Chapter 2
Her breath caught as she slowly turned around.
She did not scream when she saw him.
Given his reputation, people tended to turn into mumbling fools in his presence. But for some reason, she remained as composed as ever.
That piqued Connor’s interest more than a scream would have.
She took one step back, saw the mistake in it, and stopped herself with her chin lifted as if pride could put the stone beneath her feet.
The torchlight caught her in pieces. A maid’s cap sat crooked over chestnut-brown hair that had slipped loose at her temples. Her plain gown was torn at one sleeve, muddied near the hem, and fitted badly enough to tell him it had been borrowed in haste.
She was of average height, lean beneath her clothes, with enough curves that the disguise did a poor job of making her vanish. Her blue eyes met his, sharp with fear and anger, and stayed there a breath longer than most people managed.
Her hands were clenched.
Good.
A woman who meant to plead opened her palms. A woman who meant to run watched the door. This one watched him, the key, his sword, the distance between them and the guards, all in the space of three heartbeats.
Connor stepped into the cell, despite the uneasy look on her face.
“Daenae close that door,” she tried to say, but it was too late.
He closed the iron door behind him and slid the key free. The lock gave a heavy click that echoed through the narrow space. He let the key rest in his palm.
“Ye broke into me castle,” he said. “Ye daenae get to give orders.”
“I didnae even do anything.”
“That is yer defense?”
“I have no defense because I. Did. Nae. Do. Anything.”
One of the guards shifted outside the door, perhaps amused, perhaps nervous enough to mistake foolishness for humor.
Connor did not look at him. He did not need to. The woman’s gaze flicked to his hand—the key—then to his sword, then back to his face.
She was considering options she did not have.
One guard cleared his throat. “Me Laird, should we… stay close?”
Connor lifted two fingers toward the passage.
The guard bowed his head at once. “Aye.”
Soon enough, his footsteps retreated toward the passage, and the second guard followed without being told.
The woman watched them go, desperately trying and failing to keep her breathing steady. Connor registered it without pleasure. He recognized fear as a tool and knew it was useful only when it made people honest. Too much of it made them stupid.
“Ye send them away before questioning every prisoner?” she asked.
“Only the ones with a mouth on them.”
Her chin lifted another fraction. “Then ye misjudge me already.”
Connor took a step toward her. She did not move.
“Name,” he demanded.
“Do ye ask all women so sweetly?”
“All women arenae caught creeping toward a bairn’s room in stolen clothes.”
“They are borrowed.”
He folded his arms. “From whom?”
She shrugged. “Someone who wasnae using them at the moment. Plus, ye should be more worried about the weak security measures in yer castle instead of me clothes.”
A wave of irritation touched the back of his neck. It was a clean, sharp thing, made worse by the fact that she was right.
She had crossed his halls, passed his servants, reached the nursery passage, and forced Moira to raise the alarm herself. That was not luck. Luck tripped at the gate. This woman had a purpose.
He studied her again, silently, his eyes returning to the mud on the edge of her boots.
There was a lot of it, but not enough for travel on foot all the way to Moore.
Her hands were not soft enough for a noblewoman idle in drawing rooms. One thumb bore a small healed prick near the nail, as if from a needle.
A linen bundle lay outside the cell, confiscated by his men.
She had fought harder to keep hold of it than to save the cap on her head, he had been told.
“Who sent ye?” he asked.
She exhaled. “Nay one.”
“No woman crosses me halls alone for sport.”
“Well, perhaps yer walls are less impressive than ye think.”
He stepped closer to her. “Perhaps ye want to leave this cell in chains.”
“Perhaps ye should stop threatening me and ask better questions.”
Connor went still, and he saw the very moment some sense entered her expression. She felt the shift and understood she had touched something sharp. Her lips pressed together, but she did not look away.
Who in God’s name is this woman?
He stepped even closer, but she retreated before he could even say anything.
He watched the back of her shoulders meet the cold stone wall.
Her fingers pressed against the rough surface, then curled into fists again as he stopped near enough that the torch threw both their shadows against the wall beside her.
“Better questions,” he repeated. “Very well. Were ye paid?”
“Nay.”
“Was it MacAdair? Did he send ye?”
Her brow creased. “Who?”
“Was it the English?”
Her mouth tightened.
There.
He let the silence work. The dungeons made it easy. Low light, damp stone, iron, and nowhere to run. He had broken armed men in kinder rooms. This woman’s fear showed in the quick pulse at her throat, but she held her answer behind her teeth.
“An Englishman,” he said.
“I said nay one sent me.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Are ye the bairn’s mother?”
Her face changed before she could master it. The hurt came first, then anger so swift it brought color to her cheeks.
“How dare ye ask me that?”
“Because a nameless bairn was left at me gate, and two weeks later, a woman sneaks in to steal him.”
“I didnae come to steal him.”
“Then what did ye come to do?”
She clamped her mouth shut.
