Page 3 of Home Unchaperoned

“Mudlarking?” Meaghan threw up her hands. “Oh, perfect. Because that won’t cause a scandal!”

Catriona sighed. She wasn’t even sure if it was possible to go mudlarking in the Seine. She suspected it was too far inland to have much of a tide. “Fine. I’ll let ye bring all these stupid silks. But only if ye promise to pack me three sensible dresses, my books”—she pushed the pile she’d found by the front door forward—“and my portable writing desk.”

Meaghan regarded the trunk, which was already close to full. “I don’t think there will be room for your writing desk.”

“I must have my writing desk,” Catriona insisted. Her writing desk contained her most precious treasure—her letters from the man who called himself Xenophon.

That summer, a pair of naturalists, Nathaniel and Katherine Sterling, had visited Skye. He was a professor at the University of Edinburgh, and his wife, who was a talented painter, was his research partner. He wrote papers documenting the local flora and fauna, and she provided highly accurate illustrations to accompany his work. They were particularly known for their work studying golden eagles on the Isle of Lewis.

Kate Sterling had been taken with the Viking artifacts Catriona had unearthed. Not that Catriona was allowed to take credit for her discovery. Her parents insisted that her archeological pursuits were unladylike and refused to allow her to claim credit for them. What man would consent to marry a bluestocking who fancied herself an archaeologist, after all?

Catriona was tempted to protest that Kate Sterling was a bluestocking through and through, and she had managed to catch a husband. Catriona couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy when she thought about the happy couple. Professor Sterling clearly regarded his wife as both his partner and his intellectual equal. He was delighted by her bluestocking tendencies.

But it was no use dreaming. Catriona would never find a man who felt that way about her.

Kate had asked if she might paint the artifacts, and Catriona’s father had granted his permission. Those paintings had wound up at the Society of Antiquaries in London, where they had caused a bit of a stir.

The secretary of the Society of Antiquaries had sent a letter to the castle, noting that one of their members had some questions for the person who had discovered the artifacts. Catriona had noticed the letter on her father’s desk.

“Are ye going to answer?” she had asked.

“No,” her father had said without looking up. “It’s not as if we want word getting out about yer habit of digging in the mud.”

Catriona knew she shouldn’t have done it. But someone was actually interested in her discovery! After fretting over it for three days, she had sneaked into her father’s study, stolen the letter, and sent a reply. In order to avoid directly defying her parents, she had done so anonymously, signing herself as Nabonidus, an ancient Babylonian king who had conducted his own excavations and even created a museum, and was therefore regarded as the first archaeologist.

The curious antiquarian had responded, choosing to use Xenophon, a Greek historian who had written about the Peloponnesian War, as his nom de plume. Xenophon was every bit as passionate about ancient history as Catriona, and they had struck up a delightful correspondence. His weekly letters were a rare bright spot in her life. She reread them constantly, and she couldn’t imagine how she would survive four months in Paris without them.

“All right.” Meaghan heaved a theatrical sigh. “It will mean you only have room for six ballgowns, but if you insist on being so mulishly stubborn, I suppose I’ll have to make do.”

Catriona was about to ask why in all of God’s green goodness anyone needed more than six ballgowns when their brother, Duff, poked his head through the doorway. “Come here. Ye’ve got to see this!”

Chapter Two

Duff was the eldest of the McCallister siblings at six and twenty. He was tall, barrel-chested, and wore his reddish-brown hair cropped short. While attending the University of St. Andrews, he’d become obsessed with a game they played over on the mainland called golf, in which you tried to hit a wee ball into a hole using a set of clubs made of wood and iron.

Catriona followed; Meaghan did not. Duff led her to an oriel window at the end of the corridor with a cushioned bench seat beneath it. Their little brother, Callum, was already there.

“Look,” Duff said, gesturing across the frosty moor. “It’s Father’s new tenant. The Englishman.”

Catriona peered at a black-clad figure making his way toward the gamekeeper’s cottage at the top of the hill. He had something grasped in one hand. It was long and skinny like a walking stick, but he wasn’t using it as such. “Does he play golf, too?”

Duff gave her a strange look. “What makes ye ask that?”

She gestured toward the window. “Isnae that a club he’s carrying?”

“No, ye eejit,” Duff said. “’Tis a shovel. He doesnae go anywhere without it.”

“That’s odd,” Catriona observed, then recalled that she seldom went anywhere without a shovel herself.

But that was different. She was an archaeologist.

“Ye don’t know the half of it.” Duff paused, making his voice deep. “’Tis the same shovel he used to murder his betrothed.”

Catriona snorted. “Murder his betrothed—what nonsense!”

She knew Duff was trying to scare Callum, who was only twelve. Surely enough, when she slid her gaze to her youngest brother, his eyes were wide as guineas.

“’Tis true,” Duff insisted. “He’s known as the Sussex Shovel Slayer. They say he isnae right in the head. That he’s prone to flying into a rage over the smallest thing. One night, at a ball, he caught his betrothed smiling at another man.” Duff paused, letting the tension build. “She was never seen again.”