Chapter 31

31

H aving chased off the guard who was up to no good, leaving the man with the surety of severe punishment come morning, and instructing the maid to go to the kitchens where she would be safe from further harassment, Doughall made his way back up the hallway to the Great Hall.

The abrupt, jarring halt of the music alerted him to something being amiss, the sudden clamor of raised, alarmed voices providing his second clue.

For pity’s sake—I leave the room for one second! he fumed inwardly, running the last stretch.

As he burst through the doors and skidded to a halt on the flagstones, his eyes made a quick assessment of the situation. There did not appear to be any blood, no one was brawling, but a small group of people had gathered at the far end of the feasting table.

Flynn was shooing others away. Adam was crouching so low that only the top of his head could be seen above the table, and Emily and Ersie were kneeling on the ground with him. Isla was holding Moira, who looked as if she had seen a ghost, her face stricken as she stared down at whatever had caught their attention.

Freya!

Doughall launched into a sprint, pushing aside anyone who stood in his way, shoving one man so hard that he fell into the remains of a roast pheasant.

As he rounded the corner, Doughall felt the air squeeze out of his lungs.

Freya lay in an awkward heap on the floor, her head turned to the side, her mouth open, her lips blue, her skin so pale it was as if someone had drained her of all the vitality, all the life. She wasn’t moving. Not a single twitch or flinch to let Doughall know that she was alive.

“Freya…” he rasped, striding past Moira and Isla, muscling Ersie aside to get to his wife. “Freya?”

Sinking to his knees, he scooped his arms beneath her and pulled her into his lap. He gazed down at her closed eyes, and when he saw no movement beneath her eyelids, he bent his head and listened, ready to snap the neck of anyone who made a single noise as he did so.

Faint, shallow breaths tickled his cheek, and as he bent his head lower, resting his ear on her chest, his eyes closed in desperate, fleeting relief—her heart was beating. She wasn’t gone.

“What happened?” Doughall snarled at those closest to them as he picked her up.

When he walked, the others—Adam, Emily, Ersie, Isla, Moira, and Flynn—followed without hesitation. This time, the guests parted for him, not wanting to feel his wrath if they got in his way.

“We dinnae ken,” Adam said, a half step behind him. “She just… fell.”

Doughall kept his gaze fixed ahead, quickening his pace. “What was she doin’ before she fell?”

“She was just sittin’,” Emily cut in, her voice wavering. “Watchin’ the celebrations. I saw her get up, and… she collapsed. It all happened so quickly.”

It took every ounce of discipline Doughall possessed not to turn utterly feral, not to roar and rage at the guests until he found out what had occurred in the few minutes that he had been absent. It would do Freya no favors if he lost all control now. He needed to keep himself calm until she was in the hands of the healer. Then, he could unleash his fury on the merrymakers, doing whatever was necessary to get answers.

“Auntie, run on to Sorcha,” he commanded. “Tell her we’re comin’ and that she’d better have a way of helpin’ me wife, or else I’ll have her head.”

Isla paled, her eyes wild as she took off at a sprint, her skirts flying behind her, running with all of her might toward Freya’s salvation.

“Ersie, go back and fetch the plate she was eatin’ from and the cup she was drinkin’ from. Everythin’ she touched that’s on the table, I want ye to bring it,” Doughall commanded next, wondering if it was something as simple as a violent aversion to something that had been served.

Ersie muttered a determined “aye” and ran back into the Great Hall.

The rest stayed a short distance behind Doughall as he pressed on, bristling with desperate urgency. At least, they tried to stay behind him, but as the hallways opened up ahead of him, he could not just walk anymore. There might not be time for care and consideration of Freya’s comfort. So, he took off running, pouring every last drop of his strength into his legs as they powered down the empty hallways to Sorcha’s chambers.

The healer looked like she had just woken up as Doughall burst through the doors and laid his wife down on the bed reserved for those in need of attention.

Isla was pacing, trying to explain what had happened.

“… and then she just crumpled to the floor…” she trailed off upon Doughall’s arrival. A look of terrible sorrow passed over her face as her hand flew to her mouth, and she turned her back on her nephew, unwilling to let him see her distress.

“What was she doin’ before she collapsed?” Sorcha asked, tying her graying hair up with a ribbon.

“Nay one can tell me,” Doughall shot back.

Sorcha narrowed her wise, sharp eyes at him. “Speakin’ to me like that willnae help her, M’Laird.”

“And testin’ me right now isnae so wise either,” Doughall replied, dropping to his knees at Freya’s bedside, taking her agonizingly cold hand in his and blowing on it as if he could somehow breathe his warmth back into her.

Sorcha pursed her lips and bent over Freya, lifting her lids to check her eyes, resting a hand on her brow to feel her temperature, touching the blood that had begun to trickle down from Freya’s nose and rubbing it between her fingers, leaning closer to… sniff.

Doughall knew better than to question Sorcha’s methods. In all the years she had been at the castle, her gift for healing and her extensive knowledge had rarely failed.

“Poison, M’Laird,” she said with a frown. “I can smell the hemlock. Like rotten parsnips. But… there’s somethin’ else too. Sweeter.”

At that moment, Ersie ran in with Freya’s cup and plate. “I brought ‘em!”

