Two

Brice Myerston wasn’t given to belief in curses, as a rule. But as he sat down at the massive desk in the locked study of Gaoth Lodge and set the box in front of him, he wondered. Wondered what powers people could harness that went beyond normal understanding. Wondered why God would forbid something, if it didn’t exist. Wondered how much of the world he would never comprehend.

The wondering was more easily done in the Highlands, where one couldn’t turn around without butting into a local eager to share a story about ghosts or fairies or water horses or charms. In past years, when they’d come up with his mother’s kin for a few weeks of relaxation and sport, he had found the stories and superstitions nothing but that. This year, with this box before him, he was a little less certain that he knew where fact ended and fantasy began.

He stared at the box. It was nothing out of the ordinary—just a small wooden thing that he had pilfered from his rooms at Midwynd Park before they’d closed up house to head to London for the Season. But he hadn’t opened the box in the four months since he closed it over the collection of gleaming red jewels—two gleaming more than the rest.

And he didn’t want to open it now.

“Rubbish.” Brice drew in a breath, shook off the doubt that cloaked him like the morning mist over the loch, and raised the hinged lid.

It required another deep breath to convince himself to reach inside and pull out one of the twin gems. He held it up and let the light from the lamp catch and play with the internal flames.

The Fire Eyes. He knew the story of the red diamonds, and of the tiger’s curse they had supposedly carried with them from India. Were he to tell the tale of greed and death around the hearth one night, the Highlanders among them would no doubt sketch a cross from head to heart to ward off any evil attached to the things—assuming they didn’t take them and toss them into the loch out of abject terror.

No, Brice Myerston wasn’t given to belief in curses. But the fact remained that death followed the things, thanks to the greed they inspired. And in the year since he had accepted them from his friends’ hands, death had visited his house too.

When he had put the gems in his pocket, he had been the Marquess of Worthing, free of any concerns that would hinder him from flushing out those hunting the gems so that Brook and Stafford, the rightful owners, could have a rest from it all and settle into married life.

A week later, his father had fallen on the steps of Gaoth Lodge, clutching at his chest. Brice had been coming outside to meet him, had seen him fall. Had been unable to do anything other than rush forward in time to hear the final breath wheeze from his father’s lips.

Now Brice was the Duke of Nottingham. Not the fault of the curse—he would never say that. It had been happenstance, not greed. A defect in Father’s heart. But his death was a fact. A fact that changed everything.

Heaving a sigh, he dropped the small, perfect jewel back into the unassuming box and closed the lid. He looked to the window. Dawn barely lightened the mist. The loch, though usually visible from this room, was nothing but a shrouded shadow in the predawn.

The expected tap came at the study door. Without a word, Brice stood, stepped to the solid oak panel, turned the key in the lock. With a silent nod to the butler, he ushered in the second man, as shrouded as the morning in a hat and coat.

He locked the door again behind the old man. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Macnab.”

The fellow took off his hat, revealing smiling blue eyes. “Anything for yer family, Yer Grace. Sorry I was to hear of yer father’s passing last year. Never did an autumn go by without him coming to my shop to buy a bauble for yer mother, though we both kent she needed none from my feeble hand.”

Brice smiled and ushered the aging jeweler to a seat. “Father always delighted in showering Mother with gifts. And she especially loves the ones you crafted—she says you always bring a bit of Scotland to them, and it makes her feel at home.”

To most Highlanders, his mother barely qualified as Scottish, being firstly from the Lowlands and secondly of a noble—which was to say, English—family. But Macnab had never made such a distinction.

The old man eased into the seat, as if it or he might shatter if he sat too quickly. “Yer words do me honor, Yer Grace. As much an honor as it is to ken that my work graces the throat and wrists of such a fine lady.”

“She is, at that. And that’s why I asked you to come here in secret. Were I to go to your shop, word of it would make its way back to her, and she would catch on too quickly to my scheme.” Brice sat too—not behind the desk but beside the jeweler. He smiled and hoped the story—not strictly false but not entirely true—would not be too much questioned.

Light gleamed warm and steady in the old man’s eyes. “Ye wish to make a surprise to yer matron, to ease the loss. A good son ye must be.”

A better one probably wouldn’t intend to give his mother this particular gift, but it was the only answer he could find when he prayed last year over what to do with the jewels. Hidden they had been in a necklace for nigh unto twenty years—hidden they needed to be again.

And he trusted no jeweler in England to be above bribery. But Macnab . . . Father had always trusted him implicitly. That was good enough for Brice.

