Page 6 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Dobson snorted. “Surprised the boy didn’t bowl you over.”
Thomas had seen a courier dart out of the building just before he’d reached it, but couriers were commonplace in that part of the city. He was wondering why this particular delivery had excited such concern when Mrs. Manning obligingly added, “It’s from Carsphairn, sir.”
Shock lanced through Thomas. “Ah.” Manachan? Or something else? He studied the envelope, but it wasn’t franked by his uncle’s hand… Was that good news or bad? “I’ll be in my office.”
Without haste, without again looking at the packet, he made his way down the corridor, into his office, and to his desk. Standing before it, he picked up the letter knife, slit the packet, and withdrew a single sheet of paper, folded twice. His face like stone, his emotions under tight control, he unfolded the sheet and read…
That the Bradshaws, the entire family of seven—Mr., Mrs., two sons, and three daughters—had been taken violently ill the day before. The family of the same Bradshaw who had previously written to Thomas.
The letter he held had been penned by a neighbor, Forrester. Forrester confirmed that, as Bradshaw had told Thomas, the seed stock for the farmers had not been delivered, and as far as anyone knew had not even been ordered, and no one knew want to do. Forrester explained that he and his family had called on the Bradshaws, who were kin, and discovered the entire family gravely ill and wracked with pain. Forrester stated that they’d sent for the clan healer, who lived at the manor. And that Bradshaw had begged Forrester to write to Thomas and let him know immediately—because they believed that someone hadn’t liked Bradshaw informing Thomas about the problem with the seed supply.
Lowering the letter, Thomas stared unseeing at the view down Trongate. “Good God.” Logically, there was no reason to link the Bradshaws’ sudden illness with Bradshaw writing to him about the seed supply. However, in the circumstances, he couldn’t swear that there was no connection. He had told Nigel and Nolan, and while he couldn’t imagine his cousins doing anything so nefarious—something idiotic, perhaps, but cold-bloodedly poisoning an entire family was something else again—he had no way of knowing who else they had told.
No way of knowing what was going on on the Carrick estate.
No way of guessing if someone else might have an interest in their farmers not being supplied with seed.
Families fell ill for all sorts of reasons. The healer had been sent for, thank heaven, and if the family were still alive… “Pray God she can pull them through.”
Thomas knew the healer, one Joy Burns, a woman devoted to her calling. She would do her best; that wasn’t in question.
Despite the unstated insinuation contained in the letter, at first glance, there seemed no reason to assume cause and effect. However, although Thomas hadn’t mentioned Bradshaw’s name, for anyone familiar with the people on the estate, it wouldn’t have been all that hard to guess that the outspoken and frequently belligerent Bradshaw had been the source of the complaint. And then the Bradshaw family had fallen ill—on the day after Nigel and Nolan had returned to Carrick Manor.
It wasn’t, Thomas realized, simply a case of three potentially connected facts—Bradshaw writing to Thomas, Thomas mentioning the matter to his cousins, and the Bradshaws falling ill—but also the timing. More than all the rest, it was the timing that made his hackles rise.
He’d been making his way in the business world for nearly a decade. If he’d stumbled across a situation like this in a business context, he wouldn’t be even entertaining the notion of coincidence.
He stood in his office, staring out of the window, while he struggled to make more from the scant facts he had.
When all was said and done,somethingwas going on on the Carrick estate—and he had no idea what.
After several long moments evaluating his options, he swiveled on his heel, walked out into the corridor, and strode for Quentin’s office at the other end.
When push came to shove, clan trumped damn near all else.
It absolutely trumped personal considerations.
He couldn’t not go down to the estate and find out what was going on. He owed the clan, the Bradshaws and the Forresters, and even more, Manachan, that much, at least.
His interference might be unwanted, even unnecessary; he hoped the latter would prove to be the case, but regardless, he couldn’t ignore the renewed plea in Forrester’s letter.
He had to go back and do whatever he could. That was all there was to it.
CHAPTER 2
It was midafternoon when Thomas rode into the stable yard behind Carrick Manor. Theclangof his gray gelding’s hooves on the cobbles brought first one, then two, then three clansmen from the stable.
Sean reached Thomas first. The burly stableman caught Phantom’s bridle; as the big gray quieted, Sean looked up at Thomas, relief in his face. “You surely are a sight for sore eyes, laddie.”
Mitch and Fred came striding up, smiles on their faces, warmth in their eyes. “Welcome back, Mr. Thomas,” Fred called.
“Aye.” Mitch tipped his head back to meet Thomas’s eyes. “Good thing, too.”
Thomas returned their smiles. “It’s good to be back.” The response came by rote, yet, as he swung down from the saddle, he realized it was true. A sense of simple happiness, the expectation of meeting old friends and family he held dear, had slid through him in the instant he’d turned off the highway and started down the long drive.
Handing the reins to Mitch, he said, as much to himself as to the three men, “I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”
Sobering, he glanced at Sean, the eldest of the three and officially the head stableman. “Forrester sent word about the Bradshaws.”
