A Mackenzie Clan Christmas Read online

  He could be in bed with Beth right now, the two of them laughing while they explored the more creative positions of the Kama Sutra. They’d concluded after much experimentation that some of the positions simply couldn’t be achieved, but it had been quite agreeable to attempt them.

  Instead of enjoying himself with his wife at the moment, Ian was entertaining Beth’s brother-in-law, who peered at him in earnestness, offering him a cure for his lingering madness.

  Was it possible? Thinking of cures brought back the horrible years at the asylum, and darkness flickered at the edges of Ian’s vision. The tiny amount of hope that someday he might be free of his oddities made the memories worse. He felt the air leave his lungs, a crushing weight on his chest.

  Some days life dealt bad cards, Beth liked to say. Metaphorical decks were impossible to calculate probabilities for, which Ian thought highly unfair.

  He rose abruptly. Beth would not be happy if Ian deserted her brother-in-law, but Ian’s thoughts took hold of him and danced and spun like the will-o’-the-wisps that haunted the woods around here.

  The room began to blur, stones, Ackerley’s black and gray clothes and worried brown eyes, the paintings on the walls, the window that looked into the barrel room, spinning until Ian was dizzy.

  He saw the door coming toward him, and he angled for it, letting his feet propel him out.

  Behind him he heard Ackerley calling after him, asking what was wrong, but Ian was gone, the world a place of colorful, flickering lights.

  * * *

  When Inspector Fellows faced Beth Ackerley downstairs in the gallery, he decided not to mention the bullet her husband had passed him.

  He recalled the day, long ago, when he’d first met her. Beth, daughter of a confidence trickster and a gullible gentlewoman, had stood before him in the sitting room of a lavish house in Paris and dared to tell him, an inspector of Scotland Yard, that she would not allow him to persecute Ian Mackenzie any longer.

  Fellows had dismissed her but soon realized his error in judgment. He hadn’t understood the connection she’d made with Ian, or her tenacity in protecting those she loved.

  Beth still had that tenacity, which she used to fiercely guard her children and the rest of the Mackenzie brood.

  “This man who has come to visit,” Fellows said to Beth now. “You are certain he is John Ackerley?”

  Beth gave him a bewildered look. “Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “You’d be amazed at the number of crimes I’ve worked on where the long-lost brother was anything but. Confidence tricksters know how to assume guises, how to worm their way into your trust. Be careful.”

  Beth shook her head. “I met John Ackerley at my wedding, and again a year later, when Thomas passed. John has not altered all that much. Grayer, his face more lined, that is all.”

  “Hmm.” Fellows believed her, but the cynicism deeply ingrained in him didn’t let him dismiss the idea. “Perhaps I grasp at straws, but that is because I have so bloody little to go on. What did you see the night of the robbery?”

  “Not very much.” Beth looked unhappy that this was the case. “I was heading down the stairs to see what the noise was about when a man came charging out of this corridor, Ian behind him. There wasn’t much light—the man was smaller than Ian, with dark hair, and he wore black trousers and a black coat. Ian chased him to the front door, which he opened and ran out of. Not much to go on, I know. I’m certain thousands of men in Great Britain fit the description.”

  “That can’t be helped.” Fellows had heard similarly vague descriptions from many a witness, and still managed to find the culprit in the end. He wasn’t discouraged. “It is a beginning.”

  “Do you think you can recover the artwork?” Beth asked. “Some of it is priceless.”

  Of that, Fellows was not as optimistic. Art thieves were of two breeds—the opportunists who didn’t always know what they’d stolen, only thought it looked valuable, and those who targeted a specific piece or collection, usually with a buyer lined up beforehand. Fellows’s best course of action was to find the buyer on the other end and put the fear of God into him.

  “I’ll have a damned good try,” Fellows said. “I’ll ask Hart when he arrives, but do you know if he has enemies who would wish to ruin him? By robbing him, destroying his distillery? To gloat if nothing else?”

