“It’s not necessary to get up,” he said.
“Good God, you’re still trying to be my commanding officer,” Fergus said, smiling with what looked to be some effort.
He squatted beside the chair. “You’ve had a bad time of it,” he said.
Fergus smiled with more enthusiasm. “You’ve been listening to Shona.”
He shook his head.
Fergus chuckled. “Is she not talking to you, then? Or is she still interviewing her footmen?”
“Do you realize she had them take off their shirts?”
“I’m the one who put the notice in the paper,” Fergus said, the grin reminiscent of their boyhood. “She deserves a bit of fun.” His grin faded. “She’s the one who’s had a bad time of it, Gordon.”
He tucked that information away to think about later. Right at the moment, he was more concerned with Fergus than his sister.
Liar.
“I came to see how you were doing. I’ve just gotten back.”
“You left the London lassies expiring in grief, then.”
“Only a few.”
“You’ve become a damn national treasure.”
He felt himself warm. “Hardly that.”
“A baronetcy,” Fergus said, his smile broader.
“The others?” he asked, changing the subject, and named names, men who had been under his command at Sebastopol and then at Lucknow and for whom he still felt responsible. Men of the Ninety-third Sutherland Highlanders, no better group of men.
“Macpherson died of his wounds. So did Dubonner. Marshall isn’t doing well, I hear. But the others are all hale and hearty.”
“I should have come back earlier,” he said.
“When the War Office summons you, Gordon, even you can’t refuse them. Especially when the general adds his persuasion. The months in London couldn’t have been enjoyable. Unless,” Fergus added, “there really were lassies vying for your attention.”
“Only a few,” he repeated.
From somewhere, Helen had found a chair, and began to drag it across the lawn. He stood, went to her side, and took it from her, thanking her with a smile.
“He’s dead,” he said, placing the chair opposite Fergus and sitting.
The two words were remarkably free of emotion. No anger, grief, or even relief tinged them.
“Dead? I thought the old man would live forever,” Fergus said, staring off into the distance.
“I’m sure he planned it,” he said dryly.
“How did it happen?”
“In his sleep. He would have hated it. He wasn’t commanding anyone, and wasn’t in the middle of one of his towering rages. He simply didn’t wake up.”
They exchanged a look, one that both commiserated and remembered. How many times had he come to Gairloch to escape his father? How many times had he and Fergus engaged in boyhood pursuits, neither talking about the man who would punish him when he returned home? Lieutenant General Ian MacDermond made his displeasure known in whatever way was most convenient—shouting, switch, or cane.
“Should I bother to express my condolences?” Fergus asked.
“To the devil, perhaps,” he said, smiling. “Can you imagine the general ordering Beelzebub around? Hell wouldn’t stand a chance.”
They sat in silence for several moments.
“Is that why you’ve come home?” Fergus asked after a moment.
“Because the general can’t command my life anymore? No, I’d already begun the process to leave before he died. Who knows? Maybe his dying was the final repudiation. I’ve decided to take over the Works.”
Fergus’s eyebrows rose.
“You’ve left the army entirely, then?”
He nodded.
“To do what? Make gunpowder?”
“For now. I’ve an idea, however, something that I’ve been working on for a while now.”
Helen was suddenly there, a tray in her hands.
“I’ve brought a wee dram of whiskey for you, Sir Gordon, and tea for you, Fergus.”
“Why does he get whiskey?” Fergus complained.
Helen just clucked her tongue, but didn’t answer.
He took both the cup and glass from her, thanked her, and the minute she went back inside, handed the glass to Fergus.
Fergus downed the whiskey in one swallow, leaving Gordon to stare at the tea. The brew smelled of flowers—or stinkweed—and was weak enough he could see the bottom of the cup.
“What is this?” he asked, taking a tentative sip.
“Something to build up my blood, I think. I never know what god-awful concoction Shona or Helen has dreamed up now. They’re bustling around me all hours of the day and night.” He glanced toward the house. “In fact, I’m surprised one of them hasn’t come out and rescued me and put me down for my nap. I should probably thank you for that.”