He reached over, pulling forward not the small box but a larger one—more ornate and, when he opened it, with a pillowed interior made to display the heavy pieces within.

“The Nottingham rubies. Necklace and bracelet, as you can see, but the earbobs went missing some fifteen years ago—Mother’s lady’s maid was dismissed over it, but they were never recovered. Father gave the set to Mother to commemorate their wedding, and she has always been greatly distressed that part of it went missing on her watch, as it were. I thought to have the set completed while she is still wearing only jet and present it to her when she dons color again in a few weeks.”

While Macnab nodded along, Brice pulled forward the smaller box, along with a framed photograph. “I’ve secured gems that match the others in clarity and color. Six of them—three for each side. And here is Mother’s wedding portrait. As you can see, they were dangling affairs.”

“Aye.” The jeweler traced a finger over the ornate setting of the necklace, his eyes focused on the picture. No doubt envisioning the gleam of gold dripping down and around the jewels. He held out a steady, lined palm for the loose gems.

Brice shook them into the hand as if they were nothing. As if two of them hadn’t brought his friends unimaginable grief. As if they were all the same, and scarcely worth counting.

Macnab turned them in his palm. Perhaps he was noting the cut, the size, or some other factor known best to the men of his trade. He wouldn’t, Brice prayed, look at them too closely. The rubies were the best match he had been able to find for the diamonds—bright, clear, red as blood. But no ruby ever had such fire in its heart.

When the old man pulled out a loupe and held it to his eye, Brice nearly whimpered. But Macnab made no sharp inhalation of shock, no grunts of discovery, no sign whatsoever that he had noted the difference that must be obvious under magnification.

He just lowered the loupe again and looked over at Brice with calm, questioning blue eyes.

Well, he’d known this was likely. The average viewer wouldn’t note the difference at a glance, but this was a man who had dealt with gems longer than Brice had been alive. He passed a hand through his hair and held the jeweler’s gaze. “It’s to help a friend. Discretion, you understand, is vital.”

A smile drew deeper creases into the man’s lined face. “Then allow me to exclaim now, just this once—I’ve only heard of such things as a possibility. Never thought to hold such rarity in my own hands. Where do they come from—do ye know? Africa?”

“India—these, anyway.”

“India.” Macnab echoed him reverently as he shook the gems together. “Ye must have searched for months looking for rubies so close a match. Those are rare enough too. Though the ones in the Nottingham pieces are nearly as clear and bright, I grant you.”

He had shared his search with absolutely no one. Frustration had nearly bested him once or twice too. “Six months. I trust no jeweler in England enough to handle them and keep quiet about it.”

Macnab let the jewels drip back into the box. Blinked, and blinked again as he now drew in that sharp breath. “I’m right honored, Yer Grace. Right honored. I’ll ne’er breathe a word, nor will I put it to paper. And if by chance my Maggie asks why I’ve not recorded the work I’ve done, I’ll tell her ye wanted no proof that the earbobs weren’t original to the set. Family secrets, ye ken. Yer mother can claim to have found them, misplaced all this time.”

A grin pulled at the corners of Brice’s mouth. “I appreciate it. And I shall pay you—”

“The price of gold and labor, and not a pence more. Yer father, God rest his soul, helped me from a tough spot some years ago.” He lowered the lid and clasped the box in his hands. “I’m only thankful for a chance to repay one of his own, in small part.”

A bit of the weight on Brice’s shoulders eased. He closed the more ornate box and handed it over as well, for comparison as Macnab worked. “It isn’t so small to me. I’m grateful.”

“Say no more of it.” The old man levered himself to his feet with the same slow care he had used sitting down. “I’ll take my leave before the house stirs and questions get asked. When I’ve finished, I’ll send word as to when I’ll stop by again, aye?”

“Thank you.” Brice stood to see Macnab to the door, and he didn’t bother locking it again after the man had gone. Instead he fetched his hat and a light overcoat and headed out into the mist himself.

Most mornings, Brice wouldn’t be up quite this early, and he would usually call for a horse. But he had no desire to rouse the grooms from their breakfast, so he headed out on foot. He crossed the green where there would later be a football game with some of the neighbors, assuming the rain held off, and rounded the tennis courts that Father had put in for Ella a few years back, when she was—briefly—in love with the sport. Minutes later he stepped to the edge of the property, where they had the best view of the loch below.

