Chapter 2
A bloody murder was unfolding in the castle’s front drive.
There weren’t many things worse than a pair of enormous smugglers strolling up to the front door of her castle, but her sister slitting one of their throats without blinking an eye was one of them.
Five months ago, such a dramatic turn from the concerning to the unimaginably dreadful would have shocked Freya, but since her father’s passing, this was the way of things at Castle Cairncross.
Just when she was sure things couldn’t get any worse, they did.
“Sorcha?” Freya kept one eye on the two men as she sidled down the drive, one hand out toward her sister. “Let’s not act hastily, dearest. We don’t know who these men are. They may not be smugglers at all.”
“No?” Sorcha didn’t release her victim but pressed the blade against the oozing cut she’d already carved into the man’s neck. “Perhaps not, but you can be sure they’re some manner of blackguard.”
She could hardly argue that point, could she?
Only wicked people with ill intent ever came to Castle Cairncross these days.
She’d never seen any of the smugglers who’d come before, not face-to-face.
None of them had ever made it as far as the castle’s door, but in the dozens of nightmares she’d had about them, they all looked just like the man under Sorcha’s blade.
She was close enough now to see his eyes, and they were … dear God.
His gaze met hers, and she suppressed a shudder.
To be fair, a man wasn’t at his best with a knife-wielding hellion on his back, but his eyes chilled her to the bone.
They were the same icy gray as Loch Dunvegan in the dead of winter, when there wasn’t any sun in the sky to lighten the dark roil of the water.
If there was ever a man with a villain’s face, it was this man. If the other one had been half as terrifying, she might have let Sorcha do her worst, but he was fair-haired and blue-eyed, and blessed with a most angelic face.
He was quite the prettiest man she’d ever seen, but weren’t the prettiest men always the worst scoundrels? The clouds scudding across the sky above them were pretty, too, but they were still harbingers of doom.
Yet doubt niggled at her. There was something not right about this, and the last thing she and her sisters needed was to add a murder to their already dire circumstances.
“Wait a moment, Sorcha. If these men have come with ill intent, then why would they approach from the drive? Anyone watching from the castle could see them coming well before they reach the door.”
“How should I know? Stupidity, perhaps?”
Oh, no. Sorcha was at her most mulish. Nothing was more difficult than reasoning with her when she was in such a state. “For pity’s sake, Sorcha. Surely we’re obliged to ask them why they’ve come here before you butcher this man in cold blood!”
“Very well, then.” Sorcha shifted her blade, and another trickle of blood inched down the man’s neck. “You have five seconds to persuade me you’re not another one of the villains after my father’s treasure before I spill your blood all over the front drive.”
The gray-eyed man let out a growl. “Enough.”
Every hair on Freya’s neck rose in alarm, but the warning came too late.
His arm lashed out, and before she could take a step, hard fingers closed around her wrist and tugged.
She stumbled, and before she had a chance to regain her footing she was trapped against a chest as unyielding as a stone wall.
One impossibly long, hard arm wrapped around her waist, and the other snaked around her neck, pressing against her windpipe. “Keep still.”
She should have screamed. The instant his cold fingers touched her wrist she should have writhed and struggled and lashed out with every bit of strength she possessed, but to her everlasting shame, the scream that swelled in her chest died with a whimper before it made it to her lips.
Either of her sisters would have fought the man with everything in them, but she’d never been as brave as they were. She went cold with panic, the strength in her limbs deserting her and leaving her as limp and unresisting as a rag doll in his arms.
Black spots danced at the edges of her vision, but this was no time to succumb to a maidenly swoon. Sorcha was still perched on the man’s back, with the dirk still pressed to his throat. She had to persuade her sister to release him before the thin rivulets of blood on his neck became a deluge.
“I—I’m all right, Sorcha. He isn’t hurting me.” She wasn’t all right, and he was hurting her, his arm like a vise around her neck, but this situation would go from bad to worse in a heartbeat if Sorcha lost her head.
“Release her at once!” Sorcha hissed, each word heavy with menace, but the tremor in her voice gave her away. “Let my sister go, or I swear I’ll tear off a strip of your flesh!”
The man ignored Sorcha’s threat, and as cool as you please turned and presented his back to his friend, with Freya still clutched against his chest. “A bit of help, if you would, Keir.”
“If you insist upon it.” The second man wrapped a burly arm around Sorcha’s waist and plucked her off his friend’s back like one would a burr stuck in a horse’s tail. “Although I confess I’m rather curious to see what she’ll do next.”
