Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The forest stank of failure.
Bowen Harcourt drew back the hood of his cloak as he stepped off the narrow Highland trail and into the clearing where his men had made camp the night before. Moonlight slid between the heavy branches overhead, illuminating broken earth, trampled underbrush, and bodies.
One fewer than there should have been. One man was neither dead there, along with the others, nor had he returned—which could only mean he was either a deserter or he had been captured.
Knowing his men, the former sounded unlikely—the latter, less so.
Bowen’s lips thinned, his jaw tightening as he crouched beside the nearest corpse. The man’s neck hung at an unnatural angle, his head half-turned, his eyes still wide with terror.
“Savage Highlanders,” Bowen mumbled, running a gloved finger along the man’s throat. “You weren’t supposed to engage them. You were supposed to bring me the girl.”
His voice echoed slightly in the damp silence.
An owl hooted once in the distance. Every muscle in Bowen’s face tightened. He rose slowly, his gaze sweeping the clearing. The men had fought—and lost badly. Despite being armed, outnumbering the girl, and being trained by him, they had been dispatched with brutal precision.
Which meant only one thing.
“Laird MacLeod reached her first,” he said to himself, a poisonous dose of contempt coating each word. “Of course, he did. Heroic brute.”
His fingers curled into fists at his sides.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. A clean acquisition, a swift disappearance—that was what he had commanded.
Elsie delivered to a discreet vessel waiting on the western shore and a tearful tale spun for the king’s envoy about Highland treachery and a misplaced bride.
His own daughter married to Halvard within the season—whether the Highlander wanted it or not.
It should have been simple. Political. Efficient.
But instead, his men lay dead, sprawled in the mud like cattle left to rot. His plan had unraveled. And worst of all, Halvard MacLeod was now aware—aware and furious, if Bowen knew anything about that barbarian.
Bowen’s jaw ticked again, rage coursing through him and threatening to bubble over.
He swept the clearing, his voice low and cold. “Where is the surviving one? Does anyone know?”
There was no answer—only the rustle of wind through the trees.
Bowen kicked a fallen sword aside, irritation burning hotter under his ribs. The surviving man should have circled back by now. If he was alive, he should have reported. He should have—
A crack of twig snapped faintly from the right and Bowen turned sharply, his hand reaching for the hilt at his hip.
“Show yourself.”
A young soldier, one of his newer acquisitions, stepped out from the tree line—pale, nervous, shaking slightly. “M-my lord,” he stammered, his eyes darting to the corpses.
Bowen straightened. “Report.”
“The last man, sir, the one you ordered to withdraw if the others fell… he never returned to the meeting point.”
Of course, he hadn’t.
Bowen exhaled sharply through his nose. “He’s been taken.”
“Then… then he’ll talk.”
Bowen slowly pivoted to face the trembling soldier. “What makes you think my man will talk? What makes you think he won’t stay loyal to me? Is that what you would do in his place?”
The soldier blanched, looking at Bowen with wide eyes.
He trembled where he stood, much like the leaves in the trees surrounding them.
Bowen moved past him, his boots crushing damp leaves as he walked toward the far side of the clearing.
He paused near the footprint of a horse—deep, wide, unmistakably Highland.
MacLeod’s.
Bowen crouched, brushing his fingers over the imprint. A thin, vicious smile cut across his face.
“So, you interfered,” he whispered. “Again.”
Wind whipped at the edges of his cloak. Clouds drifted across the moon, swallowing the light, plunging the clearing into deeper shadow.
Bowen stood. The soldier shifted anxiously. “My lord, shall we regroup? Withdraw to the coast until new instructions come?”
Bowen turned slowly. His voice was a blade drawn across whetstone.
“No.”
“My lord?”
“No more hired hands,” Bowen hissed. “No more messengers. No more bumbling incompetence.” He swept his hand toward the dead. “This is what happens when delicate tasks are left in the hands of incompetent men.”
The soldier swallowed hard. “What will you do?”
Bowen’s expression sharpened into something predatory. There was only one solution to all this and, as always, he was the one holding the key to it.
“I will go myself.”
The boy stepped back. “Into MacLeod territory?”
“Is that fear I hear?” Bowen asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
The solider was quick to backtrack, shaking his head furiously. “N-no, my lord.”
“Good.” Bowen leaned in, his eyes glinting like steel under frost. “Because the next stage of this plan requires precision. Subtlety. Intelligence. All things my men,” he gestured at the corpses, “seem to lack.”
He turned away again, his cloak sweeping behind him like a shadow breaking free from the trees.
“MacLeod thinks himself untouchable,” Bowen said. “Protected by his clan, his walls, his reputation. But every fortress has a weakness.”
His gaze lifted toward the distant glow on the horizon—the faint golden flicker that was Brochel Castle.
“And he’s foolish enough,” Bowen said, “to keep his weakness in his bed.”
Elsie Montgomery. His sweetheart. That na?ve, careless girl. So easy to manipulate. So easy to steal—if done differently this time.
Bowen exhaled slowly, letting the cold Highland air fill his lungs.
“This time,” he said, brushing a speck of dirt from his glove, “I will take back control. I will remove the girl myself. And MacLeod will never see me coming.”