He didn’t want to talk about Shona now.
“So about the baronetcy—” Fergus began.
“More my father’s work than mine,” he said, interrupting.
Fergus shot him a look. “Not what I hear. I repeat, you’re a damn national treasure.”
He shrugged.
“You’ve gone and gotten modest. Unlike you, Gordon.”
He smiled, suddenly glad he’d come. No one else poked at him like Fergus. Perhaps he needed that.
Fergus placed the glass on the arm of the chair. His hand trembled with the effort, an indication of how weak he really was.
“Is there anything you need? Anything I can do?” He patted Fergus’s arm, hating the thin frailty of it.
“Come and see me from time to time,” Fergus said. “Rescue me from the care of women.”
“That I’ll do,” he said.
“Even if Shona refuses you.”
“I won’t give up,” he said, standing. “You know that much about me.”
“You did once,” Fergus said.
Those words were a damn bullet to the heart.
H
e smiled with ease, charming Fergus into a laugh. Her brother hadn’t laughed in a good long time. Perhaps she should forgive Gordon for that alone.
Once, she would have forgiven him anything.
The past swooped in like an arrow’s point, spearing her heart.
“He’s got a bright future, Shona,” General MacDermond had said, standing in the Acanthus Parlor at Gairloch. A particularly odious room colored olive green, with carvings of acanthus leaves strewn over the ceiling in a montage that had pleased one of her ancestors.
“You can see, surely, that if he remains here, that future will be blighted.”
“He has the Works,” she’d said, aware that Gordon had inherited the three armament factories belonging to his maternal grandfather.
His father had glossed over that with a thin smile.
“If he marries you, Shona,” he’d said, his voice strangely kind when he’d never been kind to her in the past, “it will be because he pities you. Or because you’re Fergus’s sister. I doubt you’d want to be such a burden.”
They’d been in such desperate straits, however, that she’d known something had to be done, including marrying the first wealthy man who’d offered for her. Someone who hadn’t wanted to marry her out of pity.
But marrying Bruce hadn’t turned out at all well.
Here she was, seven years later, in an even worse situation. Now, not only did Fergus need her help, but Helen depended upon her, too. This time, marriage wasn’t a solution to their problems.
Nor was thinking about the past.
She had a plan, however, and unfortunately, Gordon MacDermond was going to have to play a role in it.
“I
promise I’ll be back,” Gordon said. “Even if it means bodily moving Shona to see you.”
Fergus only chuckled, as if the thought of that confrontation was amusing.
Gordon said good-bye, crossing the lawn to the steps. He didn’t expect Shona to be standing at the back door, watching him. Nor did he expect her words as he entered the house.
“Did you disturb him?” she asked, waving the piece of paper in her hand toward the garden.
“Disturb him?” he asked.
“Bother him, confound him, annoy him. Ask him questions that make him remember or think. That sort of thing.”
He studied her for a moment. Tiny lines radiated outward from the corners of her eyes. The years had made a mark, but a subtle one.
“He’s not dead, Shona. Or a bairn. He’s a man. He’s going to remember things without my prompting him. He’s going to feel things despite your wrapping him in a blanket of concern.”
She glanced away, the line of her jaw firm, her lips whitened as if she held back words.
If he were another man, he’d have said or done something to comfort her. If it were another time, she might have allowed him to do so. Neither was the case, so he remained silent.
“How did you find him?” she finally asked, still staring out the back window.
“Weak,” he said, startling himself by uttering the truth. “Despondent. Why the hell didn’t you let me know?”
“Would you have come, Gordon?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“You know I would.”
She nodded, the point too easily conceded.
“Will you let me know if he needs anything?”
She looked down at the paper she held in her hand.
“He needs a home,” she said, surprising him. “My husband’s nephew is taking possession of the house in a short while. Fergus needs a place to live.” She folded the paper, still not looking at him. “My new house is being readied,” she added. “But, for a few weeks, conditions will be difficult for Fergus.”
“He can stay with me if he wishes.”
“You’re back, then. In Inverness.”