Sorcha, who’d never taken kindly to being manhandled, squirmed and kicked to get free, but the man had the good sense to keep her arms securely pinned behind her back. “Easy there, lass. We’re not going to harm you.”
As soon as he was free, the first man—Callum—pressed the fingers of one hand to the cut on his throat, his other arm still tight around Freya’s neck. He frowned down at his bloody fingers before turning to Sorcha. “Damned hellion. One accidental slip of your wrist, and you might have killed me.”
Sorcha, far from being intimidated, let out a harsh laugh. “If I had spilled your blood, it wouldn’t have been an accident.”
“Shall we try this again?” The fair-haired man raised one hand in a placating gesture, the other one still holding Sorcha’s wrists. “I’m Keir Dunn, Laird of Clan Dunn, and this gentleman here is—”
“Gentleman?” Sorcha spat, whirling around to face the man. “He’s holding my sister against her will! He’s hurting her!”
“He wouldn’t have needed to do either if you hadn’t pressed a blade to his throat.” Mr. Dunn nodded at his friend. “That’s enough, Callum. Let the lady go.”
He didn’t let her go, but the arm around her neck eased slightly. “I’ll let her sister go as soon as that vixen puts her blade on the ground.”
“What the devil is going on here?”
The familiar voice rang out over the drive, and Freya sagged against her captor, relief threatening to take her knees out from under her. It was Cat and Lord Ballantyne. They’d returned from the village, and not a moment too soon.
But a brawl in the front drive of Castle Cairncross still had the power to shock some people, because Cat and Lord Ballantyne didn’t rush forward to save them. They were frozen in place, their mouths hanging open.
“What’s going on, Ballantyne? Let me see.” Keir Dunn, the fair-haired man, nodded at Sorcha. “This young lady here tried to gut Callum like a pig, and this other lady appears to be moments away from a swoon. I confess it’s not quite the greeting we expected.”
The threat of a throat-slitting penetrated Cat’s shock, and she came tearing down the drive, Lord Ballantyne on her heels, both shouting at once.
Lord Ballantyne stopped a few paces away from the melee, his hands up in a placating gesture.
“These gentlemen aren’t smugglers, Miss Sorcha.
They’re friends of mine from Kildary. I asked them to come here. ”
“My goodness, Sorcha!” Cat took the dirk away from Sorcha, her eyes going wide when she noticed the blood smeared on the edge of the blade. “What have you done?”
Lord Ballantyne strode forward and cupped Freya’s elbow in his hand. “If you’d be so good as to unhand Miss Freya, Callum?”
The man glanced down at her, a flare of surprise in his gray eyes, as if he couldn’t recall quite how she’d gotten there, then he released her so suddenly she stumbled a little.
Even as she cursed herself for a coward, she scrambled backward, away from him, her heart pounding as if it were one beat away from bursting from her chest.
“These gentlemen are Lord Ballantyne’s friends,” Cat was saying to Sorcha, her tone reproachful. “He—that is, we—invited them to come here.”
Freya stared at her sister. “Did it occur to you to inform us of this, Cat?” She didn’t often get angry, but her cheeks were heating rather alarmingly, and her fists were clenched so tightly her fingernails bit into her palms.
Cat flushed, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. “Of course it did. That is, I didn’t know they were coming until about an hour ago, but—”
“For God’s sake, Cat!” Sorcha threw her arms in the air. “Don’t we have enough trouble as it is without adding two blackguards to it?”
“They, ah, well, the thing is …” Cat’s gaze darted between Sorcha, Freya, and Lord Ballantyne. “Perhaps I’d better take my sisters inside. Where we can discuss this in private.”
“No.” Freya crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn’t going anywhere until they had the whole of it. “I don’t like this, Cat. Why are these men here?”
“More importantly,” Sorcha added, “when are they leaving?”
“They’re, er … they’re not.” Cat drew in a deep breath. “I am. That is, Lord Ballantyne and I are leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Leaving?” The word echoed in Freya’s head as if Cat had shouted it, but it emerged from her lips in a hoarse whisper. “You’re leaving us?”
Dear God, had she ever sounded more pathetic?
“Yes.” Cat rushed forward and took her hands. “But for a few weeks only, dearest.”
“A few weeks! But where will you go?” Tears stung her eyes—silly, foolish tears that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks, and she turned away from the two strange men, horrified at the thought of those hard gray eyes witnessing her weakness.