Page 35 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Crouching, she lifted the edge of the runner—and uncovered a short length of candle.
“So that’s where it went.” Picking up the length—the top broken from a longer candle—she smoothed back the runner. She was about to rise when the oddity of a piece of candle with no candleholder struck her. “And clearly the staff didn’t come this far when they tidied up.”
She glanced to left and right. Two low bureaus were set against the walls between the windows; their knob-like legs held them three inches off the floor.
She sighed, got down on her knees, then bent until her head was almost on the dusty floor, and looked beneath the bureaus.
The candleholder, a simple pewter one, was underneath the bureau to her left. Peeling back her jacket sleeve, she reached and hooked the holder out; it still contained the stub of the candle.
Getting back to her feet, the candleholder in one hand and the broken piece of candle in the other, she briefly studied both, then looked down the corridor. The head of the stairs was a good twenty feet away.
Puzzled, she set candleholder and candle on the top of the bureau. For a long moment, she stared at them. Then, beneath her breath, she murmured, “I can think of only one way that you ended up here, while Faith fell down the stairs all the way over there.”
Her theory was increasingly looking like fact—far more like fact than she liked.
A distant rumble of voices reminded her that she had an imminent meeting she wanted to witness.
She turned and headed for the door to the gallery.
CHAPTER 6
The thick runner on the main stairs muted Lucilla’s footsteps as she hurried down to the ground floor.
Thomas had already walked into the front hall. The rumble of male voices she’d heard had come from Nigel and Nolan when they’d opened the front door, but they’d paused on the porch, laughing at some joke; as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the pair pushed the front door wide and strolled in.
Intensely curious, she slipped unseen from the bottom of the stairs, keeping close to the newel post so that the side of the archway between the front hall and the stairway hall screened her from the three men.
Halting in the lee of the archway, she risked a quick peek. Thomas had halted just a few steps into the hall; he stood with his back to her, waiting for his cousins. She caught only a glimpse of Nigel and Nolan before they were blocked from her view by Thomas’s shoulders, but they looked startled to discover Thomas there. Their laughter had cut off abruptly; the silence that followed lasted long enough to feel strained.
She’d seen Nigel and Nolan here and there over the years. Nigel was a few inches shorter than Thomas, but of more barrel-like build—a younger Manachan, in that respect. He had brown hair, a redder, lighter brown than Thomas’s, and his complexion was ruddier, his features less refined. Some ladies might consider him ruggedly handsome, but in an aggressive, pugilistic fashion.
Nolan was of similar height, but slighter build, with fair hair loosely flopping over his brow. Finer boned, he seemed to exist in Nigel’s shadow, a lesser man not just physically but also in personality; Nolan watched while Nigel acted.
Tilting her head, she waited to hear where the encounter would lead.
“Cuz,” Nigel finally said. “What are you doing here?”
No hello, hail-fellow-well-met, or similar family greeting—in fact, no greeting at all. She tried to imagine any of her cousins greeting each other like that, and simply couldn’t.
Thomas replied, his tone even, “I was summoned.”
Even as the words left his lips, Thomas realized just what in the situation had been bothering him all along. Why the devil had Bradshaw, let alone Forrester, applied tohim—far distant in Glasgow—and not to Nigel, the acting-laird? Regardless of whatever was going on, it was Nigel’s responsibility to deal with it, a fact Manachan had confirmed. Which meant that the clansmen appealing to Thomas was a deliberate declaration of their lack of confidence in Nigel’s leadership.
The scene in the stable yard seemed to bear out that conclusion; the clan didn’t approve of Nigel.
From the way Nigel bristled, he already knew that. His “Oh?” was laden with rising aggression.
Thomas had no time for cousinly tantrums. “The Bradshaw family was taken violently ill—all of them, the children included. Why others insisted on sending for me, I have no clue, although I assume it’s connected to the reason Bradshaw appealed to me about the situation with the seed supply.” He paused, holding Nigel’s gaze. “You recall I mentioned that when we met in Glasgow. As you’ve been in Ayr, am I to take it you’ve resolved the issue?”
Nigel looked uncomfortable but quickly sought refuge in a scowl. “I’m dealing with it, as I said I would.”
Defensive dismissiveness laced his tone.
Thomas had no wish to engage in hostilities; despite being heir to the lairdship, Nigel had always resented the somewhat different relationship Thomas enjoyed with Manachan. Thomas had known that, on finding him at the manor, Nigel would see him as intruding on his turf. As for Nolan, who was standing to the side and watching the exchange unfold, Thomas had no doubt over where his loyalties lay; Nolan had always been fiercely supportive of Nigel and protective of Nigel’s dignity.
“In that case,” Thomas went on, “as you are now back and able to resume the duties of laird, you need to know…” Succinctly, he told them of Joy Burns’s death, and of her sister’s death on the very same night. He reported briefly on the recovery of the Bradshaws, courtesy of Lucilla’s intervention, and concluded with Manachan’s invitation to Lucilla to remain at Carrick Manor to oversee the transferring of the healer’s duties to Joy’s apprentice.
Nigel blinked. Nolan frowned. Both had shown surprise on hearing of Joy’s and Faith’s deaths, but Thomas detected no evidence of real concern, much less sorrow, even though, far more consistently than he, the pair had known the Burns sisters all their lives.
