Page 52 of Who’s That Earl

Mrs. Murdoch’s lips were set in a thin line. “No, ma’am.”

Relief flooded through her. “Thank you. I would rather explain myself. Please have Dougan fetch my things and put them in the cart. And have Esme run down to the Thistle and Crown to buy me a seat on the stage.”

“But Mrs. Higginbotham—”

Jane held up her palm, still not perfectly steady, but improving. Who would ever imagine she had stabbed a man with that hand?

“I will go down and speak with him. When a quarter of an hour has passed, please bring the dogs to me.”

After a bewildered Agnes nodded confirmation, Jane gathered up her skirts in one hand, still clutching the parchment in the other. For the last time, she descended the spiral staircase, pushing aside the remembrance of Thomas’s hand brushing—possessively, she now knew—across the stone.

I intend to make Dunnock my home.

Though when she thought of what he’d told her the next night in her study, she was forced to admit to herself that she wasn’t being fair. She knew he’d assumed the mantle of earl most reluctantly. Only the fiasco at the manse had forced him to tell everyone the truth—and very nearly revealed hers, in the bargain.

At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to gather her courage. A dozen strides along the corridor took her to the arched entryway into the Great Hall. Unlike a few days before, it now blazed with light, a fire roaring in the enormous fireplace, conversations ringing off the stone. And in the center, beside a large trestle table, sat Thomas—Lord Magnus—rocked back in a wooden chair, laughing at some story the man standing across the table from him had told.

He might have passed for a farmer himself, clad in the buckskin breeches the dogs had torn and Esme had mended, paired with his old scuffed boots and a drab green wool coat. As usual, the knot of his cravat had worked scandalously loose.

In other words, just as handsome and charming as ever.

Her ordinarily steady heart began to thump at the sight of him. Strong, Thomas had called her. But she wasn’t sure she had strength for this.

When she’d invited him into her bed, she’d told herself she wanted nothing more than a distraction. She’d asked for just one night, and he’d given it to her, generously, passionately. Fortunately, she had the better part of a lifetime’s experience with keeping her memories, even the pleasant ones—with keeping her very self—firmly under lock and key. How very close she’d come to thinking she needed him, to giving something of herself in return.

One night must never again be allowed to change everything.

She clung to the shadows, listening to his exchanges with the tenants who came before him. Carefully he went over the terms of each lease with them, now and then striking an unfavorable clause or adjusting the rent. When Mr. Shaw stumped across the floor and was invited to sit, a concession to his injured leg, she watched the farmer stay standing as he carefully counted out his coins.

Then she watched Thomas scoot fully half of them back across the table. “A loan,” he insisted over Mr. Shaw’s incipient protest. “And Jamie MacIntyre has volunteered his boys to help your Edward this spring.”

Mr. Shaw looked on the verge of sobbing in relief at this unlooked-for kindness, though he hid it with a brusque handshake before he scrawled his name on the lease. Jane felt the sting of tears in her own throat. Thomas’s generous, easygoing nature was clearly welcome here. But was it wise? If there was a poorhouse for earls, he’d soon find himself in it.

Strange to think she would never know what became of these people, whether Mr. Shaw’s leg healed properly or how Edward would behave when he got past the difficult adolescent stage, what the weather would be like when Davina Ross married Mr. Campbell, or when Mr. Ross would finally realize he and Elspeth made a fine pair. She would never see the sort of place Dunnock Castle became under Thomas’s management.

Would never see Thomas...

When the last tenants left the hall and he bowed his head over the desk to make a final notation in some record book, she fortified herself with a determined nod, strode briskly across the flagstone, and stopped before the table.

The scrape of his chair legs echoed loudly as he pushed back and stood. “Jane—at last.” He reached out for her hands, but she kept them folded in front of her, wrinkling the paper she’d almost forgotten she held. “Are you well?” he asked, letting his hands fall and looking her carefully up and down, pausing longest over the muffler she’d wound around her neck to hide the ring of fingertip-shaped bruises there. “No, of course you’re not. How could you be, after what happened? But rest assured, he’s locked away now. I made sure of that myself. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

To that, she had no reply. He would doubtless be shocked to discover how little was the part Bartholomew Donaldson had played in her thoughts over the last two days.

After an awkward pause, he nodded toward her clasped hands. “You got my note.”

With trembling fingers, she unfolded the paper. Her disbelieving eyes had to scan the page three times before she could take in what was written there.

“A lease to Dunnock Castle?” She looked up at him, astonished.

“Aye.”

Carefully, she refolded the parchment and held it out to him. “That’s very generous of you. But it won’t be necessary.” When he would not take it from her, she tossed the lease onto the table, desperate to be rid of it. “I believe I’ll buy a little cottage somewhere—I really haven’t any need for a castle, or a red racing curricle, or an enormous bed.” At the mention of the bed, Thomas’s pupils flared. She pretended not to notice. “When one rents, one is always at the mercy of the landlord, and as you know, I prefer to be self-sufficient.”

“Jane.” His voice was nothing more than a whisper as he came around the corner of the table to stand beside her. For just a moment, she thought he meant to take her in his arms, and her heart began to hammer—part fear, part longing. The rare shadow of doubt flitted across his expression, as if he could see her pulse race. He kept his arms at his sides. “I only meant to tease you a bit,” he said, glancing down at the paper.

She managed a ragged-sounding laugh. “Oh, I know. Very clever. However, I’ve already made arrangements to go.”

“Nay, lass,” he replied dismissively, but not unkindly. “You’re in shock. ’Tis no time to be making decisions. Stay. Stay as my guest, if you must—I’ll gladly go on sleeping in the gatehouse. Better yet, stay as my—”