“No, you didn’t. Jaimie got the lands and the title. All you got were the funds.”
David shrugged. “However it is, it’s mine and no one will question it . . . until now. Your return is most unfortunate.” His black eyes locked on Jane. “Why are you here, Jennet? What do you really want?”
Jane clenched her fist, her body trembling with anger. This man—this one man—had caused so much pain in her life. Not just to her, but to Jaimie, and Elspeth, and to all of the people on Barra who suffered because the island’s revenues were stripped away and not reinvested in making the lives of the people better by drilling more wells and cutting a better road or helping with their farming. “You’ve let the people of this island down by stealing their money. That’s not what a laird does.”
“You don’t know what a real laird does. Your father was a fool to give away so much when he—and you—could have been living in far more comfort.”
“You don’t deserve to speak of my father.”
“Perhaps not.” David’s eyes narrowed. “I have no idea why you came back, but it’s time you left.”
“Once I and my employer find what we’re looking for, I’ll happily leave.”
“And what are you looking for?”
“We’re going to the cave on the south shore to see the ancient script on the wall there.”
“Why?”
“Because he believes it’s—”
A great noise arose as Michael came down the stairs. He was carrying his boots, and his neckcloth was unknotted as if he’d dressed in great haste. “Mrs. Macpherson had better have a large breakfast ready for I could eat a h—” He paused at the bottom step, his gaze finding David. “Oh. We have a visitor. Jane, you didn’t tell me.”
“Mr. Hurst, this is Lord David MacNeil. He’s the laird’s father.”
David bowed. “I live on Vatersay, an island south of here. I come and visit when I’m needed.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she said under her breath before she gestured to Michael. “Mr. Hurst is an explorer. You might have read of his exploits through his serial in The Morning Post?”
David’s gaze sharpened. “Ah! That Michael Hurst. The one who found the gold sarcophagus?”
“Actually, I’ve found several.” Michael waved a hand, as if finding a sarcophagus was as common as finding a copper penny. “Five, I think. Is that right, Jane?”
“Actually, it’s seven.”
David’s brows rose. “Seven? Really?” Doubt hung heavily in both words. “I’m surprised you didn’t write about those in your serial.”
Michael just shrugged. “It would be boring if I wrote about each and every sarcophagus I happened to trip over. By the way, do you mind . . .” Michael pointed at the boots he still held. “I just rolled out of bed and came in search of nourishment. I didn’t realize we had company.”
“Of course.” David watched as Michael put on his boots. “Having found so many sarcophaguses—”
“Sarcophagi,” Jane and Michael corrected simultaneously.
“Yes, sarcophagi, then. You must be fabulously wealthy.”
Jane’s smile faded. “He only sells the common finds, and then keeps the artifacts that require further study. Most of his finds are consigned to various museums.”
David’s interest remained locked on Michael. “So there is some such artifact here, on Barra, then?”
Michael shrugged. “I’m sure there are several.”
“Valuable ones?”
“Perhaps. The island has been inhabited for centuries, so it’s quite possible that you might find any number of artifacts. The older ones are usually made of less precious metals, though you do occasionally find something valuable.”
“Interesting,” David said.
“Yes, but I doubt that any of them are a sarcophagus.” Michael looked regretful. “Those are only found scattered among the sands of Egypt.”
David inclined his head. “Of course. I hope you don’t mind, but I should be going. I just came to visit Jennet—”
“Jane Smythe-Haughton,” Jane corrected.
There was an infinitesimal pause and then David inclined his head. “Miss Smythe-Haughton. Of course. I just came to welcome her to the island. And you, too, Mr. Hurst.”
“Very pleasant of you.” Michael finished putting on his boots. “It’s a lovely island. I was just telling Jane that we should stay an extra week, just to enjoy the sunshine that’s finally arrived.”
David’s lips thinned, but he bowed and picked up his hat and turned toward the door.
He was almost there when Michael called out, “Lord MacNeil?”
David turned on his heel. “Yes?”
Michael walked to the corner of the room and picked up a malacca cane. “I believe this is yours. It’s certainly not mine, and I’m the only one tall enough to use it other than you.”
David took the cane, though he regarded it with distaste. “I’ve lately suffered the ill effects of gout, and my physician thinks the cane will help, though I find it nothing more than an inconvenience.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. This dreadful climate must be difficult on such a condition.”
“So it is. Thank you for returning the cane.” David inclined his head. “Good day, sir.”
With that, he took himself off. Michael waited until David’s horse could be heard trotting smartly across the cobblestones before he turned to Jane. “What in the name of Ra was that?”
“That was David MacNeil.”
“I understood that,” Michael said dryly. “Who is he in relationship to you— No, wait. Who is he in relationship to Jennet MacNeil?”
“I used to call him ‘uncle,’ though he’s just a distant cousin. He and my father were raised together when David’s parents died of the ague.”
Jane wished that Michael wasn’t standing quite so close. Last night, she’d kissed his collarbone, and she found herself reliving the moment in warm detail.
“You seemed angry at him.”
