Hannah and the Highlander (31 page)

On cue, as the duke set foot on Dunnet soil, the pipers lit in, playing “When the King Enjoys His Own Again.” The duke stood still and politely listened, though the shuffle of his feet betrayed his impatience. Hannah had the suspicion he'd never heard the traditional tune before and had no idea of its meaning.

When the final skirl of the pipes wafted away on the breeze, Alexander stepped forward and tendered a bow. “Your Grace,” he said. “Welcome to Dunnet.”

The duke didn't respond, except to wave a large man with a grim visage forward. “Please know my cousin Dougal. Dougal serves as my second in command.” The duke's voice was clipped and cold.

Alexander shook Dougal's hand. Hannah noticed the man pulled away quickly, as though burned.

“My brother, Andrew, is my second in command. He's in Dounreay at the moment. I've, ah, written you about those issues.”

The duke glanced at Dougal, who nodded.

Hannah bristled at the implication that the duke had not read the letter himself. Alexander must have noticed the same, for his jaw bunched. “Perhaps we could … discuss the situation in depth while you are here.”

“Perhaps.”

Nothing more than that.
Perhaps.
The duke's indifference scraped at Hannah's nerves.

Alexander forced a smile and eased her forward. “This is my wife, Hannah Lochlannach, of Reay. Her father is Magnus, Laird of Reay.”

Hannah curtseyed. The duke responded with a tight nod. It could have been interpreted as rudeness, but Hannah decided to blame the cravat. “Welcome, Your Grace.”

“Lady Dunnet.” He made the gesture of kissing her hand, though it was only a gesture.

“Won't you please come in? I have arranged for some refreshments after your journey.”

It was not her imagination that the duke reared back. His sharp gaze fixed on Alexander. “I need to speak with you immediately.” His glacial tone did not bode well; it made something slightly acidic squirm in her belly.

Hannah and Alexander exchanged looks. In his eyes, she saw a similar trepidation. “Would you care to settle into your rooms first?” she offered.

“No.”

Oh dear. Just
no
.

“Is there somewhere we may speak? In private?”

Though Alexander swallowed heavily, he nodded. “Of course. The library.”

Hannah glanced at her husband in surprise. Granted, he could hardly lead the duke up three hundred narrow steps to his study and the library was on the ground floor, but she knew how much Alexander disliked that room. From his expression, she gathered that he expected this meeting to be a trial, so it might as well take place in a room where he'd faced many trials before.

He'd survived them before.

He would survive them now.

She flashed a smile at the duke—it was not returned—and hooked arms with Alexander, leading their guests to the castle doors. She gestured to Fergus. “Please bring whisky to the library,” she murmured. If this interview was indeed unpleasant, likely someone would need it.

She had every intention of staying by her husband's side and he seemed inclined to have her there, but the duke did not. As they reached the library doors, he turned to her. “Lady Dunnet. If you don't mind.”

Hannah shot a glance at Alexander, who, with a tinge of resignation, nodded. She stepped back and allowed the men to enter without her, though it was highly contrary to her nature.

As the door closed on them, she couldn't ignore the cold finger tracing down her spine. Foreboding clutched at her heart. Clearly, the duke wasn't pleased with Alexander and intended to give him a set down. She wanted nothing more than to be there with him, to protect him, defend him if she could.

Not for the first time in her life, she was swamped with frustration.

Sometimes it was exasperating as hell being a woman, being excluded from important conversations.

It was a damn good thing the duke didn't know the library balcony, accessible from an alcove on the second floor, was the perfect place to eavesdrop.

 

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Alexander's feet felt like stones as he followed the duke into the library. When Alexander had met the man before, he'd been friendly, almost pleasant. This was a different man. His demeanor was distant, his expression hard and his eyes cold.

Something had changed.

It didn't take a seer to figure out what that was. It was no secret that the duke favored the Clearances. No secret that Alexander resisted them. And neither of them was prepared to budge.

