Chapter One
Callum snapped his mouth shut over the remainder of the cutting remark he’d been about to make. Instead he looked down at the twisted pile of pretty lavender silk and arms and legs and golden-blond hair that made up his sister-in-law. She’d never fainted in the entire ten years he’d known her, but then she wouldn’t have expected to be confronted by the brother of the man she’d likely helped murder.
“My lady!” Pogue said, sinking to his knees beside her prone body. The butler took her hand and began patting it urgently. “Lady Geiry!”
“Leave be,” Callum ordered, and stepped over Rebecca. A vase of posies sat by the window in the morning room, and he picked it up, tossed the flowers into the waste basket, then returned to the foyer and dumped the water over his sister-in-law’s head.
She sputtered, waving her arms over her face, and jerked upright. The perfect coil of thick blonde hair atop her head sank to one side, dripping past her ear, but she didn’t seem to notice it as she caught sight of him again. “What—“
“Ye fainted,” he supplied, handing the glass vase to the butler.
“I do not faint!” she protested, running a hand across her face and then belatedly pushing at the stack of her hair.
“I dunnae care what ye do,” he returned, facing her again. “Stand up. I’ll nae speak to ye while ye’re on the floor.”
For one thing, it made her look vulnerable, and he didn’t like that. And he didn’t like the twist he’d felt in his gut when he’d heard her voice, or that he’d had to take a breath before he looked at her. She’d had Ian in her life for nine years that he hadn’t, and she had the spleen to look…regal when she’d walked into the foyer. Regal. Not at all broken or torn by grief.
She reached up a hand, and with a sideways glance at him Pogue stepped in to take it when Callum didn’t move. Callum didn’t want to touch her. This woman had flayed him alive the last time they’d conversed. And aside from everything else, he could blame the last ten years on her. He’d been blaming her for them, rather, and what he’d learned earlier today hadn’t given him any cause to change his mind.
A white mop with black ears tore around the corner of the morning room door, high-pitched yowling and barking launching directly at him. In the same instant black flashed in front of him. Waya lifted the wee thing up in her jaws, and Rebecca shrieked as it began squealing.
“Release, Waya,” he ordered. “Put it down. It’s nae yers.”
Turning her yellow eyes on him, the wolf opened her jaws, and the now-disheveled mop thudded to the floor. It rolled upright, then with another screech tore up the stairs and vanished.
Evidently the wee beast wasn’t alone, though, because as it fled another form hurtled down the stairs at him. Shrieking in some sort of childlike fury it jumped at him, and he reflexively caught it by the waist in midair. “You leave my mama and my dog alone!” it yelled, pummeling him with two wee fists.
It was female, judging from the dress and the long, dark-colored hair twisting out of a half-finished braid. Callum lifted it higher, to look it in the eyes – and his heart wrenched with a sensation he couldn’t even put to words. One green and one blue eye looked back at him, fierceness in every line of her scrunched-up, angry face. God, she looked like Ian, even down to the dimple in her cheeks.
“Who are ye?” he asked, surprised at the effort it took to keep his voice steady. He tilted his head, still holding her at eye level.
“I am Lady Margaret,” she stated in a very proper English tone as she abruptly stopped trying to hit him, though she continued gazing at him suspiciously. “Who are you, sir?”
Rebecca stirred. “Maggie, this is y—“
“I’m Callum,” he broke in. For God’s sake, he’d just found the one soul he knew to be innocent of…everything. No one else would do the introductions, put her own prejudices into the mix. “Yer uncle, I reckon.”
Her face eased a little, though she kept her blue eye narrowed. “You have eyes like me.”
“Aye. How old are ye?”
“I turned six nearly four weeks ago. I’m almost six-and-a-half,” she returned. “How old are you?”
“I turned thirty about ten weeks ago,” he returned, though he honestly couldn’t remember how long ago it had been. A lifetime had passed in the space of the past few weeks.
She nodded, her braid unraveling further. “Did you hurt my dog?”
“Nae. He came at me, and Waya pointed oot that that wasnae a good idea.”
“Who is Waya?”
He angled her slim torso so she could see the wolf below her. Sweet Saint Michael, she felt as delicate and light as blown glass. How did such creatures manage to come into the world at all, much less survive it? “That’s Waya,” he said aloud.
“Oh, my heavens. What is it?”
“It’s a wolf. A she-wolf.”
Her two-colored eyes widened. “A wolf? Is she yours?”
“Nae. We’re partners.”
She studied the wolf for another moment, then looked back at him. “Will she eat me? I don’t wish to be eaten.”
Callum shook his head, conscious that he wanted to wrap this wee lass in his arms and flee with her back to Kentucky where he knew he could keep her safe. Until Ian had justice and he had his revenge, though, neither of them was going anywhere. “Waya will protect ye, lass. She’d nae – never – hurt ye. Both of us are here to protect ye.” That might not have been so ten minutes ago, but now, and from now on, it was the truth.
“Well, I’m very brave all on my own, but thank you. May I pet her?”
“Maggie, I don’t think—“
“Aye. Just dunnae ever do it when she’s asleep. Call her name first so ye dunnae startle her.”
With surprising reluctance he let her go, setting her feet onto the floor, then squatted down beside her to wrap an arm about Waya’s shoulders. The wolf had likely scented the bairn and his relationship to her before he’d even been aware of Margaret’s existence, but he wanted to be certain the wolf understood. “Waya, this is Margaret,” he said, taking the lass’s absurdly wee hand in his free one and guiding her fingers down to brush along the wolf’s throat, her most vulnerable place.
“Hello, Waya,” the lass said softly, then unexpectedly hugged the wolf full around the neck. “You’re so lovely!”
Callum tensed his arm, ready to intervene. The big wolf, though, edged her head around and licked Margaret solidly on the ear, then gave a happy whumph sound.
That had been simple. Hiding his deep breath, he straightened again to find another pair of eyes glaring at him. These were a light blue, and it didn’t take much effort to interpret their expression. Becca didn’t want him there – which gave him yet another reason to stay.
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