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“Exactly, here for you. Enough time has passed since father died. Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting a visit from me.”
“A visit…” Her words trailed off, her tongue at a loss for words as her stomach started to churn in earnest. “It’s Christmastide, George. Shouldn’t you be with your family? Your brothers. Yourwife? Yourchildren?”
He waved his hand in the air. “The bat doesn’t care naught where I am, Christmastide or not. And it is time I took a present for myself.”
Her head shook slowly, understanding every word he said yet still trying to fight the many grotesque layers of insinuations in his words. “A present—”
Domnall’s heavy footsteps on the staircase cut her words.
She looked up to him and he held a plump valise up. Where he had found it or what he had put in it so quickly, she hadn’t a clue, as she hadn’t packed a single thing.
“Your bag, Karta.” Domnall stepped down the last few stairs and set it next to the door.
George moved to stand in front of Domnall. “On further reflection, I was remiss in not thanking you for the assistance with what should have been my responsibility, Lord Kirkmere. And now that I have arrived, it only makes sense for Karta to stay here with me at the dower house, so her bag will not be necessary.”
Domnall stood straight, his words slow as his head tilted to the side. “But you have no staff.”
“I will recall them.”
“That will take days for how they are scattered throughout the countryside.” Domnall looked over his shoulder through the left side window by the door and poked his thumb in the air. “Your cook, alone, is a three days carriage ride from here.”
“You seem to know much of the workings of my dower house,” George said.
“I know the area.” Domnall shrugged. “I must insist that you join us at Kirkmere Abbey.”
“I’m sure Karta can make a meal or two if necessary.”
Domnall stepped around George and aligned himself next to Karta. “I’m also sure that Karta would want to be at Maggie’s bedside as she recovers. She has been nowhere but there these last days.”
The left side of George’s mouth pulled back into a sneer. “A loyal employer.”
“The most.” Domnall nodded. “I am sure you agree that the Maggie’s health is paramount and Karta needs to be at her side. So I insist. You will come to Kirkmere, at least until the staff arrives back here from their celebrations and will be able to attend to you. Unless you can handle the house and meals on your own.”
Karta stifled a guffaw—George handling anything with his own two hands was preposterous. Once the laugh was swallowed back, she glanced at George, a strained smile on her face.
Her stepson’s mouth twisted in a grumble as he glared at Domnall, but then he nodded.
Thank the heavens.
Now she just had to make sure George was never in a room alone with Domnall. For if he was—if the two spoke—it was all over for her.
Domnall would never look at her the same again.
{ Chapter 10 }
Karta stared at Theodora’s tail swinging back and forth, brushing the drifts of snow on either side of the skinny path that had been worn from the stables to the abbey.
They walked single file, Theodora leading the way, Domnall directly behind her after he slid in front of George at the last second before the trail through the snow slipped down to shoulder’s width. George had been forced to the rear.
Much to her pleasure, though she didn’t imagine it was sitting well with George. She hadn’t bothered to look back to see his indignation, not that she could see him past the wall of Domnall—George was half his width, scrawny, even, in comparison. She truly had been surrounded by fragile men these past years and she hadn’t even realized it.
“But before inheriting the title, I was the steward at Vinehill Castle in Stirlingshire,” Domnall said, his footsteps heavy behind her.
He’d kept up strained, polite conversation with George the entire way back to Kirkmere Abbey and for how silent Domnall usually was, she knew he did it for her. To take the awkwardness of George’s sudden appearance off her shoulders—when what he really wanted to do was capture her alone and ask her why in the hell her stepson would show up at her door on Christmas eve day. She could feel that question burning in Domnall with every stiff motion he made near her, with every singeing glare he gave her.
“Vinehill castle?” George asked. His voice went louder to reach past Domnall to her. “The Vinehill men—those were your failed engagements, Karta, weren’t they?”
She stepped into the clearing of snow around the rear door of the abbey and nodded as Domnall stepped past her to open the door. “They were.”
