Mrs. Drummond let herself in quietly and set a tea tray on the corner of the desk, but Blair didn’t look up. He let the ink blur before his eyes, counting each painful, measured thud of his pulse until the door clicked closed behind the housekeeper.
Each passing heartbeat brought him closer to the end of his time here—and to the end of the beautiful fantasy he’d let himself believe in. Of a brighter future, a life in the Highlands. A life with Amelia.
Cullingham’s delicate cough dragged Blair out of his sinking thoughts. “Everything should be in order, my lord. Is there…anything amiss?”
Amiss? Aye, everything about this whole bloody, stinking situation is amiss. But of course Cullingham was only referring to the paperwork.
“Nay,” he pushed out.
“Good, because I’ve already taken the liberty of procuring this.”
The solicitor leaned over his chair and pulled something else out of the carpet bag. He held up a corked glass bottle filled with dark amber liquid.
“To celebrate,” Cullingham explained with a proud smile. “I thought we might have a—what do you Scots call it? A wee dram?”
Blair frowned. “Where did ye come by that?”
“Not far from here, in fact. As the roads were such rough-going, I spent last night at a rather…ahem…rustic inn a few miles south. The proprietor gave me a small after-supper tot.” Cullingham sighed fondly. “It was the finest of your Scotch whisky I’ve ever tasted—far better than the swill to be had in the Lowlands and England.”
“And he gave ye his bottle?”
The solicitor waved a hand. “Oh, no. I practically had to beg the man for the location where I could buy my own. It was all very secretive. He acted like I wanted the very bones of St. Andrew rather than a single bottle of the stuff.”
Blair’s conversation with Mrs. Drummond the night before snagged in his mind. Whoever produced that whisky was probably doing so below-board to avoid taxation. The last thing anyone in this area would want was to give up one of their own to a snooping Englishman—not to mention expose themselves to the risk of being thrown off their own land for bootlegging.
“I found the maker not two miles from here,” Cullingham continued, unperturbed. “Sold me a bottle out of the back of his croft, and acted like he was pawning the Royal jewels. But my God, it was cheap as dirt, despite all the subterfuge. I ought to pick up another on our way back to Edinburgh.”
He set the bottle on the desk beside the papers, smiling expectantly at Blair. “A first-rate toast it will make once you’ve signed, my lord.”
Though he didn’t doubt the whisky was the finest the Highlands had to offer, Blair knew it would taste like ash on his tongue. But there was no going back now. It was selfish to let his crumbling heart interfere with his responsibility. For the estate’s future, and Livie’s inheritance, this had to be done.
He reached slowly for the open wooden pen box atop the desk. Once he’d uncorked the inkwell with stiff fingers, he lifted the pen from its little cushion. With more care than was probably required, he dipped the metal tip of the pen into the ink.
It only took another moment to sift through the papers to the last sheet, where a blank space waited for his signature. Blair lowered the pen until the tip hovered a fraction of an inch over the paper.
With a hard swallow, he pressed the pen down and his hand jerked in the familiar motion of his signature. But in the middle of an ‘r,’ the pen scratched to a halt.
Blair looked up at Cullingham. He hardly registered the solicitor’s confused frown, though.
“Is there a problem, my l—”
Blair jerked the pen up, holding it aloft between them to silence Cullingham. An idea had begun tumbling through his mind like an avalanche, slow at first but gaining speed and momentum as it went.
“The whisky,” he murmured.
Cullingham lifted his sandy brows. “Yes, my lord. Would you like to try it? I myself sampled a small tot when I purchased it from the crofter, just to ensure its quality, of cour—”
Blair jabbed the pen at Cullingham, making the solicitor jerk back in shock. But at least it also stilled the man’s tongue. Blair needed to think, to see the whole of the mad scheme he had in mind. And not just how it would come together now, but how it would work ten, twenty, one hundred years from now.
“Ye said that bottle was dirt-cheap. How much would ye pay for that quality of malt in Edinburgh—or London?”
Cullingham’s mouth opened, but no answer was immediately forthcoming. The furrow between his brows deepening, he finally said, “Two or three pounds, I would guess. Maybe even more in London.”
“And how much did ye pay the crofter this morning?”
The solicitor flushed. “A few shillings.”
“What is the current duty rate on whisky coming in to England?”
“I really couldn’t say, my lord. Obviously, this isn’t my area of expertise. If you would like, I could look into the matter once we have returned to Edinburgh.”
“Nay, I need to know now. Just give me a rough guess,” Blair pressed, leaning forward.
Cullingham rubbed his forehead in dismay. “Well, it changes all the time, my lord. I haven’t paid much attention to the exact figures, but a few years ago the duty was four shillings per gallon of spirits. Now, the rates seem to double—or even triple—every two or three years, so…”
He looked helplessly at Blair. Cullingham was used to dealing in absolutes, hard numbers, not guesses and estimations. He clearly couldn’t bring himself to pull a figure out of the air based on his limited knowledge of whisky taxation.
Blair waved the pen in absolution of the poor solicitor. “Let us call
