Page 63 of This Laird of Mine

He released an audible sigh. “All right, my dear. You drive a hard bargain, but I agree. Thirty shillings Scot.”

Claire nodded. “Hold the ring for me. I will return on the morrow with the funds.”

He agreed, and Claire left the shop before she either cried out her delight, or swooned. She had a feeling the latter was far more likely. Once outside, she leaned against the first wall she came to, and pressed trembling fingers against the cool stone.

She had found Jules’s mother’s ring—the only link she would ever have to Jules or his family. Once she saw the ring in the window, she knew she had to do anything and everything to possess it.

Her breath caught. And she had made it her own. Now all she had to do was figure out some way to get the funds by the next day, or all her efforts would be for naught.

When the initial exhilaration of bargaining for what she wanted so desperately wore off, she realized she had the answer to her problem already. The lie she had concocted about Lady Davison was not entirely false. The woman had asked her to attend a ball at her winter home in Argyll the following year, after Claire painted a ceiling for her that would make her the envy of her friends.

Claire had met the woman in the ballroom of Kildare Manor, at the party Jules’s friends had planned. Perhaps it was time for Claire to agree to hire out her talents. Lady Davison had said she would agree to any terms. Would she be willing to advance Claire her fee before she had even started, and allow the girls to come along with her?

There was only one way to find out.

At the thought of heading to Argyll, Claire began to feel light-headed. Lady Davison lived within walking distance of Kildare Manor. If Claire went to Argyll, she would be close to Jules.

She drew a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm. Jules would never have to know she was there. She could paint the ceiling and be away from Argyll long before Lady Davison’s ball.

Her decision made, Claire headed toward Amberly Place, Lady Davison’s Edinburgh home, where the woman was fortunately in residence.

Across the street, Agatha slipped from the apothecary shop. Her hand closed around the small bottle of poison the young girl had created for her. It was a pity that Agatha had had to dispose of the girl, forcing her to drink her own concoction. Agatha had to be certain the poison was not only lethal, but fast.

The time to strike was coming nearer. She had to be prepared for when the opportunity presented itself.

It would eventually arrive, and the bottle in her hand would serve her purposes well.

Three weeks later, out of need to find some connection to the woman he missed so desperately, Jules climbed the stairs to the tower room, hoping and praying that the room still smelled like her. He entered the chamber and froze at the sight before him.

Everywhere he looked, the ceiling, the walls, even the floor, had been painted to resemble a garden in springtime. She’d painted the ruins of an ancient Greek temple that was surrounded in lush ivy and a riot of flowers. Beneath the shade of a willow tree was a fountain that looked so real Jules could swear he heard the soft trickle of water.

And to the side of the fountain, resting in a bed of violets, were two figures, their bodies entwined. He moved closer, and recognition flared. His heart stopped.

She’d painted the two of them as they had been by the loch. Their bodies glistened with drops of water, their skin vibrant and alive beneath the sun’s light. The lines of their nude bodies were obscured by a sheer white cloth, yet the very covering only made what the viewer did not see more explicit. The very portrayal was as realistic as it was exotic and sensual.

His entire body burned. He groaned at the painful loss that filled him. How would he ever forget her, when she had made Kildare Manor such a part of herself? Everywhere he went, he was reminded of her, from the tower to the stable, the loch and the kitchen. There was no safe place in his own house where memories did not consume him.

He often wondered how she fared. If the girls had fully recovered from their ordeal. He wished he knew where she was, what she was doing, and if she missed him as much as he missed her. Wearily, he lay down on the small bed in the center of the chamber and looked up at the clouds she had painted on the ceiling. He tried to close his eyes, but as was usual these past three weeks, he could not sleep. He never slept anymore, not unless he had exhausted himself in the fields with his tenants, or he imbibed the family whiskey.

Quite often he lay awake as he did now, wanting her with a passion that transcended all reason. They had to stay separated. It was for her own good. Until Agatha could be found and locked away for the rest of her life, Claire would have to remain a stranger to him.

“Why are we in Argyll?” Penelope asked from the bottom of the ladder Claire stood on. She was painting the first quadrant of the ballroom ceiling in Lady Davison’s country home.

“We are on a grand adventure as far as Anna and Eloise are concerned,” Claire answered as she applied a final swoop of gray to a mass of blue-gray clouds.

“That’s not what I mean,” Penelope said, “and you know it.”

“What do you mean?” Claire asked with a frown as she stepped down the ladder. She needed to clean her palette and brushes, then start on the cherubim and seraphim. She was making excellent progress on the ceiling. At this rate, she and the girls could be back in Edinburgh before the end of the year.

“Why are we in Argyll, so close to Lord Kildare, without going to see him?”

Claire smiled sadly. “He’s not part of our lives any longer. But we wish him well with his.” She poured turpentine on a rag and wiped the gray off the wooden board in her hand.

“But you are still married to him,” the young woman cried.

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think he misses you?” Penelope asked.