Chapter Two

B efore Abigail could form any type of response, a pail flew across the yard as if the wind had picked it up, hurling it toward the mountainous man standing at the broken gate. His arm, which held a sinister sword, came across, knocking the pail away.

“I didn’t kill him,” Abigail yelled, “but if you come closer, you might join him.”

The stubborn man took another step but stopped as smaller rocks from the pile shot toward him. “Stad!” he roared. He dove, rolling over the ground on his back, to leap up, grabbing a discarded wooden wheelbarrow to hold before his face. “I am Kerrick Hay,” he yelled. “Owner of this property and castle. Cease your throwing, woman!”

“I’m not the one throwing things,” she yelled. Abigail ran through the back door, slamming it shut. Her hand scrambled to turn the heavy key in the lock.

Bam!

Abigail jumped back as the man slammed against the door.

Hide . The woman’s voice called loud and clear like the few times she’d spoken to her before. Abigail ran through the kitchen into the great hall. Hiding in a corner, she tried to slow her breath.

Crash!

“Holy God,” she whispered. He was inside.

Bam! Bam! Bam! A series of things hit the walls in the kitchen.

“Stad, ye witch. This is my home, my home as a Hay. Cease your torment!”

Clang! That sounded like the iron poker.

“Who are ye? Rohaise the Red? Is that who ye bloody are?” he called out.

The specter had a name?

“’Tis my castle ye haunt, banshee,” he yelled.

The sounds of attack ceased. If he were a Hay and owner of the castle, it wasn’t likely that he would just leave. He also probably hadn’t been sent by William. Abigail let out a long breath. But she wasn’t in the clear, not if he were bent on rape or murder. She had little defense apart from her fingernails, which were chipped and pointy from all the scrubbing she’d done over the last few days.

Heart pounding, Abigail listened to the man’s boots coming closer. Hands clenched, she held her chin steady. Confidence is your best defense . Her father’s words helped her stand strong.

The man’s gaze snapped around the hall, halting when he saw her. “Fuck,” he said, and raised his arms to block his face. After a moment, he lowered them, eyeing her suspiciously. “Are ye flesh and blood, lass?”

“Yes, but she will come back if you try to hurt me.”

He muttered something. “Who are ye? And why are ye in my castle?”

“I am Grace Winfield. I… have nowhere else to live. Your castle was vacant and a mess, so I have been scrubbing it. I fixed the door you just ripped apart.”

“What the bloody hell is that… thing?”

“I don’t know anything about the spirit except that this was her gown. She protected me from that man after I arrived.”

“The spirit killed the man?” he asked, watching her closely.

She nodded. “With an iron skillet to the head after he kicked in the kitchen door, which will need to be repaired a second time.”

The man rubbed a hand against his own head. “I have no doubt she could kill,” he murmured, annoyance darkening his words. “Even though I bloody hell don’t believe in the nonsense of spirits,” he said loudly and looked around the room as if Rohaise would suddenly appear. He strode to the mantel to tug free the ornamental shield from the wall.

“You are… Kerrick Hay, owner of this property?” she asked.

“Aye.” He set the metal shield against his leg but within easy reach. With the bright light shining in from the narrow windowpanes, she could see that his eyes were a deep blue, almost gray. He was broad through his shoulders and narrow at the waist and hips, and he was obviously strong from the show of muscles pressed against his sleeves when he raised his hands to cup his head.

“Did she hit your head?”

“Aye, but the ache has more to do with the fact that my castle has come with an angry spirit, a lass without a home, and a dead man half-buried in the garden.”

He dropped his hands and stared at her. “Ye’ve been here for three days?”

She nodded.

He glanced around the great hall. “And ye’ve cleaned?”

“Yes, and two rooms above,” she said. “I can be your maid.”

“And your name is Grace Winfield?”

She forced a smile and nodded quickly. “From Edinburgh.”

“And why did ye travel here?”

“I… I was taking the coach to Inverness when a man showed too much interest. I decided to end my journey, and he followed me. Rohaise attacked him when he broke into your home.”

He frowned, rubbing his head. “Ye don’t know how to get a spirit out of a castle, do ye?”

“No.”

Kerrick crossed his arms and exhaled, his legs spread in a battle stance. “I could use help setting this place working, and if the banshee saved ye maybe ye can reason with her.” He shook his head. “Damn ghost.” He looked toward the kitchen. “First though, I need to get that body off my land.”

“I didn’t dare go beyond the wall,” she said. “I tried to dig, but the ground was so hard and full of rocks.”

“So ye built a cairn over him,” he said, as if her plan had been ridiculous.

Abigail narrowed her eyes. “Show me how to dispose of his body properly, so when Rohaise takes her fury out on you, I’ll know what to do when you start to stink up the castle.”

Kerrick murmured something else in Gaelic, picked up the shield, and strode back to the kitchen.

Abigail let out a long breath. She wasn’t going to be raped and murdered today, or even dragged back to William. She placed her hands on her cheeks. “Thank you, Lord.”