He regretted not having Hannah at his side to bolster him. She—and all his people—counted on him to lobby eloquently. He hoped to God he could do their faith justice.

Caithness strode across the room and took a seat at Dermid's old desk. Dougal followed, taking his place at the duke's shoulder, radiating hostility. The duke waved at the chair before the desk. “Have a seat.”

Alexander ignored the ripple of unease the room itself brought to the fore. More than once he'd been called before this desk. Although never once had Dermid invited him to sit. He forced all that away and dropped into the chair, fixing his attention on the duke.

Caithness seemed disinclined to speak. He spent long moments rearranging the lace at his cuffs. Alexander saw this for what it was. A ploy to make him nervous. It didn't work.

Though his gut churned, he leaned back in his chair and set his features in a deferential arrangement. When Fergus scratched at the door with a tray of whisky, he accepted a tumbler and sipped it. Long after his factor left, the duke remained silent, his drink ignored. Alexander tried not to let his annoyance simmer. He focused on the burn of his whisky and the sunlight shafting through the window. He glanced at the shelves and pondered which book his wife might read next.

If Caithness wanted a war of no words, so be it. Alexander was a past master at that game.

When the duke finally spoke, it was almost a surprise. His voice, with that cold British accent, snaked through the room on a sibilant whisper. “I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in you, Dunnet.”

Though the words hit him and hit him hard, Alexander forced a blasé smile and quirked a brow. “Disappointed, Your Grace?”

“First, your failure to respond to my order for the Clearances of Dunnet.”

“I did respond. My answer was nae.”

“It is your obligation to obey me.”

“My obligation is to my people. They depend on us—on you and me—to protect them.” He leaned forward. “It is our sacred oath, passed to us by our ancestors.”

This seemed to befuddle the duke. He stared at Alexander without reply. So he continued.

“It is my position that these Improvements will destroy the county. As they are destroying Scotland.”

The duke fluffed his lace and offered a petulant frown. “It is my position that I need the funds.”

Hope flared. This was the opening Alexander needed. “You … need the funds?” There was money in the Dunnet treasury. It was for emergencies, but if there ever was one this was it. If it proved necessary, Alexander was willing to use the money, every penny, to buy them some time.

“It is my intention to renovate Caithness Castle before … Well, as soon as I can.”

Alexander's hope deflated. The Dunnet treasury was healthy but not healthy enough to renovate that pile of stones. Still, he asked, “How much do you need?”

“This conversation is beside the point.”

Alexander could have planted one in Dougal's face. At his interruption Caithness seemed to recall himself. His resolution firmed. “True. True. The point of this conversation is my disappointment with you, Dunnet.”

“Your Grace, surely you see that the Clearances—”

“I refer to the other source of my disappointment, Dunnet.” Judging from Caithness' tone, it was a greater source of disappointment, although Alexander couldn't fathom what it might be.

“Your Grace?”

Caithness lanced him with a sharp blue stare. “Did you think I wouldn't hear of it?”

“Hear of what, Your Grace?”

“Your treason,” the duke's man snapped.

A lead weight settled in Alexander's belly.
Hell.

Caithness sent his minion a quelling glance, and then he turned back to Alexander, his expression harsh. “I really liked you, Dunnet. Silly of me, but I thought on some level we were cut from the same cloth.”

Where on earth had he gotten that impression?

“I thought you, of all my lairds, would be loyal.”

“I am loyal.”

Dougal snorted.

“I'm not a fool. I know Stafford has been courting my barons. When I heard about your meeting with his son, I was wounded. Wounded to the core.” He set his hand to his heart. Where his lace cascaded in a snowy waterfall over his coat.

Alexander swallowed heavily. “That was a chance meeting at an inn. There was no discussion of politics. And it doesna signify. I have no intention of joining with Stafford.”

“That's not what Olrig said—”

“Olrig?” Alexander nearly came out of his skin. Fury lashed him.

“Is it true or is it not that you called a meeting of
my
barons to plead with Olrig and Scrabster to side with Stafford?”

