Page 76 of The Iron Earl

Lachlan studied her face. She looked almost hopeful at the prospect. Sweet, but now was not the time to set her in front of his grandfather, not with the fury that would be filling the room. “No, this I best tackle alone.”

She nodded, a frozen smile on her face. “I understand.” Her look swung to Domnall. “Thank you, Domnall, but I recognize where I am—I can make it to the rooms without a problem.”

Domnall inclined his head to her and Evalyn stepped around him to move down the hall.

Lachlan motioned to his friend as he turned. “Dom, I wanted to speak with you anyway. Walk with me?”

Five minutes later, Domnall left him at the heavy oak door with its straps of ancient black hinges that led to the Vinehill library—effectively, his grandfather’s living chambers, since he could no longer move up and down the stairs to his rooms.

He stared at the weathered rough grain of the door, ordering his thoughts. With a deep breath to steel himself, he shoved the heavy door open. “Boy, that you? Where have ye been?” His grandfather twisted his body in his wingback chair, craning his neck to see the doorway. “Ye should’ve been here, boy, what with the news—sending Dom to tell me.”

Lachlan closed the door behind him. “I was taking care of a matter on the way back from the trial, Grandfather.”

“A matter like that English chit ye dragged home? And why in the hell haven’t I seen ye since ye’ve been back?”

“I stopped in the last two nights, Grandfather.” Lachlan moved to the center of the room, settling his hands in a clasp behind his back. “You were asleep both times. I’ve been at the trial during the day.”

“Asleep—phew—ye know I don’t sleep, not when I’m this close to death. Yet Dom managed to find his way in here to tell me the news.”

“We took the carriage, Grandfather. Dom rode to and from the trial.”

“Ye think I don’t know the carriage has been back for two hours, boy?”

Of course he knew. Even at seventy-one he knew everything that happened at Vinehill.

Lachlan inclined his head. “We walked back to the castle on the woodland trail. I needed to order my thoughts after the trial.”

His cane slammed against the ottoman in front of him. “Ye don’t need to think, boy, ye need to do. Thinking is weakness—ye should know what ye stand for the second it comes into yer head.”

Lachlan stifled the instant argument bubbling in his throat. If he’d done that he’d be on his way to murdering Mr. Molson at this very moment. And he would have already sent Mr. Lipinstein to hell. Instead, he nodded. “Yes, Grandfather.”

His grandfather’s wiry eyebrows slanted together, the stiff white hairs an umbrella above his hawk eyes. “This better not be about that wretched Englishwoman you brought into Vinehill.”

“She’s not some random wretched girl. She’s my wife.”

His cane swung, striking the ottoman. A puff of dust flew from the top of the dark mossy green velvet. “She’s the daughter of the man that killed your brother, Lach. Have ye lost all yer loyalty?”

“I haven’t lost a damn thing.” Lachlan’s right hand curled into a fist, the fresh scabs over his knuckles popping free. “You think I don’t dwell on that fact every day? Dwell on that fact in the moments I’m with her? The betrayal that I’m committing?”

“Ahhh, boy.” His grandfather cackled, leaning back into the wingback chair. His madcap eyebrows arched. “Ahhh, well done. Well done. Ye married her for revenge, didn’t ye, boy? What’s the game afoot—why didn’t ye tell me? Is the plan to drop her—ruined—on the doorstep of that devil father of hers? Hold her for ransom?”

Lachlan’s head dipped forward, his glare piercing his grandfather. “Hold her for ransom?”

“Of course, boy, it’s one of the best ways to exact revenge—hold the key to the future, to his standing in society, just out of reach. Better yet, hold her for ransom and then once ye get it, still ruin the girl. Divorce her and sell her. She’s a bonny lass—would fetch a pretty coin.”

Lachlan’s look lifted to the upper right corner of the room where the dark portrait of his largest ancestor held up a severed head. Brutality immortalized forever. He stifled a sigh. Ransoms? Selling his wife? How had his grandfather become so warped? Had he always been so and Lachlan had just never noticed, or had his grandfather’s grip on reality slipped, creeping along so quietly, so sneakily, he didn’t notice it until this very moment?

His gaze dropped, centering on his grandfather. “Holding a woman for ransom may have been done in your time, Grandfather, but it is a very long time past that.”

“Piddle that.” His hand flung out, his skeletal fingers flashing an eerie white in the glow of the fire. “We still sell wives. Don’t tell me we don’t, boy. Wiggin in the village just put his up for sale not but three weeks ago.”

Lachlan shook his head. Maybe his grandfather wasn’t as mad as he thought. Wigginhadjust put his wife up for sale. Of course, her lover had bought her and the whole affair was a gentlemanly transaction.

But still. Sellinghis wife?

“Evalyn will not be put up for sale, Grandfather.

“A divorce then? Simmons is working on the papers as we speak.”

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