“I’d say not,” Fellows said. “If this man has been watching you and has the resources, I wouldn’t be surprised if he directed Jeffrey to your house, telling him that’s where Miss Frasier had gone, and possibly even supplied the gun. That gives me another place to dig—Jeffrey’s haunts and his cronies. This man, whoever he is, has much patience and likely a lot of money. I have to wonder what the devil you did to him.”
Sinclair shrugged, the movement masking the turbulence inside him. “I’ve been a barrister for years. Either he or someone he cares for—brother, wife, son, lover—was sent down because of my arguments. That’s the problem with crime and its punishment—it touches many lives, not only the victims but the victims’ families and those of the criminals as well. If I grew maudlin about it, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. Murderers should go down, and their victims should have justice.” He let out a breath. “But it’s not always that simple.”
“No.” The word came hard out of Ian’s mouth, causing Sinclair and the other two to jerk their gazes to him. “There is always hurt.” Ian’s fists had balled as though he remembered all the hurt in his life before he’d met Beth.
Bertie put her hand on Ian’s arm. Sinclair tensed, wondering what he’d do, but Ian only looked at her, his expression calming. “But there are good people too,” Bertie said to him. “I didn’t know that until recently. Like your Beth, and Sinclair—Mr. McBride, I mean—and your brothers and nephew. And your wee ones.”
Ian smiled at her, his face blossoming into happiness. “My Jamie is a handful.” He said it proudly. “My girls too.”
“And they’re beautiful.” Bertie rubbed his arm. “You did good there, Lord Ian.”
Ian continued to smile at her, the letters forgotten. He and Bertie shared a long look of understanding, Ian lost in the happiness of the world he’d found as a husband and father.
When the discussion with Fellows ended, Bertie tried to slip away alone, but before she could reach the main part of the house and its long gallery, Sinclair caught up to her. He closed his hand around her arm and pulled her up the stairs to another floor, marched her along a hall and into an empty room. This one was a bedroom, but dust sheets covered the furniture.
Bertie pulled away as Sinclair closed the door, and turned to face him. “Before you start shouting at me, I read those letters about your wife because I wanted to help you. And I was curious.” Her face burned. “I’m sorry. They must have upset you.”
Sinclair’s gray eyes sparkled with anger. “I remember locking them in a box in a bottom drawer of my desk, also locked,” he said in a hard voice. “How did you ‘accidentally’ come to read them? They leapt out of the drawer and floated up to the nursery?”
“No.” Bertie clenched her hands. “I searched your desk. I admit that. You said there’d been other letters, and I wanted to see if they matched the one about me.”
“Why?”
Bertie blinked. “Because I want to help, what’cha think? You looked so bleak. Like that.” She pointed at his face. “And I wanted to help you.”
Sinclair stared at her as though torn between shouting or walking out to storm around someplace else. Bertie had noticed that he could be very eloquent when speaking on behalf of other people, but he was bad at talking about himself.
She gentled her voice. “I know why you didn’t want to show the letters to Inspector Fellows. They were full of lies about your wife, and you loved her very much. I know you did. But don’t let this person, whoever he is, take her away from you. That’s what bullies do—they poison everything in your life before they even take the first swing at you. That way you’re already too beaten down to fight back.”
Sinclair’s gaze sharpened. “You speak from experience, do you?”
She shrugged. “Where I grew up, you were either a bully or you knuckled under. Or you got out. Getting out’s the hardest, but the best.”
Sinclair looked grim. “Well, you got out. You are out, and I’m not letting you go back.”
Bertie smiled. “Aw, you’re a sweetheart, you are. They call you Basher, but you’re brimming with compassion. Don’t let this man take that away from you, right? You remember your wife as she was, not these lies.”
Sinclair stared at her a moment longer, then every bit of anguish she’d ever seen in him flooded into his eyes. After another few heartbeats, he started to laugh. The laughter was strange, and held no mirth.
