Outside the church, Thomas scanned the scattered churchgoers who remained, clustered in knots of conversation. Jane was nowhere to be seen. Disappointment stabbed through him, though he knew he had no right to expect to find her eagerly waiting for him. He saw no sign of Mrs. Murdoch, either. Doubtless they had decided to walk home together.
The same sharp gaze that had scoured the Caribbean Sea looking for danger passed once more over the people of Balisaig: a handful of sturdy farmers and their ruddy-cheeked families, a bespectacled man whom he took for the apothecary, the frail clergyman. Ridiculous, really, to imagine Jane had anything to fear here.
A hand settled on his shoulder. “You’ll come and greet Mama,” Theo Campbell said, and as it was not a question, Thomas made no answer except to turn in the direction of the blacksmith’s forge, past the charming stone manse.
“How does she get on?” Thomas asked as they walked.
Mrs. Campbell had been a widow all the years he had known her, and he had wondered from time to time why she hadn’t remarried, for he knew she had had offers. Still, he admired her loyalty to the husband with whom she had fled New York after the rebellion in the colonies. Like other free Blacks, most of whom had remained loyal to the Crown, they’d been uncertain about their future liberty when the colonists unexpectedly won the war. So they had accepted the British army’s offer to escort them to a new settlement in Canada.
After the first winter, nearly overwhelmed by the desolation of Nova Scotia, they had heeded the advice of a passing Scottish fur trader to make their way to Britain when they could. The Scotsman had spoken so warmly of his childhood in the Highlands, the young couple had eventually made it their home too. Theo had been born here, and Mr. Campbell lay in its kirkyard, having taken his leave from this world too soon after his only child’s entry into it.
“Well enough,” said Theo, an echo of Ross’s claim. But much like yesterday, Thomas heard worry in the other man’s voice, as well as a measure of stubbornness. “Her rheumatism flares up in the winter, so she doesn’t get out as much as she’d like. ’Twill be easier for her once Davina and I can wed.”
He had seen Theo speaking to a young woman after services but had not recognized in her the girl he’d once known. Years ago, she had sported stiff braids and freckles and had taken her chief delight in tattling on her older brother. “Davina Ross?”
Theo regarded him seriously for a moment before a wide grin split his dark brown face. “Aye.”
It was easy enough to guess what Davina saw in Theo, whose strength of body—his broad shoulders threatened every minute to overstrain the seams of his coat—now matched his strength of character. When they’d been mischief-making lads together, Theo had always managed to steer Thomas and Ross away from real trouble, though he was the youngest of the three and had not yet developed biceps that might have been hewn from stone.
“What’s stopping you?” Thomas demanded. “Not Ross, I hope.” He knew it must be a complicated matter for a man to see his sister marry his best friend. Hadn’t Ross tried to tell him just yesterday that Theo enjoyed stringing the lassies along?
“Och, Ross’ll be all right once he finally makes up his mind to marry Elspeth,” he said. “Anyway, Davina says it’s bad luck to marry before the heather’s in bloom.” But even as he offered those simple explanations, he glanced over his shoulder, toward the church.
Did the new clergyman have aught to do with the delay?
The question remained unasked, as at that same moment they arrived on the Campbell family’s doorstep. In the main room, they found Mrs. Campbell dozing before a roaring fire, a colorful quilt draped over her legs.
“I’ve brought you a visitor, Mama,” Theo said, bending to kiss her cheek.
“Not that Mr. Donaldson, I hope.” She roused herself and looked sharply around the room.
When her eyes landed on Thomas, he bowed and came forward. “Thomas Sutherland, ma’am,” he said, though he could tell even before the words were out that she needed no prompting to remember him. “How wonderful to see you again.”
She favored him with a playful frown and tapped her other cheek. “If that’s so, Tommy, then where’s my kiss?” When he obliged her, she caught his hands in hers and held him at arm’s length for an inspection. “I see from that uniform you’ve tried to make something of yourself.”
“Aye, ma’am. With limited success.”
“You needed my Theo and Eleazor Ross to watch out for you, as it used to be.”
He shot his friend a look. “They have been sorely missed.”
