Highland Bachelor 02 - This Laird of Mine Read online

  The man’s gaze narrowed. “But you won’t. I was instructed to stay close, to watch you, until your debts are paid.”

  “I cannot pay you . . . yet. Come back in five days, and I will have your money.” Jules held up his hand as the man started to protest. “Five days or you will get nothing at all.”

  A flicker of irritation entered the debt collector’s eyes. “Your new bride did not bring you an infusion of funds?”

  “No,” Jules said, his own irritation spiking. “Not all brides come with dowries. Lady Kildare’s assets are a little more personal.”

  The man’s eyes widened, but he said nothing more.

  Jules had let the words slip before thinking. Even so, he realized there was some truth to what he’d said. Claire did bring certain assets into their marriage.

  Assets that were getting harder and harder to forget.

  The next morning, Jules set off for Edinburgh on his horse. Before he left, he made Fin promise to keep an eye on Lady Kildare and to do what he could to keep the dun collectors away. He did not need his friends or his supposed wife to be bothered by things that were clearly his responsibility.

  It felt good to finally take an active role in the circumstances that had brought Claire to his door. He was determined to find the answers he needed in Edinburgh. Riding as swiftly as he could, and changing horses often, it still took two days before he arrived, late afternoon, to the city. Jules made his way to James Grayson’s office, across the street from Parliament Hall.

  Jules knew social dictates might require him to send a note, alerting Peter Kirkwood, Grayson’s partner, of his arrival and requesting a meeting for the following day, but he did not have the luxury of time. He needed answers before anything else happened to anyone involved in his affairs.

  On the third rap upon the door, an aging and stooped Peter Kirkwood answered and ushered Jules into his office. He waited until Jules had settled into the chair before his massive desk, then sat in the chair behind it and put on his spectacles.

  “My condolences on the loss of your business partner,” Jules said with true concern.

  “Shameful business, what happened to poor Grayson. I always thought I would go first.”

  “Did they determine what happened?” Jules asked.

  Kirkwood shrugged. “Runaway carriage, they presume.”

  “Whose carriage? Are there any suspects, or reasons why it might have happened?”

  “None at present.” Kirkwood shook his head. “Such a dreadful way to die.”

  “Dreadful. Indeed,” Jules said with a frown.

  “So, Lord Kildare, what can I do for you in Grayson’s absence?” the aging solicitor asked.

  “May we speak plainly, Kirkwood?”

  The old man took off his glasses and leaned forward. “Of course.”

  “Very well.” Without further pretense, Jules began, “I need to know everything Grayson did recently that relates to me. I need records, financial transactions, meeting notes, everything.”

  The solicitor frowned. “Is this in regard to a certain matter, Lord Kildare?”

  “My marriage.”

  Kirkwood’s eyes widened. “My felicitations, milord, I had no idea.”

  “Neither did I.”

  Kirkwood blinked. “How can that be? These things take planning, paperwork.”

  “Grayson supposedly took care of the details, including selecting my bride,” Jules said with a frown.

  Now Kirkwood looked troubled. “That doesn’t seem like something Grayson would do.”

  “That’s what I need to find out.”

  Kirkwood shuffled through a stack of papers. “I will need a little time to dig deeper into the paperwork, as well as Grayson’s finances, if he’d made any unusual transactions of late, and if he was involved in any scheme. If a trail is there, I’ll find it.” The solicitor frowned. “I must confess, I was beginning to shift most of the day-to-day operations over to Grayson.” Kirkwood glanced at Jules. “He was the closest thing I had to a son. I had become only a shadow around here until a few days ago.”

  Jules nodded. “Again, I am very sorry for your loss.”

  Kirkwood returned his gaze to the stacks of papers on the desk. “Come back on the morrow and I will have information for you then.”

  “My thanks,” Jules said, standing. When the old solicitor continued to dig through the papers, with only a nod of his head, Jules took that as his cue to leave. “I will see you tomorrow at this same time. That should give us both plenty of time to investigate.”