“The thing is, Bertie, it isn’t lies,” Sinclair said. “Miss Margaret Davies—also known as Daisy, my wife—was a thorough scoundrel and a liar. And it’s very frightening to me that this man somehow knows all about her.”
Chapter 23
Bertie stared at Sinclair in surprise. She thought about the photographs of Daisy McBride, the quiet beauty of her, but with a twinkle in her eyes that said she hadn’t been meek and mild. But it was a long way from not being meek to being a scoundrel and a liar.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Bertie asked him.
Sinclair walked away across the room then swung back, the light from the windows silhouetting his tall body and kilt. “When I met Daisy, she was trying to fleece me out of a good deal of cash. She thought me a reckless, stupid soldier on leave with too much money.” He let out another harsh laugh. “She was right.”
Bertie plopped down on the nearest chair, sheet and all, and a puff of dust burst from it. “Well knock me down with a feather. And here I was thinking she was the model of propriety.” Her eyes narrowed. “But wait a minute. She was the model of propriety. Macaulay and Mrs. Hill can’t say enough good things about her, and the children think she was an angel. Macaulay said she saved you. So which was it?”
“Both. What Daisy was and what she became were two different things.”
“I see. No, I don’t.” She frowned. “You’d better tell me about it, hadn’t you?”
Bertie wasn’t certain Sinclair would say anything at all. He was a private man, and not happy that Bertie knew as much as she already did. In spite of their fiery nights of passion, Sinclair had the upper hand in her life at present, and she knew it.
Sinclair heaved another long sigh. He came to her, standing over her like a stern bailiff about to take her in chains to jail. Then he leaned to her, lifted her in his arms, turned, and sat down on the chair, settling Bertie on his lap.
“All right, I’ll tell you,” he said, resting his arms around her. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Bertie snuggled against him, liking this bit, and Sinclair began his story.
“I was an idiot. A thoroughly wet-behind-the-ears idiot. Daisy came from a very staunch, upright, straitlaced Irish Protestant family—you’ve seen her brother and his wife. Well, when Daisy was sixteen, she rebelled. She eloped with a rake, who took her to Paris and taught her to be as bad as he was. She was thoroughly in love with him, she told me, found him refreshing after years of being forbidden to speak on Sundays, except for prayers. Her father was a strict and difficult man.”
“Sounds like my dad. Except my dad’s not religious.” Bertie gave him a look. “Seems you like criminals then.”
“Hmph. So it seems.”
“Go on,” Bertie prompted.
Sinclair’s arms tightened around her. “I met Daisy in Rome, where she was there with her lover, and as I say, they tried to fleece me. They told me Daisy’s mother was very ill—dying—but that Daisy didn’t have enough money to go all the way back to Ireland to be with her. A simple story, but I was kindhearted, and stupid. I offered to buy the train and boat tickets for her, but she and her lover—they said they were married—told me they weren’t certain Daisy’s mother wouldn’t be moved to London, and they’d rather not have tickets they couldn’t use. A waste of my money, wouldn’t it be? So I gave Daisy enough to buy the tickets herself. I was supposed to rejoin my company the day after I last saw them, but there was a delay, and I wa
s granted another few days’ leave. That’s how I caught them—I saw them in another trattoria, chatting up another fool with the same story.”
“Ah.” Bertie shook her head. “Bad form, that. You should always move on to a different town once you’ve finished with the mark. Did they try to run?”
“Yes. I caught both of them in their rooms, where they’d gone to get their things. I was so enraged, I frightened them—they at last recognized the danger of making a fool of a trained fighter who went about armed. I told them I wouldn’t hurt them or run to the police if they returned my money and went the hell back to Ireland. They handed me the cash, and I thought that the end of it, but later that night, they followed me to my hotel room, and James—Maggie’s lover—shoved her at me when I opened the door. He was still afraid I’d go to the police and decided that a night with Maggie would make me grateful and compliant.”
Bertie nodded, even as she felt disgust. “It’s what some men think of. Women are there to smile and coerce, or pay with their bodies if need be.”
