Page 68 of Wild Wicked Scot
“—and combine them with your men. He said you meant to put James Stuart on the throne.”
“Why would he say it? What would that give me?”
“Favor with a new king?” she answered uncertainly.
“Aye, and what then?” Jock prodded her, his voice gentler than Arran’s.
“He said that as he had brought you into the union of England and Scotland, and had vouched for you, and had given his daughter in marriage to you, that the suspicion of treason would likewise be cast on him, and that he would hang for it.”
“The coward sent his daughter to do his bloody deeds, is that it?” Arran spat.
“He said I was the only one who could discover it. That no one would suspect me, that I could discover what you were about, and that it was imperative I do so before anyone else.”
“And what did you discover, Margot?” Arran asked, his voice deadly soft. “What have you found that you will scurry back to tell your lord father, then?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just...” She swallowed. She could scarcely see him now, her vision blurred by tears she would not allow to fall. She couldn’t be that woman anymore. If she was going to salvage this, she had to be as strong as he was. “All I have discovered is that you trade with France in goods. Not arms or men.”
“Anything else?” he snapped.
Margot looked at the figurine on the floor. “Yes,” she said slowly, and looked up at him. “I discovered some letters you wrote.”
At the mention of the letters, Arran froze, his gaze so hard she thought it might cleave her in half. Now he approached her slowly, as if he were stalking her, intending to drive a spear through her and finish her off. “Do you mean to say, then, that you have opened my private mail?”
Margot couldn’t find her voice. She could only nod.
“You,”he said, his voice a verbal sneer, his expression one of pure contempt, “have crossed an indelible line, madam.” He looked for a moment as if he would strike her, but then suddenly jerked about and, with his arm, swiped glasses off a sideboard so roughly that even Griselda jumped when they crashed on the floor. “You have jeopardized everything I have worked so bloody hard to build here! And you have crushedalltrust between us,” he said, thrusting his hand out and curling his fingers tightly over his palm. “And now? Do you think I am agoddamn traitornow?”
“No,” she said, her voice shaking quietly. “I have never thought so.”
Arran pivoted on his heel and stalked away from her. “Get her out of my sight, Jock. Take her ere I do something I will regret all my days, what few I may have left.”
Jock moved forward, his massive body shielding her from Arran. But once again, he didn’t do as Arran bid him. “Do you know, then, milady, who has suggested this lie to Norwood?” he asked calmly. “Who came from London to say it?”
Margot wanted desperately to answer, but it was impossible to drag air into her lungs at the moment. She tried to see around Jock’s body to Arran, but Jock wouldn’t allow it.
“Speak, then, lass. Tell me how I might help the laird,” he urged her.
Yes,helphim! Margot latched onto that notion. She stared up at Jock’s fleshy face. “I don’t know who has said it. I know only that men have come from London. Lord Whitcomb. Sir Worthing and Captain Laurel. Oh, and Thomas Dunn.”
Jock’s brows dipped. “Are you certain?”
Margot nodded.
Jock turned to Arran. Griselda was suddenly alert, too, staring at Margot, then at Arran.
“Tom Dunn,” Arran repeated. He pushed past Jock to reach Margot again. “What do you know of Tom Dunn?”
“Are you acquainted?” she asked, surprised.
He didn’t answer her question. “What do you know of him?”
“Very little!” She struggled to think of Thomas Dunn, a tall, wiry gentleman with a soft brogue, a pointed chin and dark, wide-set eyes. He’d never said more to her than a proper greeting. “He arrived at Norwood Park in June,” she said, thinking back. “I don’t recall much about him, quite honestly—he kept the company of my father, and I saw him only occasionally.”
“Did you no’ take a meal with him?” Jock asked. “Did you no’ see him at any gatherings?”
She tried to conjure up something that would help. She thought back to the ball they’d held at Norwood Park to mark the start of the long summer months. She didn’t recall seeing him there, but then again, the Norwood Park balls were so well attended, the dance floor so crowded, she saw only those gentlemen who sought her out. She began to shake her head, but then a memory suddenly came to her—she remembered she’d gone looking for Knox one evening and had found him in the gaming room with Mr. Dunn. “Yes, I saw him once,” she said. “At Norwood Park in the gaming room with my brother. They were playing Commerce, I think. I recall only because Knox was quite happy he’d won. He had markers stacked before him, and the other three gentlemen had only one or two.”
“That’s in keeping with the debts we’ve heard of,” Griselda said.