  Jules left the office and stepped into the evening air. He let the slight breeze brush over him and clear his senses before he continued down the street toward the parliament buildings and the row of shops just to the south. His fingers strayed to the interior pocket of his waistcoat, and he removed the only precious item he yet possessed with any value. His mother’s ruby ring.

  He still had no idea how Grayson had come into possession of the ring. For a moment, he saw his mother walking with him by the loch, holding his hand. The sunlight caught the rubies, causing the red stones to sparkle. He remembered looking at his mother’s hand in his, seeing the fiery stones, and feeling happy.

  Shaking off memories of the past, Jules stopped in front of a jeweler’s shop. He felt the weight of the ring in his hand. He did not want to sell the last remaining tie he had to the only person who had ever truly loved him, but he had no other option. The debt collectors would not wait forever, and he would rather die than go back to gaol. Distancing himself from the memories, and from what he was doing, Jules stepped inside and offered up the ring.

  The jeweler was impressed with the size and clarity of the three stones. “They are exceptionally fine stones. I will give you thirty shillings Scot.”

  “If they are truly fine stones, then you will pay me what they are worth,” Jules replied in response to the jeweler’s offer.

  “I cannot,” he replied with a hint of sadness. “My clientele will have a difficult time paying even the price I am paying you. I am sorry. This is my best offer.”

  A sort of numbness crept over Jules then, the kind of numbness that would help him do what must be done. With a nod he agreed.

  The jeweler’s lips pulled up in a smile as he studied the ring once more. “Since I do not keep this kind of money on hand, you will need to go to the goldsmith with me.”

  Forty minutes later, Jules emerged from the goldsmith with a small fortune in coins filling the black satchel he’d removed from his horse. He could pay his creditors, and he could support himself for a while longer, perhaps until the estate started to generate income again.

  Perhaps.

  He was ready to assume that risk, but he could not knowingly saddle anyone else with the poverty that was inevitably to continue at Kildare Manor for some time. No one deserved that kind of life, especially not a wife.

  His wife. He had one last stop to make before the city shut down for the night. He proceeded down High Street toward St. Giles’ Cathedral. Inside the church, he walked down the marble aisle toward the reverend, who lifted stubs of candles from the candelabras, replacing them with fresh tapers.

  The scent of flowers, incense, and fresh beeswax drifted to him, enfolding him in their fragrance. As Jules made his way forward, a ray of late afternoon sunlight struck the stained glass windows, bathing the cathedral in a rainbow of colors.

  Jules found himself relaxing as a sense of wonder warmed him in places he had not realized were cold. The radiance from the multicolored light filled him, lifted him up, and for the first time in a very long while he felt like his own life was not the enemy. He had come here looking for answers. He no longer feared the answers he would find. If Claire truly was his wife, then they would move forward with that knowledge.

  And if she were not . . . Jules’s steps faltered as he realized he hoped for the former outcome. The woman intrigued him as no other had. She was captivating, puzzling, a mystery that needed solving. Did he need marriag
e to solve that puzzle? Perhaps not, but at that moment it did not seem like the curse it had when she’d first arrived at Kildare Manor.

  “Evening,” the reverend, a man in his late sixties with white hair and keen gray eyes, greeted Jules.

  Jules bowed, then stepped forward. “Pastor, I need your help.”

  The man smiled. “That is why I am here. How can I be of service?”

  “I need to know the specifics of a certain wedding ceremony that supposedly took place here a few weeks back.”

  “The office has the records of ceremonies that have taken place here.” The reverend gazed at him with curiosity. “Whose ceremony do you need information about?”

  “Mine.”

  The older man’s eyes widened. “Come.” He motioned toward the pew at the front of the aisle. “Sit and tell me more.” When they were seated he asked, “You do not recall your own marriage?”

  “It was a proxy marriage.”