“It was his decision to burn down Kisimul.”
“It was burned down on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“Bloody hell, but why?”
“To kill me.” At his incredulous look, she threw up a hand. “No, no. Not the real me. Jennet.”
“By Ra, that’s barbarous. Parts of that edifice were possibly twelfth-century!” Michael looked as horrified as she felt. “I begin to dislike this Jennet. Trouble seems to follow her wherever she goes.”
“I feel much the same way.” She forced a smile. “I think I saw Ammon cross the courtyard a while ago. Your coffee should be ready. I’ll let him know you’re up.”
“Please do.” Michael turned to the table by the window and took his seat. “While you’re there, ask Mrs. Macpherson to bring back those eggs. I’m famished.”
Jane had taken a few steps toward the back door, but at that, she paused.
Michael frowned. “Yes?”
“You said to have Mrs. Macpherson bring back the eggs.” She turned to face him. “You overheard the entire conversation I had with David.”
“If you wouldn’t be so secretive, I wouldn’t be forced to such stratagems.”
“Secretive?”
“Oh, yes, Jennet.”
She crossed her arms. “Do you or do you not wish for your eggs and coffee?”
“Yes, please.” When she didn’t move, he sighed. “Yes, please, Jane.”
“Fine.” She turned back toward the door.
“Still,” he added, watching her carefully, “I can’t help but wonder what Jennet did to deserve to be burned alive in a fire. I suppose I could ask her uncle. I daresay he might have an interesting answer.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop and added in a musing tone, “And if Uncle David didn’t have an answer, I wonder if perhaps this Jaimie MacNeil might. Or the lovely Lady MacDonald, who let drop several interesting tidbits just yesterday. Come to think of it, I daresay there are many people on this island who might
know the tragic, though fictionalized, story of Jennet MacNeil.”
She stood still, her hands fisted at her sides. Finally she turned and glared at him as if he had three heads. “You’re not going to stop until I tell you everything, are you?”
“Jane, either you tell me now or you can tell me later, but I will find out what happened on this island. And you know that I’m not the type to quit until a job’s done.” He grinned wickedly. “I believe I proved myself on that point last night.”
She flushed and marched to the table and took a seat, all prim business. “It’s time. What do you want to know?”
Michael decided he liked both Janes, the wild one in his bed last night, and the prim one who sat with her feet flat on the floor and her hands folded in her lap. “Why have you been hiding your past? And don’t say it’s because I never asked, because since I realized you’d hidden things, I have asked and you still won’t answer.”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew that the only way Jaimie would be successful in accepting leadership of Barra was with me gone. People’s loyalties run deep.”
“As do yours.”
Her brow creased, a flicker of sadness in her gaze. “Do they? I feel that I’ve let Barra down.” She adjusted her spectacles more firmly on her nose. “Which is why I’m not leaving until I’ve settled some things.”
“That’s noble of you.”
“No, it’s not. It’s necessary. Barra belongs to my family, and this island—Michael, it involves real people, too. This is not some amusing historical mystery you can just poke into and then leave.”
“That’s not very flattering.”
“I don’t mean to be judgmental, but ever since we came here, I’ve realized that what we do—arrive in another country, dig in their past, analyze and judge things—can be impersonal. I don’t want that for Barra. This was my life, my family, my island. Whatever has been done, and whatever needs to be done, has to be done by me.”
“You have your life cut into little slices, don’t you, Jane? And you don’t allow them to touch.” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “If you feel so strongly, then why did you decide to leave Barra? Was it because of your uncle?”
“I’ve wanted to leave since I was a child and my father read Don Quixote to me. I wanted to wander about the world, ride my mule, joust at windmills, and have adventures.” She smiled, both wistful and sad. “When you grow up in a tiny thimble, a dinner plate can seem like an ocean. I wanted to swim in that ocean.”
Michael rubbed his chin, considering her words. “I know that feeling.”
She put up a hand, and he said roughly, “No, no. I understand. When I was a child, I was ill. And not a little, but all of the time, sometimes for months on end, confined to my bed, unable to rise.”
“What was wrong?”
“Weak lungs, or so the doctor said.”
“But . . . you’re always so healthy.”
“I outgrew the illness, whatever it was. When I turned seventeen, I began to get taller, and as I did so, the illness left. I’ve told you about where I grew up in a big, rambling vicarage with my brothers and sisters. Or it would seem big unless you’d been confined—sentenced—to live within it and never leave.”
“You were trapped, too.”
“In a place I loved. But not a place I wished to live.”
She leaned back in her chair. “You do understand.”
“Yes. A prison is still a prison, even if it’s made of velvet.”
She nodded. “I was torn. I loved Barra, but I desperately wished to see the world. To travel. To taste other lives and other places. My father knew that, too. He’d saved for a year to send me to Greece, and had asked my aunt Mary to take me, but then he had his accident and then Mary died a few weeks later.” Jane was silent a moment. “I think he thought that trip might cure my wanderlust, but it would have just fanned the flames.”
“Once you’re bitten, it’s difficult to become unbitten. How did David come into this?”