But how could he possibly tell any of them the truth? Once his real reason for returning to Balisaig was known, there would surely be an end of playful jabs and back-slapping hugs...although he would not put it past Mrs. Campbell to chide even an earl.
She urged him to take the seat opposite, close enough to the fire that it was almost too warm even for his thin blood. Theo dragged a wooden chair away from the table. Though the family did all its living in that small room, with its whitewashed walls and simple furnishings, all was neat as a pin.
A dozen years ago, the blacksmith’s forge had been cold and the house adjacent to it little more than a shack. When or how Theo had stepped into the post and turned the tumbledown house into a home, Thomas did not know. That he had succeeded no one could have any doubt, though Thomas could easily believe Theo would not be satisfied with his achievements until Davina shared them.
“And have you seen the Shaws?” Mrs. Campbell asked, plucking at a knot on her quilt with knobby fingers.
“At church, yes.”
“Young Edward is worse even than you were, Tommy,” she pronounced with a shake of her head.
“Impossible.” Thomas laughed. “It must only seem that way. He has all the year to make his mischief in Balisaig, while I had only a few weeks. I had to work harder at it.”
“He feels the weight of his responsibilities,” Theo said, more seriously. “Since his father’s injury, he’s been a good lad, but that farm, ’tis more work than one can do. Elspeth tells Ross they dinna ken how th’ rent’s t’ be paid.”
“I should like to see that Mr. Watson try to put the Shaws from their home,” Mrs. Campbell declared firmly, and Thomas would not have put it past her to set herself in the land agent’s way.
“Perhaps it will not come to that,” Thomas said, almost under his breath.
He had it in his power to help them, and any of the others who suffered. He could even bring a doctor for Mrs. Campbell, to see what more could be done to ease her pain. But if he stayed...
His downcast eyes took in his scarlet coat. How was he to choose between British soldier and Highland laird? He could fulfill his oath to protect Great Britain, or he could protect the people of Balisaig. But not both.
“Put the kettle on the hob, Theo,” Mrs. Campbell ordered.
But Thomas shook his head and rose. “I need to…” A dozen possible conclusions to that sentence suggested themselves, but at last, he said simply, “Go. I need to go. But rest assured, I’ll call again another day, ma’am.”
She accepted another kiss from him, and Theo walked with him to the door. “We’re all glad to have you home.”
There it was again. Home. Well, he might have come home, but he’d never felt so lost. He nodded his thanks to his friend and stepped into the cold.
Beneath lowering skies that threatened more snow, Thomas set out toward Dunnock on the wide lane that bisected Balisaig. Three or four hearty souls still stood near the church, but the others had dispersed to their homes—or perhaps the pub, despite Mr. Donaldson’s jab at “purveyors of strong liquor.” Ross’s absence from the services had been conspicuous. Briefly, Thomas considered turning in at the Thistle and Crown when he reached it, but no. He needed to be alone. To think.
When he’d first settled into his post in the West Indies, the quiet had been its own threat. On occasion, a threat to his sanity. Though rationally he’d understood both the necessity for and desirability of silence—he’d rather be lonely than find himself on an island overrun by enemy soldiers—he had nonetheless craved the regular comradeship he’d left behind. His fellow intelligence officers. The friends of his youth.
Eventually, he’d grown accustomed to his isolation, but it had never ceased to be a weight. On his shoulders. On his soul. Though Dominica was an ocean away now, he found the weight had merely shifted, not lifted. If he stayed in Balisaig, would he not still be alone? Both Theo and Ross would soon be happily settled, while Lord Magnus sat high in his castle, all by himself, unapproachable, untouchable. Tommy Sutherland no more.
As he drew abreast of the church, he recalled the look in Theo’s eye as he’d spoken of his wedding. Whatever Thomas decided about staying or going, he meant to see that Donaldson was removed. He would replace him with a man who understood the needs of this community. A man who—
The flutter in a window of the manse caught his eye, and instantly he was on alert. Only a curtain, he tried to tell himself, but after years of watching for sails, for flags, straining his vision against the darkness, against a blinding sea—well, old habits died hard. Automatically, he scanned the perimeter, lest the movement had been a distraction from some other threat, before focusing on the window.
