Chapter Four

“Eve!” Clara pounded at Eve’s bedchamber door. “Eve, your silence toward me has continued long enough. I know well that you’re avoiding me, and it has to stop!”

Glaring at the door, Eve shoved the remainder of her clothes in her satchel, sheathed her sword and her dagger, took one last look around the small, sparse space that had been her home for the last eight years, and turning, she strode to the door and opened it.

“I’m glad to see you’ve got your good sense back,” Clara said, reaching for Eve.

“My good sense is intact,” Eve said. “I have not forgiven your deception.”

“You opened the door,” Clara pointed out.

“Yes,” Eve replied, refusing to offer more. Clara was a liar. Eve tried to step around Clara, but the woman moved swiftly to block Eve in the small passage.

“If you opened the door knowing I was on the other side, surely that means you are ready to listen to me. It’s been six days since you discovered those letters.”

Eve snorted. “Is six days the allotted time for forgiving someone for lying?” When Clara opened her mouth as if to answer, Eve shook her head. “Never mind! I don’t want to hear whatever lies you will spew.” Eve inhaled a shaky breath. “I opened the door because I’m leaving.” She sidestepped Clara, but before she could take another step, Clara was gripping her arm. Eve could jerk herself free; she was stronger than Clara. Yet, despite the fact that the woman had lied to her for years, Eve could not bring herself to do something that might cause Clara harm. Clara still held a piece of her heart, though Eve tried to ignore the tug.

“What do you mean, you’re leaving? You cannot be so foolish as to venture to market after the fiasco last time?”

Eve whirled to face Clara, incensed that the woman was lecturing her. “No, I’m not going to market.” She watched in satisfaction as the woman’s face drained of color. No doubt, Clara was realizing that Eve was truly leaving. “I’m going home,” she said, delivering the blow intended to hurt, yet when Clara’s fingers tightened on Eve’s arm, Eve was dismayed at the niggle of guilt she felt and pity.

“Eve, no! How would you even get there?”

“I have my ways,” Eve said, refusing to tell Clara that she’d arranged to ride with Summer Walkers who were traveling to the Lowlands. It was none of the woman’s concern, not anymore. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I wish to say goodbye to the nuns.” She swiveled on her heel, but before she could take more than two steps, Clara was calling to her to stop. Instead, Eve rushed ahead, practically running toward the chapel. The desperation in Clara’s voice made Eve want to halt and listen to what Clara had to say. But if she did that, her silly heart may wish to believe, and she could not be such a trusting fool again.

She burst into the chapel, panting. As Sister Mary Margaret turned to her from the altar with a look of surprise on her face, Clara barreled in behind Eve, her nun habit swishing around her ankles. A peaceful look was upon Clara’s face, until the door clicked shut, and then irritation swept her friend’s features. Clara had a unique ability to disguise her emotions that Eve had always been impressed with. She played the part of a serene nun perfectly, and sometimes Eve almost forgot Clara was not a nun. “Eve Decres! I have cared for you for all your life! When you had fever, I tended you. When you cried yourself to sleep for months after your parents died, I dried your tears. I rocked you. I told you stories. When you had bad dreams, I held you close. You will at least let me explain why I lied to you.”

Eve bit down hard on her lip as guilt washed over her. Clara had indeed done all of those things and more. She had baked Eve treats to remind her of home. She had told her stories of her father, her mother, and her sister, so even though they were dead, they would never be forgotten. Indecision warred within her, but when her gaze caught that of Sister Mary Margaret, who nodded encouragingly to her, Eve felt herself give. Slowly, she turned to Clara, who now stood by the door to the courtyard, misery etched upon her face as she twisted her hands.

“You could not rule the castle and choose a husband in your own right until this week,” Clara rushed out.

“Yes,” Eve confirmed. She already knew these things.

Clara let out a long sigh. “I could not allow you to venture home without knowing if your uncle betrayed your father or not. He could have forced you to wed a man of his choosing and simply taken the castle from you! At the very least, you should find a husband first.”