  “Ahh,” the older man said, knowingly. “When did the marriage take place?”

  “I am not sure precisely, but sometime earlier this month. In the last two weeks.” Jules could feel the reverend’s gaze on him, studying him. For a moment Jules tensed. What did he see? Could he see what his father must have always seen when he looked at Jules? Did he see the emptiness inside him? The lack of any goodness?

  The reverend’s gaze softened. “Your purpose here?” His voice was understanding, inviting.

  Jules responded to that invitation. “To discover if the marriage truly took place.”

  The reverend stared at him with eyes so keen Jules had to look away. Could the man see more than Jules wished to reveal?

  Jules sat taller in his chair. “I need to know the truth.” He returned his gaze to the reverend a moment later.

  The man nodded, his eyes shifting to somewhere behind Jules. “Let us go to the office and see what is recorded in the register. Shall we?”

  Jules stood and followed the reverend out a door along the back wall of the cathedral that led down a long hallway.

  As they walked the older man asked, “If you give me the names and a description of the bride and your proxy, I might be able to find the information you seek in the register sooner.”

  “The bride is Claire Elliot. She is in her early twenties, bright red hair, tall for a woman, intelligent.” Jules startled at the last word. It wasn’t really a descriptor, and yet it was. Claire was intelligent, and challenging, and frustrating all at the same time.

  A smile lifted the reverend’s lips. “You need say no more. I remember her well. She was nervous about the marriage.”

  The man remembered her. The marriage was real. He and Claire were married.

  “She was nervous? Why?” Jules hadn’t expected that.

  The minister arched a graying brow. “She was getting married, yet her groom was nowhere in sight. I am sure there was much to be fearful of, particularly if the two of you had never met.”

  “We hadn’t.”

  The reverend nodded. “You can see why she might have been a little afraid?”

  Jules was spared from answering as they entered the reverend’s office. The man who held all the answers moved to a cabinet along the back wall, and withdrawing a key from the folds of his robes, he opened the lock, then removed a heavy book and set it on the crude desk nearby. He flipped the weathered pages open to the back of the book and scanned the entries, running his finger down the rows of neatly printed names until his finger stopped near the bottom of the page.

  Jules’s muscles clenched as he waited in the silence for the words. “And Grayson? What did he look like?”

  Without looking up, the minister said, “I am acquainted with Grayson. I can attest that it was he who stood next to your bride.”

  All the evidence pointed to the fact they had married.

  “Here it is. Miss Claire Elliot and Lord Kildare, Jules MacIntyre by proxy. And it’s signed by a Mr. James Grayson.”

  For a moment, an image flashed through his mind of a red-haired girl standing at the altar, her pale, slim hands at her sides with no one to support her as she married a total stranger. She had every right to be afraid. But suddenly he wanted to know why she had done it.

  She’d said she had no choice.

  She had no choice but to marry a penniless laird with a dreadful reputation and no notable estate? To any rational human, her behavior would seem mad. Yet he knew her to be quite sane.

  So why had she married him?

  “Is there anything else I can help you with?” the reverend asked.

  Jules couldn’t help himself; he laughed, an angry, self-deprecating sound. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  The reverend studied him with a thoughtful gaze. “Sometimes, when we are searching for certain truths, it is best to start at the beginning.”

  The beginning.

  It seemed like a wise place to start.

  Jules returned to Kirkwood’s office the next day. He already knew part of what the solicitor would tell him—that he had a wife. The knowledge that Claire somehow belonged to him filled him with as much satisfaction as it did fear.

  He had no time to reflect on the thought as Kirkwood ushered him into his office. “Congratulations, milord, for you indeed are married.”

  Jules accepted the papers Kirkwood held out to him. The marriage documents, no doubt drawn up by Grayson, just as Claire had said. At the bottom of the document he could clearly read Claire’s name, her handwriting neat and fluid, alongside his own bolder hand. Yet he had never signed these documents. Or at least he had not realized what the documents were when he’d trusted Grayson and signed the marriage papers without reading them.

