Page 14 of Who’s That Earl

“A wee bit,” he agreed a trifle reluctantly, recalling Jane’s accusation. He held out a hand to help the housekeeper make the dangerous turn so that she could descend the stairs. “But I’ve been away for more than ten years.”

“Ah, well.” She dismissed the last decade with a wave of her other hand, a hand he would have preferred she kept flat to the stone wall for the sake of balance. “You’re home now.”

Was he? How could a place be so familiar, and yet so strange?

Then again, he might say much the same about Jane.

Once at the bottom of the staircase, Mrs. Murdoch began to bustle down the corridor he’d walked along earlier with Jane. “How long has Mrs. Higginbotham been at Dunnock?”

She didn’t pause as she answered. “As long as Mr. Ratliff has.”

Was she being deliberately evasive? His stride was easily twice hers, and he quickly reached the housekeeper’s side. “And how long is that?”

“Oh, a few years now.”

Nearly six. He knew as much from the papers General Scott had given him to study. But, of course, that time line did not account for the year or so between their meeting in Sussex and her arrival in Scotland. The period in which she’d been married and widowed, taken employment, and agreed to travel to what Englishmen who didn’t know better thought of as the end of the world.

When Mrs. Murdoch ushered him across the Great Hall, he began to wonder whether she hadn’t decided to show him out the door instead of to his room. “Dougan put your things in the gatehouse,” she explained. “Bit of privacy for you there.”

A bit of privacy for Jane, as well. Once the castle door was shut, he would be as far removed from her as he could and still be within Dunnock’s walls. Perhaps he’d underestimated the servants’ protective instinct.

Almost immediately, he regretted leaving his greatcoat and gloves behind. The damp, icy air made him think with unexpected longing of sweat and sand and the whine of mosquitoes. Once more, he silently cursed General Scott for insisting on his coming to Dunnock. If his chilly reception from Jane tonight was anything to go by, even their unexpected reunion might not be enough to salvage this journey.

Mrs. Murdoch turned her face into the wind, favoring him with red cheeks and sparkling eyes. “There’s nowt like th’ fresh Scots air to remind a man he’s a Highlander,” she insisted.

The echo of his own ridiculous explanation for his brogue forced another wry smile to his lips.

The gatehouse consisted of a suite of rooms built into the castle’s outer bailey, where in days long gone by, the guards would have lived and slept and kept watch through the narrow slits high in the walls. Vaguely, he wondered whether he would be expected to share the dark, humble quarters with Dougan. But when Mrs. Murdoch shouldered open the door—“sticks a bit, always has”—he saw that the rooms behind it had been transformed from their original purpose as guardsmen’s quarters. The apartment was spacious and modern, comfortably furnished. They passed through an office to the sitting room, and beyond that he could see a bedchamber.

“Lord Magnus’s steward, Mr. Barrie, did live here for many a year,” Mrs. Murdoch explained. “He—the earl, that is—shut up the rest o’ the castle and let most of the staff go. Didn’t fancy worryin’ himself about it, it seems. Then, after Mr. Barrie took sick an’ died, Mr. Ratliff came.”

Thomas smoothed his features into an expression of mild interest. “But Mr. Ratliff isn’t—” He bit off whatever he’d been about to say. Who knew what Mr. Ratliff might be? “Who manages the land?” he asked instead.

She shrugged. “Someone in Glasgow? Or maybe it’s London.” Edinburgh, he very nearly corrected her. But any of those cities clearly lay beyond the borders of the housekeeper’s imagination. “Mrs. Higginbotham gets letters from him from time to time.”

More letters—and likely unpleasant ones too, concerning matters about which she could do very little. She must have come to dread the arrival of the post.

“I thought p’rhaps you’d come to...well, er...see about things.” Mrs. Murdoch folded her hands in front of her and gave him a significant look.

Do I look like a steward?

He didn’t dare ask, afraid the answer might be yes. Then again, with his sun-browned skin and scuffed boots, perhaps he no longer looked enough like a gentleman even for that.

“I’ve come to investigate a threatening letter sent to Mr. Ratliff,” he said instead. Hardly a lie now. He certainly meant to uncover who’d written the damned thing, though he was far more concerned with the possible danger to Jane. No need, in any case, to claim more of a role for himself. While he was conducting his investigation into the letter, he could look into the state of affairs at Dunnock as well. Surely, that would satisfy General Scott’s demand.

The housekeeper’s eyes grew wide at the mention of a threat.

“Tell me, what sort of tenant has Mr. Ratliff been?” he asked.

Surprise at his question flickered across her features, and she drew her folded hands closer to her body, in the manner of one guarding something—a secret? Or was she simply a loyal servant, disinclined to speak of her master’s affairs? “I couldn’t say, Mr. Sutherland.”

“Why not?”

“Why, I’ve never met the man.”

“Never—?”

She gave a crooked nod of confirmation. “Keeps to himself, he does. Spends most of his time abroad.” Clearly, she found such behavior strange.