“I intend to do so when I return home,” Eve said, not bothering to gentle the tone of irritation she felt. She had long ago decided she’d rather be dead than forced to wed a man for her castle.

Clara looked stricken. “But Eve—”

“I trust my uncle,” Eve said, punctuating each word. “ Scots kidnapped us. Scots invaded my home. Not Englishmen, like Uncle Frederick. My uncle will guard me judiciously until I have chosen the man I will marry. My uncle will know to have extra guards at the castle upon my return.”

Sister Mary Margaret cleared her throat. “I believe the point Clara is trying to make is that your uncle very well could have been plotting with those Scots to take the castle and you from your father, and if that is the case—”

“My uncle would have never done that,” Eve interrupted, recalling memories of sitting on her uncle’s lap by the fire listening to his stories. Her uncle had given her first dagger to her. It could not be true. She refused to believe it. He was the only family she had left!

“Eve,” Clara started gently. “I—”

The chapel door swung open with a bang, and a man loomed in the doorway. His brown hair was tightly pulled back at the nape of his neck to display a handsome face. He had a sword in one hand and daggers sheathed at both hips. Footsteps sounded behind him, and suddenly, more men appeared, all big, burly, and wearing plaids.

Eve took an instinctive step back, and when she did, the man’s dark gaze locked on her from the doorway. He studied her eyes for a moment and then strode straight for her.

She reached for her sword and even as she unsheathed it, the man grasped Clara and held a sword to her neck. “Unless ye wish to see the nun die, I suggest ye hand me yer sword.”

Fear swirled in Eve’s mind, and before she could decide what to do, Sister Mary Margaret screamed from behind Eve and ran past her, a chalice grasped in her hands. Before the abbess neared the man holding Clara, one of the other men stepped forward and knocked the chalice away from her, then clutched the nun by the shoulder while raising his hand as if to strike her.

“No!” Eve and Clara shouted in unison.

“Hold!” the apparent leader bellowed, glaring at his man.

Eve gripped her sword tightly as relief poured through her.

The man offered her a courteous smile as he held out his hand. “Ye will nae get more than a swing in before ye are taken down, and I’d rather nae see ye injured.”

“Considering that you have stormed into a convent and are holding a nun against her will, I’m sure you can understand that your words don’t provide me much comfort,” Eve said.

“Aye, I ken how ye would feel thusly.” He nodded. “Be that as it may, I still require yer sword.”

“And if I refuse?” Eve asked, sweeping her eyes over the stranger and his men. Hopelessness rushed through her. She was vastly outnumbered.

He offered a courteous smile. “Ye would force me to hurt the nun, which I dunnae care to do.” The statement was delivered in such a matter-of-fact way that Eve was left with a certainty that the man would do whatever he must to get what he wanted, and she suspected he had come for her—led here, no doubt, by her own foolishness with the English knight in the market. Damn the bard. He must have spread her story, and the words of his song had given some hint of who she was. It had to be her eyes; she could think of no other characteristics she possessed that were so unique.

Her heart hammered as she raised her sword to the man.

“Eve, no!” Clara cried.

Eve winced at Clara’s use of her given name. The woman’s eyes widened as the man holding her chuckled. “Thank ye, Sister. Ye have just made things much simpler than I feared they might be.” With that, he shoved Clara to the side, grasped Eve’s sword, and threw it to the ground, well away from them. “Yer daggers, as well, Lady Decres.”

Eve’s fingers fluttered to her daggers sheathed at her hips, but she hesitated when she brushed the hilts. She would be weaponless, helpless, if she gave them up, just as she had been the night her family had been killed.

The man in front of her sighed. “Perhaps I was nae clear enough. Ye will be coming with us, and I’d rather it be without having to hurt ye or the nuns. Dunnae be foolish and cause one of them to be gravely injured.” His warning was not even slightly veiled.

Reluctantly, Eve handed over the daggers. The man took them and sheathed them on his hips beside his own daggers. Then he closed the distance between them and reached toward her. He grasped her right arm and turned it so her wrist was facing him.

