“Well, that, girl, I cannot tell you,” Gawain said, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared down at her where she sat in the chair. “Or perhaps I can tell you. Every fool one of us sent condolences to him at his father’s death. He must have got the idea that he should come home and claim his property, though God knows what he’d rightfully be doing here, or why any MacGinnis would express concern that he come. Unless someone has a different reason for wantin’ him here,” Gawain mused. “But be forewarned that he is due. Due—with his new wife and ‘friends.’ A pack of violent, heathen, dangerous savages, I imagine.”
“Uncle, Andrew Douglas may be half-Sioux, but he is an intelligent and extremely well-educated man. Whatever his beliefs, he’s certainly not a heathen. He mourned his brother’s death with what we could certainly consider to be Christian anguish?—”
“And demanded an inquest and had us all with our throats bared to the hangman, girl. I had thought that we were well andgood done with him.” He wagged a finger beneath her nose and warned, “You keep your wits about you, Shawna MacGinnis.”
“I’ll certainly do my best,” she murmured dryly.
“You think before you open your mouth, eh?”
“What could I tell him, Uncle Gawain? What in bloody hell do I know?” she demanded angrily.
“Don’t talk to me in that tone, girl.”
She knew he didn’t like her tone. He didn’t like the entire conversation, especially her references to the events of the night of the Fire. Those events had been swept into the dark recesses of their minds.
Coming back now, it seemed, to haunt them all.
“You provided the wine, Uncle,” she reminded him with sudden quiet determination.
He stared at her for a long, hard moment.
“Aye, lass, I provided the wine. You were confident you could charm the man to sleep. We needed the documentation of your fool cousin’s thievery. I tell you this—I didn’t want the man dead.”
After all this time, she was startled by the pain that could still seize her. “Then who did?”
“It was a fire, girl, a sad, pathetic thing, nothing more. Have y’not heard a word I’ve said all night? The Fire was an act of God! And don’t you go letting the Douglas make more of it, do you be understandin’ me, girl?”
He didn’t wait for her reply but exited the office in a blur of MacGinnis plaid.
When he was gone, Shawna looked down at the letter again, and at her fingers, which were still trembling. She let out an oath of impatience at herself. There was brandy in the lower right-hand corner of the desk. She pulled it out and started to search the drawer for a glass. She gave up the search, taking along swallow straight from the bottle. It seared her throat but warmed her body deliciously. She started to drink more.
She was nervous. When she was nervous, she drank far too quickly.
Just as she had drunk far too quickly the night of the Fire.
She swore again, standing up. She was going to go to bed. She was glad that Andrew “Hawk” Douglas had married again and found solace when he had no one left on the Douglas side of his family. She’d done well with his people and his estates. He owed her his thanks.
Even if she had passed out, drugged, just moments before his brother had died…
She left the office. The castle was quiet as she hurried to the master’s chambers.
Once there, she paused. Sometimes, she still wondered what she was doing here, in Castle Rock. Specifically, in the master’s chambers.
But the administration of the castle, the properties, and the mines had always been done from Castle Rock. To be lady here, it was necessary for her to live where the people expected their lady to live. And as to the master’s chambers, if she was to make her claim to the title of lady within her own family, it was necessary as well that she command the master’s space as her own.
Sometimes, still, she shivered to be here.
And sometimes, the pain was oddly poignant. She could remember David clearly. Remember him here. Remember his touch.
She wasn’t going to dwell on the past, she determined with an anger that belied the very sentiment.
She shed her clothing and climbed into her nightdress. She was tired, exhausted.
She lay down, praying for sleep.
It was a long time coming.
Yet when she slept at last, she dreamed. Nightmare images flooded her mind.