A Laird for Christmas (26 page)

Over a murmur of voices, David, Bryce, and Colin climbed the stairs inside the great hall to the bedchambers above. Nicholas helped Jane up the stairs and they arrived at Bryce’s bedchamber just as the men set him on the down-turned bedding. David piled two blankets atop Bryce’s body. “Has someone sent for the doctor?” Jane asked.

“I have,” Lady Margaret said as she swept into the chamber. She delivered a steaming washbasin to the bedside table. Egan followed in her wake. He sat at the edge of the bed and began to wipe away the grime from Bryce’s colorless cheeks with a hot towel.

Lady Margaret’s gaze shifted to Jane. “Dearest, are you unharmed?” she asked solemnly. “When I heard the news, I was so frightened.”

“I am well,” Jane reassured her aunt. “Bryce suffered far more injury than me.”

Jules left the crowed bedside to add several fresh logs to the fire, trying to heat up the chamber and bring Bryce’s temperature back to normal.

“Jane?” Bryce groaned. He reached out toward her.

Jane left Nicholas’s side. She sat on the bed opposite of Egan and took her cousin’s cold hand in her own shaking one. “I am here, Bryce.” She smiled down at him.

He met her gaze and tried to smile. “Our evening… did not go… as planned.”

She reached up and brushed a soggy lock of hair from his cheek. He was deathly pale. It filled her with a cold, expanding dread. “You are still with us. For that, I am grateful.”

She caught David’s gaze. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

“Bryce is not the only one who needs some attention. Go, all of you, to your chambers,” Lady Margaret said with a concerned frown. “Get out of your
wet clothes. I have arranged for the kitchen staff to bring hot water. I say a few baths are in order tonight.”

Lady Margaret caught Jane’s arm and turned her toward the door. “Standing about in wet clothes will not help any of you. Egan will bathe Bryce, make him comfortable, and change him into clean clothing while we wait for the doctor to arrive.”

With Lady Margaret’s help, Jane continued to her chamber. She hurried to the fire that burned there and nearly stood in the grate until her chills had settled. When her hands had stopped shaking from cold, she doffed her wet clothes, washed herself in a basin of hot water, then dressed before heading down the stairs to the great hall. She paused on the bottom step, listening to her suitors, who had gathered there after their own ministrations.

“The bastard has to slip up sometime,” David growled from his place at the long table. His hair was still wet, but other than that, he bore no sign that anything out of the ordinary had transpired.

“Will it be before or after someone dies?” Jules prowled the dais in agitation.

“The cannon on the south tower was still warm when I got there,” Colin said, looking tidy and as handsome as ever. “But there were no clues as to who fired the weapon. None.”

“As much as I hate to admit this, it is as if we are dealing with a ghost,” Nicholas said, raking a hand through his hair.

“Nay!” Lord Galloway thumped his fist on the table, his brown eyes narrowing. “The villain is real. And now we know that person is not Bryce.”

“Or any of the rest of us, as we were all together at the time of the attack.” Colin frowned.

“Unless one of us has an agent doing their bidding,” Jules retorted.

Jane shivered at the accusation. They had to find the attacker—and fast, before the men started fighting one another. She did not know why, but she was confident none of her suitors were responsible for all the attacks on her, Margaret, and now Bryce.

“Perhaps it was that man Barker, whom Bryce hired to do his bidding?” Colin suggested.

“It was not he.” Jane stepped down into the chamber and approached the others. “I questioned him this afternoon, then released him. I would hazard to guess that since Bryce is now among those of us who were attacked, the attacker wants to make certain the succession of Bellhaven does not go through the Lennox-MacCallister bloodlines.”

“At least we have a motive if nothing else to go on,” Lord Galloway replied.

Nicholas stood and offered Jane his chair. “What do you know of the estate’s holdings?”

Jane accepted the seat. “Very little other than the wealth of our estate is in the land surrounding Bellhaven. Properly farmed, it could produce far more revenue than it does now.”

“Your father and brother had not seen to that with the tenants?” Jules asked with a frown.

Jane shook her head, trying to recall all her father and brother had discussed. “For some reason, Father seemed hesitant to change anything about the land. I overheard him talking with Jacob once that his men had found silver and gold particles in the ore dug from Ben Haven on the eastern border of our land.”

David frowned. “They never mined the shaft?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Jane replied. “Again, he seemed hesitant to do anything to alter the estate from its present way of life.”

Nicholas’s gaze narrowed. “Is the estate failing in any way?”

Jane paused at the question. “Nay. It produces adequately. We want for nothing, except an army to protect us.”

Jules stopped his pacing. “What other motive could there be besides the inheritance of the estate?”

“Revenge,” David said quietly. “My apologies, Jane, but your father was not known for his amiability.”

“No offense taken,” she said, catching David’s eyes. “I am aware of his faults.” She shuddered, closing her eyes for a brief moment, clinging to a fraying thread of hope that he and Jacob were still alive. Despite the emotional rift that had come between them after her mother’s death, he was still her father and she loved him.

Jane opened her eyes. “My father was human. He made mistakes like anyone else. I am unaware of him treating anyone unfairly in his dealings with the estate.”

Except her.

Jane tucked the thought away, deep inside. None of that mattered now. She straightened. The only thing that mattered, besides staying alive, was getting married in less than a week.

Five more days to be precise.

“Lady Jane,” Lord Galloway said, breaking into her thoughts. “I knew your father, but not well. Did he have any other close friends who might have known more about his activities than perhaps his own family?”

“The only two friends in the peerage who visited here often were Lord Fairfield and Lord Wigan. Both sent messengers expressing their condolences shortly after my father failed to return from that last battle. When it later became known that Jacob might have been lost as well, Lord Fairfield came himself.” She drew in a short, sharp breath at the memory of her father’s friend’s arrival; at his daring proposal to make her his mistress and take over her land without so much as a fight.