  Jules raked his hand through his hair. Anger at Grayson for betraying his trust mixed with sorrow over the man’s death. Grayson had been more like a brother to him than a business associate. How could he have betrayed a kinship that went deeper than blood?

  “Have they buried him yet?” Jules asked, once again meeting Kirkwood’s curious gaze.

  “Not until tomorrow.”

  Jules straightened, recovering his composure. “Then that is when I will pay my respects.” He nodded toward the open ledger on the man’s desk. “Have you uncovered anything unusual in Grayson’s finances?” Jules asked as he took a seat in the chair nearest the desk.

  Kirkwood did not sit behind the desk. Instead he perched on the edge, his expression dark. “Yes. It is most disturbing, too.”

  “Go on,” Jules encouraged the solicitor when he hesitated.

  “There was a rather large deposit to his account twenty-three days ago.”

  “How large?” Jules asked.

  “Five hundred shillings Scot.” Kirkwood shuffled through the notes on his desk. “Paid to him by your father.”

  Jules frowned. “My father? Are you certain?”

  The older man nodded. “I traced the transaction back to your father’s solicitor. He paid James Grayson to arrange your marriage to Claire Elliot. It appears he went to great lengths to find you a suitable bride with that first name.”

  “How did he accomplish that? And when? He’s been dead for more than three weeks.”

  Kirkwood checked the papers before him. “The transaction was recorded two days before his death.”

  It took a second for the words to sink in, and when they did, Jules stood, no longer able to contain himself in the chair. He stood there for what felt like an eternity, breathing hard.

  “Milord, are you well?” the solicitor asked.

  Seven months had passed since his release from gaol. Seven months. Had his father not tormented him enough for one lifetime? Instead of coming to the gaol to release his own son, he had plotted and planned yet another horrific event.

  Except Claire wasn’t horrific. She was gentle, intelligent, and passionate. If he were honest, she was everything and more than what he had created “Claire” to be.

  Jules startled at the thought. He had created Claire. Not his
father. So how had his father implemented a plan that Jules had set into play? It made no sense . . . except, a sudden thought occurred to him. He had created his false bride five weeks ago. James Grayson knew about her two weeks before his father had paid for the marriage to take place.

  Two weeks. It was enough time for Grayson to send word to his father and for his father to arrange . . . whatever he had arranged.

  Why? The word thrummed through Jules’s brain. He had absolutely no idea why his father would do such a thing, or even whether the man had considered his actions to be a benefit or yet another manipulation.

  “Shall I get the physician?” Kirkwood asked, his face wreathed with concern.

  “No.” Jules shook off his thoughts. “I am well.” He took another moment to collect himself, then turned back to the older man. “Did you find anything else?”

  Kirkwood frowned. “Not in his financials, but when I talked with one of his friends, he said Grayson had been meeting often with someone in a black, hooded cloak down at The Doric, an inn on Market Street. I have a feeling that Grayson’s meeting, your father’s actions, and the hooded figure are all somehow connected.”

  Agreeing with Kirkwood’s conclusion, Jules asked, “Who is this mysterious person?”

  “That,” Kirkwood said, “is what we do not know.”

  Jules looked at a clock on a nearby cabinet. “Then I must discover that information myself. Perhaps this cloaked person can shed some light on why my father would pay Grayson to orchestrate my marriage.”

  “Indeed,” Kirkwood replied, still frowning.

  “If you discover anything more,” Jules said, heading for the door, “you know where to find me.”

  Kirkwood sat at his desk as Jules shut the door behind him. Jules needed to find a hackney to take him to Market Street.

  That morning, Claire left her chamber determined to find Fin. With Jules gone, the steward might be more willing to answer her questions about the MacIntyre family and this house. Claire made her way through the rooms, searching, until she finally came upon Fin in the library, seated behind an overly large desk, studying the estate’s ledger.