A Mackenzie Clan Christmas Page 13

  “Delighted to meet you.” John stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’ve heard so much about you, my lord. I am very grateful to you for allowing me into your house.”

  Chapter Four

  Ian didn’t like him.

  He didn’t know why he instinctively did not like John Ackerley, but as the man held out his hand, the last thing Ian wanted to do was shake it.

  When Ian had told Mac about the letter John had sent Beth about his impending visit, Mac had given him a wise look.

  “The trouble with taking a beautiful woman to wife,” Mac had said, rubbing one of his brushes with a rag. They’d been in Mac’s studio, in London, high up in his house, where Ian had gone for refuge. “Is that we constantly believe all other men in the world want to take our ladies away from us. We’re usually right, but we can’t let on that it worries us.”

  As always, Ian thought what Mac said was daft, except the part about all men wanting their beautiful wives. All men should want Beth.

  Ian didn’t truly believe Beth would run after John Ackerley. The man was a missionary, had been in love with his wife, and by his photograph, was a somewhat rotund gentleman with graying hair and beard. On the other hand, Ackerley wasn’t mad. Not obviously anyway.

  “What you do,” Mac had advised, “is treat Beth like a queen. Let her know she is the center of your world. But don’t hover too closely—this can make a woman’s awe of you turn to amusement and even irritation. Give her enough attention that you charm her but not so much she wants to see the back of you. ’Tis a very fine line to walk.”

  “Beth already knows she’s the center of my world,” Ian pointed out.

  “Aye, but you need to show her that once in a while. Show her you can give her what no other man can.”

  Ian didn’t understand the relationship between Mac and Isabella—it was turbulent, the two thinking nothing of loud arguments that rattled the house. The next moment, they’d be madly loving again. Mac threw wild parties with wild people, which Isabella took with aplomb, and then the next day, they’d shut the door to the world, retreating into quiet coziness with their children.

  Ian hadn’t sought his brother for guidance so much as to calm his troubled mind. Mac’s studio, filled with the scent of paint and oil of turpentine could relax him. Even watching Mac paint, his brother clad in his usual kilt with red kerchief on his head, was soothing. As much as Ian didn’t understand the fuss about art, he enjoyed watched Mac’s brush sliding paint smoothly across the canvas, creating objects in only a few strokes, bringing a whole world to life from nothing.

  “Go home and take Beth to bed,” Mac said. “That will make you feel better, if nothing else.”

  At last, a bit of advice Ian could agree with. He’d put action to word.

  As Ian stared now at John Ackerley’s outstretched hand, he recalled every last nuance of the conversation with Mac and every detail of its aftermath with Beth.

  Beth hovered next to him, her tension palpable. She was afraid Ian would do something odd, such as walk away without speaking or return to his worry about the distillery and ignore John utterly.

  Ian wanted to walk away. As a younger man, he’d often turned and run from a crowd, especially when all eyes were upon him. He hadn’t known what to do with that unnerving focus on him, how to respond. Removing himself from the situation had been the best solution.

  Ian had learned to stand his ground, had learned how to calm himself. He could now at least pretend to react in the correct way.

  Ian reached out, clasped Ackerley’s hand, and gave it one brief, hard shake. The other man’s eyes widened at Ian’s powerful grip, and he flexed his fingers when they withdrew.

  “Is there somewhere we can speak together, my lord?” John asked as he rubbed his hand. “I have been so long away from home that I am eager to catch up with my old friends.”

  Ian and John were not old friends—Ian had just met the man—but he admitted a strong curiosity about this gentleman who’d known Beth long ago. Ian nodded and gestured up the stairs. “Our sitting room.”

  “I’m sure you’d rather refresh yourself and rest after your journey,” Beth said quickly. “I’ve had a room prepared for you in the guest wing, John. An entire set of rooms, actually, all to yourself. Shall I show you to them?”

  Both Ian and John turned to stare at her. Beth was being a polite hostess, ready to offer comfort to the weary traveler. However, John made no sign he wanted to rest and change his clothes. He wanted to talk to Ian. Ian wanted to talk to him, so he made the gesture up the stairs again.

