A MacKenzie Clan Gathering

  Hart gave him a frown. “I know you’re not suggesting that Sedgwick hired a set of thieves to turn over Kilmorgan. Sedgwick is dead, and his father. Sedgwick had no heirs, and the marquisate reverted to the Crown. Or is it some beloved retainer of his waiting this long to gain Sedgwick’s revenge on you—using me to do it?”

  Hart didn’t believe any of this, Fellows knew. He was outlining possibilities, as he liked to do. Hart was always thorough.

  “Sedgwick had nothing to do with your theft,” Fellows continued. “The similarity lies in the state in which I found the art stolen for him. There was a deep pit on Sedgwick’s estate, an old pond that had been drained at some point in the past. The art was buried there—and not very well. Rolled up and dumped, covered with a tarp to keep out the weather. Pictures still in frames stacked up, much of it ruined.

  “Sedgwick was outraged when I found it, of course. He didn’t care that many of the paintings had been destroyed by his act—if he couldn’t have the art, he said, then no one could. I believe he was a bit disturbed in the mind.”

  “A bit,” Hart said, his tone drier still.

  “Even when I presented the evidence to the highest authority, little was done. At the time, Sedgwick’s father had too much influence. The artwork that wasn’t destroyed was quietly restored to the original owners, and nothing was ever said. Sedgwick went on collecting art, though never again through theft. His father had a talk with him about that, from what I understand.”

  “The old marquis was a hard man,” Hart said. “If it makes you feel better, I imagine his chat with Sedgwick was more effective than imprisonment or transportation.” He paused. “You found the art in the same condition you found mine, thrown away to rot. Whoever did that knew the story of what had happened with Sedgwick. Or, it’s an amazing coincidence—and I don’t believe in those.”

  “Nor do I,” Fellows said. “Back then I still could not drop the matter. I kept digging until I found out who had warned Sedgwick that I was retuning for the art, who had helped him with the fake burglary, who had suggested the removal of the chief inspector, leaving the way open for a promotion. I had suspected, but became certain when I was invited to Inspector Radcliffe’s home, and his wife served me tea under the very Raphael that eventually made its way to your house. I had seen it among Sedgwick’s collection in his summerhouse, but it hadn’t been among the paintings he’d thrown away.”

  Hart’s brows climbed high. “Inspector Radcliffe took a payoff?”

  “He did indeed.” Fellows remembered the anger, the betrayal he’d felt. His own inspector, whose cleverness he’d admired, had been corrupt and a party to fraud. “Their plan was for Sedgwick to have himself robbed and claim insurance on the paintings he’d acquired legitimately. The stolen paintings would vanish—no proof he ever had them. Radcliffe was rewarded with one to make sure no one found out.” Fellows took a final sip whisky, letting the past fall away. “He received me in the room where he’d hung the Raphael, thinking me too stupid to know what it was. I went back to Scotland Yard and anonymously sent a report of Radcliffe’s involvement to the very top of the chain, to a trustworthy man who couldn’t be toppled. Anonymously, because I’d learned my lesson about announcing my findings. I sat back and waited for the music to play. Which it did, eventually. Radcliffe was arrested but the charges dismissed. He retained his job as a policeman but was sent to some backwater to rusticate the rest of his days.”

  “Is he still living?” Hart asked. “Is this his revenge on you? Why wait twenty years for it?”

  Fellows shook his head. “Radcliffe is dead. Everyone connected with the case has passed on, including my DCI and the man I informed of Radcliffe’s connection.”

  Hart shot him an impatient look. “Then why tell me the story?”

  “Ian suggested I dredge it up,” Fellows said. “And since Ian has an uncanny way of being right, I went back to London and went through my old case files. I kept notes at the time, and reread them all. I suggest that someone else knows the story and decided to make use of it. Perhaps they want to imply that you had the artwork stolen yourself for the insurance. The paintings were stashed where they’d eventually be found in order to embarrass you or ruin you.” Fellows shrugged. “Something.”

  Hart went silent a moment, his hands stilling on the arms of his chair. “I have too many enemies,” he said after a time. “Any number of them could have decided to come after me. I am trying to think which of them would likely know of this story.”