Stone mullions framed a pair of figures: Donaldson and a woman, her back to the glass, the two of them locked in what appeared to be an embrace. Thomas fought a wry laugh. No surprise that the man who took such obvious pleasure in upbraiding others for their sins was a hypocrite. He might still have had the good sense to draw the drapes.
Thomas was on the point of continuing on his way, when his well-trained eyes noted the woman’s fur-lined hood. Her rich brown hair slipping loose from its pins.
Jane’s hood. Jane’s hair.
And Donaldson’s hands not on her back or her arms, but at her throat.
Before he was even aware of having begun to run, he was bursting through the front door of the manse, shouting for her, turning toward the room where he’d seen her standing. On the threshold of the study, he saw Donaldson jerk his head about to identify the intruder, a sneer of contempt twisting his features, even as his fingers continued to tighten around Jane’s neck.
Then the man gasped, flinched. “Why you little whore—!” he gasped out as Jane pushed him away from her and he fell, striking his head on the corner of his desk before he hit the floor.
Jane looked down at her trembling hands, as if she too was bewildered by the dramatic turn of events. Thomas followed her gaze and saw blood coating her hands and spreading across her pelisse, a darker stain against the black, gleaming brightly against the blade of a small knife.
“Jane! Are you hurt?” He leaped across the room, shoving furniture from his path.
She tried to speak, couldn’t, nodded her head, winced. Bruises were already forming on the pale skin of her throat.
Donaldson’s blood, then. She’d taken advantage of the momentary distraction provided by his arrival to stab her attacker with the penknife that must have lain on the table behind her. But why had the clergyman—?
“He sent the letters,” Jane croaked.
The letters? “Whist, lassie,” he crooned, gathering her in his arms. “Don’t try to talk.” His frantic thoughts belied the stillness of his body, however. He’d failed to protect her. Surely, he’d missed some important clue connecting Donaldson to the threats. Why, just now, he’d almost passed by. If the curtain hadn’t fluttered as Jane struggled, then—
He was spared further self-recrimination by the arrival of two others: the apothecary and his wife, who must have seen him run into the manse.
“Is something amiss here?”
“Mrs. Abernathy,” Jane whispered, and before Thomas quite knew what had happened, the apothecary’s wife, a fair-haired fashion plate of a sort rarely seen in the Highlands, had pushed him out of the way to gather a sobbing Jane in her arms, oblivious to the blood.
Abernathy knelt beside Donaldson. “He’s been stabbed!” He fixed Thomas with a look that demanded explanation.
“He tried to choke the life out of Ja—Mrs. Higginbotham. He must be mad.”
Abernathy’s eyebrows shot above the rims of his spectacles. Shaking off his disbelief, he returned to the examination of Donaldson, who groaned as the apothecary examined both the injury near his belly and the lump rapidly forming on his skull. “He’ll feel that knock on his head for a good while. But so long as no infection sets in,” he concluded, “the stab wound is too shallow to do much real harm.”
Thomas’s fingers twitched as he contemplated reaching into his boot for a blade that would finish the job.
“Mrs. Higginbotham?” Another voice came from the doorway, this one belonging to Elspeth Shaw, who was backed by her slower-moving father. She took a step toward the desk and looked around in horror, taking in what no one else had yet had time to observe: the piles and stacks of books and papers, a mess at odds with anything one might have guessed about the clergyman.
“The letter you brought, Elspeth,” Jane began, over Mrs. Abernathy’s attempts to keep her quiet, her voice still hoarse from the press of Donaldson’s fingers on her throat
“The one for Mr. Ratliff?”
“It was a death threat.” Jane’s eyes were dull, as weary as her voice. “Mr. Donaldson wrote it.”
Hectic color flooded the young woman’s cheeks. “Oh, God. Mrs. MacIntosh swore when she gave it tae me that it had only been mixed up with his post. Said Mr. Donaldson had told her to give me half a crown to take it right tae Dunnock and explain as how it’d been mislaid. And we did so need—” Her father’s hand settled on her shoulder, silencing her.