There, a hunkering form rose from the waters, only slightly more mysterious in the fog than it ever looked. Castle Kynn was without question one of the most picturesque places he had ever seen. Built onto one of the many small islands just off the shore of the loch, it had naught but a stone bridge, arched and lovely, to connect it to the mainland. Every time he saw it, Brice imagined clans warring in their various tartans, or ill-fated Highlanders charging in the wake of Bonny Prince Charlie. It seemed a place preserved in time.

Or perhaps that was just because he had never seen anything but the never-changing stones of its walls. Surely inside it was more modern. They wouldn’t have electricity—power had not yet made its way to Lochaber—and so no telephones either. But other improvements had no doubt been made by the dour-faced earl Brice had only glimpsed a time or two in town.

“You’re up and about early, darling.”

He jumped at his mother’s voice, though it had been quiet, and spun with a grin. She wore a stylish black kimono jacket against the chill and a close-fitting hat, both trimmed in the crepe of mourning. But the highest of fashions couldn’t disguise the pain that still shadowed her eyes. He held out an arm to welcome her to his side. “Taking advantage while it isn’t raining. I thought you and Ella would rest until eight or nine this morning after the journey.”

“Mm.” She leaned into him, her weariness obvious. “I’m afraid the journey left me too sore and achy to rest properly. When I saw you, I thought I would join you on your stroll—only, you seem to have stopped strolling.”

He rubbed a hand over her silk-clad arm and nodded toward the castle. “Just admiring the view. Have you ever seen the inside?”

Mother cleared her throat and straightened. “Many, many years ago.”

“Did they once offer tours? Or was the previous earl not quite so stern?”

Now his mother sighed. “Lord Lochaber’s father was chief of the clan but not the earl—that came from his mother. I’m afraid the lady passed away when the earl was young, and his father raised him to despise the side of his heritage that came with English ties. Castle Kynn is, of course, the Kinnaird estate. They’ve another home twenty miles away or so that goes with the Lochaber title. So far as I know, the earl never goes there. Most of the time he isn’t even called Lochaber, but ‘the Kinnaird.’ Like a chief of old.”

That prejudice, Brice supposed, explained why Lord Lochaber never replied to any of their invitations and never issued any of his own. Brice had seen a veritable procession of Highlanders coming and going from the castle every year, but apparently, if one wasn’t of the Clan Kinnaird, one wasn’t fit for Lochaber’s regard.

Only that didn’t answer the question of how Mother had managed to see the interior. “How did you finagle an invitation, then?” He tipped his head toward the castle again.

Mother turned up her lips, though it was hardly a smile. Not compared to what she used to have done, before Father . . . “I was not always an English duchess, Brice. Always a Lowlander, but they were willing to forgive that much. At least long enough to invite us to dine with them once or twice. It’s as lovely inside as you would think—positively medieval. Though I can’t think I would ever want to live with cold stone surrounding me always.”

“Well.” In consideration of her aching muscles, he turned them both away, back toward the walking path. “I obviously should have come with you and Ella the summer the earl was away. So I could have seen it for myself.”

His mother laughed. Not so bright, not so free, but a laugh nonetheless. He had heard precious few of them from her over the past months. “We never went there that summer. They always came here. And besides, you would have been bored senseless, with no boys your age about.”

“Young men, you mean.” He bit back a grin as he said it. He’d thought himself a man at seventeen, to be sure. Though praise to the Lord that he’d never had to prove it. He hadn’t had to manage stewards and solicitors and tenants and rents and . . .

He missed his father. Missed walking through the village at Midwynd with him, cataloguing repairs that needed made, inquiring about the tenants’ ailing mothers and wayward sons. Missed seeing the measured wisdom alight in his father’s eyes. Missed knowing that he was there, always there, ready to answer questions and pat backs and smile encouragement.

Mother gripped his arm. “There are invitations awaiting us and replies to the ones we sent out. After breakfast, we should go through them. Plan our stay.”

Brice nodded. His mother had still been in first mourning throughout the Season, so he and Ella had gone through his sister’s debut summer on their own. Only now was Mother accepting and giving invitations—though it was other plans he felt most compelled to make. Plans about what he would do once they went back to England. How he would draw out Lady Pratt and prove—and thereby halt—her hunt for the Fire Eyes. Put an end to that nonsense once and for all so he could focus on the estates.

Heaviness gripped his chest. It wouldn’t be so simple. He knew that so clearly that words might as well have sounded audibly, so perfectly did they settle in his mind. Just like they had when Brook had been kidnapped last year. And like that dreadful day when the silent but echoing Go had sent him outside to meet his father, crumpled on the steps so near where they now walked.

