A knock sounded at the door.
She ceased struggling.
Stifling a groan, he released her skirts and climbed down from the bed.
The maid that had shown them to their chamber stood in the doorway. “I’ve been sent to fetch you to dinner.” Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to peer over his shoulder, no doubt hoping to catch a glimpse of Astrid in a state of dishabille, worn and sated from a thorough loving.
Exactly what he had hoped for as well.
Looking over his shoulder, he motioned out the corridor. “Dinner is served, Duchess.”
Sliding down from the bed, she straightened her clothing.
Later, he vowed. Later he would prove to her that barriers did not exist between them. At least none that he couldn’t tear down.
D
inner was a celebratory affair. Astrid, originally seated three down from Griffin, now sat to Griffin’s immediate right. He had seen to the change of seating, despite the disapproving frowns of both his grandfathers.
Griffin kept her close to his side, talking over her when addressing MacFadden and Gallagher. Occasionally his hand would slide beneath the table to cover her thigh. In those moments, her breath would snag and she would strive for a neutral expression, praying he did not realize his effect on her.
“The loss of one crop should not devastate an entire population,” Griffin volunteered when the conversation turned to the current famine. “A thriving economy needs variety in its crops…and at least one high-value commodity for exportation, especially in the event of bad harvests.”
This spiraled them into a deeper conversation about crops and possible solutions to battle the famine. Astrid shifted uneasily in her seat, uncomfortable and feeling invisible throughout their conversation. An observer. An outsider.
At one point, Griffin drank from the mug in front of him and complimented Laird MacFadden, “Now, that’s a fine whiskey.”
“Distilled right here,” MacFadden announced proudly.
“Aye,” Gallagher grudgingly admitted, no doubt loathing to give a compliment of any kind to his old adversary. “MacFadden has the finest whiskey in these parts. Always counted myself lucky when a barrel or two fell into my lap.”
“You mean when you
stole
a barrel.”
“You produced this here?” Griffin asked, intercepting what appeared to be the start of an argument.
“Aye. MacFadden whiskey. We’ve made it since the fourteenth century.”
“Fine Scotch whiskey is a commodity. You should market it,” Griffin suggested.
His grandfather frowned. “Sell our whiskey?”
Griffin nodded. “This is what I was talking about. A product like this would meet high demand in English markets. Hell, worldwide.”
“I don’t know,” he mused, delving through his long, gray-streaked hair to scratch his scalp. “Don’t know if we have enough grain for such a large operation—”
“But combined we would,” Gallagher announced.
The two old men eyed one another warily, clearly taken aback to see each other as something other than enemies. As potential partners.
Astrid glanced at Griffin, marveling that he had wrought such a change in these men. And in so short a time. She wondered if he realized that they had changed for him. All for the love of him. A sentiment she could too well imagine.
MacFadden turned to look at his grandson now. “Would you be interested in heading up such a venture? Take our two clans into the future? I could only stomach such a partnership if you were to lead the enterprise.”
Gallagher leaned forward, earnestly nodding. “We need you. Your people need you.”
Your people?
Astrid could not suppress a small smile from curving her lips. They certainly knew how to heap on the guilt and obligation.
Griffin lifted his mug and savored another sip, contemplating, she guessed, a future in Scotland versus one in Texas.
He turned his head and his gaze caught and held hers. Something flickered in his blue eyes.
A long moment passed before he echoed her earlier words, saying, “I’ve a life waiting for me at home.”
Her smile slipped and she looked down at her plate of half-eaten food.
Indeed. They both had lives waiting for them. She in England. He across the ocean.
“Think about it. You’re needed here,” MacFadden insisted, casting Astrid an accusatory glare, as if she had something to do with Griffin’s refusal to stay.
She stared back, keeping her expression cool and unmoved.
A sudden disturbance drew their attention to the front of the dining hall. A tall middle-aged man in a swirling cloak entered, a thick scarf of MacFadden blue and green tartan wrapped around his neck and shoulders. A woman followed him, cloaked from head to toe in a rich dark blue cloak. She hung back several steps, her movements slow and hesitant.
“Cousin,” the man called, striding forward, eyes widening as they shifted from MacFadden to Gallagher. “I had barely stepped from the carriage when I was beset with all manner of outlandish tales. Although none so astonishing as the sight of you breaking bread with this devil.”
“Thomas,” MacFadden rose in greeting, chuckling wryly as he came around to embrace the visitor, the older man’s large frame swallowing that of his cousin. “It’s not something I expected to happen in this lifetime, to be certain.”