Nicholas caught her expression, his frown deepening. “What did he want?”

For a heartbeat she was tempted to remind him of his soiling of her name and opening her up to indecent proposals like the one Lord Fairfield had offered. Then she drew another breath and changed her mind. They had been down that road before. Nicholas claimed he had not hurt her. She knew otherwise.

When she did not reply, Nicholas stood. “Let us bring Lord Fairfield here and ask him ourselves.”

“Nay,” Jane said, scraping the chair against the floor in her haste to stand. “I will not have that man in this castle. Never again.” Jane locked her cold hands together, suddenly jittery and afraid. Lord Fairfield only reminded her of the things she could not control in her life. Her anxiety heightened a notch as she backed away from the table. “You will obey my wishes on this, Sir Nicholas, or you will be dismissed from this competition.”

Nicholas watched as Jane’s expression closed, shuttered.

Her lips thinned. “Do you hear me?” She straightened and looked haughtily at him.

The look in her eyes dared him to challenge her. He would do nothing to jeopardize his place in the competition for her hand. “I will not bring him to the castle.” His voice came out as a resigned growl.

“Good.” With a crisp nod she turned and left the room.

All eyes turned to him. They were all silent a moment before Jules asked, “What was that about?”

Nicholas frowned. While he did not understand what had just happened, he intended to find out. And while he had given her a promise not to bring the man inside the castle, he had said nothing of going to the man himself.

Jane did not want him to talk to Lord Fairfield, which only increased his desire to seek the man out.

“I suddenly feel unwell. I will see you all on the morrow,” he said to the others before heading for the stairs.

He had no intention of going anywhere near his chamber. As soon as he walked up the front stairs, he headed down the back ones, out of the keep, and to the stables, where he readied his horse and mounted.

As stealthily as possible, he rode from the stables and quickly crossed to the iron portcullis. He commanded Angus to raise the gate, then slipped over the drawbridge and into the night. The horse’s hoofbeats were muffled by the ankle-deep snow as he set his steed to flight. Of a common hue with the night, the pair were quickly swallowed by the darkness.

It was under that core of darkness that Nicholas hurried toward his goal.
For some reason, he and Jane had taken a step backward tonight. She was irritated with him about something that had to do with Lord Fairfield.

Filled with grim determination, Nicholas guided his horse over the snow-covered land. He would see Lord Fairfield and have his answers before the night was through.

J
ane slipped into Bryce’s chamber later that evening, eager to see how her cousin faired after his accident. As she approached the bed, Bryce turned toward her, his blue eyes glittering in the candlelight. “You will be well soon,” she said, taking a seat next to the bedside. “You and I are both lucky to have escaped unharmed.”

“I am sorry I took you out there.”

Jane frowned. “You had no idea someone would fire a cannon at the pond.”

He nodded, slowly. “I should have thought of your safety. This bastard seems to have no reservations about attacking you whenever and wherever he can.”

She was silent for a moment before asking, “How do you feel?”

He smiled faintly. “Like my head is going to explode.”

She shivered. “If that cannonball had landed a few more paces to the left—”

“I would have been killed.”

Jane shuddered at the stark brutality of the words. “Yes, but I am glad you were not.” She reached out and took his hand in hers. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

He shook his head. “But there is something I can give to you.” He reached for the rolled papers on the bedside and handed them to Jane. “This is all the information I gathered on each of your suitors. Use it however you will.”

Jane smiled down at him, allowing her pleasure to flow into that smile. “You are a good person, Bryce. I always knew you were.”

“Thank you for believing in me.” He squeezed her fingers.

“There has to be something I can do for you, Bryce. Name it.”

“Marry me,” he said with a teasing, half-hearted smile.

Jane sighed. “Something other than that.”

“Stay with me for a while.” His voice faded and his eyes drifted closed. In another moment he was sleeping soundly.

Jane leaned back in her chair and studied his face. There were so many things she did not know about her cousin. Such as why he struck out at the world before it had a chance to strike him, or why he covered his emotions with a devil-may-care attitude.

Deep in her heart, she knew he was not the one responsible for her accidents. But they had better figure out who was, and quickly, before anyone else was caught in a murderer’s web.

“I will take it from here, Hemsley.” Closing the door on the servant who had escorted him in, Nicholas strode into Lord Fairfield’s dining room and interrupted his supper.

Lord Fairfield looked up at the intrusion. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table, Nicholas dropped into it. “I am Sir Nicholas Kincaid, and I am looking for you.”

The middle-aged man with a balding head set down his fork with a thump. “Why?”

“Because I need answers.”

The older gentleman narrowed his gaze on Nicholas. “And you think whatever you seek ’tis important enough to disturb a man’s dinner,” he said with a deep sigh.

At Nicholas’s nod, the man picked up his fork and knife and started attacking the piece of meat disguised by a thick brown gravy in the center of his plate. “Answers about what?”

“Lord Lennox and his daughter Lady Jane. Do you know them?”

“You know I do or you would not be here disturbing me.” Lord Fairfield did not look up from his plate as he continued to cut his meat into bite-sized pieces.

“Why would someone want to harm the heir to Bellhaven Castle?” Nicholas inquired.

Lord Fairfield looked up and frowned. “By heir, do you mean Lady Jane Lennox?”

“Aye.”

Lord Fairfield’s face reddened. “Then nay, I have nothing to say on the matter.”

Nicholas yanked the plate away at the same moment he plucked the knife from Lord Fairfield’s hand, pointedly studying the blade. “I would start talking if I were you.”