Donaldson had preyed on the girl’s desperation, her honest desire to help her family. Despite the vitriol he had spewed from the pulpit, how could she, or anyone, have imagined him capable of this?
Still, Thomas could not shake the conviction that he, both laird of Dunnock and trained intelligence officer, should have known.
“Abernathy, tie his wrists behind his back before he wakes,” he said, drawing every eye to him. The apothecary nodded, patting his pockets with one hand. Wordlessly, his wife tugged loose one of her elegant silk ribbons and handed it to him. While that was being done, Thomas gave the next order: “Someone else fetch the constable.”
Blank eyes met that request. Mr. Shaw shook his head. It seemed Mr. Watson had not seen fit to charge a local man with such responsibility.
“Then I’ll take him before the magistrate myself.” The threat rumbled from Thomas’s chest like distant thunder. If Donaldson didn’t survive the journey, so much the better.
Jane, who had once more leaned her head against Mrs. Abernathy’s breast, turned to look at him. That’s you, she mouthed.
He would almost rather she had stabbed him with the bloody knife she still held. Of course, Lord Magnus, the gentleman of highest rank for miles around, would be the magistrate.
How, under the present circumstances, could Thomas continue to hide from his responsibilities?
Gruffly, he cleared his throat and addressed Mr. Shaw. “There’s something I must say. You know me of old, sir. I have the very great honor of being a son of Balisaig by virtue of my late mother, Anne Maguire. All who knew her thought themselves blessed by the acquaintance of a kind and generous lady—”
“Aye, lad,” Mr. Shaw interrupted, understandably a little baffled by the recital of genealogy at a time like this. “And the same goes for your gran, God rest ’er.”
Thomas acknowledged the kindness with a bow. “Unbeknownst to me, and I do heartily believe to my father, both those good women could trace their lineage to a noble clan, though their branch of it was quite far removed from the main trunk of the tree, as it were. Still, no matter how distant the relation, ‘tis a true one, and so it is that I come to be the last in a long line of Maguires.”
Mr. Shaw, who had been leaning against the doorjamb for support, straightened his posture, as if he suspected what was coming.
“Any one of you,” Thomas continued, letting his gaze take in the whole room, passing the lightest over Jane, “may recall that the late Lord Magnus also had Maguire blood.”
Mrs. Abernathy gasped. “Och, this is better than the theater. Are you going to tell us next that you’re the new earl?” The question held a teasing note, but a hint of wariness too, as if she could not make up her mind what to think.
Thomas drew a deep breath, but Jane spoke first.
“He is.”
After a beat of shock, Mrs. Abernathy fluttered into a deep curtsy, and her husband rose to his feet merely to bow. Elspeth seemed not to know what was expected of her and looked to her father for guidance. Mr. Shaw alone continued to regard him with a firm eye.
“That’s all well and good, lad. Now what do you mean to do about it?”
Thomas’s eyes darted from the Shaws, to the apothecary and his wife, even to the clergyman lying supine on the floor, though he still had not begun to stir. In his head he could hear General Scott’s voice, ticking off his responsibilities in Scotland. Conduct an assessment of the property and its tenants’ needs...Make your determinations about the estate’s management before the spring planting season...
He had sought and lived a life of adventure. Nevertheless, this duty had become his, just as Scott had said. Would he let the people of Balisaig go on murmuring about the earl’s failings?
Last of all, he settled on Jane, who looked as pale as he had ever seen her, her own gaze blank and distant. God, how he wanted to gather her into his arms again and assure her all would be well. To vow to heal not just this hurt, but all the others that had befallen her. To guard her from future harm.
Why, maybe you’ll even meet some likely lass and decide to settle down…
And just like that, he realized exactly what he had overlooked. He understood, at last, how wise Scott had been.
Th’ canny auld bastart.
Yesterday, last night, he’d thought in terms of either-or. Either he left Dunnock, or Jane did. But, of course, there was another way. It had just taken him a little while to see it.
“I mean to do my duty by the people of Balisaig, Mr. Shaw,” he said, though he was still focused on Jane. “I intend to make Dunnock my home.”
It would be work, of course. But, God willing, he wouldn’t have to do it alone.