Prologue

PROLOGUE

R obertson Castle, 1690

“Abigail is gone!”

Billie’s terrified shriek pierced through the silence, drawing all the attention of everyone present on her. She stood right at the grand, carved wooden doors of the great hall, where everyone had gathered to wait for the moment when they would have to head to the chapel for Abigail’s wedding. Her skin was pallid, her brow drenched in sweat.

Hugo looked up from his whisky with a sigh as Abigail’s intended groom, Finnian Chattan, walked over to Billie, demanding explanation. Finnian had been perfectly happy until that moment, chatting idly with the priest about his betrothed, but now his expression had turned stormy and Hugo’s hand came to rest on the hilt of the knife that hung at his waist. He didn’t think he would have to intervene, as Finnian wasn’t foolish enough to cause trouble within the halls of Robertson Castle. It was more of a habit, something he had picked up from spending so much time near his best friend, Domnhall.

Speaking about Domnhall, he was now approaching Billie as well, trying to calm Finnian down in that level-headed manner of his which he had developed since becoming the laird of the MacAulay Clan after his father’s death. He had come to learn quickly that not everything could be solved with brute force, though he still seemed to prefer it over diplomacy.

Soon enough, there would come a moment when Hugo himself would have to intervene, he knew. Finnian was working himself into a frenzy, demanding the guards find Abigail, and as Hugo watched, both Billie and Domnhall seemed to struggle to contain their growing rage towards him. Hugo could see it in the jumping vein on Domnhall’s forehead, in the way his blue eyes narrowed and his hand ran through his dark hair, tugging at the wild strands in frustration. Before long, he would forget every bit of patience he had learnt in his time as the laird.

“I’m sure she is only puttin’ on her dress,” Domnhall said, raising his voice to be heard over the commotion. He turned to Billie, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a gentle shake to pull her out of her panic as a crowd began to gather around them, curious to see what all the chaos was about. “Dinnae fash. Where would she be?”

“Nay one has seen her in hours!” Billie insisted. It wasn’t often that Hugo heard Billie panic like this, her voice thin and reedy and desperate. She was always a calm, quiet young woman, but Hugo knew how close the two of them were. If something were to happen to her dear sister, Billie would never manage to recover from the grief and the pain. “Please, we must find her, Domnhall.”

Domnhall nodded, perhaps not because he feared for Abigail, Hugo thought, but rather because his wife had lost her composure completely and finding Abigail would be the only thing that would soothe her. After all, there was no real reason for him to be worried; everyone had seen Abigail just the previous night and she had been perfectly fine.

“Your sister isn’t one to pressure herself,” Hugo said from where he sat, not yet bothering to stand like everyone else. Sooner or later, Abigail would stroll into the great hall and prove to everyone there had never been a reason for this in the first place. “She always takes a long time to dress, no? It’s her wedding today. Surely, she’ll want to look presentable.”

Billie turned those steely grey eyes on him and the look she gave him sent a chill down Hugo’s spine. Though of average build, Billie somehow managed to look a little sickly with her pale skin and almost translucent blonde hair, as though the color had been drained entirely from her, and yet no one could say she couldn’t be intimidating when she wanted to. The fact that she was rarely brought to the point of anger only served to make those rare moments even more alarming for the objects of her ire.

“It may be her weddin’, but she wouldnae be late,” Billie said. “She may take her time sometimes, but she kens what is important. She would be here. The weddin’ is supposed tae be in thirty minutes.”

“Then she will appear in forty,” Hugo said with a small shrug.

This was the way with Abigail. She showed up when she wanted to. Time didn’t seem to matter much to her, or at least she always failed to keep track of it.

Upon hearing his words, Billie’s lips pursed into a thin, displeased line, and she approached Hugo, hands on her hips.

“Even if ye’re nae fond o’ her, I willnae allow ye tae speak ill o’ me sister,” she said. “Somethin’ is wrong an’ ye are jestin’ instead o’ helpin’ us find her.”

A weary sigh escaped Hugo’s lips as he placed his whisky down onto the table and stood, just as Billie’s other sisters, Keira and Evangeline, rushed into the room, summoned by the noise. It was always a strange sight, seeing them all together. Hugo knew, logically, that sisters usually resembled each other, but the four of them shared so many of their characteristics—their fair hair, their light eyes, the delicate features of their faces—that had it not been for their different ages, they could have been quadruplets.

“What is goin’ on here?” Evangeline asked, ready to take over as the oldest of the sisters. “Where is Abigail? The weddin’ will be in a few minutes, we must head tae the chapel.”

“Didn’t you hear?” Hugo asked. “Billie says she has disappeared. It is a big castle, indeed, but I doubt she has managed to disappear. I’m telling you all, she is in one of those rooms, getting ready.”

“Evangeline, dinnae listen tae him.” Billie turned to her sister, grabbing her hand. “Listen tae me. We have every reason tae fash.”

Before she continued speaking, Billie looked around her, gaze shifting over those who were still in the great hall, and then dropped the volume of her voice, speaking so softly that only those who stood nearest to her could hear.

“She didnae wish fer this marriage,” she said. “We all ken that. She wished tae wed fer love an’ she certainly doesnae love Finnian. What if she has done somethin’ foolish?”

Hugo couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes then. “Your sister is many things, but she is not that big of a fool,” he said. “And I shall prove it to you.”

“How?” Billie demanded.

“Why, I’ll find her, of course.”

Pushing past the small crowd of people, Hugo stepped out of the great hall, taking a moment to think. Where could Abigail have gone? Most of the guards available were already looking for her and he knew they would receive word the moment they found them, so the fact that no one had returned with her in tow could only mean they had failed so far.

Her chambers, of course, were too obvious of a place; someone would have already checked there only to find them empty. The library, perhaps, or the morning room at the back of the castle, the one no one but her used so often.

Hugo made his way to the library first. He knew Abigail liked to spend her time there, though whether she spent that time reading or doing other things was still a question he couldn’t answer. It was no secret Abigail wanted to marry a man for love—it was no secret she loved many men, either. She was a fanciful girl, Hugo had always thought ever since meeting her, though what Billie claimed wasn’t true. He didn’t dislike Abigail. He only thought that everyone coddled her too much.

When he reached the room, he found it empty, with no sign that Abigail had even been there recently. He went to the morning room instead, but that, too, was empty of people, save for the guards who seemed to have had the same idea as him.

Hugo pulled his long, blonde hair back, tying it at the neck, as he always did when he meant business, and then he began to roam the grounds, not only searching, but also thinking about potential places where Abigail could be. She wasn’t often at the stables. She liked the gardens, but they were full of guards who would have spotted her. Sometimes, she went to the kitchens to speak with the servants, but they, too, would have found her had she gone there.

From the courtyard, he looked up at the windows that lined that part of the castle. He could see plenty of movement through them, but no one who even remotely resembled Abigail.

Somewhere at the back of the castle, perhaps.

Hugo didn’t know Robertson Castle very well, but he had a good idea of where everything was, and so he went through the list of rooms in his head. There were mostly bedrooms at that side of the building, many of them given to guests.

Her maither’s chambers. Didn’t she say they were there?

Perhaps Abigail had gone there to find some sort of comfort from the items that belonged to her mother once. As she had never met the woman, there was nothing else Abigail could cling to—no memories, no shared moments she could recall. That room was all she had of her.

If she was as rattled by this marriage as Billie seemed to think, then it wasn’t a stretch to think she would have wanted to feel close to a comforting figure.

There was nothing for him to lose, and so Hugo headed there, climbing up the stairs to the second floor quickly. It took him a short while to find the door he was looking for, opening several others in the process. Eventually, though, he approached what he believed was the right one and came to a sudden halt at the sounds that were coming from the other side of it.

Pressing his ear against the door, Hugo listened carefully for any signs of struggle as his hand curled around the hilt of his sword. There was the sound of china breaking, followed by the sound of creaking wood, and he wasted not another moment before he kicked the door open, heart racing in his chest.

Could it be that Billie was right and Abigail was in danger? But who could have managed to infiltrate Robertson Castle, especially on a day like this?

The moment the door swung open; Hugo took in the carnage before his eyes. The room had been destroyed as though a storm had passed through it, broken trinkets and torn books covering a good part of the floor. The drapes were torn, along with one of the tapestries, and there was even crimson smeared on the wall—blood, fresh and still wet by the looks of it.

In the middle of it all stood Abigail, interrupted in the process of throwing a length of rope out of the window. Hugo’s gaze immediately searched for the enemy, swiftly scanning the corners and every nook and cranny of the room where they could have hidden, but found it empty, save for Abigail.

“Mon Dieu!”

Hugo couldn’t help naturally falling back into French, his mother tongue, when he was angry, surprised or tired. His father had been Scottish and his mother French, and Hugo had moved to France with his parents as a child to escape war. That was where he had later met Domnhall and they had become best friends.

“What are you doing?” Hugo asked. The sight was so strange that his mind had trouble coming up with a plausible explanation for what his eyes were seeing. “What is all this?”

Abigail froze where she stood by the window, her grey eyes wide in shock. She glanced over Hugo’s shoulder as though she expected to see others there, but no one had followed him, not yet, at least. In the end, they were bound to look in that room, too.

“I’m leavin’,” Abigail said calmly, as though it made perfect sense for her to leave on the day of her wedding. “I cannae stay here, Hugo. I cannae go through with this weddin’.”

For a few moments, Hugo remained silent, too stunned to speak. So, Billie had been right after all. Abigail had been planning something foolish and she had been close to executing her plan, too. He had no doubt she would have jumped out of that window had he not forced his way into the room.

When he regained his wits, he groaned, burying his face in his hands. “You cannot be serious. What was your plan? Were you going to climb out of the window? And then? What do you think your family would do? Your sisters?”

At least Abigail had the decency to look embarrassed at that, averting her gaze. “I would come back, eventually. I wouldnae let them think I was dead.”

“Billie already thinks something has happened to you,” Hugo said. “She is just down these stairs, screaming at everyone to find you.”

Abigail’s expression turned into a mask of guilt, the corners of her mouth sloping downwards at the thought of her beloved sister. Out of the four of them, she and Billie were the closest and Hugo knew that if there was any way he could talk Abigail out of this, it would be by appealing to her love for Billie.

This wasn’t a rash decision Abigail had made in the span of a moment, he knew. For all he considered her spoiled and selfish, she was also calm and collected like Billie, thinking things through before she acted. If she had come to the point of trying to escape like this, then it could only mean she had been planning it for a long time.

“I will come back,” she insisted. “I promise. But I must leave now an’ ye can either try tae stop me, in which case I would rather fall right out o’ this window or ye can try tellin’ them the truth after I am gone, in which case I will disappear.”

“Is there a third option?” Hugo asked with a sigh, since neither of those things seemed particularly enticing to him.

“Let me go,” she said. “Tell them… tell them ye came too late. Tell them I was already gone.”

“I can’t let you leave like this,” Hugo insisted. Though he doubted Abigail would jump out of the window like she had threatened, he didn’t want to try his luck. She seemed perfectly serious when she said she wouldn’t go through with the wedding. “It’s… it’s dangerous, Abigail, you understand that, no? Who knows what will happen to you out there?”

“Naething will happen tae me,” she said. “Naething worse than what will happen tae me here.”

That is rather dramatic. Surely, death is worse than marriage.

“There are things ye dinnae ken,” Abigail continued when she sensed his hesitation. “An’ I’d explain them, but I must go now.”

That caught Hugo’s attention. He didn’t know what it was Abigail was talking about, but he certainly wanted to. “What does that mean? What things?”

“Things!” she said. “I have nae time fer this. I’m leavin’.”

“Wait.”

Hugo couldn’t believe he was about to do this. It was a stupid plan, so much so that he could hardly believe he had even thought of it, but he couldn’t let Abigail leave the castle alone and stage her own abduction. Perhaps if he went with her, he could persuade her to come back or at least keep her safe until she decided it was time to return on her own.

“I’ll come with you,” he said.