“Yes,” he said, not giving her the whole truth. To compensate, he offered her a bit more information, something he wouldn’t have ordinarily told her. A peace offering? “I’ve left the War Office.”
“No more soldiering?”
He smiled. “No more soldiering.”
Now she looked at him, her thin smile not matching the expression in her eyes. He’d had years of studying Shona Imrie. Shona Imrie Donegal.
He disturbed her.
“The Empire may crumble,” she said, “without you to fight for it.”
She hadn’t lost the ability to infuse her words with derision.
“Indeed,” he said, still smiling amiably.
She turned, leaving him no choice but to follow. As they headed toward the front door, she glanced over her shoulder at him.
“Why didn’t you ever write to Fergus? If you were so concerned for him?”
He was wrong to think she’d conceded the point.
“And have my letters returned?”
She stopped, squared her shoulders, but didn’t answer, merely opened the door, standing aside for him to leave. He picked up his hat and gloves from the side table.
“How soon will your husband’s nephew be taking possession?”
She skirted that question, asking one of her own. “How soon can Fergus come and live with you?”
Evidently, she was desperate enough to allow some of her anxiety to show.
“Give me two days to make arrangements,” he said.
She nodded. “That will be acceptable.”
As he left the house, she stood queenlike at the door, her hand on the frame, her smile firmly fixed and false.
H
ad she just made the worst mistake of her life?
Shona watched as Gordon strode toward his carriage, never turning and looking back. He wouldn’t. Once on a set course, Gordon MacDermond was as immovable as Ben Nevis.
He walked with confidence, as if the world should give way before him. He was Colonel Sir Gordon MacDermond, son of Lieutenant General Ian MacDermond, both father and son national heroes, renowned for their prowess in battle and their courage in the face of desperate odds.
Each man had proved himself to be a modern Highlander.
The air was humid, the breeze from the river pausing to caress her cheek. With the back of her hand, she brushed back a tendril of hair that had come loose, but otherwise didn’t move, watching him enter his carriage.
Gordon had brought the past with him, and the past was not her friend.
Identify every part of a problem and handle each part separately. That’s how she’d survived Bruce’s illness. First, she had to address the issue of money.
Slowly, she closed the door, unfolding the letter again. Good news, of a sort. The worst news, if she chose to be sentimental. But sentimentality was for fools and those who’d no need of wealthy Americans.
Dear God, anyone with a fortune would do.
Once, she’d had armoires filled with dresses and delicate lace undergarments. She’d worn jewels that sparkled in the gaslight. Her home had been a mansion set into a landscape so perfect it looked like a John Constable painting.
Circumstances changed, however, a fact she’d learned only too well in the last two years.
What a shock it had been to learn she was penniless.
She’d known that Bruce’s estate was entailed, but she’d stupidly assumed that, upon her husband’s death, she’d have some income of her own. Both she and his great-nephew, Ranald Donegal, had been informed that neither was the recipient of any funds.
Bruce had died insolvent.
Her husband had never hinted at his penurious state. Nor had he told her that his great-nephew was an incredibly dislikable man. Ranald was twenty years her senior, but neither his status as a relative by marriage, nor the fact that he himself was married with seven children, had stopped him from groping her at every opportunity. She’d vacated the house she’d shared with Bruce as soon as she could, retreating here to Inverness to live out the duration of her mourning. Two weeks ago, her official mourning was over.
Two weeks ago, she’d also learned that Ranald was coming to Inverness for the express purpose of occupying the house she’d made her home for the last two years.
Her choices were narrowing by the minute.
Did she stay here and attempt some sort of agreement with Ranald? Would he allow Fergus to stay as well? She was neither naïve nor unschooled. Sooner or later, the arrangement would lead to her becoming an unpaid servant or sharing his bed while his wife and her brother slept under the same roof. She doubted Fergus would agree to such a thing even if she allowed it.
Or did she attempt to find other lodgings, with no funds, no likelihood of funds, and no foreseeable funds in the future?
The jewels Bruce had given her had been sold to keep food in the house and coal in the grate for the first year. In the last several months, she’d sold anything, everything, of value.