  Beth flashed him her smile. “You are asking whether Hart Mackenzie has enemies? He has many of those, dear Lloyd. You know that. You were one of them once.”

  True. Fellows had hated his half brother with great intensity, and he knew plenty of gentlemen in Britain and across the Continent who held that kind of animosity toward Hart. “I agree, I could shake the nearest tree and a dozen men who wanted Hart’s head would fall out. Well, I will shake many trees very hard before I find the right person. But find him I will. Or her.”

  “You believe a woman could do this?” Beth asked, interested.

  “I never underestimate the ability of women for being criminal masterminds,” Fellows said dryly. “Men with fancy degrees talk a lot of rot about the female brain not having the capacity or strength to endure male pursuits, but such men are fools, the lot of them. I’ve seen women orchestrate the most insidious crimes and get away with them.”

  “I suppose you have a point.” Beth’s eyes twinkled. “Imagine what the Mackenzie ladies could do if we put our heads together. If we were evil enough to be criminal masterminds, that is.”

  Fellows suppressed a shudder. The Mackenzie ladies could take over the world and rule with a collective iron hand if they chose. He did not exclude his own wife, a Mackenzie sister-in-law, from this group.

  He would have said more, but John Ackerley himself chose to come bustling into the gallery.

  Fellows studied him with clinical detachment. Ackerley was not a small man, though relative to the Mackenzies he’d not be considered tall, perhaps four inches shy of six feet. He had skin with the leathery texture of one who’d spent decades in strong sunlight, unkempt brown hair going to gray, and a closely trimmed beard, with more gray in it than in his hair. His eyes were brown, wide, and worried.

  “Sister-in-law, did your husband arrive home? Is he here?”

  Fellows came alert, and he watched Beth change from reasonable woman to Ian Mackenzie’s avenging angel, who’d turn the wrath of heaven against any who harmed him.

  “Why?” she asked in a sharp voice. “What happened? What did you do?”

  Ackerley blinked. “I did nothing. We were speaking in his distillery, quite calmly, when he simply rose and walked out. Very fast. By the time I reached the courtyard, he’d vanished. Those I asked said he headed in this direction, but I never saw him, and your servants claim he didn’t come inside.”

  “What were you speaking about?” Beth’s gaze was hard, her politeness gone.

  “Oh, this and that. My travels . . . I only want to make certain he is well, my dear Beth.”

  The man was lying, Fellows knew. Whatever Ackerley had said to Ian had upset him, and Ian had gone off to be alone and think about it. Fellows knew this was what must have happened, and Beth knew it too.

  She gave Ackerley a narrow look. “I will search for him,” she announced. “Lloyd, will you help? John, if you retire to your chamber, the housekeeper will bring you tea. You must have some sustenance after your journey.”

  “I will help you find him, of course,” Ackerley said. His face was flushed, his words slurred, which told Fellows exactly what he’d been doing in the distillery. Some revelation, loosened by whisky, had disquieted Ian enough to send him off.

  “Best you stay here,” Fellows said sternly. “We know the house and grounds far better than you do. We don’t want to have to make a search for two of you.”

  Ackerley pursed his lips, as though coming up with further argument, then he subsided.

  Fellows, whose pocket felt suddenly heavy with the bullet Ian had slipped him, tried to hide his unease, but he couldn’t subdue it. H
art had an enemy out there bold enough to rob him of thousands of guineas’ worth of artwork, brave enough to shoot at his brother in the woods. Ian could have burst away in one of his muddles, or he could have gotten an idea of who had done this and marched out to confront him.

  Either way, Ian must be found.

  Ackerley at least let himself be persuaded to stay behind. Fellows called together a troop of footmen and groundskeepers to help him search. With Beth at his side—who firmly would not be dissuaded—Fellows left the house by the garden door and began the search.

  * * *

  Ian didn’t come out of the half muddle he’d sunk into until he was on top of the hill, surrounded by the ruins of Kilmorgan Castle.

  Once upon a time, Malcolm Mackenzie and his father had been driven from this place by an army. Malcolm had returned, undaunted, not once but many times, indefatigably clinging to the land and making it his.