“Well, what brought about this miracle?” Thomas asked, slipping off gloves of fine kid leather and snapping his fingers for a servant to bring forth a chair. He untied his cloak and tossed it at a serving girl. Dropping into the chair, his gaze roved first over Griffin, then Astrid, his sharp eyes lingering on her face in a way that made her want to fidget in her chair. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap and forced her spine straight.
No one moved to fetch a seat for the young woman or offered to take her cloak. She remained standing, an unobtrusive shadow lurking beyond Thomas. Only Astrid seemed to notice her, and she decided that the girl likely made a habit of being invisible.
Indignation burned darkly through her as she strained for a glimpse of the face hidden within her cloak. Ink-dark tresses escaped the hood to coil over her breasts like the curl of a demon’s fingers.
“Griffin, this is my cousin, Thomas Osborn.”
Griffin nodded in greeting at the man sitting across the table from them. Osborn returned his nod with an uncertain one of his own.
“Wondrous news, cousin.” MacFadden grinned and leaned forward, heedless of the fall of his hair in his stew. He clapped Griffin on the back heartily. “Conall’s son has returned to us.”
Osborn stared, speechless for several moments, looking back and forth between Griffin and his cousin. “H-how can that be? Conall did not have a son.”
“Like I always suspected. Conall ran away with Iona Gallagher.” His gaze flitted to Griffin. “They had a son together.”
“I see,” Osborn drawled slowly. “And how can we be sure this man is their son?” His eyes flickered over Griffin as if he were some mangy cur come to beg for scraps.
“Aside that he looks just like Conall?” An edge entered MacFadden’s voice, defying his cousin—anyone—to challenge him on the matter of Griffin’s paternity. “And that he bears the same birthmark on his shoulder that his father did? And me?”
“A coincidence, surely.”
“And why,” Griffin inserted, his voice dangerously smooth, “are you so certain that I cannot be Conall MacFadden’s son? What is it you stand to lose?”
Color spotted Osborn’s narrow cheeks. “I merely think someone should question the arrival of a stranger and examine his motives before accepting him so readily into the fold.”
“I seek nothing here,” Griffin stated with remarkable evenness. “I only came to learn a bit about the parents that died before I could know them.”
“’Course, lad,” Gallagher’s voice boomed out as he glared at Osborn. “We only hope to convince you to stay and take your rightful place here. You’re a part of us.”
A part of us
. Astrid wondered what that would be like. To be part of a family. To belong. To be wanted.
Osborn shoved to his feet, the chair clattering to the stone floor. “This is madness! Let me see this birthmark.”
Griffin’s eyes glittered in warning, no doubt recalling the indignity of being forced to the ground and stripped of his clothes against his will. “I will
not
remove one stitch of clothing.”
“Thomas, calm yourself. You’re acting the fool. I’ve already seen it.”
Osborn turned beseeching eyes on MacFadden. “Cousin, you cannot mean to offer everything to this…stranger!” His face twisted with anger as the woman behind him quietly set his chair upright again.
“Calm yourself, Thomas,” MacFadden advised. “As I have no intention of expiring soon, I don’t see your lot having altered much. I’m only eight years your senior, after all. Now cease delving into my affairs. Tend to your own. Shouldn’t you be preparing for the grand nuptials? What are you doing here anyway?”
“The wedding’s off.” Osborn’s declaration sent goose bumps over Astrid’s arms. “Which is why I’ve come. As head of the family, you need to be apprised of any matter that may bring shame on us.”
MacFadden’s eyebrows dipped together. “Speak plainly, man.”
“It appears Petra’s betrothed has been murdered.”
Griffin tensed beside Astrid. She resisted the sudden urge to reach for his hand beneath the table.
Osborne dragged a hand sprinkled with dark hairs over his face and suddenly she knew. She remembered. The skin of her face suddenly felt tight and itchy. A knot of dread settled in her stomach, a heavy pull that made it difficult to draw air.
“You,” she managed to get out. Her trembling hands fisted in her skirts. “It was you.”
“Astrid,” Griffin hissed in warning.
Shaking her head, she rose slowly to her feet, gaze fixed on the man before them, awareness sweeping through her in a flash of heat. The memory of Bertram’s face as she had last seen him filled her mind.
Griffin seized her wrist and tried to pull her back down, but she twisted free.
