Fiona stared down at the tangle. More than likely he didn’t know how much money was here. She could take a little, without him noticing the robbery the moment he opened the drawer.
Her conscience stabbed her. Theft shouldn’t be so easy.
Without hesitation, she picked out some notes and a handful of coins and wrapped them in a handkerchief. Her hands were shaking so hard that it took several attempts to tie everything up in a tight bundle.
***
“Two gentlemen to see ye, Mactavish,” Mags said from the library door.
Diarmid looked up from the plans to drain a low-lying field where he wanted to graze his cattle. “Two gentlemen?”
Obviously whoever his visitors were, they weren’t from the estate. Mags knew everyone on Invertavey as well as he did. “Did they give their names?”
“Aye, they did.” Her tone was uncharacteristically cool. “Allan and Thomas Grant of Bancavan.”
Diarmid stifled a sigh. Over past centuries, the Grants and the Mactavishes had been mortal enemies. Rivers of blood had been spilled on both sides, and clan lore was rife with tales of raids and battles and kidnappings. But in this modern era, with the Highlands at peace, he had no patience with feuds extending back into the mists of history.
“Did they say what they want?”
“No, they didnae.” Mags’s sternness didn’t ease. “Probably the clan silver.”
Standing, Diarmid cast her a disapproving glance. “You’d better show them in.”
“I hope you’ve got your pistol handy, in case they try something.”
“Mags, those days are past.”
“No, they’re not.” She didn’t wait for him to put her in her place. “I’ll gae and get them, but I’ll be listening at the door. If ye want help, you just need to shout.”
Considering she was all of five feet tall, that made him smile. “Verra reassuring,” he said drily.
Mags stumped away while he put on his coat. By the time his two visitors stepped into the library, he looked every inch the Laird of Invertavey.
“Diarmid Mactavish?” the older of the two men said with a hint of suspicion. “I’m Allan Grant of Bancavan, up by Durness, and this is my brother Thomas. Good of ye to see us.”
Diarmid stepped forward and shook the older man’s hand. The younger man avoided any friendly overtures and regarded him with barely concealed hostility. Clearly Mags wasn’t the only one recalling old troubles.
“Aye, I’m Diarmid Mactavish. What can I help ye with?”
The man’s handshake was brief and dry and made Diarmid feel vaguely unclean. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as removed from clan prejudice as he’d hoped.
There was no mistaking that the two men were brothers, tall, stringy, red-haired—although with a good bit of gray—and with the characteristic long, pinched Grant features. Both were respectably dressed in black frock coats. As Diarmid took in their flinty expressions and cold gray eyes, he couldn’t help thinking that they looked like a pair of particularly unsympathetic undertakers.
“We believe you’re harboring Fiona Grant, my brother’s runaway wife, in this house. We’re here to fetch her back to her kin and her bairn.”
Runaway wife? Bairn?
Diarmid only just saved himself from staggering as the unacceptable words battered at his uncomprehending brain. For God’s sake, was the bonny lass upstairs like his faithless mother?
Surely not.
Except…
Except he’d always known his mermaid lied about her loss of memory, and now he had an inkling why. She might be gloriously beautiful, but he knew better than most that beauty was no guarantee of honesty.
His late mother had been famously beautiful—she’d taken London by storm when she made her debut and had made a brilliant marriage to a rich man, despite her relatively humble birth. A brilliant marriage that soon deteriorated into a nightmare of infidelity and recrimination. His mother had loved nobody but herself. Not even her child had counted for her.
His father had loved his wife, forgiven her over and over for her escapades. But years of playing the cuckold had turned his soul to stone.