Connor looked her over again, colder this time, weighing fact against possibility. If she were the mother, she was either a superb liar or grief had cut her strangely.
Her eyes had flashed, but not with exposed shame. It was with offense, as though the accusation had landed on someone else through her.
He studied her face again. Was she one of the women he had bedded? Was she here to ask for some kind of reparation? It wasn’t the first time a woman had wandered through his halls, asking for another night with him.
He sucked his teeth. “Nay. I’d remember lying with ye.”
The shock and anger on her face appeared all at the same time. “How dare—”
Her hand flew, but Connor caught her wrist before her palm could connect with his face. Her breath caught, and for the first time since Connor had entered the cell, she looked startled. Properly startled.
His fingers closed firmly around her wrist, and he noticed how small her bones were.
Her cap slipped further back, freeing more of that chestnut-brown hair.
A loose strand hung near her flushed cheek, and her blue eyes blazed up at him.
In them, he saw fear, outrage, and an undisciplined urge to try again.
“Release me,” she demanded.
“Daenae strike what ye cannae best.”
“Daenae insult women ye have locked in the dungeons.”
“I insult thieves.”
“Then go find one!” The words came quickly, but her breathing was no longer steady.
Connor’s hold kept her at a careful distance, though not a safe one. She was close enough that he could catch the faint smell of travel on her—wool, cold air, and something clean beneath the dungeon damp.
The detail annoyed him because noticing it served no purpose.
Her gaze dropped to his hand around her wrist. She yanked, and this time, he released her.
She stumbled half a step back against the wall, caught herself, and tucked her wrist against her midsection as if she refused to rub the place where his fingers had been. Her eyes stayed on him, furious and still calculating.
Connor lowered his hand. It was very clear now that the woman in his dungeons was frightened.
She was simply not frightened enough to be harmless.
He should have ordered the guards back in.
He should have had her searched properly, the bundle opened, her name forced out before she had time to reshape her lies.
Instead, he waited one breath longer, because men and women, he had learned time and again, often gave away more in silence than under threat.
She gave him nothing.
Connor slid the key between his fingers. “Is this about Lachlan?”
Her demeanor changed almost immediately.
Good God. What did that bastard do again?
“Did me brother seduce ye and leave ye to deal with the consequences alone?”
Her anger faltered. The insult that had made her strike him became something more protective, and that was what caught his attention.
“I daenae ken what ye’re talking about,” she said.
Connor’s jaw tightened. “Oh, do ye nae?”
She didn’t respond, confirming his fears.
The old, familiar anger flared within him, cold and controlled. Lachlan had always left things behind him. Debts. Offended husbands. Insulted hosts. Broken agreements. And now, perhaps a child.
Connor had not seen his brother in months, and still the wreckage had found its way to his gate in a basket.
The woman glanced toward the locked door, then back at him. She had felt the change in him. Good.
“Where is he?” Connor asked.
“Who?”
“Me brother.”
She raised her hands in despair. “If I kent that, do ye think I would have snuck into yer castle?”
Connor did not move. The dungeons’ damp air felt colder against his neck. He had expected lies, perhaps a hired thief, perhaps some scheme from MacAdair’s side to worsen the insult and force Moore into weakness. He had expected a mother, if fate felt particularly cruel.
He had not expected that.
“I take it ye ken the child’s mother, if ye feel this strongly about him,” he concluded.
The woman swallowed. For the first time since he had entered, her gaze dropped to the floor, as if the name had weight and she had to lift it carefully.
“Jane. Her name was Jane.”
“Jane,” Connor echoed, feeling the word on his tongue.
That was the last name he had expected the mother of the babe to bear. Frankly, he didn’t know what name he had in mind, but it definitely wasn’t Jane.
“Aye.” The woman nodded. “Jane Tolford.”
“English.”
“Aye.”
“Is she yer sister. Yer friend?”
“Was.” Her sharp tone told him that this was a serious issue. “She is dead now.”
“I see.”
Her face tightened. Defiance remained in the set of her chin, but something moved beneath it. Pain, held hard enough that it would not spill in front of him. Her eyes shone, and she blinked once, slow and furious, as if even tears were enemies to be beaten back.
“She was me dearest friend,” she said.
Connor’s questions suddenly fell quiet before he chose to make them so.
“She died after giving birth to him,” the woman added. “They told her the bairn was dead.”
“Yet ye came here.”
“Because I heard him cry and didnae believe them.”
Connor’s fingers tightened around the key.
“Jane heard him too,” she said. “She kent they lied.”
“Who lied?”
“Her family.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if they come for him.”
Her mouth tightened. “Then ye understand why I came first.”
Connor studied her. She had snuck into his castle without help that he knew of. She had followed the baby’s cries and had fought his guards to keep hold of a linen bundle. She had refused to say the dead woman’s name until she believed silence might cost the baby more.
It was a poor story for a thief. