Chapter 29
“I thought ye were busy,” Hunter said, setting down his glass. “Ye’re supposed to knock before ye enter a laird’s study. I might nae have been alone.”
Jack had not long left, no doubt confused by Hunter’s instructions to post archers in the rafters of the chapel roof on their wedding day.
“Ye’re nae thinkin’ of killin’ Miss Kane, are ye? Me wife wouldnae be happy about that,” he had said, his throat bobbing.
“Nay, the very opposite,” Hunter had explained, without explaining anything at all.
He might have accepted that the strange woman he had come to want at his side was from the future, but Jack wouldn’t. The man had only just gotten over his fear that Nancy was a witch.
“Not alone?” Nancy closed the door behind her, a frown creasing her brow. “Who else would be in here with you?”
Hunter thought he detected a note of jealousy in her voice and couldn’t deny he liked it.
“The councilmen, me man-at-arms, any number of people,” he replied. “But what are ye doin’ here? Have ye grown tired of me daughter already?”
She scowled at him, folding her arms across her chest. “Actually, I came to tell you—No, forget it. It doesn’t matter. I should’ve known you’d be unreasonable, pouting about me giving you the silent treatment.”
“Poutin’?” He barked a laugh. “Ye seemed as if ye wanted space, lass. I gave it to ye. Or are ye one of these lasses who say one thing and mean another?”
Her mouth dropped open, and he could sense he had hit that sweet spot between anger and amusement. Riling her up just enough. After all, if he was going to die in a matter of weeks, he figured he might as well enjoy himself.
“Elsie is lookin’ for ye, by the way,” he added, sitting back in his chair. “Wants to discuss the arrangements for the weddin’.”
Nancy turned her gaze away, her hand moving to her throat, rubbing it as if there was some tension there.
“Still nae sure, eh?” he teased.
“I suppose I’m still struggling to understand why you’d go through with it, when, as you said yourself, you only proposed to protect me,” she replied quietly.
Is that why ye’ve been avoidin’ me?
He gazed at her more intently, searching her face for any hint of the truth.
“Then again, whoever this killer is, I’ve come to the realization that it’s probably not the wedding itself that makes them try to murder you,” she continued, frowning. “The wedding is just an opportunity. If I leave, the story might change, but the ending might be the same.”
He got to his feet and picked up his whiskey glass to drain what was left.
“Ah, so what ye’re sayin’ is that ye’d be doin’ me a favor if ye stayed?
” He began to approach her. “Ye’d be makin’ it easier for me to kill me killer?
It wouldnae have anythin’ at all to do with the fact that ye’re startin’ to like it here.
Startin’ to like what I can do for ye, if ye were to stay.
Feelin’ like ye might want to surrender more than ye did the other night. ”
“You’re being impossible,” she spluttered.
“I just want to make sure Freya doesn’t grow up without her father.
There’s… there’s absolutely nothing else to it, and don’t forget that I can always un-surrender myself.
I’m not surrendering right now, am I? No, exactly.
So, you can take your… come-to-bed eyes and direct them elsewhere, because I’m trying to have a serious conversation that, clearly, you’re not prepared to have. ”
She reached for the door handle, but he got there ahead of her, his hand braced against the door, holding it closed with ease, pinning her between his body and the wood.
“Where else would I look with me ‘come-to-bed’ eyes?” he replied in a silky voice, rather liking the new turn of phrase.
It didn’t serve him well to give too much away in his expressions or manner, but when it came to her, he was secretly glad that she could read that at least.
Even if I cannae have ye without makin’ ye me wife first.
“I came here to tell you that I have a plan,” she said, her voice thick as she held his gaze, her chest heaving in a torturous rhythm that made him long to rip her bodice away and close his mouth over her nipples.
He could easily clear the desk to give her another taste of what he could do to her if she needed a little more persuading. Then again, with his blood up, there was every chance that he might take it too far.
“That’s all,” she concluded, pointedly turning the door handle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a child to take care of.”
He didn’t release his hold on the door. “What sort of plan?”
“I’ll tell you when the time is right,” she replied. “Once I’ve ironed out a few creases.”