  Beth held up her hands. “Very well. I will withdraw. I will have your things put in your suite, John, to be there when you need them. You and my husband speak as long as you like.”

  She understood. Ian’s heart warmed.

  Without further word, Ian led Ackerley up the stairs to his wing of the house.

  As they passed the Ming room, Ackerley glanced inside. “I say, do you mind if I . . . ?” He trailed off.

  Ian waited to hear the rest of his sentence, but Ackerley obviously wasn’t going to finish. Ackerley seemed to pause for a response—what, Ian had no idea—then when he got none, headed into the Ming room.

  Ian followed with some impatience. If Ackerley had meant he wanted to see the bowls, why hadn’t he simply said so?

  Ian began the tour of his collection in the usual way. He pointed to a bowl from the very early Ming period, the 1360s. “The first one is here.” He swept his arm to the right. “Then this way.” He’d categorized the bowls by period and date, and within that, by size. Small bowls rested on upper shelves, larger on lower. Glass doors on the shelves kept out dust and clumsy fingers of ignorant visitors.

  Ackerley stood in the middle of the room and turned in a circle. “Good heavens. You bought all these?”

  “Bought or traded.” Ian had gained the reputation of a hard but fair negotiator among collectors.

  Ackerley wandered to a far cabinet, beginning completely out of sequence. “Have you been to China?”

  “No.” Ian’s travels had taken him to France and Italy but no farther. Whenever he grew curious about the world beyond that, he read books. His children were too young yet to travel great distances, and Ian never wanted to be very far from them.

  John let out a laugh. “I imagined you bartering for bowls in some dusty backstreet in Shanghai.”

  “No, with dealers in London.”

  “Ah. Of course.”

  “Is that how Ming bowls are sold in China?” Ian asked. Seemed a haphazard way to do it, especially with such valuable stock. No, Chinese gentlemen must have shops, like those found in London and Paris, where dealers in rare porcelain sold their wares.

  “Actually, I have no idea,” Ackerley said. “I never saw a Ming bowl when I traveled the East. I was in China and India after my time in Africa, as always, collecting souls for God.”

  Ackerley had been a missionary, taking English Bibles, morality, and hygiene to the darkest corners of the world. Ian had to wonder how the natives of these places had responded to the ignorant good nature of John Ackerley.

  Ackerley was standing here alive and well, so obviously the native peoples hadn’t killed him. He was proud of himself as well, Ian could see. Ian had grown up around pride—it was the one emotion he had little trouble identifying in others.

  Ackerley wandered the room, gazing at bowl after bowl, entirely out of order. He asked no questions, pointed out no details, only looked.

  “You have arranged them very precisely, haven’t you?” Ackerley asked after a time.

  Ian pointed again to the first bowl. “Starting there, with early Ming. Middle period, late middle, and late.” His arm moved as he took his pointing finger around the collection. “The last one is from 1641. I have heard of a bowl from 1642 that I will look at after Hart’s birthday. In London. Not in a backstreet in Shanghai.”

  He stopped, waiting to see whether Ackerley noticed he’d attempted a joke. Beth wo
uld have laughed, and then kissed him. Ian would have to remember to tell her about it later.

  Ackerley’s expression didn’t change. “It is important to you, the dates?”

  Why wouldn’t they be? “Aye,” Ian answered. Did the man think he should pile the bowls in a jumble?

  “And only bowls, Beth tells me. Not vases or pots?”

  “No.” People asked him this all the time. Ian could not put into words why bowls—small, round, perfect—satisfied him when vases did not.

  “And only Ming. Not Tang or Qing.”

  “No.” Ian had seen bowls from other periods in the shops. While he supposed they were beautiful, there was something about the Ming pottery that sang to him. The thinness of the porcelain, perhaps. The exquisite workmanship, the muted colors, the way the flowers or dragons or vines wafted across the curve of the bowls. He’d long ago given up reasoning it out.

  “Interesting,” Ackerley said, rocking on his heels. “Very interesting indeed. Oh, my dear fellow, I didn’t mean to keep you standing while I prattle. You mentioned a sitting room?”

