Elliot knocked on the door, not too loudly, in case the elderly woman would become alarmed. Hamish opened the door, his face like thunder.
“What de ye mean by it?” Hamish asked with a growl. “Sending that man here.”
“He was here then?” Elliot looked around the small cottage, Fiona standing uncertainly in the kitchen, Mrs. Rossmoran sitting near the cold fireplace with a sharp expression.
“He was,” Mrs. Rossmoran said. “I ken ye mean my lodger. Aye, he was here, but no more.”
Elliot had thought as much when he’d logically run through the places Stacy could have hidden himself without starving. Poaching or hunting left a sign, and he’d not found a trace.
Elliot handed Fellows his rifle and sat next to Mrs. Rossmoran. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
“Ye never asked. And he begged me not to tell ye. He was worried you’d kill him or have him arrested. That’s why he’s run off. He seemed a kind man. And you, Elliot McBride, are a bit touched.”
“That is true.” Elliot shared a look with Fellows. “Mrs. Rossmoran, I want you and Fiona to come up to McGregor Castle. You’ll be safer there.”
“No, indeed, young man. McGregor and I never saw eye to eye. His wife was my sister, you know.”
Elliot hadn’t known that. “McPherson’s then. Stacy is in great danger, and I don’t want the people after him to come upon you.”
Mrs. Rossmoran planted her cane. “This is my home. If people come here while I’m out, they might harm the place. It’s all I have.”
Fiona watched worriedly from the kitchen. “Please, Gran.”
“Hamish will send stout men to protect it while you’re away.” Elliot took her worn hand in his. “Please. I need you to be safe.”
Mrs. Rossmoran watched him with shrewd blue eyes. “All right, lad. I’ll go to McPherson’s. But any man ye put in here to watch my house had better keep his hands out of the sugar barrel. Sugar doesn’t grow out of the ground, you know.”
“Actually, Great-auntie…” Hamish began.
Mrs. Rossmoran waved her cane at him. “Stop standing there with your mouth open and help me up. Bring all my shawls, Fiona. I don’t trust McPherson to have enough bedcovers to suit me.”
Elliot waited outside to see them on their way while Fellows scouted around the house. When Hamish came out, Elliot caught him by the shoulder.
“I know why your great-aunt said nothing. She does as she pleases. Why did you?”
“I didn’t know.” Hamish glared back at the house, his anger so apparent that Elliot believed him. “I’d have told you, right away. My great-auntie can be powerful stubborn.”
Elliot had no doubt. Inspector Fellows returned, saying he hadn’t found anything unusual near the house—no sign of hunters or intruders. They sent Hamish and his little party to McPherson’s and went off into the woods.
Juliana awoke early in the morning to find herself alone. She wasn’t alarmed—Elliot often rose before she did to begin working with the men on the house.
She went through her ablutions and descended the stairs. The massive chandelier still hung in place. They’d tried to fix the mechanism to lower it to replace the candles, but it was frozen with rust. Juliana had decided that hurrying it for the ball might end in disaster, so she had a man up on a ladder each day, cleaning and oiling what he could.
As she reached the lower hall, she heard a knocking on the front door.
A lady never answered the door of her own house. The footman did it, or a housemaid if a footman was not available.
But neither Hamish nor Mahindar was anywhere in sight. The ladies of Mahindar’s family were not allowed to answer, according to Mahindar, because letting them do so would mean Mahindar hadn’t protected them from intruders.
Juliana ventured to the door, waving formality away. One could not stand on ceremony when one had no servants available. The visitor might simply be one of the guests returning from McPherson’s.
Before she reached the vestibule, however, Mahindar hurried forward in a rush of cloth and soft footsteps. “Memsahib,” he said in horror. “No. Let me.”
Juliana stepped back to let him run past her to the vestibule. He flung open the door to the last person Juliana wanted to see. Mrs. Dalrymple.
“Morning, love,” she said. “I need to speak to ye if ye don’t mind.”
Gone was the stiff-necked pose, the rather superior accent. Though Mrs. Dalrymple wore a well-made morning gown of gray cotton, she no longer looked like the prim and proper middle-class woman who’d tried to ignore everything Indian when she’d lived in India.
Her softly lined face looked more that of a harmless, middle-aged woman who went to the market with a basket on her arm. Also, her strained proper accent had gone, and now she sounded as though she’d come straight from the backstreets of Glasgow.
“Come in,” Juliana said.
Mahindar looked unhappy, but Juliana wanted to hear what the woman had to say. She led Mrs. Dalrymple to the morning room and bade Mahindar bring them tea.
“I won’t stay long,” Mrs. Dalrymple said, sitting in the same chair she had occupied a week ago. “I just came t’ give ye warning. Not that one,” she said quickly as Juliana’s brows went down. “Ye see, lass, I know ye’ve tumbled on t’ us. Me husband came across Mr. Stacy’s death certificate when he was working for the civil service in Lahore. He heard tell that your husband had turned up after being missing, crazy as a loon. So George stole the certificate. When we came back to Glasgow, me husband asked about and learned that Elliot McBride had purchased a house up here in Highforth. I’d never heard of th’ place, but George says we were goin’. He decided that if your husband was out of his wits, maybe George could make you or his family believe he’d murdered Stacy and get some money out of ye.”
“But Mrs. Terrell described you as a friend,” Juliana said, keeping her anger in check with difficulty. “You knew her?”
“Mrs. Terrell.” Mrs. Dalrymple dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “She’s a simple one. I convinced her that her mother and mine had been great friends. Easy to do while I dithered at the post office and managed to steal letters of likely ladies in the area. So Mr. and Mrs. Dalrymple were invited to stay.”
“Well, I am sorry we disappointed you,” Juliana said stiffly. “Neither I nor my husband were willing to pay you any of your blackmail.”