Osborn stared at her as if she had sprouted a second head.
“You killed him,” Astrid ground out. “You came to his room, argued with him and shoved him into the mantel.”
“Is she mad? What’s the lass talking about?” MacFadden looked at Griffin.
Osborn’s eyes narrowed on her. “You were the woman seen fleeing Powell’s room.” A cruel smile curved his lips. “My, my. What a small world.”
She nodded jerkily, not bothering to remind him that Bertram wasn’t Powell.
“You’re his wife,” the cloaked woman spoke softly from behind Osborn, the first sound she had made since entering the hall. All eyes swung to her. She dropped her hood to reveal a moderately pretty face. At first, Astrid thought a shadow darkened the lower half of her cheek, extending along her jaw and trailing down her throat. And then she realized the shadow was reddish in color—not a shadow at all, but a birthmark.
Her eyes, a soft doe brown, settled on Astrid with surprising intensity.
“Yes,” Astrid admitted. “I was his wife.”
“What the hell is going on?” MacFadden exploded.
“Powell wasn’t who he claimed to be,” Osborn explained. “He was a married man. A fugitive, in fact.”
MacFadden’s eyes bulged and he motioned to the cloaked woman. “You would marry your daughter off to such a man?”
“I did not know he was married,” Osborn gritted through clenched teeth. “Like everyone else, I simply thought it a blessing any man of quality wanted to marry Petra.”
Astrid flinched, stung at his words even if they had not been directed at her.
A quick glance at Petra revealed nothing save her bowed head. If her father’s callous words affected her, she gave no sign.
“He claimed to be a man of property. Vast coal mines in Cornwall. A knighted gentleman,” Osborn defended hotly.
“And no one thought to verify this information before he married into the family?” Griffin questioned.
Osborn cut him a swift glare. “Not even here a day and you presume to stick your nose into our family affairs.”
“He is one of us,” MacFadden declared with a pound of his fist on the thick table, rattling the crockery.
Osborn shook his head in disgust.
“I think everyone is failing to miss the point here,” Astrid inserted, waving in Thomas’s direction. “He killed Bertram.”
Everyone stared at her with dull, unmoved expressions, almost as if she had not uttered anything of significance.
“And,” she added, “he let everyone think I did it.”
Osborn shrugged. “I don’t owe you anything. It was simply easier than explaining the situation. I did not mean to kill the wretch, after all. He fell and struck his head—”
“Because you were beating him,” Astrid hotly reminded.
“Aye,” he agreed, with no sign of remorse.
“You took his ring,” she added, suddenly recalling the missing signet ring. “I’ll thank you to return it to me.”
“Fine.”
Astrid watched as Bertram’s murderer slid a ring from his finger and tossed it to her. She fumbled to catch it. Sucking in a deep breath, she looked to each of the men, waiting for their outrage, their sense of justice to surface. Whatever Bertram had done, he had not deserved to die. “Well?” she prodded.
“So the knave is dead, then.” MacFadden shrugged. “Good riddance. A just end.”
Gallagher nodded in agreement. “Highland justice. A man doesn’t desecrate another man’s daughter.”
“He only attempted to,” Astrid pointed out. “His perfidy was brought to light. Petra was spared.”
At this, Osborn lurched from his chair to grab his daughter by the arm, yanking her forward. Petra stared at her with wide, soulful eyes. The eyes of a wounded animal. Astrid’s stomach twisted, a deep sense of foreboding crawling through her with the insidiousness of creeping fog.
“Is that so?” Osborn growled.
As though Griffin sensed what was coming—or perhaps he simply sensed her apprehension—his hand closed over hers, strong fingers lacing with hers in a way that made her heart squeeze. It took everything in her to resist squeezing those fingers back, taking the comfort he lent.
Petra’s cloak was yanked open to reveal the slight bulge of stomach.
“Considering your husband took his husbandly rights early and filled my daughter’s womb with his bastard, I had every right to end his cursed life.”
“No,” Astrid croaked, a red haze tingeing her vision. Knees weak, she fell back into her chair, staring pityingly at the woman who had clearly fallen victim to Bertram’s charm.
“Och,” MacFadden grumbled with a shake of his head. “How could you permit such a thing, Thomas?”
“They were weeks from marriage,” Osborn cried. “I did not think they required constant supervision.” He released Petra as if her touch repulsed him. “Now what shall I do? I’ve a ruined daughter on my hands.”
“Clearly she needs a husband,” MacFadden stated.