“Nae. It most certainly is not.”

Caithness seemed surprised by Alexander's denial. His eyes widened.

“That's not what Olrig said.” Dougal again.

Ah, fury.
Alexander had always been wary of his temper, wary of becoming like his uncle, but at the moment he had no control. It raked him with scorching claws. He leaped to his feet and planted his fists on the desk. “Olrig is a stinking pig.”

Though Dougal leaped back, Caithness was undaunted. He studied his nails. “Is that why you beat him up? Or did you beat him to a pulp because he opposed your plot?”

Oh. Holy. God.
Olrig was worse than a stinking pig. He was a
lying
stinking pig. “It isna my plot—”

“Ah, so you admit your involvement?”

Really.
Dougal needed to be silenced. For his own safety.

“Nae. I doona.” Alexander's growl rumbled on the skeins of air. Even Caithness was taken aback by his vehemence. “Regardless of what you have been told, I have never even considered siding with Stafford. Olrig is another matter entirely. In fact, he is the one who approached me.”

The duke sat back and considered this information. Alexander was hopeful that his vehemence had convinced Caithness, but there was a hint of doubt in his eye. As he thought, he drummed his fingers on the desk. It was oddly reminiscent of the way Dermid would drum his fingers on the desk. Alexander attempted to ignore the similarities. “You say you are my loyal man.”

“Aye. I am.” And the duke had few left, it seemed.

“Well then, my loyal man, surely you will have no difficulty acceding to my wishes.”

“Your … wishes?”

His gaze hardened. “Consider it an ultimatum, if you will.”

Alexander's blood went cold. A slither of unease snaked through his veins. “And that is?”

“You shall clear your land, or I will strip you of your title and your property. It is as simple as that.”

Alexander's gut clenched and clenched hard. His breath froze in his lungs. His pulse rushed in his ears.

Clearly, he'd misheard the duke.

“I beg your pardon?”

Caithness' features tightened, his chin jutted forward. “Clear your land or I shall have the new baron clear it for you.”

Ach, aye.
That was what he thought he'd heard.

Alexander collapsed in his seat and stared at the duke through burning eyes. Never in his life had he been so stunned. So devastated. So speechless.

He
was
Dunnet. He always had been, and he'd assumed he would be until the day he died.

And now this.

Now he was forced to make an unimaginable decision. Destroy everything he loved or lose everything he was.

Either way, he would no longer be Laird of Dunnet. Because if he cleared the land he would be naught but the laird of a herd of sheep.

Either way, his people were lost. He had failed them utterly.

But beyond his horror, beyond his shock, one thought winged through his mind.

How on earth was he going to tell Hannah? How could he survive losing her respect? Her love?

Her?

She had married a baron, a powerful warrior who could protect her and her people. How could he hope to keep her if he was a nothing more than a shell of that man?

*   *   *

Hannah shook. With fury, of a certainty, but with outrage as well. Perched in the gallery overlooking the library, she'd heard every word of Alexander's interview with the revolting Duke of Caithness and decided that she really didn't like him very much at all. He was a cold, stubborn, stupid man. And a popinjay to boot.

But as odious as the duke was, his minion was worse. It had taken everything in her not to reel out of her hiding place and rain hell down upon the man as he battered Alexander with accusation after accusation.

Her husband, she decided, was a saint. He'd only bellowed once. Or maybe twice. He hadn't pummeled anyone. Through it all, he'd managed to retain his composure.

Hannah, not so much.

Even now she wanted to find the duke and smack some sense into him. But she feared it was too late. For sense.

After Caithness' proclamation, Alexander had spun from the library without a word. Hannah had directed Fergus to show the visitors to their rooms, because she couldn't bear to face them and she suspected her husband was far too overwrought to think of it. Indeed, he'd disappeared. Hannah had searched for him everywhere and could find neither hide nor hair of him. He hadn't been in the tower or his bedroom or in the stables. His horse was gone, though, so she assumed Alexander had gone for a ride to clear his head.