Chapter 17
If Kenna had ever needed a reminder that she didn’t know her husband in the least, then furtively searching his belongings would have done it. It wasn’t even that the things themselves were shocking, she wouldn’t have actually been surprised by shocking or illicit things.
But Ashbourne had a book about ship design.
The box that held his cufflinks had a caravel painted on top.
He liked boats. He had interests. It made her wonder about a different life in which Ashbourne might have been something more than the towering figure of violence, cruelty, and ambition that he’d become.
He’d been a child once. Maybe he’d like watching boats.
It was too late for any of that, though. He’d made his choices. He’d let himself become what he was.
Now, all she had to do was prove it.
She shook out the book, going for speed over neatness. Her husband might figure out that someone had been through his things, but she and Arran would be long gone by that point. And she would find proof of his misdeeds. There had to be proof.
She sifted through a collection of papers that turned out to be missives to his tailor, his cobbler—things that proved nothing except that he spent a shocking amount on clothing, particularly for a man who was not especially stylish. She dug a little further, and…
“Yes,” she breathed as she flipped to the next section of letters and saw the unmistakable sign of her father’s seal.
She sent up a quick prayer of thanks for her father’s pride and arrogance—a smarter man would not have indicated his role in such letters.
A man less suspicious than Ashbourne would not have traveled with these letters.
They were at least predictable in their villainy.
She skimmed as quickly as she could, every moment spent there was a moment in danger. Phrases leapt out at her.
The festival will be the perfect diversion…
The family celebrates at home…
Try the western side of Lennox Keep. It has the fewest guards, and they willnae be at their best on that night of revelry…
My daughter, Makenna, as payment…
The stack went on, but this was enough. This was what she needed.
She pushed down the nausea at the idea that she had been promised to Ashbourne for a decade—since she had been twelve years old—and began bundling the letters back into a stack.
She hastily threw the contents of the trunk back in, preparing to close the lid.
But…
“Found something interesting, little wife?”
She froze. She’d been so consumed by her triumph that she hadn’t even heard him approach. She whirled, clutching the letters to her chest, only to be met by a closed fist to the face.
When her ears stopped ringing, she realized she was on the floor. She was getting right bloody sick of being in this position.
She tried to keep her hold on the letters, but she doubted that Ashbourne had ever hit her quite as hard as this, at least not in the face. She had the feeling that something was… not right in her head. She felt nauseated. Her vision didn’t want to focus properly.
“Sneaking through my things, are we?” Ashbourne asked in that lightly amused way he sometimes got before he let out his temper. “What was so important to you that you felt it was acceptable to defy me?”
He reached down and tugged the letters away. She held fast, but it didn’t matter. She was so dizzy.
The amused look disappeared when Ashbourne saw what she’d been reading. His expression went cold as ice.
“Ah,” he said. He flipped through the letters with a chilly disregard. “What, then? You thought you would ride in as the great heroine and save your people from perfidy? You?”
Her head cleared just enough that she could finally form words.
“Ye will be exposed,” she said. “Those letters prove it. You conspired to kill dozens of people. It doesn’t matter if you’re a lord. You won’t get away with it.”
He laughed the same dismissive laugh he would give if someone committed a faux pas at a garden party.
“Oh, Makenna,” he said pityingly. “When will you finally learn how utterly useless you are?”
She hadn’t yet managed to stand, her head was still spinning, and he aimed an almost lazy kick at her ribs that wrenched the breath from her body. She couldn’t even protest. She didn’t have the air, as he tossed the bundle of letters into the fire.
Nay. She could only mouth it.
He looked mildly disappointed. “It will be irksome not to have this leverage over your father, but I suppose what he doesn’t know won’t hurt… me.”
Kenna pushed up until she could at least get an elbow beneath her. Her head ached. Her ribs ached. Each breath felt sharp and wrong.
Pain to her scalp was added to the mix as Ashbourne grabbed a handful of her hair and used it to drag her over to a small storage chamber just to the side of his bathing room. He tossed her carelessly inside, and she landed awkwardly in a small mountain of spare linens. At least they were soft.
Before she could recover, Ashbourne slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.
“Of course,” he said in that same conversational tone, “it will hurt you, my dear wife. I’m afraid that it’s going to hurt you quite a bit.”
Kenna sat alone in the cramped, dark space, her whole body aching, and she thought only of Arran, waiting for someone who would never arrive.
Arran spent a few hours covertly gathering supplies, then returned to the abandoned rooms to wait for Kenna.
His anxiety mounted as the sun dipped closer and closer to the horizon, then began to disappear behind it.
He cursed himself for not being more precise about the time when he’d told Kenna to meet him.
Half a dozen times he almost left the room to go search for her, but he didn’t dare. What if she arrived while he was gone?
So he waited. And paced. And fretted.
It was close to midnight when he heard footsteps approaching, and he felt a surge of hope. It was fine. They would still make good headway before dawn.
But it wasn’t Kenna who came through the doors. It was a guard. One he didn’t recognize. One wearing MacBrae colors.
One guard might have been fine, but the man shouted over his shoulder, “In here!” And four more poured into the space.