  “Very few do,” Fellows said. “Radcliffe’s role was hushed up, because the Yard didn’t need the scandal. Sedgwick’s father also made sure most of the details stayed hidden.”

  “Did Radcliffe have sons?” Hart asked. “Sedgwick didn’t, we know. Did Sedgwick have daughters? Women can be as vengeful as men. More so, in my opinion.”

  “Radcliffe’s children predeceased him, and Sedgwick had no issue at all,” Fellows said. “There was rumor Sedgwick was as impotent as a dead fish.”

  Pierce snorted a laugh. “Never shirk at a bad word about your betters, do you, sir?”

  Fellows gave him a chilly look. “Sedgwick might have been born to a higher station in life, but I wouldn’t consider him better for it.”

  Pierce only grinned, undaunted. “It’s a pleasure to work for you, sir.”

  “Fellows is refreshingly unbiased when it comes to the aristocracy,” Hart said, meeting his half brother’s gaze. “He has always been so.”

  Fellows lifted his whisky glass to Hart, and they shared a look. The two had been through much, but it was a fine thing to have buried their enmity in the past. Fellows had found a like mind in Hart, and he was proud to call him brother.

  * * *

  Beth scrambled out of bed the next morning and hurried to insert herself in front of her husband, who was about to leave the room.

  The scoundrel had loved her well into the night, effectively making sure she had no opportunity to speak with him. Every time she’d opened her mouth, she’d found it engaged with something interesting. Ian had kissed her gently as she’d fallen asleep, spooned against him, and she’d known nothing more until she felt Ian’s warmth leave the bed.

  He’d pulled on a kilt, likely planning to slip into the dressing room to shrug on whatever clothes he found and be gone before Beth could catch him. It did not help Beth’s resolve that Ian, wearing nothing but a kilt around his hips, the sun catching the red of his hair, was a heart-stopping sight. Ten years had not diminished him—his habits of walking, riding, fishing, and tramping over the Highlands kept him fit and hard-muscled.

  Thinking of those strong hands fitting themselves to her breasts, waist, hips, lifting her to him in the night didn’t help either. Beth wanted to kiss her way down his bare chest to his abdomen, follow the thin arrow of hair to the waistband of his kilt.

  She forced her gaze from his delectable body and cleared her throat. “Ian, we need to talk.”

  Ian gazed at the open hall beyond her, as though willing Curry to charge along and interrupt the scene. “I’m late.”

  “Your own fault,” Beth said. “If you’d not kept us awake most of the night . . .” Ian’s eyes flicked back to her and filled with warmth, the corners of his lips curving.

  Beth waved her hands at him. “Stop that. You know I want to scold you for letting John talk you into believing he can cure you. What on earth makes you think so? He is no physician or scientist—he’s a missionary who has too much curiosity than is good for him. Thomas was the same. Besides, Belle is right—there is nothing wrong with you.”

  Beth let the words tumble out quickly, because she knew Ian could simply lift her aside and go if he wanted.

  Ian lost his half smile. “You have always known that I am not . . . right.” He pressed his forefinger to his temple. “Not like my brothers.”

  “Thank heavens for that,” Beth said fervently. “You recall I met Mac and Cameron before I married you. And then I met Hart, which clinched the matte
r. I definitely chose the right Mackenzie.”

  Red crept into Ian’s cheeks. “They do things I can’t.”

  “What of it? None of the rest of you can paint as Mac does—I don’t believe Cam knows which end of a brush is which, yet I do not see him yearning to be just like Mac.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  Ian’s golden eyes took on a slight look of distress, but there was something else in them today, some distraction she didn’t understand.

  Beth pointed a stiff finger at his chest. “I know exactly what you mean, Ian Mackenzie. You are an arrogant Mackenzie male. You are brilliant and your family loves you, but that’s not enough for you. You want to waltz into a card room and be the life of the party. You want to have people fluttering over you, hoping to befriend you because you charm them.” Beth took a step closer to him. “Well, let me tell you, if I’d wanted a smarmy, unctuous husband, I’d have married Lyndon Mather and been done. I threw him over for you, if you recall. He was horrible, which you so bluntly pointed out to me, but that was not the only reason I jilted him. I’d met you, and knew I’d found the better man. I knew I’d never be pleased with anyone else. I do not want you or John upsetting that better man and taking him away from me—can you understand? Ian . . .”

