Page 49 of The Devil Wears Kilts
“Una’s with Winnie, I assume?” Arran asked, selecting a huge breakfast and hooking his boot around a chair leg to pull out the seat.
“Aye. Peter and Debny are at Hanover House, too.”
“Good. Let me put someaught in my stomach, and then we can go kill Berling.”
Gathering a much more spare breakfast for himself, Ranulf took a seat opposite his brother. Arran was the most levelheaded of the MacLawry brothers, the best educated, and arguably the most clever. If what little he’d heard about the fire had convinced him that Berling was involved, then it was so.
“Well?” Arran prompted after a moment. “Do ye have someaught else in mind?”
Ranulf sat back as the overly attentive Owen poured him a brimming cup of hot coffee. “Myles reminded me last night that this isnae the Highlands. I’ve nae difficulty with separating Berling’s head from his shoulders, but I dunnae think England appreciates revenge the way we do.”
“Not anymore, anyway,” Arran agreed. “The Sasannach are very nearly civilized.” He wolfed down a mouthful of haggis. “Ye’ve a different idea, then?”
“Not as of this moment.” He took a swallow of coffee, closing his eyes as the warmth of it spread all the way to his toes. “Now that ye’re here we can keep a better eye on him, though.”
Arran glanced at him, light blue gaze curious, before he returned his attention to his breakfast. “An eye. That’s different.”
“What do ye mean?”
“I mean it’s different. I may only have been eleven whenathairdied, but I knew what it meant when ye went oot ‘hunting’ with a musket and a shovel and came back two days later covered in dirt and not bringing any game with ye.”
Ranulf took a breath, pushing away the abrupt memory of the cold and the fear and the deep, bottomless anger that had driven him out when the men of his clan had been torn between advising caution and calling for a full-out war. It had been sixteen years ago, and he still remembered the crunch of leaves beneath his feet as he crept forward in the dark toward Sholbray Manor. He shifted in his chair. “And yer point is?”
“I know ye didnae chase down Berling before because we had to tend to Bear. Even if we’d had any doubts then, I dunnae see what’s stopping ye now, the Highlands or London or Boston, Massachusetts.” His gaze lowered again. “Unless it’s some lass named Charlotte Hanover.”
Bloody hell. He didn’t even know his own thoughts; explaining her to his astute brother would only have him sounding like a lunatic. “What does Lady Charlotte have to do with anything?” he asked, deciding on an attempt at ignorance.
Arran sipped at his tea. “You tell me,” he said succinctly.
“There’s naught to tell.” He looked at his brother. Looked at the mound of food on his plate, the shadows beneath his eyes. “When did ye leave Glengask?”
“Four days ago. And aye, I ken I shouldnae have traveled alone, but I doubt anyone could have kept up with me fer long even if they had been trying to follow me.”
“Well, then,” Ranulf responded, suspicion creeping through him. “Since the fire was last night, what, exactly, prompted ye to fly down here like a damned bat?”
“If ye’ve nothing to say on a particular topic, neither do I.”
Generally Ranulf appreciated their middle brother’s cleverness, but this morning he would have preferred Munro and his more straightforward manner. “Ye mean to say ye hurried down to London because I mentioned a lass in a letter? Do ye think I’m a monk, then?”
“Nae. But I do think when Ranulf MacLawry mentions a Sasannach lass five times in one letter, together with adjectives like ‘bossy’ and ‘headstrong’ and ‘unfathomable,’ then someaught’s afoot.” Arran rubbed at his forehead. “And since ye also said ye were outnumberedandWinnie said she’s nae coming homeandye went and bought a house, I thought ye might be able to use another MacLawry in London.” He cocked his head. “Am I wrong?”
Ranulf shook his head. “I’m glad to have ye here, as I said. But keep yer damned opinions to yerself.”
“I can do that.”
After they finished a quick breakfast, the two of them went out to the stable. There was little left but part of one wall and a pile of broken, blackened rubble. All of the stableboys swore they’d done nothing to cause the fire, and that in fact they’d all been in the side room eating when the fire started at the back of the stable.
Walking the rear perimeter, Ranulf’s foot crunched on broken glass. When he squatted down and dug through the burned grass and ashes he found the half-melted collar and burner of a lantern. After he called Arran over, they found a few more pieces of shattered glass. Whatever this had hit, it had done so with some force.
“It could have come down from inside the wall,” his brother said absently, marking a spot four feet from where the wall had stood—the place where they’d found the most distant piece of glass. “But it’s more likely it was thrown against the wall from the outside.”
Ranulf had already come to that conclusion, himself. When Berling had burned down the schools around Glengask and An Soadh—and heknewit had been Berling and his men, with or without definitive proof—he’d flung oil and then lanterns at the walls. Not identical to the way the stable fire had likely begun, but close.
“Arran, ye make a decent sketch. Draw the back of the yard here, and mark where we found the pieces of lantern. I’ll fetch a box fer all the bits of it.”
“We’re gathering evidence, then?” his brother asked skeptically.
“Aye, we are. Shut up and find some paper and a pencil.”
