Seducing the Highlander (17 page)

It killed him, like a knife straight into the heart, to think of it.

The infernal McCray had done a decent job of it too, if the small blushes that graced his beautiful cousin’s smooth cheeks whenever she glanced at her husband were any indication of what had transpired between them. Of course, Adain thought in grim resignation, sipping his claret and looking down the long length of the dinner table where the newlywed couple sat, the man had a reputation for seducing everything in skirts, from aristocratic, highborn tarts to scullery maids, so he
should
be good at it. Sleeping his way through the countryside might make the arrogant Robbie McCray’s name synonymous with sexual conquest, but there was also the undeniable fact that he was a fighter as well as a lover.

At least Julia would be protected, along with well bedded. A man like Robbie McCray would take care of his own.

The light touch of a hand on his arm broke his distraction and he glanced at the woman sitting next to him in question. Her wide brown eyes held a glimmer of sympathy. With a rueful smile, he said quietly, “I’m sorry I’m not much company this evening, am I, Therese? You should have sat next to someone else.”

Lady Therese Gibbons, the sister of their closest neighbor and his old friend Edward Gibbons, the Earl of Larkin, simply shook her head and answered in the same subdued tone, to keep their conversation private from the ears of the people eating and drinking around them. “Nonsense. And no one can blame you for being affected by the callous way Julia is treating you, Adain. It cannot be easy to sit here as the host to her new husband, not to mention how you have endured her open suspicion and enmity.”

“It is her house too,” he automatically defended her.

“But need she rub your nose in it?”

Therese had a point there. His fingers restlessly smoothed the stem of his wineglass. “She believes so fervently that I am a criminal that perhaps she feels I deserve it. I admit it: It gives me pain. . . . And now this sudden marriage to a man she barely knows adds salt to the wound. I am a little off balance; it is true.”

Though not stunningly beautiful like his wayward cousin, Therese was still pretty in a buxom fashion, with brunette curls and milky skin, her figure voluptuous to the point of being almost plump. Brow furrowed, she glanced down to where Robbie McCray sat in conversation with her brother, Lord Larkin. Julia sat at her new husband’s side, studiously refusing to look Adain’s way. “He is a handsome rogue and no doubt preyed upon her sorrow to get around her. It is too bad, but it is a bed she has made and must lie in. There is no reason for you to—”

“I wish I knew why exactly she is so convinced I’m a vile murderer, when a few months ago we were still betrothed.” He was being rude—snarling out the words and interrupting her, but he couldn’t help it. “Therese, you have been Julia’s friend since childhood. Has she spoken of her sudden change of heart? I have asked, tossed aside my pride and even implored, but she refuses to say why she no longer believes in my innocence. When the rumors first surfaced, she was stalwart by my side.”

“She can be very stubborn. ’Tis a Cameron trait, you must admit.” Therese looked unhappy. “I wish I could tell you what you seek to know, Adain, for we are as much friends as Julia and I. Yet, I cannot, for she has not explained her thinking to me. You are not the only one she won’t confide in any longer.”

Julia grieved. He knew it. It was one matter for a parent to grow ill and die, and quite another for one to be found the victim of a senseless crime. Couple the first tragedy with her brother’s disappearance and it was no wonder she was distraught. There were no witnesses to his uncle’s murder, or at least none had come forward, and Randal’s body had not even been found. Adain muttered, “I do not suppose it matters why she feels the way she does, for she is lost to me anyway.”

Therese leaned forward a fraction. “There are other women in this world, Adain, women who see you for the fine man you are. Julia is a good friend of mine, yes, but I say she was a fool when she ran off to marry McCray. Her impulsive behavior will make some other woman very lucky.”

Though he had always looked upon Therese as simply a friend, Adain was a little startled at both the vehemence in her tone and the look in her toffee-colored eyes. He also couldn’t help but notice that the low-cut bodice of her gown displayed a great deal of her bountiful breasts, and her body was certainly angled to afford him a generous view. In love with Julia most of his life, he hadn’t ever even thought of any other woman in a serious context, and considering the flux of his current emotions, this was not an opportune time to encourage an interest he did not reciprocate. Clearing his throat, he replied neutrally, “Your faith helps ease the hurt, Therese, and I thank you and your family for not suffering the rumors over my culpability and standing by the Camerons in their need. Your brother has been my friend for a long time.”