  The Ming room had a settee and chairs placed so one could sit and enjoy the collection. Ian made a motion toward them.

  “I like this room,” he said.

  “Of course.” Ackerley moved to a chair and politely waited for Ian to sit first. “You have done up the displays well, my lord. Your own design?”

  The man seemed more interested in the cupboards than the collection. “Hart had everything built for me,” Ian said. “I told him what I wanted, and he brought in workmen.”

  Ian decided not to describe how he’d come in every day to show the carpenters what he wanted until they got it just right. He’d sensed their frustration but hadn’t been able to stay away, and good thing. The room would have been all wrong if he’d left them on their own.

  “Ah, your brother, the duke,” Ackerley said. “He has helped you much over the years, so I understand.”

  “Aye.”

  Ian recalled perfectly the day Hart had come to the asylum and explained that their father had died, and Ian could come home again. He remembered the heat of the afternoon, the closeness of Hart’s carriage with its curtains drawn as they jolted along the roads, his bewilderment at being outside in the world again.

  Ian had been unable to speak, far too many thoughts tangling in his brain to come out in words. Hart had let him be silent, which Ian had been grateful for. His oldest brother had seemed to know that what Ian needed most was peace.

  Ackerley waited for Ian to continue, but Ian had nothing to add. Ackerley’s statement seemed final enough.

  “And Beth—she has been a good friend to you?” Ackerley went on.

  Beth. Her name was like a breath of air.

  “No,” Ian said.

  Ackerley’s brows rose. “No? Oh dear. From her letters, I gathered your marriage was a happy one.”

  “It is,” Ian said. The best part of his life had begun the day he’d first seen Beth, had looked into her blue eyes, had been warmed by her touch.

  Ackerley blinked at his abrupt answer. The man was obviously a slow thinker.

  “Beth is not my friend,” Ian explained. “She is . . .” Ian went through all the likely phrases, but none seemed adequate. “Everything.”

  Ackerley looked pleased and also relieved. “I must say I am happy to find her in better circumstances. When my brother married her, she was in quite a dire place indeed. No money, no family, no friends. I am glad to see she has all of that now.”

  “And wee ones,” Ian said. “We have three. Jamie, Belle, and Megan.”

  He hoped Ackerley would want to talk about the children. Ian liked to boast how Belle was proving to be so good at maths she confounded even Jamie’s tutors. How Megan’s sweetness was so like her mother’s. Megan was more artistic, and loved music. She could play little pieces by Mozart on the piano quite well, rarely missing a note.

  Ian wanted to talk about how strong Jamie was and how fearless. Jamie loudly claimed he wanted to ride horses for a living instead of continuing school, though his mother had much to say about that. But the lad had a knack for the beasts.

  “Yes, your children,” Ackerley said. “Your oldest is a boy. Is he much like you?”

  Naturally, he would be, since Ian was his father. “He is a Mackenzie,” Ian said with a touch of pride.

  “Does he collect things as well?”

  Ian had to think about it. Jamie sometimes brought home things he found in the woods or boys had given him at school, but he seemed indifferent to them.

  “No,” Ian said.

  “Hm. Interesting.”

  Ian wasn’t sure why it should be. He glanced at the narrow ormolu clock in the corner just as it struck the hour and got swiftly to his feet, his kilt swinging. “I have to leave now.”

  Ackerley stood in alarm. “Leave?”

  “It’s time,” Ian said.

  “That is important to you, isn’t it? To do everything at the right time?”

  The man was indeed slow. Why would Ian not keep a standing appointment because an old friend of Beth’s wanted to ask him odd questions?

  “Aye,” Ian said, and walked out of the room. Ackerley followed, saying nothing, to Ian’s relief. The man liked to talk about unimportant things.

  Ian met the object of his appointment at the bottom of the back stairs. Jamie held two fishing poles and a net, and had a box of tackle slung over his small shoulder.

  “There ye are, Dad,” Jamie said. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  Ian flashed his son a faint smile as he took most of Jamie’s burdens from him. It was a standing joke between them—Ian never forgot anything.

