Page 60 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

She did not know what to make of it. She had prepared herself to marry a stranger wearing a dead man's name, and now she discovered that stranger possessed of complications she could not easily dismiss. A fraud, certainly.

Relief washed through her, and she did not trouble to suppress it. She would not have to marry him. Whatever came next, whatever became of Longbourn and her family's precarious security, she would not bind herself to Hamish McLeod.

Despite the overwhelming relief she experienced, Elizabeth felt an all too familiar despair crash over her as the full implications settled upon her. They stood precisely where they had started, with the entail hanging over them and no solution in sight. Mr Collins would inherit Longbourn after all. It did not sound as though there would be another heir. Her mother and sisters would be cast upon the charity of relations who could ill afford to support them. Everything her father had feared, everything he had sought to prevent through this match, would come to pass regardless.

Her thoughts drifted, as they so often did in quiet moments, to another gentleman entirely.

No, she thought sharply, willing herself to rein in her thoughts.

Mr Darcy had made his indifference toward her quite plain when he departed for Pemberley without so much as a goodbye. A man who truly cared for a woman did not vanish without explanation and leave her to wonder what she had done to drive him away. She would not waste her thoughts upon him when there were more pressing matters at hand.

Jane's sonata drew toward its close, the melody softening before the final chords resolved into silence. Bingley applauded with enthusiasm beyond what the performance strictly warranted, and Jane turned upon the bench to acknowledge him, colour rising in her cheeks.

Elizabeth gathered the documents and made to speak, but wheels sounded upon gravel outside and the rhythm of horses slowing reached them through the windows. Jane rose from the pianoforte and crossed to peer through the glass. When she turned back, her countenance had gone white.

“It is Mr MacKinnon. He has returned.”

Elizabeth tucked the papers beneath her arm and rose from her chair, her heart pounding in her bosom.

Chapter 20

The door swung open and Malcolm, or Hamish, as she quickly reminded herself, stood upon the threshold. His travelling coat was still dusted with frost from his ride, his grey-green eyes moving rapidly between the three occupants of the room before settling upon Bingley with an expression Elizabeth had never seen him wear before.

“This is Mr Bingley, our neighbour at Netherfield,” Elizabeth said.

“Mr Bingley? I know you by reputation, of course.” His voice held a dangerous quiet. “I was not aware we expected visitors this morning.”

Bingley rose from his chair near the pianoforte, his jaw set. “Mr MacKinnon. Or should I say Mr McLeod?”

The colour drained from Hamish's face. For a long moment he stood frozen in the doorway, and Elizabeth watched years of careful construction begin to crumble behind his eyes. Then his expression hardened into something cold and unfamiliar.

“I do not know what lies you have been spreading, sir, but I assure you I shall have satisfaction for this slander.” He took a step into the room, his hands clenching at his sides.

“It is time for you to desist, Mr McLeod,” Bingley said quietly. “I have already informed Miss Elizabeth of your deception.”

A muscle twitched in Hamish’s jaw. “You come into my home, poison my betrothed against me with fabrications and falsehoods, and expect to walk away without consequence? I have connexions in Scotland who would be most interested to learn how English gentlemen conduct themselves.”

“Your home?” Bingley did not retreat. “You possess no legal claim to this house or any other. The evidence is irrefutable.”

“Evidence can be manufactured. Witnesses can be bought.” Hamish’s gaze swept to Elizabeth, and something desperate flickered beneath the coldness. “Elizabeth, you cannot believe this. This man appears from nowhere with accusations designed to destroy our happiness, and you accept his word over mine? He is a liar!”

A furious expression crossed Jane’s usually amicable countenance. “I will have you know that Mr Bingley is a respectable man, sir,” she said. “He is a trusted acquaintance of our family, and one of the most honest individuals I know.”

Elizabeth clutched the documents to her chest. Her voice emerged steadier than she felt. “Mr McLeod, I have observed them myself a hundred times. The real Mr MacKinnon lies buried in his grave, does he not?”

It was at that moment that the fight went out of Hamish. She watched his shoulders drop, his jaw slacken, and his hands unclench at his sides. He stood before them completely stripped of the confident bearing that had first drawn her notice all those months ago.

“How did you discover it?” The question emerged barely above a whisper.

“That hardly matters now,” Bingley replied.

“It matters to me.” Hamish moved further into the room on unsteady legs and lowered himself into a chair as though his body could no longer support his weight. His gaze appeared fixed upon some middle distance only he could see. “Ten years. Ten years I have carried this, and I thought... I allowed myself to believe...”

He broke off, pressing a hand across his eyes.

“The real Malcolm was my friend,” he confessed in a hushed whisper. “We grew up together on the estate, though he was the laird's son and I merely the factor's boy. He never treated me as lesser. When the soldiers came to clear the lands, Malcolm tried to stop them.” His voice cracked. “An old woman, Mrs MacPherson, she refused to leave her cottage. She had lived there seventy years, and she said she would die there. The soldiers meant to drag her out by force. Malcolm stepped between them.”

The clock on the mantel ticked into the silence that followed.