Maybe one of these days, the Lord would send the warning when he could actually do something about it.

By the time Brice found his sister and their guests, they had all taken their separate breakfasts and the sun had burned the mist from the face of the loch. He followed the girls’ laughter to what Mother had always called the morning room—east-facing, with golden sunshine spilling in, nearly as bright as his sister’s laughter.

He paused outside the door just long enough to thank the Lord for hearing it again. Too long Ella had been nearly silent, all of her mirth dampened by grief. Bringing Geoff and Stella Abbott along to the Highlands had been a good idea, though. Their steward’s children had grown up alongside them, knew how to brighten their moods. He rather wished they wouldn’t both be heading off to far and sunder parts of England in the next few months.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Brice fastened a smile onto his lips and strode in just in time to see Abbott balance himself on one foot, arms up and tugging back as if holding an imaginary fishing pole.

“And then the beast gave a mighty tug and sent him splashing into the river.” Abbott flung himself onto the divan amidst another shout of laughter from the girls.

Brice’s smile went more earnest. “You ought to include that tale in your first sermon, Abbott. Complete with reenactment.”

His old friend laughed, too, and took a more proper seat upon the cushions. “Perhaps I shall, Your Grace. An altered account of how Jonah ended up in the belly of the great fish. My new parishioners will be on the edges of their pews.”

“If you do, I’ll be sure to travel all the way to Bristol to hear it.” Aiming his steps for the larger couch on which the girls perched, Brice chose a seat in between them. “And how did the bells sleep?”

His sister tilted her head, putting it into the path of the sunlight that obligingly set fire to the locks she stubbornly denied were red. “Well enough, once we made it to our beds.”

“Up talking half the night again, I suppose.” To be expected—Miss Abbott had been away at school these past few years and was just back for a few months before accepting her new post. Much like her brother. Still, they would think him ill if he didn’t tease. “Ella and Stella, the two little bellas—”

“Oh, Brice, stop.” Ella groaned and clapped her hands over her ears, even while Miss Abbott chuckled.

As if he could leave his and Abbott’s old rhyme unfinished. “Ding-donging their way through the day. They ring and they chime at any old time—”

“And oh, how very loudly they play,” Abbott finished for him, grinning.

“Thank heavens you both have something besides poetry to fall back on.” Ella leaned into Brice’s arm, covering a yawn with her hand. “I may need a nap before the sport begins this afternoon. I hope Mother won’t have scheduled us any evening engagements quite yet.”

Miss Abbott grinned and reached for her needlework. “Oh, I don’t know, El. I’m rather looking forward to the balls and fêtes.”

“No doubt so she can put all the ladies to shame and set the peerage abuzz.” Brice arched a brow at the girl, still not quite able to believe she was grown and would soon be instructing the children of some of those ladies in their schooling. “Admit it, Miss Abbott—you mean to be another Jane Eyre, using your position as governess to secure a favorable match with some rich widower.”

“Never.” But she knew how to grin at his teasing, and how to dismiss it with a stitch upon her sampler. “Miss Eyre didn’t set her sights nearly high enough. If I’m going to be grubbing, it’ll be for a title, not just riches—neither of which I’ll find at my first post, so the peeresses are safe, for now, from my competition.”

Brice winked at his old friend. “And lucky they are, for you will outshine them all.”

“Always the flatterer.” But she grinned. She may know when he exaggerated, but she knew him well enough to appreciate the good wishes behind it.

“There you all are.” Mother bustled into the room, her hands full of envelopes and unfolded letters—that particular determination in her eyes that always struck when she was in a scheduling frenzy. “I’ve invitations from the Sutherlands, the Carnegies, the McIntoshes . . . I daresay no one expects us to accept them all this year, considering, but we must choose which to honor.”

As the discussion began, Brice was for the most part content to leave the weighing of each invitation to Mother and Ella, putting in only a phrase here or there in agreement or disagreement. But when his mother paused and cleared her throat before lifting one of the last pieces of paper, he knew to pay attention.

“This is not pertaining to our time in Scotland, but rather for our trip home next month. We’ve been invited to a house party in Yorkshire.”

“Brook?” But Ella frowned even as she said it. “I cannot imagine she would be ambitious enough to host a house party with the babe still so young, and she still so determined to eschew the help of a nurse.”

Brice chuckled. “I cannot imagine her father actually agreeing to another house party at Whitby Park.”