Sinclair gave her a narrow look. “I’m sorry you aren’t surprised by it, lass. I was sorry Maggie wasn’t either. I was so furious I pulled her inside and locked out her lover. I told her she needed to get away from him, and she broke down and said she’d been trying to do just that. She’d been with him a few years by then and realized what sort of man he was. He’d never legally married her, as much as he’d promised. She begged for my help—money was what she needed, because James never shared the take with her.”
Bertie frowned. “How did you know that wasn’t another story she made up on the spot? To get more money from you?”
“I didn’t. I told Daisy that the best way I could help her was to marry her and take her out of the country. I decided that if she truly wanted to be rid of James, she’d take that chance. To my great surprise, she said yes.”
Sinclair stopped, taking a deep breath. Bertie pressed her hand to his chest and found his heart beating hard. She wondered if he’d have one of the breathing spasms she’d seen him go into, but to her relief he drew a long breath without strain.
“What happened?” Bertie asked softly.
Sinclair took another breath and cleared his throat. “I sent for the police and had James arrested. I took Daisy back to my company with me, found the chaplain, and had him marry us. I expected Daisy at every turn to run away from me, now that her lover had been taken, but she never did.”
“And she became your wife,” Bertie said. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. I told the chaplain and my commander that we’d met in Rome and fallen in love, and everyone believed it.” Sinclair paused. “And then, we fell in love.”
Sinclair’s face changed when he said the words, his love not feigned. Bertie’s heart stung.
“It’s a sweet story.” She touched Sinclair’s cheek. “You still love her.”
Sinclair looked down at Bertie, his gray eyes quiet. “I’ve never hidden that.”
“What I mean is, I know the love was real. Or else you wouldn’t care what Inspector Fellows, or me, found out about her. You’re still protecting her. I wager even her brother doesn’t know what really happened.”
Sinclair shook his head. “He knew Daisy ran away but never who with—she never told them about James. When Daisy contacted her family again, she was with me. Edward concluded that I was the man she’d eloped with in the first place.”
“That’s why he blames you.” Made sense now. “He thinks you’re the blackguard, not this James person. Why don’t you tell Mr. Davies all about him?”
“The same reason I didn’t explain to Fellows. Fellows can be discreet, but I don’t need Edward besmirching Daisy’s name, which he would. He’d take it as a personal offence that his sister had fallen into a bad life, and condemn her, and me. Such a thing would cling to Cat and Andrew as well, especially Cat.”
True. The standards to which middle- and upper-class girls were held were stringent, unmercifully so, which had always made Bertie glad not to be one.
“One of the letters implied that maybe Cat wasn’t your daughter,” Bertie said. “But I wager she is.”
“Cat was born one year and two months after I married Daisy,” Sinclair said. “And James had been sent to prison after his arrest in Rome. Apparently he was wanted for many crimes. There is no doubt about Cat.” He smiled fondly. “Plus, she is very much a McBride. She reminds me of Steven when he was her age. Steven could be very quiet, even obedient, right before the devil came out. I was more like Andrew, shouting at everyone and running ragged over them.”
Bertie liked imagining a wild, blustering, shouting Sinclair. “But people might believe the letters. And the ones about me. Cat having a working-class pickpocket as a governess might look bad for her too.”
“I hadn’t planned to announce the fact,” Sinclair said. “My household staff is so grateful to you for taking care of Andrew and Cat that they wouldn’t mind if you were the devil himself. Anything to keep my unruly children tamed.”
“I wouldn’t say I’ve tamed them, exactly.”
“No, but they like you. They listen to you, and even respect you. I have never been good with children, and when I lost Daisy . . .” Sinclair stopped, swallowed. “Perhaps she was a confidence trickster to the end, because I couldn’t, for the longest time, let her out of my life.”
Bertie drew her hand down the silk of his waistcoat. “We never let go of the ones we most love. They’re always there with us, never really gone. As it should be.”