A swift flash of something that could have been disappointment moved across her face, and she leaned back, her lashes lowering demurely. “What are friends for, Adain?”

 

 

Robbie stood outside the door for a moment, wondering if he was so bedazzled by his new wife’s passionate abandon and captivating beauty that he’d lost his good judgment. All through dinner—which had been a long affair of endless courses, and complicated by guests who apparently visited often—it was clear that Adain Cameron could barely bring himself to be even marginally polite. Robbie had been made welcome only because it was also Julia’s home, and even the servants seemed to eye him as an interloper. Their courtesy was lukewarm, to say the least.

So why the devil was he going to talk to the man who obviously considered him an enemy? Because, Robbie acknowledged ruefully to himself as he lifted his hand and rapped sharply on the thick wooden panel, trouble drew him like a bee to a blooming flower. His cousin Ian was fond of pointing out that Robbie could no more keep out of whatever mischief might be at hand than he could keep from eyeing the pretty lasses.

When he opened the door to the growled response and stepped inside, he saw Adain Cameron look up and stiffen visibly. Whoever the man expected, it wasn’t Robbie, which wasn’t a surprise. Behind a large desk made out of a massive slab of hewn wood, papers scattered across the top and a ledger open in front of him, Cameron said coldly, “McCray, what the devil do you want? I would think you would be upstairs, enjoying your new bride.”

“To be sure,” Robbie answered evenly, “that is still part of my plans for the evening. However, I wanted to talk to you, if I may.”

“If you are here to discuss the terms of Julia’s inheritance, you would do better—”

Interrupting with curt emphasis, Robbie said, “I’ve most certainly discussed it already with your late uncle’s solicitors, Cameron, and the money is not why I’m here.”

Leaning back in his chair behind the desk, Adain narrowed his eyes. “But you admit that’s why you married her.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, but yes.” Robbie gave the other man a small, sardonic smile. “Tell me, Cameron, what would you do if a beautiful woman waylaid you one evening outside your home, offering both wealth and the opportunity to bed her as often as you wished?”

Adain’s answering smile was more a baring of teeth. “I suppose if I were a libertine who thought with his stiff cock, I would accept at once.”

The insult was enough to make Robbie wonder once again just why the hell he was trying to talk to this man in the first place, but he tamped down the urge to spin on his heel and stalk out of the room, and simply lifted a brow. “I married her, offering my name and protection, and not all of it was avarice or lust. Our fathers were friends, and to a McCray that means something. I will see the lass safe, honor my vows of fidelity, and breed my children in her body. Could you ask more? My sword arm is hers, and I would gladly die to keep her from harm. Whatever you might have heard about me, Cameron, no man suggests I am dishonorable.”

There was a short, tense silence. Then Adain Cameron nodded, a brusque movement of his head, his silver eyes bleak. “Aye,” he said heavily, “no man suggests you are anything besides brave and honest, McCray. However, do not expect me to welcome you with open arms. Julia was supposed to be mine.”

“Of that fact I am well aware.” Robbie glanced pointedly at a half-filled glass next to a decanter sitting on the desk. “Is that whiskey?”

“You wish for me to share a drink with you?” Adain shook his head, an incredulous laugh escaping his lips. “I give you high points for audacity, McCray.”

“I’m here because I think you are innocent of murdering your uncle and cousin,” Robbie said mildly, “so I think the least you can do is offer me a little whiskey while we discuss it. What say you, Cameron? I have no quarrel with you, and if I can make Julia happy by giving her the answers she needs to heal her losses, I wish to do so.”

“You want to make her happy? That is an odd statement from a man who wedded her for her money and the use of her body.”

“There’s more to her than just her beauty, Cameron. She’s a spirited lass with a quick mind and,” Robbie admitted with a twinge of wry humor, “a sharp tongue.”

