“I am,” he said, more forcefully this time. “Just because you found the love of your life nigh on thirty years ago does not mean that everyone wants the same for themselves.”
“I know that you need more for yourself than”—Bertie gestured at the stone walls of Strathrannoch Castle around them—“this. That you want love and family.”
Arthur thought about his brother—the serrated twist of disappointment and grief he’d felt when he’d realized it had all been a ruse. That Davis had taken the rifle scope and fled in the night.
He thought about the small part of himself that still wished—somehow—that it had all been a misunderstanding. The same part of him that had greeted Davis with a spark of idiotic hope.
The part of himself that he quenched, ruthless as hot metal plunged into cold water.
He did not need more than he had. He would not ask for it.
“No,” he said flatly. “I don’t need love or family. And I do not want them either.”
Chapter 7
… I can no longer satisfy myself with the common phrase “Ladies have nothing to do with politics.” Female influence must, will, and ought to exist on political subjects as on all others.
—from H to the Earl of Strathrannoch, received and read by Davis Baird
The next day, Lydia allowed Arthur to lead her up onto the ramparts. Her legs had to work twice as fast as his to keep up on the stairs, and she was panting slightly by the time they reached the top.
He, of course, did not appear to be breathing hard. He had an insultingly well-muscled bum and robust thighs to carry him up three flights of stairs, and brawny shoulders to match from his work at his forge.
She realized she had grownmorebreathless, rather than less, as she stood next to the earl beneath the blue bowl of the sky, and forced herself to stop thinking about the musculature attached to his physical person.
He held a drawing of the rifle scope in his large, burn-stippledhands, but rather than show it to her again, he let it flutter to the ground.
He pointed out into the middle distance, in the direction of the road that she and Georgiana had taken up from Dunkeld. “Do you see the pine tree there? The tallest one, scraggly near the top?”
She blinked. “I see dozens of pine trees.”
He caught her chin between thumb and forefinger and angled her face up, out past the guardhouse where she had been looking and farther still.
She shivered. He dropped his hand.
“There,” he said roughly. “Do you see now?”
She nodded. She seemed to have forgotten the connection between speech and the relevant parts of her mouth.
“When we first made the rifle scope, Huw tested it out. He shot a red grouse out of that tree, so distant I could not see the bird at all without the lens. I didn’t believe him until we rode down there and found it, a cluster of red feathers, dead at the foot of the tree.”
She swallowed hard and looked up at him.
“This is no game,” he said. “We must find Davis. The damned scope is too dangerous, and I—” His hand tightened into a fist. “I need to get it back.”
“I understand,” she said. “I promise. I will do everything that I can to help you.”
He picked up the sketch that had fallen to his side and shoved it in his trouser pocket. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. He did not look at her. “This would not be possible without you.”
She felt heat rise in her cheeks, but he did not turn his face to see. They were both silent as he led her back down into the heart of the castle.
She took his terrifying demonstration seriously. She had written to Belvoir’s the previous evening to request any informationthey had about Davis. Barring disaster, the mail coach would take five days to deliver the letter; they could expect another week for a reply.
But there was more she could do in the interim. She was convinced of it.
Over the next week, Lydia reviewed Davis’s letters and Georgiana elected to interview the staff at Strathrannoch Castle. Georgiana was a Gothic novelist and a skilled researcher, possessed of a consummate ability to ensorcell others. Before she had revealed herself as a scandalous writer, she’d pretended to be an empty-headed debutante in order to avoid detection, a ruse which had fooled Lydia completely. Now, three years later, Georgiana used her unique talents to procure information about the sensational and the supernatural, gathering anecdotes to incorporate into her writing. She seemed delighted by the prospect of a mysterious investigation at Strathrannoch.
Research had, in fact, been her purported reason for accompanying Lydia to the castle. Back in London, she’d made a very convincing case for why her newest novel required a personal tour of a derelict Scottish estate—something about ghosts and portraits and decaying ruins.