He frowned. “I daenae like secrets, lass.”
“It’s not a secret, it’s just a work in progress,” she said, her breath hitching as his fingertips caught hold of that blood-drop pendant at her throat.
Against the warmth of his skin, it felt like ice, a strange vibration shivering into his hand.
“Who gave ye this?” he questioned.
“Mrs. Crimm—I mean, Eileen,” she said as her hand came up to cover the pendant, holding it in her fist so he couldn’t get to it. “It’s… how I leave, if that’s what I choose. But right now, I’m choosing not to.”
He took a step back, unnerved by that odd piece of jewelry.
Indeed, he wasn’t afraid of many things, but he was afraid of what that necklace could do.
Warriors could calmly face a thousand men in battle and not feel a single shiver of nerves, but when faced with one witch?
Magic, or whatever those powerful forces were, was something that even the most powerful man knew not to toy with.
“Right now, I’m choosing not to.”
He concentrated on those words as he gestured that she could depart, and as she left, he couldn’t help wishing he’d refused the invitation to the cèilidh at Castle Culloch.
Glancing down at his fingertips, where they’d touched that pendant, he could still feel the vibration tingling along his forearm, shivering toward his heart.
“When ye’ve ‘ironed out the creases’, lass,” he said to her back, “let me ken.”
She twisted her head to look back over her shoulder at him. “I intend to.” A small, hopeful smile graced her lips. “Otherwise, how the hell am I supposed to save you?”
“What do you think?” Nancy stared down at the list she’d made over the past couple of days, breaking more quills than she cared to admit and, frankly, embarrassed that, as a reporter, she didn’t have a pen in her handbag to make writing her notes a little easier.
She was in the castle library, with Freya strapped to her back, fast asleep, and Isla to keep her company. Her co-conspirators in this plan to change history.
Isla had been horrified when Nancy had revealed the missing details of the tapestry that had brought her here, flying into a panic in much the same way Nancy had when she’d realized that she was the bride depicted.
But after calming the older woman and explaining her plan to solve the mystery before the killer could even strike, Isla had turned out to be an excellent, supremely organized associate.
“I think it’s a longer list than I’d like,” she replied with a grimace, her gaze trailing down the names of potential suspects they had managed to gather over the past few days. “It’s nae as if we can have so many arrested without a good reason, and we have nay control at all over Clan MacLeach.”
The name at the top of the list was Freya’s grandfather and Hunter’s former father-in-law, Laird MacLeach.
“I just wish Jane would write,” Nancy lamented.
During her time at Castle Culloch, she’d learned that there was a sort of tear in time and space in the sea cave below the castle.
A recess in the stone with a box inside, where Jane put all of the things she wanted her former colleague in the future to know about, and where the note Nancy had found about a painting had come from.
However, it also sent things back in time on certain days of the year.
Jane had promised that she would leave a note asking for information regarding the Hawk’s killer. “But it’s not an exact science. Sometimes, replies show up months later. It’s not like sending a text, though I often wish it were. Any information there is about him might not reach us in time.”
“I should have asked that art teacher more questions,” Nancy added, her head in her hands. “Then again, it’s not like I knew what would happen.”
“Well, to be honest with ye,” Isla replied, coming to sit at the reading table with her. “When I look at that list, I daenae see how it can be anyone but Laird MacLeach. Aye, there are people in this clan who daenae favor him, but nae to the point of wanting to murder him.”
“Unless they make it look like it’s someone from Clan MacLeach, so the war will start again?” Nancy theorized. “Hunter told me that there are people who aren’t happy that it ended when it did, still seeking their revenge.”
Isla nodded gravely. “Aye, it’s a possibility.
” She shuddered in her chair. “Och, I daenae like this one bit. I daenae ken how ye can be so calm. So brave, in truth. Ye must… care a great deal for him, to be goin’ to all this trouble to save him.
It wasnae so long ago that ye were desperate to leave. ”
Nancy cast the older woman a curious look, her cheeks warming. Did Isla know something, or was it plain for everyone to see that things might not be as fake as they’d first appeared?