“After Father died, I discovered that he’d left me the lands and title, which infuriated David. It didn’t make me happy, either, for it seemed like a death sentence.” She waved a hand. “I know, I know. That’s a huge overstatement, but I was a youth at the time and yearning to escape. The inheritance felt like a burden. I wouldn’t see it that way now, of course, but then . . .” She looked out the window where the sun beamed upon the green grass and the blue, blue sea. “I didn’t understand what he gave me.”
“When we are children, we act as children.”
“Aye. Fortunately for me, as much as I didn’t want to rule over Barra, Jaimie did.”
“Jaimie is David’s son?”
“David’s only child, yes.” She sent Michael a sharp glance. “You needn’t think that Jaimie is like David, for he’s not. Jaimie was practically raised here because his mother had died and Father always had a fondness for him. Jaimie and Lindsee and I grew up together.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Besides, Jaimie didn’t just want the title and lands, he needed them.”
“Why?”
“He wished to marry someone who was interested only in those things. She’s with him still. I know because I went to see him. He built a huge manor house on the north edge of the isle.”
“Ah, thus the visit from your uncle today.”
“I don’t think Jaimie told his father I’d been there, but Elspeth, Jaimie’s wife, might have.” She looked thoughtful for a moment before she gave a wistful sigh. “Jaimie still loves her, you know. After all of these years . . .”
“My parents have been together more than fifty years,” Michael said. “People fall in love with each other all of the time.”
“Not Jaimie. He loves Elspeth, and he paid the price she demanded, and while she became his wife, it doesn’t look as if she’s ever loved him. I don’t think he realized that the one didn’t come with the other.” Sadness crossed her face. “When I left this isle, I thought I’d left things in place for it to thrive, for the people—and Jaimie, too—to have good, happy lives. Now I’m not so sure that I didn’t just make everyone’s life worse. Apparently, it’s not as easy to sign away your title and lands as I’d thought, and there are some legal issues involved. But even if the documents had been enough, the fact that I immediately left made it look as if Jaimie had been involved in some sort of trickery. People began to talk. They suspected the worst.”
“They thought he’d had you murdered?”
She nodded. “Uncle David returned just as things were getting ugly. He saw what was happening and announced that I was still at Kisimul but had smallpox. That kept everyone away. Then he staged the fire and burned down the castle. I don’t agree with sacrificing the castle, but they could see no other way.”
“Plus, if there’s no roof on it, they don’t have to pay rents to the Crown.”
She grimaced. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. So Kisimul was sacrificed, and my death mourned, which stilled the rumors enough so that no one challenged Jaimie as the legitimate laird.”
“Which thrilled your uncle, who has been lining his pockets ever since.”
“Yes.” She placed her hands flat upon the table. “And now you know all.”
His gaze sought hers. She looked worn, as if just by telling the tale, it had drained her. “So now what?”
“So now I must find a way to solve the problems on Barra so that when I next leave, my conscience will be clear.”
“You gave up that responsibility once. Why take it on again?”
She smiled, her brown eyes warm. “You wouldn’t leave Wythburn Vicarage and its inhabitants in disarray, would you?”
She had him there. “No, I wouldn’t. Worse, I couldn’t.”
“Exactly.” She stood, seeming to gather strength as she did so. “We’ve two things to accomplish today. First, breakfast.”
“And then the cave.”
“Yes. We’ll wait for low tide, face that treach
erous path once again, and see what clue was left there.”
He nodded. “Fine.”
“Good. We’re settled, then. While you’re eating breakfast, I may ride down the road a bit and see if it’s dried out. If it’s very wet, we may wish to leave earlier and give ourselves extra time to climb down the path.”
“Very well.” He watched as she turned from the table.
“Jane?”
She paused. “Yes?” Her eyes were fixed on him, framed by her spectacles and as dark and mysterious as the forest floor.
“About last night. It was—” He lifted a hand and then dropped it back on his knee. “I couldn’t have asked for a more—” He gestured toward her. “I was completely—” Damn it, I’m as tongue-tied as a marble tomb marker.
Her brows lowered and she leaned forward the tiniest bit. “You were completely what?”
He knew what he wanted to say—that she’d astounded him and driven him mad and how even now his cock was stirring just because he was sitting close to her and how he wanted to carry her back to bed right this second and show her all of the things he was feeling but couldn’t say. Instead, he was left saying in a rather deflated tone, “It was very . . . satisfying.”
“Satisfying,” she repeated in a flat tone. “How lovely.”
“Jane, I—” He spread his hands. “It was more than that.”
She cocked an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes?”
He had the impression he was being given one chance—and only one—to right things.
Well, he would right things. This was his opportunity to let her know that their passion had been more than a mere tumble. Years of simply saying what he thought without counting the cost to others stood between him and her smile, if he could only find the words. “Jane, last night was”—he raked a hand through his hair—“nice.”
Her expression could only be described as crestfallen.
“No,” he hurried to say. “Don’t look like that! I didn’t mean ‘nice.’ In fact, it wasn’t nice at all.”