“She has that,” Adain muttered. For a moment he hesitated, and then he gave a reluctant nod. “Sit down. I’ll get you a glass.”

There was a leather chair across from the desk, and Robbie sank into it, accepting a glass of amber liquid, then leaning back and stretching out his legs. Taking a stiff swallow, he cocked a brow. “Let’s get down to it. Tell me exactly what happened to your uncle.”

“There isn’t much of a story. I wish I knew more, but the facts are straightforward and infuriatingly simple.” Cameron looked somber, his eyes the color of a winter sky. “It was more than a year ago . . . in late summer. Arthur and I came for a visit. All seemed well here—my uncle was in good spirits, Randal was his usual self, lost in some bit of poetry or in the midst of composing a ditty to please Julia and Therese—”

“Ah, Therese, the earl’s sister. I noticed at dinner she seemed to be quite neighborly toward you. Is that usual?”

The other man shook his head, his mouth tightening. “There has never been anything between myself and Therese. We are friends, as Edward and I have known each other a long time. That is the extent of it.”

That might be true, Robbie reflected over his whiskey glass, but the buxom Lady Therese would fall on her back and spread her legs for Adain Cameron in the wink of an eye, if he was a judge, and he was fairly practiced in gauging such things. “Go on, then. Julia tells me her father disappeared midafternoon and wasn’t found until after nightfall.”

“We naturally did not become alarmed until he missed dinner. His horse wandered into the courtyard a little while later without a rider, and I immediately organized a search party.”

“
You
organized a search party? What of Randal? As first in line to be the next laird, I would think the responsibility to be his.”

Cameron gave him a moody look. “My cousin wanted nothing to do with becoming the head of the clan, McCray. He is a gentle, romantic soul who occupies his time with literature and music. My uncle gave up years ago on trying to get his son to lift a sword or ride a horse at anything above a slow amble. It simply isn’t in Randal’s nature to command, and he was more than grateful to let the responsibility for finding his father fall to me. Unfortunately, we did just that, though I was thankful I was not the one to actually stumble across the body. Julia is correct about one thing: There is no question of murder, for the marks on my uncle’s throat show clearly he was strangled to insensibility and then put in the water to drown.”

“A gruesome and cowardly manner of killing, to be sure,” Robbie commented, watching the man sitting across from him closely. He’d just used the present tense to describe his cousin, as if he believed Randal was still alive. It hardly exonerated Adain Cameron, but it was a positive sign. “Since I assume you exclude yourself, do you have any suspects?”

“The Cameron clan has enemies, naturally. This is Scotland. If you breathe the air, you have foes.” Adain’s long fingers toyed with his glass, his face looking shuttered and bleak. “However, we have no open disputes that I am aware of, no quarrels over land or livestock, so the only conclusion is that the deed was personal in nature, for a purpose that is not obvious.”

“Unless, of course, you were the one, for you stood to inherit his lands.”

There was a flash in Cameron’s silver eyes. “Damn you! Randal inherited, McCray, not myself. And yes, if you are thinking my cousin is no match for me in a physical confrontation and I could kill him easily and dispose of the body, that’s true. But I am no more responsible for his disappearance than I am for my uncle’s murder.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a sardonic smile, Robbie said, “I’ve known all along that you are the most likely candidate
physically
to be the villain, Cameron. I simply don’t think you committed either crime. Tell me, once Randal became laird, how did your gentle cousin handle the responsibility before he disappeared?”

“He loathed it, naturally. Anyone will tell you that.”

“Enough to leave on his own?”

“Perhaps.” With a weary frown, Adain sighed. “Whether you believe me or not, I’ve sent word to friends in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness . . . anywhere in Scotland he might go. His father’s death shook him deeply. I returned to my own home once we had buried my uncle, so I cannot firsthand describe Randal’s actions, because I wasn’t here, but Mrs. Dunbar tells me he was more distracted than ever and very melancholy. I am still trying to straighten out the mess he made of the accounting and soothe the merchants who did not get paid or receive ordered goods. As far as I can tell, he was too steeped in his grief to effectually fulfill his new role.”