Page 10 of This Laird of Mine

“They are no danger to your plans. They merely brought his bride to him. They will desert him, I’ve no doubt, when they see the ruin of his estate. Two of the women are pregnant. Surely their husbands will want to keep them out of harm’s way by taking them back to their homes. Kildare will be alone with the girl before long.”

Despite the hood that shielded her face, she stared at the man, hard. Pleasure flooded her when he flinched. “Don’t come back here until you have something to report. If you disappoint me again . . .” She let the words trail off, but she knew the man understood their intent. She would threaten and she would punish those who did not do as she commanded. The twisted, lifeless body of the man’s predecessor was proof of that. She might be a woman, but she did not fear soiling her hands if it achieved her goal of tormenting, then burying Jules MacIntyre. Claire would be the means by which she would gain her revenge, thanks to Jules’s father. She had blackmailed James Grayson into revealing the intentions of Jules’s father. But instead of a gift to his son, the father had given her a means to Jules’s end when he’d found a “real” Claire to play the part of the fabricated bride. The man had meant to finally make amends to his son for a lifetime of neglect. Instead, he had provided the perfect vehicle for her own revenge.

Death would be a welcome relief when she was through with this last and final Lord Kildare.

From the back of his horse, Arthur Cabot narrowed his gaze on the wreck that was Kildare Manor. Why had the past Lord Kildare let his own estate go to ruin? The Kildares had always taken great care of the old place; he knew this as a son of one of their tenants.

Arthur could see the old farm now, across the fallow field in between two rock hedges. His parents had left the farm five years ago. After the old woman’s death.

That was when things started to change. Lord Kildare had lost not only his second wife, he’d lost his younger son, and some said his will to live. He gambled with money he didn’t have. And the money he did have vanished before any of the bills were paid or before he reinvested in the estate. That’s when the crofters and the servants started drifting away.

Arthur rode up the weed-lined drive and dismounted in the courtyard, hesitating instead of charging forward as his directive demanded. His thoughts turned to the past, when he had left the Kildare estate at fifteen to move to town with his parents, in their effort to find a better life. And now he was back. Not as a tenant farmer’s son, but on another mission. He had assumed the identity of a debt collector. Such a role was not too big a stretch. Lord Kildare owed his creditors a goodly sum.

The poor bastard.

Arthur stared at the closed doorway. He had no choice but to pressure the man into paying him something, adding a burden he was certain the new laird did not need. But his role demanded he stay close to Lord Kildare, and the woman who claimed to be his new wife.

Funny business that. Arthur had been watching the manor since Lord Kildare had arrived. So far the man’s only journey had been to the village with a cartload of carpets. He had returned several hours later with women to help him clean the place.

So when had the man acquired a wife?

Arthur needed to find out more about the situation. Boldly, he rapped on the door. It took several minutes before the door slid open a crack to reveal a watery eye. “What do ye want?”

“I am here to collect upon the debts of Lord Kildare.”

The door slid closed, but not before Arthur slipped his booted foot in between the door and the frame. “Now, let’s not be unfriendly, my good sir. I must speak with Lord Kildare immediately.”

With a heavy sigh, the old man surrendered. “Wait here,” he said as he shuffled away.

Arthur waited outside the doorway, uncertain if he had been invited inside, or if the old man had truly meant him to remain standing at the doorway, staring into the faded and dilapidated house.

Several moments later, the steward returned alone. Arthur frowned. The old man was supposed to bring him the laird of the manor. The servant held out his hand. “As partial payment on whatever yer owed.”

Arthur held out his hand to receive one small copper farthing. Before he could object to the sum, the massive oak door was closed tight.

One farthing.

Kildare owed a far sight more than that. It was time to turn up the pressure and make his presence known.

Claire wandered out of the house in an effort to escape not only her guests, but the man who had been so angry with her a short while ago. He did not want her here. That much was obvious. Outside, it was easier to push aside the angry look on his face, his harsh words.

She wandered across the courtyard to the back of the house, then down toward the water. Kildare Manor sat on the eastern shore of Loch Awe. From the grassy shore, she could see the rich rolling hills, covered in a blanket of heather that eased into the cold waters of the loch. The pristine reflection of the puffy clouds in the blue sky above shimmered in the steely gray water below.

The scenery was some of the prettiest she had ever seen in Scotland. Claire looked around with a sigh of pleasure until she turned back toward the manor itself. Surrounded by waist-high grass and covered in briars up to the roofline, Kildare Manor looked as neglected as it was lonely. She’d only been in the house for less than an hour, and she felt the emptiness, the grief, that had been too much a part of its history. It was as if the house mourned the loss of those who had once been so vibrant within its walls.

She knew the history of the house—the stories of Lady Kildare’s mysterious death and Jules’s subsequent trial for murder. Every story about the Kildares and their cursed estate had reached even the fringes of society where she existed. She also recognized the desperation and loneliness in her new husband’s eyes. Those same emotions had been her constant companions since she was twelve years of age, when she’d been cast into the world with no family and no home.

But she was more fortunate than most women who had suffered her fate. Her father had left a small sum of money, and that had helped convince the neighbors to take her in and raise her alongside their own children.

But what about Jules? He’d had a family to care for him. Hadn’t he? He’d had a home, and despite the neglect, Kildare Manor continued on. The place was not dead. It was merely sleeping, waiting for the right person to wake it up, to help it shed its past and begin again.

Would the newest earl be that person? Could she help him set the manor back to rights? Would he let her if she tried?

Judging by their earlier conversation, she doubted it. But even though he wanted her gone, and as soon as possible, she would do what she could in the next fortnight to set his house in order. Perhaps doing so would help her secure a way to his heart, even if temporarily.

Lost in thought, Claire picked her way through the waist-high grass at the shoreline toward a small stone building. It appeared as if it was used at one time to house boats and fishing paraphernalia, if the pile of decaying oars, rotting nets, and pocked floats were any indication. A single rowboat leaned against the side of the building. It was covered in withered leaves from a long-ago winter, caught up in spiderwebs from bow to stern.

Claire moved to the doorway and tried the latch. Locked. She moved on, rounding the other side of the small building when she discovered a rusted old scythe and a hoe. She picked up the scythe. The handle was weathered and dry and felt rough against her palm, but the blade, despite its color, looked like it might still do the job for which it had been intended.