“That’s what she was drinkin’ from?” Sorcha took the cup and sniffed it more carefully, her eyes darkening with anger that Doughall had not seen from her before. “I ken what she was poisoned with. I can help her, but I need ye all to get out. Except ye, Isla. Ye can help me. Ye’ve seen this before.”

Isla whirled around, her face a ghoulish white, her eyes glistening with tears. “Nay… It’s nae…”

“Aye, the very same. Ye helped me then, I need ye to help me now,” Sorcha replied, the vague words infuriating Doughall to the point of wanting to put his fist through the door. Instead, he held on to Freya’s hand, leaning forward to kiss her knuckles.

“Out!” the healer barked.

Although Doughall did not appreciate being ordered about, he would not put Freya’s life in jeopardy. He pressed one more kiss to her hand and then got up, storming out a second behind the others, who were quicker to obey. He slammed the door shut behind him, just to let Sorcha know of his disapproval, and marched off without a word to anyone.

They should have been watching Freya in his absence, and if she did not make it, he would not forgive any of them.

As he walked, not really sure where he was going, one thought swirled around and around in his head like a jagged mace.

Who would dare to poison me bride?

He had let his guard down. He had thought that Freya was safe because he had rid the world of Lewis Brown, but someone had swooped in and attacked, stealing his happiness at the very moment he had begun to feel joy again. And he would find out who; he would not let it become a festering mystery, devoid of justice, like the murder of his mother and father. No, he would not make that mistake again.

“M’Laird!” Ersie ran after him, drawing level with him. “M’Laird, where are ye goin’? Do ye nae think ye should wait outside the healer’s chambers?”

“I’m nay good to her there,” Doughall replied tersely, a destination coming to his mind.

Lewis had two men with him at the loch. They died, aye, but what if there were more? What if these were his instructions, in the event that he didnae return?

Fear froze the blood in his veins as he hurried onward, convinced that he had missed something, that there must be something in Freya’s chambers that would give him answers.

Perhaps the culprit had not realized that Freya would be getting ready for the wedding somewhere other than her bedchamber. Perhaps there was another note that had gone unread, hidden away. Perhaps it had been left out for Freya to see, but in her rush to prepare for the wedding, she had missed it.

Doughall had to be sure.

“Who would do this, Ersie?” His voice cracked, a furious growl covering it quickly. “I need names, ideas… anythin’ ye can think of.”

“If I may,” Flynn called from behind them as he hurried to catch up. “I reckon it must’ve been that bastard who attacked her by the loch. The one who was sniffin’ around the other day.”

Doughall rounded on his uncle. “Have ye naught but air between yer ears?” he snapped. “Where have ye been, eh? I killed the bastard. Split him in two. But that’s nothin’ compared to what I’ll do to the devil who did this. There are nay words for what I’ll do.”

Flynn seemed confused, furrowing his brow as he looked at his nephew. “When did ye kill the brute?”

“Two days ago,” Doughall said, continuing on to Freya’s bedchamber. “Ye’d have kenned that if ye werenae holed up in yer distillery, samplin’ the stock.”

“For ye!” Flynn protested. “I was makin’ preparations so ye’d have somethin’ special for yer weddin’.”

“Aye, well, I could’ve used ye here. Another set of eyes to watch for anyone who might hurt… her ,” Doughall growled, kicking open the chamber door. “Someone has come into me castle tonight. Someone has poisoned me wife’s drink. Someone has tried to kill her, and I swear on the memory of me ma and da that I willnae let them get away.”

He started rampaging through the bedchamber, not at all certain of what he was looking for, but the aggression of his search was soothing his frayed nerves. He wrenched open drawers, threw the mattress and tore at any parts that might be hiding notes, shook books and sheaves of paper violently, desperate for a clue.

Flynn stood in the doorway, while Ersie went around the room in a more orderly fashion, searching with greater care and putting back things that Doughall had thrown.

“It has to be here somewhere!” Doughall hissed, clenching his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms.

He could not endure this again. He could not lose Freya, not when his heart—despite itself—had already decided to cherish her.

“What does?” Flynn asked, staring at the chaos with bewildered eyes.

“I dinnae ken!” Doughall barked, feeling as if he was transported back to twenty-one years ago when he had attempted to search for the men who had killed his parents.

There had been no clues back then either, every avenue swiftly becoming a dead end.

Ersie suddenly crouched in front of the fire, which had cooled to faint embers, and reached for something underneath the grate.

Puzzled, Doughall watched her, but he could not see what she had found, her hunched upper body hiding it from view.

“Do ye think this might be somethin’?” she asked, getting up and walking toward him, her eyes trained on the singed square of paper pinched delicately between her thumb and forefinger. Yellowed paper. Old and time-stained. “It must’ve fallen through the grate.”

Doughall took it from her, reading the words etched on the aged paper that had somehow escaped the heat of the fireplace… as if it had known it might be needed. As if a force beyond his beliefs had preserved it for that exact moment.

If I can’t have you, neither can he.

It was the note Freya had told him about. The note she had found in his mother’s library, tucked inside Ovid’s Metamorphoses —a book his mother had often read to him as a child.

Perhaps he had missed something, just not what he had thought. What if the clue had been there all along, left there by his mother to be found by him if anything happened to her? For all these years, it had been right there .

After all, the handwriting was unmistakable. Doughall knew it as well as he knew his own.