“Don’t you dare defile her!” Clara screamed, starting for Eve and the stranger, but she was abruptly stopped with a hand to her shoulder by one of the other men.

The stranger in front of Eve did not spare a glance for Clara. Fear and anger knotted inside her as he yanked up the sleeve of Eve’s gown and set his forefinger to the small, half-moon birthmark on her wrist. He thought of his own mark on his wrist, which he’d long ago seared into his skin himself. The branding had been meant to match the one that his brother and his closest friends, the Circle of Renegades, which included King Robert, all bore. His lips tugged into a smile as his gaze met hers. “I had a moment of doubt that ye were really Lady Decres, though it is unlikely that there is another lass with eyes the color of summer heather and hair the color of flames in the place the bard sang of. I’m a thorough man, however…” He shrugged as he traced her birthmark once more. “Eyes like heather, hair like flames, and marked on her wrist, my father told me.”

She jerked her hand out of his grasp and glared at him. “What do you want with me?” It was hopeless to deny her identity now.

He raised his fingers to her face and when she pulled away, his hand snaked around her neck and stilled her. Her blood rushed in her ears as his fingers tightened around her neck. “What do I want with ye?” he murmured, looking thoughtful as if he were truly contemplating her question. “I want yer castle. And so, lass, I will take ye and wed ye.”

She sucked in a sharp breath as panic rioted within her.

“Dunnae be scairt, Lady Decres,” he said, his tone low and lethal. “If ye always do as I bid, ye will please me and yer life will be well.”

“And if I don’t?” she asked, though she knew the answer. Men just like this one were the reason Clara had hidden Eve away in the first place.

“Dunnae make me clip yer wings, little bird. It will surely hurt.” With that, he released her to his men. “Bring her.”

“What do ye mean Thomas and Allisdair are nae here?” Grant demanded of his cousin as he and Ross stormed into the great hall passing the clanspeople lined up to the right to make requests and complaints of the laird as was customary every Sunday.

Bryden, who’d been sitting in the laird’s chair at the dais fulfilling the duties of the Fraser laird in Simon’s absence, looked warily between Grant and Ross. They probably looked as exhausted as they felt. They had ridden hard and fast for a sennight from London to Dithorn, stopping only to steal a few hours of rest. Simon’s death had plagued him in the short times he should have been resting, so that his respite was fitful. Combining that with taking on the added burden of carrying his captive, Laird MacDougall, before him on his horse, Grant felt he would soon drop like a stone released from a great height, fast and hard.

The numbing weariness was well worth it to obtain vengeance for Simon, of course, but Grant was so tired now his lids felt heavy, his eyes burned, and his vision had taken on a blurriness that he could not blink away. Still, rest would have to wait. At least he did not have to think about MacDougall at the moment. He had handed off the laird to one of the guards the minute they had ridden into the courtyard at Dithorn. The devil should now be sitting in the Thief’s Hole.

Besides a guard unlocking the door to the cave, the only way out of the stone hole that was used to house those who’d killed a member of the clan was to jump from the open side of the cave, and that jump only led to death. It was more than a 200-foot drop to the rocks and rough sea below, and no man had ever made the jump and lived to tell of it. If MacDougall chose to end his life in that manner, then so be it. It would bring further shame to the man’s legacy than what he had already heaped upon himself by being careless and getting himself captured and six of his guards killed. Ross and Grant had followed the men after they’d left the pub and had taken them by surprise the next night when MacDougall had made camp. It had been easy, for the man and his warriors were too certain of themselves.

Grant blew out a long breath, shoving his thoughts of MacDougall aside. He motioned to the clanspeople who were still lined up in the great hall to make complaints or ask a request, as was the weekly custom. “Leave us,” he said.

“Where is Laird Fraser?” one of the clansmen shouted.