  Ian’s gaze had drifted from her again, his brows lowering as he studied a point on the wall behind her.

  Beth knew she’d lost him. She’d made her speech too long, and somewhere in the middle, Ian had drifted away to one of the hundreds of thoughts that spun constantly in his head.

  “Ian—”

  “You jilted him.” Ian kept his gaze on the wall. “Threw him over.”

  “I’ve just said. Gladly. You will also remember that he recovered and married another heiress, and they are both living with his mother somewhere in Kent.”

  Ian wasn’t listening to a word. He’d gone off somewhere in that brain of his, thinking, thinking, thinking.

  Ian put his hands on Beth’s shoulders, moved her aside, and walked out of the room past her, ignoring her reaching fingers. “Curry!”

  Beth rushed after him, but Ian had started for the main staircase, his loose kilt swirling around his bare legs. “Ian?”

  She reached the staircase as Curry came out of a back passage. “Ye bellowed, me lord?” the small man asked. “Can ye not yank on a bell, like the rest of your family?”

  “Find me clothes,” Ian growled at him as he started up the stairs.

  “Oh yes?” Curry asked, watching him. “And where am I to put them on you? In the attics, is it?”

  “Aye!” Ian called down as he quickened his stride. The kilt moved to show Beth his strong thighs and a glimpse of firm backside, and then he was gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Some part of Ian’s mind told him the household was upset at him again, but that part was a dim, flickering voice. The foremost part of his mind told him that the answer to the mystery lay in Fellows’s old case and in the attics.

  Curry carried up an armful of garments as Ian started through the stacks of journals he sought. Curry muttered and grumbled as he always did, but that was Curry. Ian shrugged on his shirt and pulled on socks and shoes against the cold then pointedly ignored Curry and his questions until the man snarled and went away.

  No one came to disturb Ian after that, so Beth must have been making certain they left him alone. He loved her for that—he loved her for so many things.

  He knew she would not rush in panic to Hart or Fellows to pry Ian from his endeavors. She’d learned that when Ian fixated on a task, that task was of great importance. Though others might not be able to discern its importance at first, Ian’s instincts were usually correct.

  He loved Beth for that understanding as well.

  An hour later, Ian did hear a step, and lifted his head, irritated, to see John Ackerley emerging into the attic.

  “Lord Ian,” Ackerley said, giving him a nod.

  Ian returned his attention to the words in his hands. He would have ignored Ackerley entirely, but he remembered Beth’s painstaking instructions to be courteous to guests.

  “I’ll be down later,” Ian said to him. “We’ll continue then.”

  Ackerley cleared his throat. “Beth has made it clear she disapproves. And I must apologize. I grew excited at the prospect of helping you. When I became acquainted with the society of philosophers in Austria who are trying so many new methods, I was haughty enough to believe I could replicate their experiments. I am guilty of the greatest of the seven deadly sins, I’m afraid. My wife, bless her, was quite good at sticking a pin into my pride and deflating it. I was ever out to save the world.”

  Ian heard Ackerley’s words, registered every single one of them, and stored them for later.

  “Can you read old handwriting?” Ian held out a leather-bound journal to him, the cover worn and flexible with time.

  “Pardon? Oh . . . I suppose so. How old?”

  “Seventeen hundreds. Her script is fairly clear.”

  “Yes, I find that our grandfathers wrote in better hands than we do now.” Ackerley took the journal with a look of curiosity. “Why?”

  Ian told him what name to look for as Ackerley settled himself on an armchair that came from the time of the last Stuart queen. The pages of the journals were fragile, but Lady Mary’s writing rang clearly from the past.

  “It’s important, is it?” Ackerley asked.

  “Aye,” Ian said, returning his gaze to the page he’d been reading. “It will tell me who stole Hart’s paintings.”