“Nae that I’m nae grateful,” Isla blurted out. “I daenae want any harm to come to me nephew, but… it’s just interesting that ye’re the one leadin’ the charge. Are ye fond of him?”
A knock at the library door saved Nancy from having to answer, though the question lingered in her mind like a splinter as she turned.
Beathan raised a hand in greeting as he entered.
“I hope I’m nae intrudin’?” he said. “Elsie sent me to find ye, Miss Kane. Apparently, she has to ken whether ye want white flowers in the chapel or some color, and she has to ken now. I wasnae feelin’ bold enough to tell her that I’m nae her errand boy. ”
He walked closer and reached out to touch the top of Freya’s sleeping head.
“Och, to be a wee bairn with nay one botherin’ ye, eh?” He laughed. “I cannae remember the last time I had a nap.”
“Babies and dogs have the best lives,” Nancy agreed, wondering what would befall Beathan if she sent a message back to Elsie that she wasn’t really in the mood to talk about flowers when she had a murder to stop.
Then again, Elsie didn’t know about all that, so Nancy would have to come up with a different excuse.
“What are the two of ye up to?” Beathan asked, his gaze wandering to the list. A surprised gasp left his lips. “That cannae be who ye’re invitin’ to the weddin’, unless ye want yer groom dead?”
Nancy cast a warning glance at Isla, who clamped her lips shut. The fewer people who knew about what might happen, the less chance there would be of word spreading to the would-be killer. Yes, Laird MacLeach didn’t live nearby, but it would’ve been foolish to think he didn’t have spies.
“It’s a list of who we should… watch out for on the wedding day,” Nancy replied diplomatically. “You know, with there being a lot of tension and all that.”
Beathan frowned. “Has someone made a threat?”
“No, no, nothing so bad. It’s more like… preparation for possible scenarios,” Nancy offered, wishing she’d thought to turn the list over when he came into the room. “I’d hate to start married life by having to send my husband off to war, or… well, being a widow.”
For a moment, she felt as if there were an elephant on her chest, a crushing weight that stole her breath away.
Visions of that wretched tapestry and her in her bloodied wedding gown flashed through her mind, but instead of woven figures, they were flesh and blood. Her, about to crumple to her knees as she stared at Hunter with a great sword through his chest, knowing she had failed.
Was that a premonition, or simply too many nights with too little sleep and stress levels through the roof? She prayed it was the latter as she put a hand to her heart, feeling its frantic beat.
“I wouldnae worry,” Beathan said. “The Laird can take care of himself.”
That’s what he keeps telling me.
Nancy mustered a polite smile. “Still, it doesn’t hurt to be… I don’t know, reassured.”
“Aye, quite right.” Beathan bent to kiss Freya’s downy hair.
“Well, if ye want to make it to yer weddin’ day, I suggest ye go and find me sister before she finds ye.
And if ye need any help with yer reassurance, ye just let me ken.
Jack isnae tendin’ to his duties as he should, with Elsie botherin’ him about the weddin’ preparations, so I’m temporarily actin’ as man-at-arms until it’s over. ”
He turned to leave, when a thought came to Nancy.
“Actually, Beathan,” she called, her voice halting him. “You couldn’t find me some maps, could you?”
He turned back. “Maps, Miss Kane?”
“Of the chapel and the surrounding area,” she clarified.
Beathan gave a small nod. “Of course, Miss Kane. I can have them brought to ye by this evenin’, if that’s of use to ye?”
“It is, thank you.” Nancy heaved an anxious sigh.
“Very well, then.” With another courteous dip of his head, Beathan walked out of the library.
In his absence, Nancy leaned forward on the reading table, her breathing ragged.
She couldn’t imagine how crushing the disappointment would be if she put in all this effort for nothing, if fate still saw fit to take Hunter from her and his daughter, who was sleeping so soundly, unaware that there was any threat to her happiness.
“Are ye well, lassie?” Isla put a gentle hand on Nancy’s shoulder.
Nancy glanced up at her with a thin smile. “I’ve always wondered why brides get so stressed about their weddings. I figured it was just a party, and everyone was just making a fuss out of nothing. Now, I’m starting to understand.”