  Ian had that same doggedness, or so he’d like to think. He was part of this place. No matter what the world did to him, Ian could come to the top of this hill and sink into the ground, the weight of centuries rendering his troubles insignificant.

  The September afternoon was warm. Ian stretched out among the old stones, face down, soaking up the heat from the grass and earth. His sporran was an uncomfortable lump under him, and insects buzzed around him, but Ian wasn’t bothered. He watched a worm emerge from a hole, inch along the dirt, and dig itself into another.

  Ian’s frustrations eased, brushed away by the quietude. He began to forget why he’d been upset, but he knew the reasons would come rushing back when he rose and went down the hill. Better to stay here awhile until he could face his troubles again.

  The darkness of the past tapped on his senses. Fear and anger, the two emotions that had chased Ian most of his life, wanted to reclaim him.

  They had blotted out every other feeling. Contentedness, hope, and most of all, love, had not been able to penetrate the miasma of fear and rage that were his constant companions. Not until Beth.

  Thinking of Beth eased him further. She had the sweetest smile. Even when Ian aggravated her to the point of exasperation, the smile waited to warm her eyes.

  Beth had eyes blue like a deep Highland loch. Ian had fallen in love with her eyes first thing, when he’d seen her watching him in the box at the opera, nothing but interest and innocence when she’d looked at him. Ian hadn’t realized that what he’d felt was love—he’d put his fascination with her down to yet another of his obsessions—but time had proved that a deeper emotion had been at work.

  When Beth had found him, Ian had been existing in a constant pit of despair. He’d learned to survive, but the walls of his mind had closed him in, trapping him. He’d lived a half life, able to walk through the world, but keeping the walls between it and himself.

  Beth had given him that lovely smile, stretched out her hand, and helped him claw his way from his darkness into the light.

  For that, Ian could never repay her. He could only love her with all his strength, want to be his best for her. Could he ever be?

  Ackerley’s speech had jolted Ian out of his complacency. Before Beth, Ian had been so long denied any happiness that once he’d found it, he’d dived in, wallowed in it, and not wanted to come out.

  He’d begun a comforting routine with Beth, his son and daughters, and his life at home. Breakfast with the children, attending to business while the wee ones had lessons and Beth wrote letters, lunching with Beth, taking Jamie and the girls out for long tramps or Jamie fishing when they were home in the Highlands, to see sights when they were in London.

  In the evening, Ian and Beth sat in the nursery as the children dined, and then Beth and Ian took supper together, privately. When they were in London, they might attend a play or opera, or one of the few balls or soirees Beth felt obligated to drag Ian to. Or they’d simply spend the rest of the evening in, which Ian liked most of all. His brothers and families might visit, or one of the McBrides with their wives and children, or Fellows would come with Louisa and sons.

  Best of all were the evenings Ian and Beth would be alone, to talk or sit in silence, simply enjoying each other’s company.

  And then to bed . . . Ian let his imagination drift to Beth’s arms around him, her lips warm, her hair tangling him as he slid inside her, where he belonged.

  He’d indulged all his senses in his new life. Ian never wanted things to change, saw no reason for them to.

  But what if Ackerley were right? What if Ian had sunk into comfort because it helped him ignore his madness? Instead of facing it and conquering it, perhaps he’d simply tucked it away, letting Beth indulge him. He’d been bloody useless against the robbers, hadn’t he? Plus Ian had looked at Ackerley, when he’d arrived, and wanted to drop the man into a well. The deep fear that Beth and his new life could be taken away from him lingered, threatening to bring back the darkness.

  Ian couldn’t push aside the fact that perhaps Ackerley could help him. What if the man held the key to releasing Ian from the last box of his madness? Could make him a whole man, instead of one who preferred to sequester himself from the world with his wife and children? Beth loved to go out—Ian knew this—but she deferred to his shyness and stayed home with him most nights.

