Page 49 of Who’s That Earl

“He feels the weight of his responsibilities,” Theo said, more seriously. “Since his father’s injury, he’s been a good lad, but that farm, ’tis more work than one can do. Elspeth tells Ross they dinna ken how th’ rent’s t’ be paid.”

“I should like to see that Mr. Watson try to put the Shaws from their home,” Mrs. Campbell declared firmly, and Thomas would not have put it past her to set herself in the land agent’s way.

“Perhaps it will not come to that,” Thomas said, almost under his breath.

He had it in his power to help them, and any of the others who suffered. He could even bring a doctor for Mrs. Campbell, to see what more could be done to ease her pain. But if he stayed...

His downcast eyes took in his scarlet coat. How was he to choose between British soldier and Highland laird? He could fulfill his oath to protect Great Britain, or he could protect the people of Balisaig. But not both.

“Put the kettle on the hob, Theo,” Mrs. Campbell ordered.

But Thomas shook his head and rose. “I need to…” A dozen possible conclusions to that sentence suggested themselves, but at last, he said simply, “Go. I need to go. But rest assured, I’ll call again another day, ma’am.”

She accepted another kiss from him, and Theo walked with him to the door. “We’re all glad to have you home.”

There it was again. Home. Well, he might have come home, but he’d never felt so lost. He nodded his thanks to his friend and stepped into the cold.

Beneath lowering skies that threatened more snow, Thomas set out toward Dunnock on the wide lane that bisected Balisaig. Three or four hearty souls still stood near the church, but the others had dispersed to their homes—or perhaps the pub, despite Mr. Donaldson’s jab at “purveyors of strong liquor.” Ross’s absence from the services had been conspicuous. Briefly, Thomas considered turning in at the Thistle and Crown when he reached it, but no. He needed to be alone. To think.

When he’d first settled into his post in the West Indies, the quiet had been its own threat. On occasion, a threat to his sanity. Though rationally he’d understood both the necessity for and desirability of silence—he’d rather be lonely than find himself on an island overrun by enemy soldiers—he had nonetheless craved the regular comradeship he’d left behind. His fellow intelligence officers. The friends of his youth.

Eventually, he’d grown accustomed to his isolation, but it had never ceased to be a weight. On his shoulders. On his soul. Though Dominica was an ocean away now, he found the weight had merely shifted, not lifted. If he stayed in Balisaig, would he not still be alone? Both Theo and Ross would soon be happily settled, while Lord Magnus sat high in his castle, all by himself, unapproachable, untouchable. Tommy Sutherland no more.

As he drew abreast of the church, he recalled the look in Theo’s eye as he’d spoken of his wedding. Whatever Thomas decided about staying or going, he meant to see that Donaldson was removed. He would replace him with a man who understood the needs of this community. A man who—

The flutter in a window of the manse caught his eye, and instantly he was on alert. Only a curtain, he tried to tell himself, but after years of watching for sails, for flags, straining his vision against the darkness, against a blinding sea—well, old habits died hard. Automatically, he scanned the perimeter, lest the movement had been a distraction from some other threat, before focusing on the window.

Stone mullions framed a pair of figures: Donaldson and a woman, her back to the glass, the two of them locked in what appeared to be an embrace. Thomas fought a wry laugh. No surprise that the man who took such obvious pleasure in upbraiding others for their sins was a hypocrite. He might still have had the good sense to draw the drapes.

Thomas was on the point of continuing on his way, when his well-trained eyes noted the woman’s fur-lined hood. Her rich brown hair slipping loose from its pins.

Jane’s hood. Jane’s hair.

And Donaldson’s hands not on her back or her arms, but at her throat.

Before he was even aware of having begun to run, he was bursting through the front door of the manse, shouting for her, turning toward the room where he’d seen her standing. On the threshold of the study, he saw Donaldson jerk his head about to identify the intruder, a sneer of contempt twisting his features, even as his fingers continued to tighten around Jane’s neck.

Then the man gasped, flinched. “Why you little whore—!” he gasped out as Jane pushed him away from her and he fell, striking his head on the corner of his desk before he hit the floor.

Jane looked down at her trembling hands, as if she too was bewildered by the dramatic turn of events. Thomas followed her gaze and saw blood coating her hands and spreading across her pelisse, a darker stain against the black, gleaming brightly against the blade of a small knife.

“Jane! Are you hurt?” He leaped across the room, shoving furniture from his path.

She tried to speak, couldn’t, nodded her head, winced. Bruises were already forming on the pale skin of her throat.

Donaldson’s blood, then. She’d taken advantage of the momentary distraction provided by his arrival to stab her attacker with the penknife that must have lain on the table behind her. But why had the clergyman—?

“He sent the letters,” Jane croaked.

The letters? “Whist, lassie,” he crooned, gathering her in his arms. “Don’t try to talk.” His frantic thoughts belied the stillness of his body, however. He’d failed to protect her. Surely, he’d missed some important clue connecting Donaldson to the threats. Why, just now, he’d almost passed by. If the curtain hadn’t fluttered as Jane struggled, then—

He was spared further self-recrimination by the arrival of two others: the apothecary and his wife, who must have seen him run into the manse.

“Is something amiss here?”

“Mrs. Abernathy,” Jane whispered, and before Thomas quite knew what had happened, the apothecary’s wife, a fair-haired fashion plate of a sort rarely seen in the Highlands, had pushed him out of the way to gather a sobbing Jane in her arms, oblivious to the blood.

Abernathy knelt beside Donaldson. “He’s been stabbed!” He fixed Thomas with a look that demanded explanation.