Julia London - Tempting The Laird

“Aye, that she did. She left three for me to deliver, she did. One for my father. One for the reverend. And one for you.”

Uncle Knox took the letter and ran the tip of his finger over the ink where she’d written his name. “Thank you, my darling Cat,” he said, and hugged her tightly to him.

Catriona was suddenly overcome with a wave of emotion. “You’ll help me, will you no’, Uncle Knox?” she asked into his collar. “You’ll help me preserve what Zelda worked so hard to build, aye?”

“There now, lass, of course I will. But we will save talk of it until later, shall we? You need to rest from your journey and your loss.”

“But I—”

“We’ve plenty of time,” he said, and kissed her temple. “Rest now, darling.” He went out, his gaze on the letter.

Catriona closed the door behind him, then lay down on the counterpane of her bed and closed her eyes with a weary sigh. But as she drifted off to sleep, she kept seeing a broad back, a neat queue of black hair, held with a green ribbon, an arm stretched possessively over the back of an empty chair.

It was impossible to imagine that a man who looked as virile as he would find it necessary to kill his wife. Could he not have seduced her instead? Of course he could have—he was a duke. She’d never known a woman who could not be seduced with the idea of being a duchess.

What, then, had become of her?

CHAPTER THREE

HAMLIN GRAHAM, THE Duke of Montrose, Earl of Kincardine, Laird of Graham, was brushing a ten-year-old girl’s hair. It was not his forte, nor his desire.

These were the true troubles of a notorious duke.

“It’s too hard ,” the girl, his ward, complained.

“What am I to do, then?” he asked brusquely, annoyed with the task and his clumsiness at something that seemed so simple. “You’ve a bird’s nest on your head.”

The girl, Eula—Miss Eula Guinne, to be precise—giggled.

“Why do you no’ have your maid brush your hair, then? She’s surely better than me.”

“I donna like her,” Eula said.

“Aye, and why no’?”

“Because she’s quite old. And she smells of garlic.”

Hamlin couldn’t argue—he’d caught a whiff of garlic a time or two from Mrs. Weaver.

“I should like a new maid.”

Hamlin rolled his eyes. “I’ll no’ let Mrs. Weaver go, Eula. She came all the way from England to serve me and has been in my employ for many years, aye?” There was also the slight problem of finding a suitable replacement were he to lose Mrs. Weaver, given his black reputation.

“But she’s no’ a maid, no’ really. She’s a housekeeper. I want a maid .”

Eula was very much like her cousin, Glenna Guinne, the woman Hamlin had once called wife. Glenna had wanted for things, too—all things, and always more things. It had been a loathsome burden to try to please her.

He took one of the jewel-tipped hairpins from an enamel box and set a thick curly russet tress of Eula’s hair back from her face. He did the same on the other side of her head.

“They’re no’ even ,” Eula said petulantly, examining herself closely in the mirror.

It took Hamlin two more attempts before she was satisfied. When she was, she turned around and eyed him up and down. “You’re no’ properly dressed, Montrose.”

“I’ve told you, ’tis no’ proper for a young miss to address a duke by his title,” he said. He glanced down at his buckskins, his lawn shirt and a pair of boots that needed a good polish. “And I’m perfectly dressed for repairing a roof.”

“Which roof?”

“One of the outbuildings.”

“What happened to it?”

“It’s gained a hole.”

“Why must you do it, then? A footman or a groundskeeper ought to be the one, no’ you.”

Hamlin folded his arms and cocked his head to one side. “I beg your pardon, then, lass, but are you the lady of Blackthorn Hall now?”

She shrugged. “Cousin Glenna said dukes are no’ to work with their hands. Dukes are meant to think about important matters.”

“Well, this duke happens to like working with his hands, he does.” Hamlin put his hand on her shoulder and pointed her toward the door. “It’s time for your studies.”

“It’s always time for my studies,” Eula said with the weariness of an elderly scholar.

“Off with you, then, lass.”

Before Eula could skip out the door, Hamlin stopped her. “Are you no’ forgetting something, lass?”

She stopped mid-skip, twirled around, ran back to her vanity, picked up her slate and quit the room.

Hamlin walked in the opposite direction, striding down the carpeted hallway lined with portraits of Montrose dukes and their ladies. He swept down the curving staircase to the marble foyer and strode through the double entry doors a footman opened as he neared, and onto the portico.

He jogged down the brick steps and onto the drive, where he paused to look up at a bright blue sky. The summer had been unusually dry thus far, which created crystal clear days such as this.

He struck out, walking purposefully to a group of outbuildings that housed tools and a tack room. Men were waiting for him, their workbenches and tools arrayed around the edge of a storage building that had been damaged by a late spring storm.

“Your grace,” said his carpenter, inclining his head.

“Mr. Watson,” Hamlin said in return. “Fine day, aye?”

“’Tis indeed, milord.” He handed him a hammer.

Hamlin took it and ascended the ladder that had been placed against the wall. There was a time the servants of Blackthorn had spoken to him as if he were a person and not someone to be feared. Good day to ye, your grace. Been down to the river? Trout are jumping into the nets, they are.

When he had positioned himself on the roof, he leaned to his side. “A plank, Watson.”

“Aye, milord.” With the help of a younger man, Watson climbed the ladder with a plank of wood and helped Hamlin slide it into place. Hamlin held out his hand for nails. Nails were placed in his palm. He set them in his mouth save one, which he began to hammer.

He had not been entirely clear with Eula. It wasn’t the work he enjoyed, it was the hammering. He liked striking the head of a nail with as much force as a man could harness. He liked the reverberation of that strike through his body, how powerful it made him feel. Wholly in control. Capable of moving mountains and forging rivers. He’d not always felt that way. He’d not always been able to pound out his frustrations to feel himself again.

“Your grace,” Watson said.

“Hmm,” he grunted through a mouthful of nails.

“Your grace, someone comes, aye?”

Hamlin stopped hammering. He glanced up, saw a sleek little cabriolet behind a team of two trotting down the drive toward his house. He was surprised to see any conveyance coming down the road at all—no one called at Blackthorn now. There was no such thing as a social call. He spit the nails into the palm of his hand. “Who is it, then?” he asked of no one in particular.

“I donna recognize it,” Watson said.

Hamlin sighed irritably. He wanted to hammer nails. He wanted to repair this hole and feel as if he’d done something meaningful today. He wanted to feel his strength, and then his exhaustion. But he handed everything to Watson and climbed down the ladder, reaching the ground just as the carriage was reined to a halt...and not a moment too soon, as it happened. If the driver hadn’t reined when he did, the team would have run him over. As Hamlin waved the dust from his face, he squinted at the pair in the cabriolet. It was a woman who held the reins.

A gentleman, older than Hamlin by two dozen years or more, soft around the middle, climbed down, then held out his hand to help the driver. But that one had leapt like a stag from her seat on the opposite side of the cabriolet. The force of her landing knocked her bonnet slightly to one side, and he noticed she had hair the color of wheat. She righted her hat, then strode forward to join the older man.