The typically unremarkable question was like a dagger in Grant’s heart. His throat immediately tightened. He had to tell the clan, but not before he told his brother, sister, and cousin. He motioned to one of the men standing nearest the exit. “Gather the clan in the courtyard. I will be there before the nooning meal to speak with everyone.”

The man frowned. “What of our requests and complaints?”

Grant’s head throbbed with the effort not to get choked up. “I’ll hear them after the nooning meal. All of you—” he swept a hand to the people in line “—may return then. I have pressing business right now.”

The clansmen nodded and began to file out, accustomed to Grant giving orders to them from the time Simon had been absent when he’d been a spy at the English court. They likely assumed Simon was on another mission. Grief rose in him as it did every day, coming in waves like the ocean. Sometimes they were high, sometimes low, yet there always.

“Cousin,” Bryden protested, “I can finish listening to our people after the nooning meal.”

“Nay, ’tis my duty,” Grant said, as it was when Simon was absent and now forever. Desolation was the beat of his heart.

Bryden scowled. “Aye, but ye clearly need rest. Ye look—”

“Hold yer tongue,” Grant snapped, irritated that Bryden would announce to the clan how tired he appeared. Lairds could never show weakness, for the minute they did, an enemy would take advantage. And like it or not, he was now laird. Grant had been taught to always show a strong face by his father, and it had been reinforced by Simon.

“I am nae ever too tired to do my duties,” he assured his clanspeople as they moved slowly toward the door to exit the great hall. Once Grant, Bryden, and Ross were alone in the great hall, Grant turned to Bryden to express his irritation.

“I’m sorry,” Bryden said before Grant could get a word out. “I spoke out of concern for ye. It’s clear by yer and Ross’s faces that ye are both exhausted, but I should have held my tongue.”

“Aye,” Grant said, “ye should have. But realizing yer mistake and admitting it is sufficient.”

Bryden’s shoulders sagged. Grant’s cousin was a good man, just a young and impetuous one. Grant remembered being impetuous himself not long ago, before his strain with Simon when he’d thought Simon a traitor. Grant’s life had become fully about duty to his clan after that. It was a heavy weight to carry but not one he had begrudged. The weight felt heavier now, as well it should. It was his own damn failure to rescue Simon that was the reason he now stood here as laird. Simon should be here. Simon should be laird. In this moment, Grant hated himself, yet he could not even allow self-disgust or pity to linger. Too many people counted on him to keep them safe. He could never again afford to be impetuous or even think of himself. His life was about duty and responsibility to the clan.

And now it was about vengeance, as well.

Ross met his gaze. “Grant—”

“Aye, I ken yer concern for yer brother,” he interrupted. He was just as concerned about Thomas’s whereabouts. The two lads were impetuous alone, but together, they were trouble. Still, he’d not thought his brother would defy King Robert’s command to return to safety. God only knew what scheme the two may have hatched and where it may have led them. Or at least he hoped it was just the two of them getting delayed. The Frasers had many enemies, and what if…?

“The lads did nae arrive here?” he asked again, arching his eyebrows at his cousin. He wanted to make sure he had the details correct before he sent out a search party.

“Nay, Cousin. We’ve nae seen Thomas since he rode out after ye and Simon. Speaking of Simon… Where is he?”

Grant’s throat constricted as he tried to speak. He had to swallow, and when his tongue still would not form the dreaded words, he stalked to the dais, poured a mug of mead, and swiftly gulped it down. He set the mug down with a thud and turned back to Bryden. “He’s dead,” he finally managed to force out, rage burning in him as Simon’s face appeared in his mind.

“Dead?” a choked cry came from the door.

Grant stifled a curse as he turned to see his sister, Esme, standing in the entrance to the great hall. Tears welled in her blue eyes, but she swiped them away, defiance of her own weakness apparent on her face. Hurt for his sister, and all the loss they’d endured, streaked through him. “Esme—”

“Nay!” she said, holding up a hand as he started toward her. “I dunnae need sympathy any more than Bryden does.”