  “Ah.” Ackerley’s voice lost its morose note and became brisk and interested again. “Well, of course. I am happy to help, my lord.”

  * * *

  For the next hours, silence reigned in the attic as the two men read. The peace was occasionally broken by Ackerley leaning excitedly to Ian and saying in a hushed voice, “Is this anything?”

  Ian would read what he pointed out and either note it or shake his head.

  The journals had always fascinated Ian. Lady Mary Lennox, who became Lady Malcolm Mackenzie, and later, the Duchess of Kilmorgan, wrote in a straightforward and breezy style, without the forced witticisms or ponderous explanations of others of her generation.

  Alec paid us a visit with his daughter in tow. How changed Alec is, but only for the better. Of Will, of course, he could say nothing. Dear Will. I am certain stories of his secretive life are many times more interesting than our domestic tales.

  In later years, Mary wrote, Our Angus is home, with Willie Ian, my favorite grandson. What a charmer he is! At ten years old he has made the household fall in love with him, and he gets away with anything he pleases. Mal, the wretch, sees himself in the lad and indulges him something terrible.

  Mary continued with an account of her travels with her son and grandson from Kilmorgan to London, praising the comfortable modern coach and the quickness of the journey along the new roads. In 1790, a journey of a number of days seemed swift to her, while now, a hundred years later, the same journey happened in less than a day and a night on the train.

  I took Willie Ian for a walk in Hyde Park, and to my great astonishment, spied a familiar face. Well, I should not say “familiar” as such, because I have not seen him for many a year, and he is quite in his dotage, not the rather good-looking man he’d been in his younger days. I speak of none other than the Earl of Halsey—the man must be approaching eighty.

  He was in a two-wheeled conveyance, driven by what looked like a manservant who was a bit nervous at the reins. And no wonder. The lad could not move the carriage in any direction or slow down or speed up without Halsey snarling invective at him.

  I, being a polite woman, bowed and bid Lord Halsey good day.

  “Stop!” Halsey bellowed at his man, who pulled the carriage up so short the horse began to rear. The driver calmed him with expertise, but Halsey scowled at him for that as well. “Good Lord, it’s the Duchess of Muck,” he said to me, and then laughed at his pretense of cleverne
ss. “How are things in your Scottish pigsty?”

  “Dear Halsey,” said I. “You remain as courteous as ever. My husband would send his regards if he had any for you, which he does not. Of course, I do not think he gives one thought for you from one day to the next. Much water has passed under the bridge since the Jacobite days, and yes, we do have bridges at Kilmorgan.”

  “None but a duke would do for you, eh?” Halsey proceeded to say. “I’m sure you have paid the price, living in the wilderness with your mad whisky-brewing husband. English earls ride in carriages inlaid with precious stones while Scottish dukes go barefoot.”

  I knew quite well that if Halsey drove around in carriages encrusted with diamonds or some such nonsense, it was because he’d wed a very rich woman indeed. “When I married Malcolm I had no idea he would ever become duke; therefore your postulation does not signify,” I replied. “And Malcolm does wear shoes—when he remembers to.”

  Halsey spat a laugh, but not at my little joke. “He wronged me, and I have not forgotten. I shall never forget. He owes me a debt I shall not forgive even when I am in the grave.”

  “Then I pity you, sir,” I said. “The past is gone. To hold such old hurts close is foolish. You have had a fine life, and I have a fine husband.”

  “A Scottish pig in his own muck,” Halsey said, returning to his earlier theme.

  “It is a bit mucky when it rains, I grant you. But I will take Kilmorgan over all the mansions in London, thank you very much. I learned very quickly that family is what’s important, not riches or gold-leafed drawing rooms. Good day to you, sir. My family awaits me at home.”

  Halsey, true to his nature—which has not changed one whit—could not leave well enough alone. “He should never have been duke. He should have been hanged or shot, like the rest of them.”

  At that, my rage got the better of me. All I could think of was poor Duncan, poor Angus, men a hundred times better than Halsey ever was, and the dead and dying at Culloden.