Arran’s hand was already on his blade, but this was no good space for a battle, and, outnumbered like this, trying to fight his way out would only result in his death.
In another circumstance, Arran’s pride might have urged him to try to fight anyway. But he couldn’t afford to be reckless. Not now. Not when Kenna could still be coming.
“What is happening, lads?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral despite facing down five unsheathed swords. “Something amiss?”
“Laird MacBrae wants ye,” one of them replied, a distinct sneer in his voice. “So, I’m guessing that’s something that ye could call amiss.”
Arran didn’t budge an inch. “Ach, but this is Callahan Keep, I’m afraid. So MacBrae isnae the Laird I serve.”
The men shifted restlessly in a way that Arran could see spoke of danger.
They looked hungry, as though they hoped this would result in violence.
Arran knew that if he let any fighting start, it would be all too easy for him to be ‘accidentally’ run through.
The killer might face MacBrae’s displeasure, but that would mean little to Arran’s corpse.
“That’s nae the important thing,” the MacBrae guard replied. “What matters is we outnumber ye. Now, are ye going to come or shall we force ye?”
With extreme reluctance, Arran removed his hand from his knife.
“All ye had to do was ask nicely,” he said with a joviality he did not feel in the least. “Lead the way.”
He prayed that he would see someone who might offer him aid along the way—Declan, ideally, but anyone would do. But the corridors were empty, most of the Keep abed.
When they reached MacBrae’s chambers, one of the guards pushed him over the threshold with a mighty shove. Arran stumbled, barely managing to catch himself before he fell to his knees.
He might have quelled his pride for Kenna’s sake, but that didn’t mean it had gone completely. He would not kneel before the man who killed his family.
It took all Arran’s self-control to keep his hatred from showing on his face.
He could do it for Kenna.
“So,” the murderer asked from where he sat in a high-backed chair that he clearly thought of as a throne. “It is you who seduced my daughter. I must say, I am disappointed. I thought she would aim a bit higher than a mere… guard.”
Arran didn’t react. He didn’t know what MacBrae knew, didn’t know how he was getting his information.
“I dinnae ken what ye are talking about,” he said stubbornly.
MacBrae rolled his eyes and nodded to one of the guards, who kicked at the back of Arran’s knee so that the leg went straight out from under him.
“Dinnae lie to me, boy,” the Laird spat. “I dinnae ken if ye were just looking for a bit of skirt, or if ye thought ye could interfere with my plans. But it doesnae matter, in the end. Because ye will not succeed. Makenna has her role, as do we all. She will play it until the bitter end.”
Arran couldn’t resist taking a furtive glance around the room. Where was Kenna?
MacBrae noticed. “She isn’t here. She’s where she belongs. Where she has always belonged. She knows that.”
What did that mean? Did Kenna know what was happening?
His stomach lurched as he wondered: had Kenna betrayed him?
He hated himself for even thinking it, but…
But what if?
MacBrae smiled, apparently sensing and delighting at Arran’s discomfort.
“Ye now have two choices, boy,” he said. “Ye can bend the knee and swear fealty to me and me alone, or I could be… less merciful. The choice is yours.”
Arran found himself at the utter limit of being able to swallow his pride. He pushed back to his feet, the kicked knee aching unmercifully as he did so.
“I will never bow to ye,” he said, the words tearing themselves from his throat. “After all, I know what ye do for the people whom you call allies. Tell me, did ye plan to kill the Lennox family even as ye dined at their table?”
He had underestimated MacBrae; he knew as soon as he said his family’s name. MacBrae’s head tilted to the side curiously, and then awareness lit in his face.
“Oh, I see,” he said. “It’s the eyes, isn’t it? I should have noticed it before, surely.”
Fuck.
“So one of the Lennox brats did survive,” MacBrae said, as though he was finally solving a mystery that had bothered him for a while. “We never did find your body, but there was so much rubble. Your brother was barely recognizable, ye ken.”
A stabbing pain ripped through Arran’s chest. His little brother, killed before he even had a chance to properly live.
“Dinnae talk about them,” he growled.
“Puir sad lad,” MacBrae said, dripping with false sympathy. “Do ye miss your Ma and Da? Well, dinnae fash. Ye will be reunited with them soon enough. Take him to the dungeons.”
At the Laird’s word, the five guards sprang into action, seizing Arran’s arms and pinning him down before he could even hope of fighting back. He fought anyway because he had no other choice. But it was no use. There were too many of them.
“Arrange for an execution at dawn,” MacBrae ordered his guards as casually as if he were putting in an order for breakfast. “After all, he forced my poor Makenna, didn’t he?
Such crimes cannot be tolerated, especially from a man as lowly as he.
Arran Burns will die in the morning, and the world will never think of the name Lennox again. ”
The guards dragged Arran the whole way.
“You willnae get away with this,” he shouted back at MacBrae, his feet scrabbling uselessly against the stone as he tried to resist the force of the guards. “Callahan kens the truth! He willnae allow this!”
The last thing that Arran saw before the closed door on his family’s murderer was MacBrae starting to laugh.