Page 20 of This Laird of Mine

He grasped the latch and yanked the door open. “And don’t bother cleaning the house. The others will be back with women to do that by this evening.”

Startled by his brusqueness, Claire watched as he shut the door behind him, once again placing a barrier between them as well as signaling her not to follow him outside. They were alone, and he would ignore her. Perfect. How many times would she fail to engage him?

Frustration sent her wandering through the nearly empty house, looking for something to do that would divert her mind from her predicament and help use her pent-up energy. She wandered from room to room until she found herself once more upstairs in front of the boarded-up chamber.

Jules had not replaced the wood slats she had removed the day before, so she once again slipped inside. She had no candle to light the chamber this time, but she remembered from her past visit that there were four small windows on the far wall. She made her way through the hazy darkness to the shutters. She unlatched the first set of shutters that opened into the room and then pushed a second set out, letting golden sunshine fill the room.

When all four windows were open, a light breeze drifted through the chamber, cleansing the once-stagnant air. Within moments, the sinister aspect of the room had vanished, leaving only a severely neglected chamber in its place.

Claire moved through the chamber until she came to the abandoned table and chairs. She righted the chair that lay against the ground and sat in it while she studied the room’s crown molding, high ceiling, and empty space. The room had exquisite light and fine bones. It would make a perfect ballroom with a little renewal and care.

Jules had asked her not to clean. He had asked her to leave this room alone. Something horrible happened in this room, something that needed cleansing from Kildare Manor and from Jules’s life. She knew she should leave the chamber now, stop the ideas that were brewing in her mind, but she could do neither thing as a new plan formed. She needed something to occupy her time here for the next twelve days. And she could think of no better way to amuse herself than transforming this chamber from a place of bad memories into a thing of beauty. It would be her gift to Jules when she ultimately left him.

The thought brought her out of her chair and toward the window at the farthest side of the chamber. She would have no choice but to abandon her husband twelve days from now. And she would hurt him just as she suspected everyone in his life had done.

At the window she paused, hearing the rhythmic sound of an ax splitting wood in the distance. She peered outside to see Jules bared to the waist, his bronzed back tapering to narrow hips, his arms and shoulders rippling with thick, bunched muscle as he swung the ax in a graceful arc.

Heat came to Claire’s cheeks. As a painter, she had seen a man’s bare arms and torso before. But somehow on Jules, they seemed so much more intimate. She was appalled with herself for looking, yet so fascinated she could not look away. Jules seemed so at ease as he swung his ax toward each waiting piece of wood and split each log with expert dexterity. His actions puzzled her because she had simply assumed he was a highly polished Scottish laird who spent his time gaming, carousing, and moving in the highest levels of society. Were his affluent friends not proof of that?

Yet today, the unpretentious and powerful Jules appeared every bit as comfortable in the wild and rugged terrain. A self-made man who needed no company but his own, and might even prefer it.

Evidently, the man had the ability to belong in whatever setting he happened to be in. He could maneuver in the highest circles of society as well as survive in his dilapidated manor house in the wilds of Scotland. For some reason, the revelation unsettled her. Who was this man—Jules MacIntyre, Lord Kildare—who she had been forced to marry? It was easier to think of him as a rogue she would hurt in the end than as an honest man who was merely making his way through this life, just as she was.

Or, she recalled yet another aspect of the man, the one who had been imprisoned for the murder of his stepmother. He had been proven innocent and released. But the woman had still died, and someone had killed her. There had been no other suspects except Jules.

His stepmother had been poisoned. Claire picked up the overturned teacup on the table. Had this truly been the murder weapon? If so, why was it still here? If Jules were guilty of the crime, would he not want all the evidence to be cleaned away, destroyed, so that no one could make any further claims?

Instead, he had left the chamber exactly as it had been. Every detail had been preserved. That fact, more than anything else, spoke to her of his true innocence. But why continue this torture? Now that he was the master of this house, why allow the memory to remain?

He had told her not to come here, that she was to leave the place alone. Claire returned the teacup to the table, exactly where it had been. Then she replaced the overturned chair she had righted earlier.

Yes, changing this room would be a gift—no, she corrected herself, an apology, for what she would eventually put him through when she succeeded in her mission. But perhaps transforming a place of horror into something beautiful would make it easier for Jules to forgive her. Or, she paused, would she leave him with yet another memory to take its place, even harder to erase?

Until she began the project, there was still time to change her mind. Meanwhile, she would record what evidence remained here in a different way. On that thought, Claire left the chamber and went downstairs to retrieve her drawing and painting satchel.

When she returned, she sat beneath one of the open windows and started to draw the scene before her in great detail. The table, the chairs, the teacup. They would all be recorded for future reference, because, with each stroke of her lead, she was more determined than ever to act upon her earlier intention. She would record the scene in case it was ever needed again, then clean this room, sweep away the old memories, and renew its purpose by giving it a fresh look.

When she had completed her drawing, she set it aside and stood. Turning once again to gaze out the open window, she saw Jules, fully dressed this time, heading up from the loch with a large fish suspended from a line in his hand. On his journey across the weed-tangled courtyard, he stopped and turned toward the road. It was then that Claire heard what he no doubt responded to, the clatter of hoofbeats.

A single rider approached the manor at a breakneck pace. The sun had yet to reach its zenith, yet the others had been gone for several hours. Had something happened to them in the village? Claire tensed at the thought, and her heart raced as she climbed through the slats that partially blocked the doorway and hurried down the main stairs.

She met Jules outside the front door just as the horse and rider came to a stop. “Lord Kildare,” the rider said. He offered Jules a bow, then hastened forward.

“Joseph,” Jules acknowledged.

A sense of foreboding threaded through Claire as she recognized the young messenger as the one Jules had hired only two days ago to bring Grayson back from Edinburgh.

“Have you a message from my solicitor?” Jules asked.

“Milord.” The young man was covered in dust, as though he had ridden hard and fast for some time. “I have been to see your solicitor.”

“Is he following in a carriage?”

Joseph shook his head. “He cannot, milord. Not now nor ever.”

“Why?” Jules asked with a scowl.

The young man paled. “He is dead.”