“Oh, true.” Ella toyed with one of the scarlet curls spilling over her shoulder. “I suppose I don’t even know if they’re visiting Whitby in Yorkshire now or are still in Gloucestershire at Ralin Castle.”

“They are in fact in Yorkshire for the autumn.” Mother waved a separate paper. “And invited us as usual to visit with them on our return from Scotland. But the house party is hosted by their neighbor.”

Silence fell so quick and thick that Brice could not blame the Abbotts for the questioning glance that passed between them. He cleared his throat. “Lady Pratt, you mean?”

At Mother’s nod, Ella huffed. “Well, I don’t know why you even bothered bringing that one up, Mama. Of course we’ll refuse it.”

“No.” Brice thought he deserved credit for saying it at a normal volume, when he’d wanted to leap to his feet and shout. “No, we must accept.”

Ella looked at him as if he were a dunce. “Are you daft? It has barely been a year since Lord Pratt kidnapped Brook—his widow oughtn’t to be hosting a party, much less inviting us to it, when she knows well we take our stand with the Staffords.”

“Now, Ella, her first mourning has passed, and you know these things have relaxed in recent years.” Mother ran a hand over the black of her frock. “Though as for the other . . . I do rather side with your sister, Brice. I feel no inclination to spend a week in her company, not at the very house where the lady’s late husband held our Brook prisoner.”

“You needn’t. I’m certain Whitby would welcome you all to stay there instead, but I, at least, will go to Delmore.” And since he didn’t want to argue about it, he stood, tugging his waistcoat back into place. “Do excuse me, everyone. I have some correspondence of my own to go through now.”

He ought to have known escape wouldn’t be so simple. He barely made it into the hall before Ella came racing up behind him, grabbing his arm. “Brice, what in the world are you thinking?”

Darting a glance over his shoulder to see whether their guests or any servants lingered nearby, he pulled her a few more steps along before answering. “What do you mean?”

“What do I . . . ? You know very well what I mean! You were there when her husband was killed, right alongside Brook and Stafford. They are convinced she blames them for his death and will seek revenge—why would you not assume she’ll do the same with you?”

“Shh! Do you want to worry Mother more?” He tucked Ella’s ivory hand into the crook of his elbow and propelled her out the door at the end of the hall, into the autumnal garden.

“You can’t think her innocent in all that. You can’t.”

“On the contrary.” He was convinced she had been involved in each and every step of planning Brook’s kidnapping and potential murder, was convinced she would do anything to get her hands on the diamonds she thought rightfully hers. “And I intend to prove it.”

Ella tugged him to a halt, her brown eyes wide with outrage. “How? By flirting a confession from her? Even you aren’t so charming, and if you think you are, then we need to have a serious conversation about your hubris.”

Flirtation may play a role in his plan, but a confession did not. Catherine Pratt would never give one—he knew that. He would have to catch her in a new crime. Like attempting to steal the gems she well knew he had. The ones she had watched Brook drop into his hand a year ago.

He might as well provide her the opportunity. “If she intends revenge, I would rather she try to take it on me than on the Staffords—they’ve little Lord Abingdon to consider now. But you needn’t fear, Ella-bell. I’ll be prepared for anything she might try.”

“You are not invincible. No one is.” Her voice cracked, shook. No doubt her eyes were seeing their father, collapsed and broken when he had seemed so infinitely strong. “And you are in no better position to take such risks than are Brook and Stafford. Perhaps you’ve no infant son, but that is part of the point, isn’t it? You are all we have. You are Nottingham.”

All true . . . and if something went wrong, if something happened to him—worse, if something happened to Ella or Mother—he would never forgive himself. But the Lord had not released him. Every time he prayed about it, he received the self-same answer he had gotten before Father’s death—that he must draw Lady Pratt’s attention away from the Staffords. “The Lord will keep me safe.”

“Brice . . .”

The cool autumn air swirled around them, and a golden eagle circled overhead. Brice gripped his sister’s hands. “Trust me in this, Ella. Lady Pratt is vicious and is not above hiring thugs to do her dirty work—it is wiser to take the offensive than to wait for her to spring some trap on me.”

He knew from the glint in Ella’s eyes that his claim did nothing to put her at ease. But she pressed her lips together against further argument. For the moment.

He had no doubt she’d have more to say about it, though, once she’d had time to form her words.

He only hoped she kept Mother out of it. She had enough to suffer, with the loss of Father still so fresh in her heart. She didn’t need to be worrying about losing her son too.