Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(86)

“Where have you been?” Catriona demanded.

Aulay shrugged and loosened the harness on his horse in order to avoid his sister’s shrewd gaze. “I thought Miss Livingstone would enjoy the gardens at Auchenard. Daisy is quite proud of it,” he said, referring to his sister-in-law, who had done the work herself.

Catriona smirked. “Oh, that she is.” She stepped forward, so that Lottie couldn’t hear her. “But the gardens at Auchenard were cleared after a blight took her roses last spring.”

Bloody hell. Aulay hadn’t actually looked at the gardens. “Aye, that’s what we discovered,” he muttered, and looked his sister squarely in the eye, daring her to challenge him further.

Catriona was too cagey for him. She turned to Lottie, who had come around her horse. “How did you find the gardens at Auchenard, Lottie?”

“Oh! Aye, they were bonny,” she said. “No’ as bonny as your mother’s gardens, no, but all that color!” She shook her head as if marveling at it.

Catriona shot her brother a look. “Color,” she scoffed. “I should verra much like to speak more about the gardens, I would, but we’ve unexpected guests.”

Lottie blanched. “He’s here, then, the justice of the peace?”

“Worse,” Catriona said. “Roy Campbell and his sons.”

Lottie glanced at Aulay with confusion. “For us?”

“Perhaps you ought to return to the gatehouse, aye?” Aulay said calmly, but his heart was suddenly slamming against his ribs. There were a lot of Campbells in the Highlands, and perhaps it was nothing...but a call just now seemed suspect. Aulay put his hand on Lottie’s elbow. “Stay there until someone sends for you, aye? Keep your clan in the gatehouse. Go, lass.”

“Aye,” she said, and turned away with a frown of worry.

When she’d gone, Aulay asked, “Why have they come?”

“I donna know,” Catriona said as they began to walk toward the castle. “Pappa has ordered them a meal and has sent a lad after Rabbie.” She paused at the gates and looked her brother up and down. “Best you go and comb your hair and change your shirt,” she said, and disappeared inside.

A half hour later, Aulay entered the great hall to find his father and Rabbie seated at a long table in the company of three men. They rose as he entered, and Roy Campbell extended his hand. “Captain Mackenzie,” he said jovially. “We meet again.”

Aulay had no recollection of meeting this man. “Have we met, then?”

“You donna recall it? A few years ago, in Whitehaven.”

Aulay suddenly remembered. Roy Campbell and some other men had fallen into their cups and were treating a serving girl ill. Aulay had intervened. It had ended with a black eye for him, but the lass had escaped their rough hands. “Aye, now that you mention, I do indeed,” he said coolly. “What brings you to Balhaire, then? Our serving girls are our own, aye?”

Roy Campbell chuckled. “We’ve heard an interesting tale, we have, so preposterous that we had to come and hear it for ourselves, aye?”

“What tale is that?” Rabbie asked, his voice just as cool as Aulay’s.

“My sons and I have come from Port Glasgow, aye? And there we heard that the mighty Captain Aulay Mackenzie had been overrun by pirates and had lost his ship and, moreover, had asked for a justice of the peace to be sent to Balhaire. Naturally, we were all astonishment at the news,” he said, feigning shock, “particularly as this had come on the heels of another impossible rumor we’d heard about the Mackenzies.”

“Aye, go on,” Aulay said impatiently.

“Have you no’ heard it, then? A ship flying the royal flag was sailing the waters off the eastern coast, it was, on the hunt for pirates and whisky runners at our behest. You’d no’ believe the scoundrels that try and steal our trade, aye? This particular ship happened upon a wee ship that ought no’ to have been so far out to sea. There was a bit of skirmish, there was, and the wee boat was struck. But she hit the naval ship with a shot of her own and started a fire on her deck, of all things. The captain was quick-witted, that he was, and he turned the ship about to save his men. But he saw a curious thing as he returned to shore.”

“What?” Aulay’s father said darkly, having no patience for Campbell’s games.

“He saw a ship flying the flag of the Mackenzies sailing in the direction of the wee ship. To render aid, do you suppose? To salvage any cargo, perhaps? But what cargo might that wee ship have carried? Quite a mystery, is it no’?”

The Mackenzies remained silent. Roy Campbell looked to each one of them, expecting some answer. When he received none, he asked, “Might it have been you, Captain Mackenzie? You seem the sort to render aid. Might you have manned the ship that sailed to help the smaller one?”

Aulay steadily held the man’s gaze.

Roy Campbell leaned across the table to look him in the eye. “The English donna take lightly to losing their ships, they do no’.”

“Is there anyone who takes kindly to it?” Aulay asked.

“The bounty,” one of the sons muttered.

“Och, I almost forgot, did I?” Roy Campbell said. “The bounty. Perhaps you might recall if you saw a wee ship on the North Sea when I explain.”