Page 39 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

“Darcy.” Wickham's smile held its usual insolence.

Darcy’s cold eyes briefly flickered across Wickham before landing on his cousin. “I trust you have a good explanation for this, Richard.”

The Colonel’s expression was grim as he gestured to the empty seat. “Sit. You need to hear what they have to say.”

The Highland man studied Darcy with eyes that had witnessed suffering beyond measure. “Rob Kinsman. I survived the Clearances on Skye.”

The name from the confrontation at Longbourn. Darcy kept his expression carefully neutral whilst his mind worked rapidly. “ You have information regarding Malcolm MacKinnon?”

The man started to reply, but Wickham immediately placed a warning hand on his arm.

“It depends,” he drawled, looking at Darcy. “How much is this information worth to you?”

Darcy scowled. “Are you asking for coin in return?”

Wickham shrugged and took a sip of ale. “If you must know, we visited MacKinnon at Longbourn five days past. I had previously written to him asking for coin to keep my mouth shut. He declined my offer, so here I am, about to reveal his darkest secrets. You know how trade works, Darcy,” he added insolently.

Biting back an angry retort, Darcy retrieved a handful of coins from his miser purse and slid them across the table. Wickham raised an eyebrow.

“Why, Darcy, I would have assumed this information was quite valuable to you.”

Setting his jaw, Darcy slammed the purse on the table, where it was greedily snatched up by Wickham.

“Speak,” Darcy ordered the other man.

“Aye, I know the man residing at Longbourn, though that is not his true name.” Kinsman leant forward, and his voice took on a bitter edge that spoke of old wounds never properly healed. “I knew the MacKinnons before the troubles came to Skye. The old laird was a good man, stood by his people when the factors came with their eviction notices and English soldiers.”

Darcy said nothing, merely waited whilst Kinsman gathered his thoughts. The man's hands clenched on the table, knuckles white against the scarred wood.

“They came in winter. January, it was, snow thick on the ground and more falling. Pulled folk from their cottages before dawn, babes screaming, mothers begging for mercy.” Kinsman’s voice roughened with barely suppressed rage. “Set fire to the roofs so they could not return. The soldiers beat them back with rifle butts.”

The taproom had gone quiet around them. Even Wickham's usual smirk had faded.

“And Malcolm MacKinnon?” Darcy prompted quietly.

“The real Malcolm MacKinnon tried to stop it. Young laird, newly come into his inheritance after his father died. Could not have been more than twenty years old.” Kinsman's jaw clenched so hard Darcy could see the muscle jump. “He stood between the soldiers and his people, demanded they show mercy, offered to pay compensation from his own purse if they would only let folk gather their belongings before they were turned out. Said he would go to Edinburgh himself, speak to the landlord, find some other arrangement.”

“What happened to him?”

“They beat him senseless and left him bleeding in the mud whilst they burnt everything he had tried to save. Kicked him in the ribs when he tried to get up. I heard his screams from where I was hiding in the rocks above the glen.” Kinsman's voice had gone flat, as though the only way to tell this was to drain all emotion from it. “He died three days later from his injuries. Internal bleeding, the doctor said. He never stopped trying to help his people, even when he was dying. Kept asking if they had shelter, if the children were fed.”

The words settled over the table like a death shroud. “Then how can you be certain the man now at Longbourn is not Malcolm MacKinnon?” Darcy asked carefully.

“The scar.” Kinsman touched his own jaw, tracing a line from ear to chin. “Hamish McLeod caught a blade during the Clearances — a tenant went for him with a reaping hook whilst he stood by and let it happen, and he never so much as raised an arm. Left him marked from here to here. A man can change his name, his clothes, his manner of speech. He cannot change a scar like that, not in ten years.”

“The man at Longbourn,” Kinsman continued, “is Hamish McLeod. The factor's son. The bastard who stood beside his father throughout it all, watching, doing nothing whilst folk he had known his whole life were destroyed. I confronted his party at a coaching inn when they were making their way to Longbourn. ‘Fraid I mighta frightened the bairn and her nursemaid. He paid me half of what was agreed upon to keep his secret, promising the other half in the morning.” Kinsman scoffed. “Except he vanished in the middle of the night.”

Darcy had seen that scar. He had sat across a drawing room from it and thought nothing of it whatsoever, as one thinks nothing of a man’s hands or the cut of his coat. The cold that went through him now had very little to do with the taproom fire having burnt low.

Darcy drew a hushed breath. “You claim he assumed Malcolm's identity to escape persecution for his father's role in the evictions?”

“After the troubles, when folk wanted blood for what had been done, the factor and his son disappeared. Thought they had fled to England or the Continent where no one would know them. Aye, it would be easy enough for someone desperate to slip into a dead man's place and start fresh where no one knew the difference.”

Wickham interjected smoothly. “I recognised something was amiss the moment I encountered him at Longbourn. Too smooth by half, too eager to play the noble Scottish laird for the English gentry. Our dear Malcolm has been most generous in encouraging my silence. Five hundred pounds thus far, with promises of more should I continue to exercise discretion. But he rejected us when we went to claim more a few days prior.”

“Blackmail,” Darcy said flatly, making no effort to hide his contempt.

“Such an ugly word, Darcy. I prefer to think of it as compensation for services rendered.”