  What if Ian could give her a man who could boldly escort her everywhere, could look others straight in the eye at first meeting and give them a bluff, hearty greeting, as his brothers did?

  Was it worth hearing what Ackerley had to say?

  At the same time, Ian’s mind shrank from what Ackerley’s cure might entail. The doctors at the asylum had all but flayed his skin from his bones—that was what their experiments on his mind had felt like. They’d used him to test every quack treatment, every far-fetched idea they’d come up with, often in front of an audience, and no one had stopped them. They’d displayed Ian, showed their colleagues what a quick mind he had, then punished him for it. Hart would have stopped such things, had he known, but Ian’s communications with the outside world had been monitored, his letters suppressed. In the end, Ian had lost even the ability to speak.

  Ian did not like dilemmas. He preferred things to be laid out in plain and simple facts—one choice right, the other wrong. Ambiguity made him uncertain, and uncertainty unsettled him.

  Mathematics and geometry had no ambiguity. A squared plus B squared equaled C squared, every time. The Fibonacci sequence never varied—each number was the sum of the two numbers before it.

  “. . . twenty-one,” Ian began to murmur. “Thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred forty-four . . .”

  His words echoed hollowly on the stones of the old castle. Most of the sound was captured by the breeze, but the wind was echoing too.

  Echoing on what? Ian let his voice grow louder. “Two hundred thirty-three, three hundred seventy-seven, six hundred ten . . .”

  The numbers bounced back to him, the stones reflecting them. When Ian raised his head, the echoing receded. Only when he lay flat did he hear it again.

  Ian skimmed his hands over the grass where he’d been lying. It moved. Not the individual blades, but a section of tufted grass over stone shifted.

  Ian tugged at it. Earth and rocks crumbled as he brought up an entire chunk of sod. It came away far faster than it should have for dirt that had lain undisturbed for a century.

  The slab of grass, which had obviously been set in place deliberately, came out from under Ian, revealing a large, rectangular hole.

  Unfortunately, most of Ian’s torso was right over the hole. Ian’s body folded forward, and he slithered abruptly and silently down into inky darkness.

  Chapter Eight

  “Ian?” Beth’s throat was raw from shouting, her breath coming faster as every fear sprang to life. “Ian, where are you?”

  Fellows’s party of searchers had been all over Kilmorgan—the house, the grounds, the distillery and its environs, the hill of the castle and the ruins on top. Night had fallen as they searched, and lant
erns bobbed through the darkness, tiny points of swaying light.

  Ian hadn’t vanished like this in a long, long time. After the first golden days of their marriage, he’d sometimes gone for his extended walks, disappearing into the Highlands and returning when he was ready. Their first row after Ian and Beth had taken up residence in their cozy house had been about Ian walking off without a word.

  Beth understood why he’d gone—he’d still been learning to deal with life and all its uncertainties. She’d finally instilled in him the need to at least leave a note when he decided to go tramping, and he’d come to understand why this was important.

  Ian wasn’t worried about himself, his logic went, so why should Beth be? To this day, Beth wasn’t certain he believed how much she would be devastated if something happened to him. But he’d conceded that telling her when and where he was going made her feel better, and he was happy to do that for her. Sometimes, he’d take her by the hand and pull her off with him.

  After the children had come, and especially after Megan was born, Ian had ceased his lonely rambles. He continued to enjoy long walks, but he liked to take one or all of the children with him. His time of needing absolute solitude had ended.

  So what had occurred to make him go this time? Or had Ian gone at all? There were men out there willing to rob Kilmorgan, to incur Hart’s wrath. No sane person would, which meant whoever it was must be dangerous.

  Conclusion, Ian had decided to take a short tramp to ease himself from the strain of meeting John, and had come to some danger.

  As the night deepened, Beth’s fears did as well. The local police sergeant and constable had recruited men from Kilmorgan and nearby villages and crofts to join the search. But so far, nothing.

  “Ian!” Beth shouted desperately. She was halfway up the hill to the castle ruins, shivering in the biting wind. “Please answer!”