Page 37 of The Duke's Lesson in Love

ChapterFourteen

Lord Caleb Forster, Baron Middleton.

Lord Caleb Forster sat in the upholstered chair in his rooms at the Tweed Inn watching his two hired men closely.

Beatrice and he were at the inn instead of enjoying the spoils they were due because that gray-haired bitch, Mary, and her equally wrinkled husband refused them entry. He would fire them first. Them and anyone who thought to oppose him again.

He and his mother had traveled straight away after receiving news his cousin was wounded but had gotten no further than the front stoop. Something was amiss—but without entry, he could not be certain of what, nor could he admit to knowing Gilleasbuig was shot. Moments after exiting the carriage, tenants and servants alike stood on the lawn. They were not welcoming, and he was reluctant to issue threats in the face of more than a dozen witnesses.

“Are you sure he is dead?” Caleb asked the lankiest of the pair.

“Saw him fall myself before taking off, my lord.”

“And the boy?”

“He was sobbing something good. Heard him even as I was running.”

“Poor thing”—Beatrice cooed—“will require comforting.”

Caleb shifted in his seat. He did not associate Lady Beatrice with cosseting.

As long as he controlled the purse strings, he worried little about tears. “He will get over losing his father.”

“The child will be indebted to you, his uncle and guardian if you can replace Gilleasbuig with someone of equal importance.”

He glared at Beatrice.

“His mother,” Beatrice said with a quirk of her brow as if the suggestion was most clever.

“Are you suggesting another, other than you and I, have influence over the child?” He turned away. “Don’t be preposterous.”

“You already wield control over that whore, Caleb. It is you she loves and will do anything for. Even forsake her son.”

Caleb frowned. Layra had served her purpose years ago—too well when she begot a bastard—and she was compensated handsomely for her affair with Gilleasbuig. He was reluctant to involve her again.

“Your man did say the boy is quite attached to that nanny from the orphanage. If reports are accurate, that woman made the trip to Berwick.”

“It’s true, my lord,” the more hardened of the two criminals said. While the slender of the two preferred the shadows, this one, with his strapping frame was bolder. “The Blackamoor cares for the lad.”

Perhaps his mother had the right of it. He would find Layra and use any sliver of motherly bond to keep the child in line. Once her purpose was served and the boy’s obedience in hand, Caleb would rid himself of her.

For now, he would give those at Montdale house a week to grieve. Not a moment longer.

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