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“Perhaps you’re simply spending time with the wrong women.”
“Or the right ones.”
Aden ignored the lame jest. “I find your view of the married state unnecessarily jaded, Graeme. I wonder where it comes from?”
Graeme tried not to shift under his chief ’s uncomfortably penetrating perusal. It reminded him too much of his oldest brother Nick’s gaze. The Laird of Arnprior possessed an uncanny ability to read his mind, as if Graeme’s skull was made of glass.
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on my assignment instead of on that blasted girl? Tommy and I would have run the blighter to ground, if not for that stupid escapade.”
Graeme shot down the rest of his brandy in one gulp before rising to refill his glass. When he returned and sank back into his seat, the leather and wood loudly creaked, causing Aden to wince.
Graeme shot him a weak smile. “Sorry.”
“Vivien was forced to replace two chairs in the dining room. If you break another one, it’s coming out of your wages.”
For no reason that anyone could deduce, Graeme and his twin had always possessed an unerring capacity to destroy furniture. It was a running joke in the Kendrick family, although he was beginning to find it tiresome.
“Best just dock me now, since it’s bound to happen again.”
Exhaustion from the long night tugged at his bones. Something else also tugged at him, a sense of failure, or even shame.
“Are you all right, Graeme?”
He forced a smile. “Och, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Aden cocked his head. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“I’m frustrated. This mission has turned into a royal cock-up, and I’m not sure why. It’s not the hardest assignment I’ve ever had from you. Not by a long shot.”
In working for Aden these last two years, Graeme had undertaken some truly dangerous missions. Initially, his chief had been cautious, pairing Graeme with experienced agents—partly to blunt the fussing from Graeme’s blasted family, especially his sister-in-law, Victoria. But he’d soon proved himself especially adept at undercover work. Almost single-handedly, he’d disrupted a dangerous smuggling ring off the coast of Kent within his first six months on the job.
Despite his family’s misgivings, Graeme didn’t give a hang about the danger or the difficulties. He’d never been much good at anything, but he was good at running criminals to ground. His work gave him a sense of satisfaction he’d never felt before.
Until this case.
Aden put down his coffee cup. “Frankly, in recent days you seem restless and lacking in focus. That might be having an impact on this mission.”
Graeme mentally winced at his chief ’s too-accurate assessment. Hewasrestless these days. To his surprise, he was missing Scotland, especially the windswept peaks and rolling glens of Kinglas, the family estate. As a lad, he’d never been able to imagine living anywhere but within that awe-inspiring and challenging landscape of mountain, loch, and sky.
But eventually both Kinglas and the family mansion in Glasgow had grown confining. As much as he loved his brothers and their growing broods, Scotland had begun to seem quaint and provincial.
So Graeme had leapt at the chance Aden had offered him. For those first months, Graeme had loved everything about London and his new life, the whole sprawling, glorious, and gritty mess of it. He’d finally found something that mattered, something he was good at.
Now, though, his sense of purpose was slipping away, and he’d be damned if he knew how to stop the slide.
Aden sighed. “I should have sent you back home after that last job. You needed time to rest and be with your family. It was a mistake to reassign you so quickly.”
“Bollocks,” Graeme quickly answered. “That was my mistake, not yours. Besides, it turned out all right in the end. That bastard will never hurt another child, or anyone else. I saw to that, didn’t I?”
Sadly, the little girl he’d rescued that day might never get over the shock of the gruesome scene. The poor, wee lass had seen everything, including what Graeme had been forced to do to protect her from her own father.
Aden pinned him with a stern eye. “You did the right thing, but you were almost killed. It was a near thing, Graeme. Too near.”
The memories of that day still made him queasy. “I’m fine, ye ken.”
“Another inch to the left, and you would have been dead,” Aden said, shaking his head.
“It was just a flesh wound, man. Nothing to get fashed about.”
