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“Yer as great a fool as Gordan was,” he choked out between gales of laughter while slapping his leg. “He could never see the truth when ’twas right under his nose either.”

Bothan was either further into his cups than Keane had realized or had toppled over the edge into lunacy.

“Their name, Uncle?” Keane would not be dissuaded. He was done with his uncle and cousin, and the spy must go too.

Finally reining in his humor, his uncle sniffed and waved his hand in the air. “There’s been many over the years, beginnin’ with yer mother’s lady’s maid.”

“Who is it now?” Keane all but gritted, his patience at an end.

“Yer butler, of course.”

Keane didn’t believe him. Nevin had been with the family for generations and was as loyal as any Scot ever was.

“Who is it really?” he demanded.

His uncle would depart on the morn too, and henceforth was no longer welcome at Trentwick either. To hell with the gossip. There was no affection or respect lost between Bothan and Lorne and most of Keane’s other guests.

Sighing, his uncle shook his head, very much looking like his dead brother at that moment. “Yer the grand duke. Ye figure it out.”

“Rest assured. I shall.” Sooner rather than later, now that he intended to ban his uncle and cousin permanently.

The sly glance his uncle slid him unnerved him.

“Ye ken, I was born a mere two minutes after yer father?” He glanced around the comfortable study once more and rolled a shoulder. So he’d mentioned on dozens of occasions, usually when lamenting that he wasn’t the duke.

“I ken.” Keane was eager to have this done and return to his guests.

Well, the one person he longed to see would likely be tucked in her bed by now and cursing him to the ninth layer of hell.

“On several occasions, I pretended to be him,” Uncle Bothan droned on, his gaze distant as if he looked into the past. “Few but our parents and nurses could tell us apart. No’ even many of the staff and certainly no’ mere acquaintances or strangers. Gordan would become so infuriated when punished for some mischief or other I’d caused while pretendin’ to be him.”

“I’m aware,” Keane snapped, wishing he’d allowed himself a second dram of whisky.

His uncle took particular glee in the retelling of his misdeeds, as if Keane was supposed to commiserate with him.

Chuckling, Bothan scratched his stubbly chin. “He had the dukedom and all that went with it, just because he was born first. I might as well have had a bit of fun at his expense.”

Aye, his uncle had slid into madness. Or did jealousy do that to a person if the emotion was fed and encouraged?

“Think on that a wee while, Son.” At the door, he glanced back, his brow puckered. “Yer a far better mon than Lorne. I’m glad of it.”

And then he was gone.

What the hell was that all about?

The next afternoon, after a successful morning hunt, Graeme and Camden had joined several of the other more boisterous guests in a snowball fight on the back lawns. Cora and Elana had begged Marjorie to allow them to go outside. With promises their uncles wouldn’t permit them to become too cold and wet, she’d consented to their bit of fun in the snow.

Like devoted puppies, Sphynx and Chimera had followed the girls from the keep. Her daughters were as besotted with the wildcats as the big cats appeared to be with the lasses. Perhaps she’d see if Graeme would permit them each a kitten at Killeaggian Tower.

Presently, she sat at the harpsichord in the music room playing her favorite tunes from memory as a few of the other ladies sipped tea and chatted—which was to say, gossiped.

That also included the hostile, dark-haired beauty. Courtesy of Anny, the chambermaid tending the fireplace in her chamber this morning, Marjorie had learned the name of the woman shooting daggers at her with thick-lashed eyes last night: Lady Constance Abercrombie.

A frown puckering her freckled features, Anny had rubbed her forearm. “She’s a mean one is Lady Abercrombie. Pinched me ’cause there werena any strawberries on her breakfast tray. Where is Cook to find strawberries this time of year, I ask ye?”

Where indeed?

Even now, Marjorie felt the woman’s venomous, adder-eyed gaze upon her. She intended to avoid Lady Constance Abercrombie if at all possible.