were to build or purchase a house in any of those towns...you would undoubtedly meet many pretty debutantes who would be eager to befriend your wife, aye?”
Adam Cadell kept his gaze fixed on Nichol.
“Scads of them,” Nichol added for emphasis.
The young man sank down onto the settee and clasped his hands together before him. Nichol had his full attention. “I donna understand.”
Nichol put aside the port. “What I am suggesting, Mr. Cadell, is that you get your heir, then live your life. She will have the bairn she wants, the house she wants, all the gowns she wants, and you will have...” He made a flourish with his hand. “Society, aye? You will save your father’s important business arrangement and everyone will be made happy once again.”
“Ah,” Adam Cadell said, and slowly nodded. His eyes brightened. And then dulled. “But Sorcha will not have me, not with the ward about.”
So now Miss Darby was merely the ward, was she? “She is no’ here at present,” Nichol pointed out.
“No, but she’ll come back. Mr. Garbett is right fond of her, he is. He’ll not leave her put away. She’ll be part of this family yet.”
Nichol pondered that. “If the ward was put in a circumstance—one that Mr. Garbett would approve, naturally, but one that would keep her from this house for the foreseeable futur—could you see your way to making a proper apology to your fiancée?”
“Yes,” the young man said, nodding enthusiastically. “Of course. Miss Darby will be utterly forgotten.”
“Then leave it to me,” Nichol said, and extended his hand.
Mr. Cadell took it with the grip of a small child and shook it weakly. “Thank you, Mr. Bain.”
The solution, Nichol realized, was one that would solve two problems at once. This was perhaps the easiest thing he’d tackled in fifteen years.
He left the Garbett house with a bounce in his step, and returned to the inn in Stirling where he was residing. There, he penned a letter to Dunnan Cockburn, the former client and someone Nichol might consider a “friend.” Nichol didn’t have friends, really. For one, he never stayed anyplace for long. Two, he had learned at an early age to keep his thoughts to himself so they’d not be used against him. And three, he’d discovered that friendships relied on the ability of one to share feelings. He did not share his, and as a result, he had few friends.
He supposed he might count Lord Norwood as a friend. He’d met the earl in the course of his work for the Duke of Montrose. Norwood was the uncle of the new Lady Montrose, and had been either amused or impressed with Nichol’s handling of her and Montrose’s business. Whatever the reason, he had kept Nichol close and seemed to enjoy his company, although he did frequently dispatch Nichol to help his influential friends.
Nichol counted Dunnan simply because they’d spent so much time in each other’s company. Dunnan was eager to please and possessed a good humor, in spite of his considerable troubles. He resided in a sprawling estate with his widowed mother, and while he’d conquered his gambling problem, he and Nichol had both agreed that he might be less tempted to engage in such behavior if had he a proper wife to comfort and advise him and frankly, to keep an eye on him.
“You’ll find a wife, then, will you?” Nichol had asked the last time he’d seen Dunnan.
“Oh, I will, I will,” Dunnan had assured him. “It is on the very top of my list of things that simply must be done.”
Unfortunately, the last he’d heard, Dunnan hadn’t been successful in his quest. So this seemed the perfect arrangement for all involved—Dunnan needed a wife. The temptress needed a place in this world that was out of sight of the young lovers but one that would meet with Mr. Garbett’s approval. Miss Darby would be well cared for and, Nichol suspected, honored by her husband. Doted upon. Smothered with affection. Dunnan seemed quite eager to have a wife.
Nichol sent off his letter, then spent the next two days awaiting a reply in the company of a bonny little wench who left scratches on his back.
Dunnan’s reply was an exuberant Yes. If you recommend her, Mr. Bain, I will consider myself the recipient of very good fortune and shall open my arms, my heart and my home to her.
Precisely the reception Nichol had expected from a man who was overly enthusiastic about things as mundane as perfectly toasted toast points. In this case, he thought Dunnan might have been a little more circumspect, as he’d not even laid eyes on the lass, and matrimony tended to be for life. But that was not the problem he’d been hired to solve. He’d been hired to solve the problem of the ward, and he was very pleased with himself for having done a fine job of it.
It had gone so well, in fact, that Nichol was considering carving out a bit of time to call on the brother he’d not seen in many years. The distance between them, both literally and figuratively, had been weighing on Nichol of late. He had a soft spot in his heart for Ivan. His brother resided at their family home, not far from Stirling—or he had the last time they’d corresponded. Unfortunately, Nichol’s letters in the last few years had gone unanswered, the messengers sent away.
Nichol wasn’t entirely certain why, but he was entirely certain he would never know if he did not go to his brother himself. It would be a shock to Ivan, as it had been more than a dozen years that Nichol had been gone from home. That was another matter entirely, one that had no easy resolution. But where Ivan was concerned, Nichol would have liked to understand what had happened.
Perhaps now was the time to see him. Perhaps things had fallen into place for that very reason.
But first things first. Nichol said goodbye to the wench, hired a lad to act as his groom, then rode out to explain to Mr. Garbett and Mr. Cadell his plan to mend this rift between families once and for all.
As he suspected, his plan was welcomed by everyone, with the singular exception of Mrs. Garbett, whose thirst for vengeance apparently knew no bounds. She believed that Miss Darby should not be allowed to enjoy the privilege of marrying well, but faced with the prospect of her husband’s ward being returned to them, reluctantly agreed to the scheme.
By week’s end, Nichol and Gavin, his groom, were provisioned for several days of travel and on their way to a manor near Aberuthen to retrieve Miss Darby.
By noon the following day, they’d reached their destination. Fragile flakes of snow were whispering down from the sky, scarcely visible in the light of a weak sun that peaked in from between the clouds. The lad was shivering in his saddle, even though Nichol had tossed him his plaid to drape over his coat. “Still with me, Gavin, are you?” he called over his shoulder.
“Aye, sir.”
“We’ll be there soon enough,” he assured him as they rode out of the small village of Aberuthen, armed with Garbett’s directions to the Rumpkin abode. A half hour later, they arrived.
Nichol had expected the house to be something on par with the Garbett house, but was unpleasantly surprised to find a much smaller house, one that could scarcely be called a manor, and one that looked in serious need of repair. It had a single vine-covered tower at one end, and a house appended to it shaped like a box, as if the builder had struck out to build a castle, and had changed his mind in favor of a smaller house midway through.
A weak trail of smoke rose from only one of four chimneys, and Nichol could see at least four panes of glass had been broken and replaced with wood. He and Gavin came off their mounts and stared up at the house. No one came to greet them. Not even a dog.
Gavin looked at Nichol expectantly.
“Aye,” Nichol said to the lad’s unspoken question. “I’ll see if I can rouse someone, then.” He handed the reins of his mount to Gavin and nodded in the direction of a stable or barn—another dilapidated building. “Feed and water the mounts. There is food in the bag for you, aye? Eat. Warm yourself. We’ll ride out as soon as all is settled here.”
With