Page 35 of The Texan Duke
Connor hadn’t seen Sam since the night before. Sam wasn’t known for getting up with the dawn, but he should have been up and about by now. Connor knocked on the door of the room Sam was occupying, only for his knock to go unanswered.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” a voice said.
He turned to find a short maid with curly red hair bobbing a curtsy at him. That’s another thing he didn’t think he would ever get accustomed to, people bowing and scraping in front of him.
“I believe Mr. Kirby is taking lunch, Your Grace. He went down with the rest of the family a few minutes ago.”
He nodded and thanked her.
“Would you like me to show you the way, Your Grace?”
“Thank you, no.”
He wasn’t in the mood for the rest of his newfound family. He was out of sorts and irritated and he knew why, but the knowledge didn’t matter. It didn’t make him any less angry or confused.
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be here more than at any time since he left Texas. He felt sick to his stomach, the kind of sickness that has nothing to do with physical symptoms and everything to do with one idea colliding against another.
In the last months of the war he’d come to grips with the realization that he didn’t want to be where he was. It had nothing to do with cowardice or courage and everything to do with the fact that he didn’t believe in the cause for which he was fighting. He’d fought for the South because Texas was part of the Confederacy. Yet everything in him believed in keeping the Union together.
He was feeling the same conflict right now.
He couldn’t imagine walking away from his home and never seeing family or friends again. Or having a twin yet turning his back on the man for forty years. He couldn’t understand why Graham had never mentioned the home his ancestors had built. Or why he’d never commented on the history or the heritage about which they’d evidently felt great pride.
The man he’d always respected was fading, to be replaced by a cipher, a shadowy figure he realized he might never have truly known.
He thought about changing his mind and going down to the dining room again, but the idea of being around his aunt and his cousins kept him from following through with that thought. He didn’t feel like being companionable at the moment.
Instead, he made his way to the duke’s suite again, walking into the sitting room with its blue-and-gray upholstery, then to the small library with its oversized desk. The desk sat out in the middle of the room so that anyone sitting at it would have his back to the window. It struck Connor as a deliberate act, one he didn’t understand.
If he’d designed this room, he would have turned the desk around, faced the view and Bealadair land.
Graham had taught him pride and stewardship of his heritage. Even though Sam had been his partner, over the years, he’d sold his half—in parcels—back to Graham. The purchase had made the McCraights land rich but cash poor.
His inheritance from his uncle, plus selling Bealadair, would provide for the future of the XIV Ranch and the American McCraights.
Of course, the only person who knew that was Sam. He hadn’t even confided that information to Glassey. The less the solicitor knew the better. Otherwise he had a feeling that everything he told the man would go straight to the duchess.
He sat on the chair behind the desk, then turned it so he could put his boots up on the windowsill and survey the view. He had to admit that the scenery of the hills and rolling grass was pretty even buried under snow. But it didn’t matter if it was the most beautiful place on earth. In a contest between Bealadair and the ranch, the ranch would always win. His father was buried there. His mother was there and not far away his five sisters, four of them married with their own families.
He’d wanted to go home ever since he left Texas, a fact that he didn’t try to hide from Sam, who occasionally teased him about it.
“Somebody would think that you’ve never been outside of Texas,” Sam said.
He’d gone to college and had gone to war. The former had been a hell of a lot easier than the latter. Yet he’d been one of the lucky ones. He’d come home with all his limbs as well as his mind. He wasn’t like those poor souls he’d met who cringed at any loud sounds. He’d seen one man who sat in the corner of the medical tent rocking back and forth with his arms over his head, his eyes closed tight as if he were hiding in a small dark place in his soul. He wasn’t like that man, but he understood the need to go away for a little while, to escape.
Maybe that’s why he’d come to Scotland, to give himself a change of scenery. Or maybe it had simply been curiosity that brought him here, wanting to know about the young man his father had been. Only to be given a story that was the antithesis of the man he’d come to know.
In the past decade, he’d been away from his family more than with them, but he missed them all now. The way his mother could take one look at his face and decipher what he was feeling. How his sisters would arrive, one by one, to check on him and offer some older sister advice even if he didn’t solicit it. Especially if he didn’t solicit it.
What would they think of Scotland? Or of the Scottish McCraights? Dorothy, the most blunt spoken of his sisters, would have planted her fists on her hips, tilted her head a little, and announced her opinion of the duchess:She’s a priss, isn’t she, Connor?
Alison, the oldest, would have made a face and whispered that she mustn’t say things like that. Eustace, the sister closest in age to him, would have simply smiled and shaken her head. Barbara would have reported Dorothy to their mother as if they weren’t all grown women, mothers of his six nieces and nephews. Constance, heavy with child and due to give birth any day now, would have ignored all of them, waddled to a chair, and demanded to know when he was going to get married.
What would she have thought of Elsbeth? She might have admired her industriousness, the fact that she had seen a need and fulfilled it. He suspected that Bealadair ran smoothly all because of her.
His mother would have wanted to know about Elsbeth’s family. Her real family, not the group of people with whom she lived. It disturbed him that his cousins and aunts weren’t kinder. Perhaps he misjudged them. Were they simply more formal in his presence because he was a stranger? Or did they treat Elsbeth like a servant?
He needed to meet with the real housekeeper. Was Mrs. Ferguson genuinely unable to work? Or was she just taking advantage of Elsbeth’s kindness?