That was not true, but Grant would not embarrass her by arguing the point. His fair and fragile sister liked to consider herself a warrior, but he’d learned long ago the importance of protecting those he loved, even if from themselves.

“What happened?” Bryden asked, sounding oddly detached, which Grant knew had to be from shock.

Grant glanced toward Esme, not wanting her to hear the gruesome details. “Esme—”

“I wish to ken it, too,” she cut in, her tone defensive but her words laced with emotion.

Sighing, Grant jerked a hand through his hair in frustration. If he denied her request, he knew she’d be embarrassed and hurt. She had enough to endure today without one more lecture from him on why a lass should wear a gown and not hear the tale of how her brother lost his head. Grant’s chest squeezed, but he forced out the words, “So be it,” and then quickly relayed the MacDougall clan’s betrayal. “I brought the MacDougall here to lure his son to us. Then we can serve them the justice they deserve. Meanwhile, it will send a message to our enemies.”

“Let us kill him now!” Esme clumsily withdrew the sword that had once been their mother’s.

He shook his head at her, eyeing the sword with the same regret he always felt when he saw it. Their mother had died because Grant had secretly taught her how to wield that very sword, despite knowing his father would not like it. And she’d become overly confident when she should not have been. He’d thought to destroy the damnable sword after her death, but Esme had begged him to let her have it, and he’d finally agreed with the strict orders that no one ever teach her how to wield it. He’d thought having their mother’s great cumbersome sword would show Esme that she was not meant to be a warrior, but to his everlasting frustration, it had made her all the more determined.

“Nay,” Grant said. “Sheathe yer sword, Esme. Ye’ll nae have a part in this. I want ye overseeing the kitchens as Simon told ye before we left.” When she opened her mouth to no doubt protest, he glared her into silence and then spoke. “I want the MacDougall dead more than any man or woman,” he added for Esme’s sake. “But first we will use him to get his son, as well. When we are done with the MacDougall clan, there will nae be a clan left to oppose King Robert or betray Scotland—or us—again.”

“Let me be the one to guard the MacDougall,” Bryden offered.

Grant shook his head. “Nay. I want ye to take a party of men out to search for Thomas and Allisdair immediately after I tell the clan of Simon.”

“I’ll go on the search as well,” Ross said.

Grant nodded, not surprised that Ross had spoken up. Ross was as close to his brothers as Grant was to his. He stilled. He could not lose Thomas. His family, his blood was being taken from him all too soon. He had to protect Esme and Thomas, and his cousin. “Ye two take a small party and search the roads from the woods to Tyndrum. And be careful. If ye are spotted by the English…”

“Our heads will likely end up beside Simon’s,” Ross finished.

Grant nodded, already thinking where he would search. He’d scour the woods and the lands from his borders to those of all his enemies around him, but he’d have to do it by day. If Aros came to rescue his father, Grant had little doubt the man would try to storm the castle by night. It had always been that way, though it was a foolish decision. The cliffs to Dithorn were steep, and night provided little visibility, though it did offer cover.

“Leave at daylight,” he said, glancing first to Ross and then Bryden. “Cousin, have one of the upstairs servants show Ross to a bedchamber so he can get some rest before ye depart.” He started past them toward the door, but stopped at Esme, giving her a fierce hug. She tremored in his arms for a moment, then pushed away.

“I have work to do,” she said, her voice a shaky whisper.

He nodded, understanding as Esme rushed from the room. Later, he would go to her. Now, he realized, she needed to be alone. She was in shock, and she would not allow herself to break down in front of any of them. Once Esme had fled, Grant turned to leave as well.

“Grant!” Ross called. “Where are ye going?”

“To start the search for our brothers,” he replied not turning back. “I’ll be back in time to speak with the clan in the courtyard.”

“Ye need rest, as well,” Ross shouted to Grant’s back.

Grant raised a hand in farewell. “Lairds rest when they’re dead,” he said, smiling to himself as he recalled Simon and their father telling him the same thing many times. He was laird now, and he had much to live up to. He would not disappoint his father and brother.