Her Highland Boss: The Earl's Convenient Wife / In the Boss's Castle / Her Hot Highland Doc

The memory flooded back of Jeanie in the car. What had he said to her? That his car was...‘blocking your profits...’

The moment he’d said it he’d seen the colour drain from her face. The slap had shocked her more than it had shocked him.

An undischarged bankruptcy?

He didn’t know anything about her.

What had she said? ‘This is a business deal. If you’re buying, Alasdair McBride, surely you should have checked out the goods.’

He’d set Elspeth onto a background check. Yes, he should have done it weeks ago but he’d assumed...

Okay, he’d assumed the worst—that Jeanie was as money-grubbing as her ex-husband. It had just seemed a fact.

He thought back to the one time—the only time—he’d seen Jeanie together with Alan. They’d just married. Alan had brought his new bride to the head offices of the Duncairn Corporation and introduced her with pride.

‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ he’d demanded of Alasdair and Alasdair had looked at Jeanie’s short, short skirt and the leather jacket and boots and the diamond earrings and he’d felt nothing but disgust. The demure secretary he’d seen working with Eileen had been a front, he’d thought. The transformation made him wonder just how much his grandmother had been conned.

He was about to find out. ‘You know what this means,’ Alan had told him. ‘I’m respectable now. The old lady thinks the sun shines out of Jeanie. She’s already rethinking the money side of this business. Half this company should be mine and you know it. Now Eileen’s thinking it, too.’

Eileen hadn’t been thinking it, but she had settled an enormous amount on the pair of them. ‘It’s easier than to have the inheritance of the company split when I die, and Jeanie’s excellent with money. She’ll manage it.’

The next time he’d seen Jeanie, she’d been back here and his grandmother had been dying. There’d been no sign of the tight-fitting clothes or the jewels then. There’d been no sign of the brittle, would-be sophisticate—and there’d been no sign of the money.

On impulse he headed upstairs to the room his grandmother had kept as her own. Eileen had spent little time here but when she’d known her time was close she’d wanted to come back. He had to clear it out—sometime. Not now. All he wanted to do now was look.

He entered, wincing a little at the mounds of soft pillows, at the billowing pink curtains, at the windows open wide to let in the warm evening air. Jeanie must still be caring for it. All signs of the old lady’s illness had gone but the room was still Eileen’s. Eileen’s slippers were still beside the bed.

There were two photographs on the dresser. One was of him, aged about twelve, holding his first big salmon. He looked proud fit to burst. The other was of Alan and Jeanie on their wedding day.

Jeanie was holding a posy of pink roses. She was wearing a dress similar to the one she had on today. Alan was beaming at the camera, hugging Jeanie close, his smile almost...triumphant.

Jeanie just looked embarrassed.

So the tarty clothes had come after the wedding, he thought.

So the marriage to Alan had been almost identical to the one she’d gone through today?

Maybe it was. After all, he was just another McBride.

He swore and crossed to Eileen’s desk, feeling more and more confused. The foundations he’d been so sure of were suddenly decidedly shaky.

What he was looking for was front and centre—a bound ledger, the type he knew Eileen kept for every transaction she had to deal with. This was the castle ledger, dealing with the day-to-day running of the estate. Jeanie would have another one, he knew, but, whatever she did, Eileen always kept a personal account.

He flicked through until he found the payroll.

Over the past couple of months there’d been a few on the castle staff. There’d been nurses, help from the village, the staff Alasdair had seen when he’d come to visit her. But before that... Leafing through, he could find only two entries. One was for Mac, the gillie. Mac had been gillie here for fifty years and must be close to eighty now. He was still on full wages, though he must be struggling.

The castle wasn’t running as a farm. The cattle were here mostly to keep the grass down, but still... He thought of the great rhododendron drive. It had been clipped since the funeral. There was no way Mac could have done such a thing, and yet there was no mention of anyone else being paid to do it.

Except Jeanie? Jeanie, who was the only other name in the book? Jeanie, who was being paid less than Mac? Substantially less.

What was a good wage for a housekeeper? He had a housekeeper in Edinburgh and he paid her more than this—to keep house for one man.

His phone rang. Elspeth.

‘That was fast,’ he told her, but in truth he was starting to suspect that what she had to find was easy. He could have found it out himself, he thought. His dislike of Alan had stopped him enquiring, but now... Did he want to hear?

‘I thought I’d catch you before you start enjoying your wedding night,’ Elspeth said and he could hear her smiling. ‘By the way, did you want more of those financial records sent down? I’m not sure what you’re worried about. If you tell me, I can help look.’

‘I’m not worried about the business right now,’ he growled and heard Elspeth’s shocked silence. What a statement!

But she regrouped fast. She was good, was Elspeth. ‘I’ve been busy but this has been relatively simple,’ she told him. ‘From what I’ve found there’s nothing to get in the way of having a very good time. No criminal record. Nothing. There’s just one major hiccup in her past.’

And he already knew it. ‘Bankruptcy?’

‘You knew?’

‘I... Yes.’ But how long for? Some things weren’t worth admitting, even to Elspeth. ‘But not the details. Tell me what you have. As much as you have.’

‘Potted history,’ she said. Elspeth had worked for him for years and she knew he’d want facts fast. ‘Jeanie Lochlan was born twenty-nine years ago, on Duncairn. Her father is supposedly a fisherman, but his boat’s been a wreck for years. Her mother sounds like she was a bit of a doormat.’

‘Where did you get this information?’ he demanded, startled. This wasn’t facts and figures.

‘Where does one get all local information?’ He could hear her smiling. ‘The post office is closed today, so I had to use the publican, but he had time for a chat. Jeanie’s mother died when she was sixteen. Her father proceeded to try to drink himself to death and he’s still trying. The local view is that he’ll be pickled and stuck on the bar stool forever.’

So far he knew...well, some of this. He knew she was local. ‘So...’ he said cautiously.

‘When she was seventeen Jeanie got a special dispensation to marry another fisherman, an islander called Rory Craig,’ Elspeth told him. ‘I gather she went out with him from the time her mam died. By all reports it was a solid marriage but no kids. She worked in the family fish shop until Rory drowned when his trawler sank. She was twenty-three.’

And that was more of what he hadn’t known about. The details of the first marriage. He’d suspected...

He’d suspected wrong.

‘I guess she wouldn’t be left all that well-off after that marriage,’ he ventured and got a snort for his pains.

‘Small family fishing business, getting smaller. The trawler sank with no insurance.’

‘How did you get all this?’ he demanded again.

‘Easy,’ Elspeth said blithely. ‘I told the publican I was a reporter from Edinburgh and had heard Lord Alasdair of Duncairn was marrying an islander. He was happy to tell me everything—in fact, I gather the island’s been talking of nothing else for weeks. Anyway, Rory died and then she met your cousin. You must know the rest.’

‘Try me.’

‘You mean you don’t?’

‘Eileen didn’t always tell me...’ In fact, she’d never told Alasdair anything about Alan. There’d been animosity between the boys since childhood and Eileen had walked a fine line in loving both. ‘And Jeanie keeps herself to herself.’

‘Okay. It seems your gorgeous cousin visited the island to visit his gran—probably to ask for money, if the company ledgers are anything to go by. He met Jeanie, he took her off the island and your grandmother paid him to marry her.’