Page 20 of Heirs and Graces at Highland Hall
The next afternoon, Bex and Gordon were sitting in the study. They had spent the day going through all the paperwork they could find. Papers Bex had disregarded before because they were irrelevant to her accounting were now being scrutinised for any evidence of the ‘direct heir’. Personal letters she had felt rude even scanning through were now being pawed over and dissected in hope of some hidden clue. But there was nothing.
‘I’ve got a major sense of déjà vu,’ Bex said as she picked up a small leather notebook and flicked it open to the first page. She stared at a list of hospital names, all of which had been crossed through, causing a memory to stir in the back of her mind.
Duncan had been helping her sort through the paperwork when he’d come across this one. The pair of them had made a deal: that if he helped her for five days – help which included bringing her lunch – then she would go on a date with him. Looking back at it now, Bex wondered if she’d already been falling for him then. This mild-mannered Scot who looked like he should be on some sort of topless calendar. She had fought it, naturally. Not only because she was there to work, but also because Duncan, in his recently broken-hearted state, was, inher opinion, undatable. Given how much they’d had to get through, and the absence of any financial data inside it, they had paid the notebook little mind, and had stacked it with all the hospital correspondence, which was exactly what she did again, before turning back to Gordon and letting out a groan.
‘Part of me thinks that this could be his idea of a joke,’ she said, rubbing her forehead. ‘I can just imagine him, watching from wherever he is, laughing away.’
‘Aye. Or…’ Gordon said, removing his glasses only to leave the rest of his sentence hanging in the air.
‘Or?’ Bex pressed, not sure what Gordon had been going to say.
‘Well, he was a generous man. A good friend to both of us, I reckon. Maybe it was his way o’ makin’ sure I could bill him for hundreds of bloody hours of work.’
‘If that was the case, he could have just left us something in the will,’ Bex countered.
‘Aye, you’re probably right,’ Gordon said with a sigh. ‘And the last thing we want tae do is get this wrong. I’m sure ye’d agree. If we let the laird’s title go to the wrong person… I dinnae even know what the implications could be.’
Bex hummed as she contemplated the situation. Gordon was right. She had seen families torn apart over inheritances a fraction of the size of this one. But they had looked at all the known family members and one thing was certain: there wasn’t an heir that was more direct than Kieron, so if there was an answer, she wasn’t going to find it asking him.
As she sat there, mulling over the issue, Bex’s phone buzzed with a text from Lorna.
Moira’s. Tomorrow night. Sort out tartans.
Bex sent back a quick smiley-faced emoji and put the phone down.
A moment later, it buzzed again.
Do you have a black dress with you? Full-length?
No.
The next message came quickly.
No problem. I’ll get Eilidh to make one.
Bex responded with a thumbs-up emoji, thinking that was the end of it. But the barrage continued.
You’re a size twelve, right?
Yep.
Great. What sort of neckline do you want?
Gordon sighed heavily, cutting into her text exchange. ‘Do you think you might want to just call her rather than let that ruddy thing beep all the time?’
He wasn’t a grumpy man, but Bex could hardly blame him. The constant buzzing was annoying her, too.
‘Sorry,’ she said, quickly typing.
V-neck. Will speak later. I’m working.
She slipped her phone on to silent, placed it face down on the counter and moved across to Gordon. ‘Sorry about that. What do you need me to do?’
Gordon removed his glasses. With the amount of time he spent polishing his lenses, Bex couldn’t help but wonder if heneeded them at all. Or whether they were just some sort of stress-relief tool. He was certainly using them for that now. ‘I think we might have to start looking beyond the study.’
‘Beyond the study?’ she echoed.
She had assumed, perhaps naïvely, that if they couldn’t find the answer here among the masses of paperwork, that would be the end of it. Kieron would be marked as the heir, and they could all move on with their lives. She’d go back to London and away from the penetrating gazes of both Duncan and Kieron. But that didn’t look like it was going to happen.
