was cleared of the crime, there was an outlandish ransom tae be paid.” His old eyes were haunted. “No one tried verra hard tae release him, until recently.”

A lump settled in her throat as she thought about how horrible it must have been for him. “Did Jules’s parents love him?”

Fin’s eyes cleared. “His mother did, tae be sure. With his father, things were more complicated.” The aging steward paused a moment before continuing. “I think ’twas because Jules reminded him of his dead wife that the old laird kept his son at arm’s length and why it was easy fer him tae send him tae Lord Lennox. But at the end, I believe his father regretted their estrangement.” Fin shook his head as though clearing the thought. “Some things just come too late.”

“Do you know who killed the second Lady Kildare?” Claire asked, the bold question burning in her chest.

“Nay.” The steward sighed. “I would have killed her myself when she first wheedled her way into this family if I’d known the trouble she would eventually cause. But the answer is nay. I know nothin’ about her death other than that Jules dinna kill her.”

“Thank you for telling me about the chamber and about Jules’s past,” Claire said.

Fin nodded. “His future looks much brighter now that ye have arrived.”

Claire drew a shaky breath. They had no future together—bright or otherwise. All they had was the here and now. But perhaps, now that she knew the truth about the ballroom, she could find some way to exorcise the ghosts of his past.

Later that day, Claire tried to put thoughts of Jules and his suffering out of her mind as she worked in the soil. She paused in her gardening to push the escaping tendrils of her hair out of her face, then leaned on her spade and surveyed the rose garden with a sense of accomplishment. She had rid the ground of every last weed to expose the wildly overgrown stalks. Her reward for freeing them from their prison of weeds was the sweet, heady scent from open blossoms that reminded her of the summer she had spent learning how to paint roses, over and over again. She had filled twenty canvasses that summer with the wild pink, red, and orange blooms.

Claire brushed her fingers over a soft, velvet petal. And just as they had so many summers ago, the blooms caused a riot of inspiration to crowd her mind. Ideas for how and where to add roses to the ceiling in the ballroom swirled through her head in prismatic colors—a blend of orange and yellow, a light hint of pink around the edges, the stamen a mixture of brown and red, with a light touch of yellow.

The colors would fill her nights with activity and add just the right touch to the corners of the room. She would bring the outside inside and fill with light and beauty a room that had once been the site of so much anger and pain.

For the past four days she had done nothing but garden in the morning, and paint at night by the light of many lamps. She spent the hours in between with their guests who were becoming more tired every day by the advancing stage of their pregnancies. But when the women did have energy, they, too, seemed eager to transform Kildare Manor while Jules was away. Nicholas and Hollister directed the men they’d hired to clear the briars and brambles away from the manor, while David and Fin busied themselves with the grass that covered the entire estate.

Jane and Margaret were eager to share their knowledge of running an estate the size of Kildare Manor with Claire, for which she was grateful. Today they had interviewed two women who had come to the manor to apply for the position of cook.

The manor was coming back to life, as was Jules’s reputation. He had said the villagers were frightened of him once. Well, something had changed in the last few days, because every day since Jules had left for Edinburgh, villagers came to the estate, asking for work. David and the others had put them to good use, inside and outside the house. Claire only hoped Jules’s pride could withstand the financial assistance his friends offered him, especially without his consent.

Satisfied with her progress in the rose garden today and eager to find her paints, Claire set her gardening spade aside and headed back toward the house. No sooner had she entered through the kitchen and washed thoroughly when Margaret and Jane found her.

“There you are,” Margaret said, a slow smile lighting her face. Jane was right behind her as they came into the empty space. “We’ve come to propose an idea to you.”

Claire dried her hands on a linen towel and, with exaggerated care, folded it and placed it near the washbasin. “What manner of idea?”

“One that involves you and Jules,” Margaret said with a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. From the doorway, she waved the new cook, Mrs. Jarve, forward. The woman was herself a recipe of nationalities—part French, part English, part Scottish. She had impeccable references, but what had won her the position were the rhubarb tarts she had brought with her to the interview. The cook smiled shyly at Claire now, as she too came to stand before her.

The three of them surrounded her. Claire’s nervousness rose in proportion to the glee in their eyes.

“Hear us out,” Jane said, coming forward with a rustle of rose satin. “We know you and Jules married in haste with no one there to support you. I realize now it was most likely because of his financial situation that he kept things private. But we still want to celebrate with you both as is more in keeping with tradition. And now that we have a cook capable of the task”—she hesitated for a moment before continuing—“we want to prepare a wedding feast for you both when Jules returns. We will celebrate the beginning of your new life together the way it should have been celebrated in the first place.”

Of all the things Claire had expected Jane to say, it had not been that.

“Oh please say yes, Claire. There is nothing like a wedding banquet with all the delicious sweetmeats and the frivolity and the guests dressed in their most colorful velvets and satins.”