Sinclair gave a self-deprecating laugh. “So many say I’m morbid about it.”
Bertie shook her head. “You aren’t. You get on with your life, work hard, look after your children. You’re not like the queen—I hear she sleeps with a plaster cast of Prince Albert’s hand. I know she misses him, but that’s going a bit far, don’t you think?”
Sinclair’s sad look faded. “That’s what I love about you, Bertie. You have the ability to see things clearly. No fog. You look at a thing, and know it for what it is. I wish you could teach me to do that.”
“You know how.” Bertie laid her head on his shoulder, and Sinclair kissed her hair. “I’ve seen you do it in the courtroom, sizing up every person around you.”
“Easy when it’s someone else’s life. Not my own.” Sinclair kissed her again. “I’m glad you’re here to help me, sweetheart.”
Bertie was glad too. “We’ll get him,” she said. “This letter writer. We’ll find him, and then he won’t hurt you anymore.”
“And I love your optimism.” Another amused laugh. “Nothing in Bertie’s world is too difficult.”
Well, he was wrong about that, but Bertie didn’t have the words to explain. She was like Ian, she thought, only knowing how to talk about what was straightforward.
Also, she couldn’t think much when her heart was reveling in a warm little glow. One word had started the warmth. When Sinclair had praised her ability to see situations in a clear light, he’d said, That’s what I love about you, Bertie. Not like.
Love.
Blustery, snowy weather returned for a few days, before giving way again to sunshine. The children, tired of being confined, even to a huge house like Kilmorgan, clamored to go out once the clouds parted. Bertie, also wanting to be free of the crowd—though the English guests had started drifting to the train station after Christmas Day—suggested a walk to the ruins of the old castle.
Daniel had told the children about it with the animation of a born storyteller, including the chill tales of its ghosts. “Great-great-great-grandfather Malcolm and his beloved wife, Mary, are said to walk hand in hand on the battlements, looking down at the country they fought so hard for.”
“Rot,” Mac Mackenzie said when he overheard. “The old castle was pulled down after Culloden, and Malcolm and Mary started building this house. If they haunt anywhere, it
’s inside here, where it’s cozy.”
Andrew wouldn’t be deterred from exploring the ruins, and Cat, in her quiet way, expressed interest. The entire Mackenzie clan started talking about an expedition, but couldn’t agree on arranging a time. They enjoyed arguing endlessly about it, though.
In the end, Sinclair put aside the piles of papers he was reading in preparation for returning to chambers, and took Bertie, Cat, and Andrew to the ruins alone.
The scramble to the top of the hill, over dark boulders and clumps of snow-covered heather, took time and much energy. They were rewarded at the top, however, with a magnificent view.
Bertie spread her arms, gazing across the open valley—Kilmorgan house looking small from here—to the hills beyond. The formal garden behind the manor house flowed out in a pattern of curlicues, like a large flower itself.
“You’d never know it looked like that,” Bertie said, pointing it out. “Unless you stood up here. Clever.”
“Garden designers in the eighteenth century enjoyed such things,” Sinclair said next to her. “Loved secret designs and things that mimicked nature. Meanwhile, nature is everywhere, if you only lift your eyes.”
“Don’t be a wet blanket. It’s beautiful.” Bertie swept her gaze across the wonder of the Highlands. “Funny, to be able to see so far, and see so much. Even from a rooftop in London, what you mostly see is other rooftops. And smoke. So much smoke.” Bertie inhaled the clean air, not a smokestack in sight.
“I like the change,” Sinclair said. “London gives me much, but here, I can breathe.”
Andrew, having had enough of standing and admiring the view, split away from his father and Bertie and headed for the ruins. Cat found a boulder, wiped it free of snow, brought out a cloth she’d carried in her little pack, and laid it across the boulder. She settled herself gracefully on this makeshift seat, took out her notebook, and started to draw. Bertie had kept her promise, telling no one of the beautiful picture Cat had shown her, and now Cat sketched without tension.