  “Mind if I come along?” Ackerley asked. “I’ve done a bit of fishing in my day. Sometimes it was the only way to feed the multitudes.”

  Ian immediately handed Ackerley his fishing pole and reached into the nearby cabinet for another. “We only have one rule when we’re fishin’,” Ian said.

  “Oh?” Ackerley held the pole upright, looking interested. “What is that?”

  “No talking,” Ian said, and led the way out the door.

  Chapter Five

  Ian knew someone followed them. He led the way through the bracken and brush of the woods a mile or so from Kilmorgan, angling to the stream where fish bit the readiest.

  He could hear footsteps moving in time with theirs, the person keeping quiet, or trying to. Ackerley was oblivious, and so was Jamie, but Ian knew someone dogged their path.

  Ian hurried a few paces to catch up to his son. “Jamie, take Mr. Ackerley to the stream. I’ll follow.”

  Jamie came alert, but he assumed the responsibility without question. “This way, sir. Watch that bit of ground there—it can be boggy.”

  Ian sidestepped into the woods, making his way noiselessly back the way they’d come. His heart beat swiftly. If one of the robbers or whoever had ruined his barrels, or an entirely new villain came down the path, Ian would have him. He’d truss the man up and drag him to Fellows, or maybe simply break his neck.

  The footsteps came closer, measured, nearly silent. Ian hurtled out of his hiding place and grabbed the shadow as it passed.

  A shrill scream echoed in his ears. He lifted the squirming thing he’d caught and found himself face-to-face with his daughter Megan.

  As Ian stared at her, Megan’s fright turned to indignation. “Papa, you scared me!”

  Ian didn’t know what to do. He’d just terrified his daughter, a being who was the most precious thing in his life. He didn’t have the words to apologize, explain, tell her that she’d frightened him and he’d made a mistake.

  Ian only knew that she was shaking, it was his fault, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

  He responded the only way he knew how when words spun in his head without any clear pattern. He hugged her.

  Megan hugged Ian back then planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’m sorry, Papa. I was afraid if I called out, you’d send me home.�
��

  Why? Ian wondered. Was that what other fathers did? “I won’t send ye home, lass.”

  Megan smiled. “Good. Then I want to go fishing with you.”

  So simple an explanation. Ian let out his breath. He set Megan down and took her hand to lead her along the path to the stream. Megan skipped beside him, her fright forgotten.

  Even as they went, however, Ian knew that his first instinct had been correct. Megan hadn’t been the only one following. Someone lurked out there, watching. Ian kept Megan close to his side, putting his bulk between her and the world.

  Ackerley, when they reached him and Jamie, broke into a wide smile.

  “And who is this?” he asked, leaning down to study Megan.

  “Megan Mackenzie,” Ian said. “My daughter.”

  Ackerley stuck out his hand. He liked shaking hands. “How do you do, young miss?”

  Megan took his hand properly. “Very well, thank ye, sir. And you?”

  “I am very well too,” Ackerley said. “I am pleased to meet you.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir,” Megan answered in her usual sunny way. Megan loved everyone in the world evenhandedly.

  “Megan wants to fish,” Ian announced. He took Jamie’s extra pole, the smallest one they’d brought, and showed Megan how to hold it.

  “Girls can’t fish,” Jamie said abruptly.

  Jamie had been in a state lately in which he declared that girls couldn’t do a good number of things—ride, hunt, shoot, fish, walk across the glen, play cards, understand scientific principles.

  Ian had no idea where Jamie came up with these views. Ladies, Ian had seen, could do anything they put their hand to. Violet, Daniel’s wife, used a spanner to fix an automobile engine as readily as Daniel; Eleanor was a skilled photographer; and on the last visit to Kilmorgan, the wives of the family had decided they wanted to learn to shoot with pistols. Cam, Mac, and Hart had thought this a dangerous proposition, but Ian had set up a target and taught them.

  Isabella had been the best, hitting her target dead center each time. Beth had not been bad, though she tended to pull to the right. Ainsley had mostly hit the target and had been eager to practice. Eleanor had been better than Ainsley and Beth, but she confessed her father’s old gamekeeper had taught her to shoot long ago.