*

“Good bloody Lord,” Kerrick swore as he backed up to view the corpse propped against the boulder and rubbed his nose. The man had turned sallow, his skin loose, and the exposed brain matter dry and dark with old blood. And he stank. Kerrick had carried the decaying body half a mile from Delgatie and set him to look like he’d sat to rest against a tall boulder.

“And the rock,” Grace, said, pointing to the one he’d bloodied with a bit of the man’s wound. She stood upwind, an arm over her nose.

Kerrick pushed the rock by the man so it looked to have rolled off the top of the boulder and hit him on the head, killing him with the blow.

“Wouldn’t he have fallen over?” Grace asked.

Kerrick raised his foot and shoved the man’s shoulder, making him fall over. “Better?” he asked.

Grace dropped her arm and smiled. “Yes.”

“Ye have a devious mind, lass.”

“Not normally,” she answered, following him as he began to traipse back toward Delgatie Castle.

He heard her boots tapping across the rocks and onto the frozen peat. It was best he didn’t look at her and her lush beauty. She was a distraction, one he certainly did not need. “The lasses I know would have gone into town to find someone to help them if they’d witnessed a murder,” he said.

“A murder by a ghost?” she asked. “Who would have believed me? I would have been thrown into the jail or be already on my way to be hanged.”

She was right. If he hadn’t been assaulted by the red-haired spirit, he’d have assumed she’d done the deed. “Ye were defending yourself.”

“In a home I had broken into,” she pointed out.

He glanced back at her. “Ye aren’t the spirit’s relation are ye? Ye both have red hair.” Grace’s hair was gold and coppery red, full of curl as it moved about her shoulders down her back. In truth, nothing like the spirit’s.

“No,” she said, frowning.

“Where is your family?” he asked. “Why aren’t ye home protected by a fiery haired father or a fiery tempered brother?” He stepped up and over a flat boulder that sat like an island amongst the fading heather scattered in clumps across the damp, autumn moor. “Ye shouldn’t be traveling alone.”

“My parents are both dead, and I have no siblings.”

“And your da left ye destitute?” Anger welled up inside Kerrick, his eyes still turned outward. Had the man made no provisions for his only child, left alone in a depraved world?

“I was provided for,” she said quickly. “But there are unscrupulous villains everywhere, one of which has taken what was left to me.”

He stopped, and she ran into his back, making him turn. “Pardon,” she mumbled. It was a quick contact, her softness that he’d seen in her form proving all too real.

The muted sun shone on her face, the pale blue of her cape making the blue in her eyes even more noticeable. “Someone stole your inheritance?” Kerrick asked.

She nodded. “I have only what I brought with me and a ticket to take me all the way to Inverness if I wish.”

Kerrick rubbed his mouth, his gut tight. He had a sister who was fortunate to live in Megginch Castle in Perth with his father and their oldest brother. The idea of someone making Dorcas run from her home, with barely anything, cast fury through Kerrick like a rock hitting the center of a pond, rippling out until his hands fisted. “I can help ye, Grace.”

You are a fool with your causes, boy, when you should be looking to Hay interests . Kerrick exhaled long, pushing his father’s condemnation away. “I can help ye get what is your due.” Grace shook her head, and a small part of him relaxed in relief at not having to prove his father right again.

“I need to put it all behind me.” She looked outward but rapidly returned to his gaze. “But I do wish to stay. I can cook and clean.”

He began to walk again, Grace beside him. “The wage is low,” he said, “but ye would have a roof over your head, food that I can provide, and…” He glanced her way, meeting her blue eyes, “no harm will come to ye in my care, from me or any man. I cannot predict what that banshee can do yet.”

“She definitely likes me better than you,” Grace said, some of the heaviness in her voice lifted. A small smile turned up the corners of her lush mouth. “Thank you.”

He nodded and looked away. They walked in silence, the two of them side by side as they traipsed back to his stony ruin. The first day at Delgatie was coming to an end and all he had done was hire a maid and evict a dead man. There was so much to do to get the fields ready for a spring planting, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman walking next to him.

Who is the bastard who took her inheritance? If it had been the man the ghost knocked dead with a skillet, Grace would have said so.

“Will you get chickens soon?” she asked.

It took him a moment to focus on her question. “Aye.”

They continued to walk. She smells of flowers . The subtle fragrance had cleared away the last scent of death from his nose when she’d fallen against him.

“And perhaps a cow?” she said.

“Aye.”

She was probably a virgin. And she will stay one . Damn his brother for betting he wouldn’t go a fortnight without finding a willing woman in his bed. The lasses didn’t seem to care that Kerrick was the second son of the wealthy George Hay. Dorcas said it was because he was brawny and handsome. Brawny, handsome, and poor except for this falling-down castle, and even that was forfeit if he couldn’t make a profit from it. The odds of success were not high, but he’d beaten the odds more than once, and damn it, he would again.