Page 7 of Death at a Highland Wedding
I’m lucky enough to find Gray and McCreadie in the hall. Lucky because my only other option would have been to casually hang out until I heard one of their voices. I’m thinking of an excuse to speak to Gray alone when McCreadie saves me from the lie by saying he needs something from his room, and we can meet downstairs later.
“I need to speak to you,” I say. “In private… but not too private.”
He gives a soft sigh. A year ago, I’d have thought he was annoyed by the request. Now I understand it’s the “not too private” part that annoys him—the fact that we can’t even talk without risking scandal.
Both Gray and Isla chafe at the restrictions of their world, and while it’s tempting to enable that, I’ve learned that wouldn’t help them in the long run. Social rules are so much more rigid here—especially for their station—and rebelling against them risks ostracism.
The Gray family is known to be eccentric, and that’s tolerated as long as it’s tempered with era-appropriate manners and mores. Yes, you can raise your husband’s illegitimate son. Yes, you can educate your daughters. You can even let those daughters “dabble” in chemistry and business. But you must otherwise acquit yourselves in a proper fashion, raising thatbrown-skinned boy to be a perfect Scottish gentleman and those girls to make good matches and be good hostesses and engage in all charity work expected of their social standing.
For Gray to take on a female assistant raises brows in a world where even secretaries are men. But he is eccentric, so it’s allowed. However, when that assistant turns out to be young and pretty? Of course everyone thinks that’s why he hired me, which means that outside the town house, we can’t be shutting ourselves up together in private conversation.
“I hear there are gardens,” I say. “Shall we find them?”
He waves me toward the stairs. As we descend, he says, “We could take a ramble.”
“Not allowed.”
He gives me a hard look. “Yes, I realize I said we must be careful. As long as we stick to the paths, we should be fine.”
“The housekeeper said guests are restricted to the gardens. For our own safety.”
He grumbles under his breath.
“Agreed,” I say.
There is a door right at the foot of the steps, and we duck out that one, avoiding what sounds like Cranston’s booming voice in the next room. Once on the drive, Gray shades his eyes and then points.
We make our way to a kitchen garden. Even Edinburgh’s far enough north to limit the sort of produce one can find in the market. A kitchen garden helps. Also, there’s little need for flowers when they bloom all around us, the rhododendron bushes loaded in riots of color from red to purple to white. They’re gorgeous, and I feel a pang of guilt thinking that, because from our gardener—Mr. Tull—I know they’re invasive. He rightly refuses to plant them at the town house.
I make sure no one else is around. Then I say, “I have a question about something that’s none of my business.”
Gray’s lips twitch as he relaxes. “The best sort of question.”
“No, the most awkward sort because, until now, it really has been none of my business. But now I need to know at least the basics, so I don’t make a mistake and offend someone I care about.”
His brows rise. “NowIam curious.”
“It’s about Hugh’s family situation. I’m not fishing for gossip. Just theessentials are fine. Whatever will keep me from saying or doing something that might embarrass him.”
“It is hardly a secret. How much do you know already?”
“Uh, nothing.”
He glances over, frowning.
I push aside a hanging tendril of beans. “I’ve gathered a few clues. I know he’s estranged from his family. I know he’s still fond of his sister—the bride—and she’s fond of him. I know he was engaged, and now I’ve met his former fiancée. I wonder whether the estrangement has anything to do with that, but I don’t want to presume.”
“Then I must apologize for not being forthcoming about the situation. I suppose I presumed Isla would have said more, but now I realize that, unless it came up in conversation, she would not.”
He glances at the house and then lowers his voice. “Hugh will not mind me discussing it. He would rather you knew than be wondering whether he did something heinous to deserve the estrangement.”
“I find it hard to imagine Hugh doing anything heinous.”
Gray gives a soft laugh. “Do not tell him that, or he would be quite insulted. Yes, Hugh is one of the few people who I can say, without hesitation, would not have done anything so scandalous or abhorrent that it deserves banishment from his family. Except… he did.”
“What?”
When Gray glances over, his face is impassive but his eyes glitter in amusement. “Yes, I fear our Hugh was a right cad, thoroughly humiliating his family not once, but twice. They forgave him, grudgingly, for the first. But the second offense was too great.” He lowers his voice. “Do you want to know what he did?”
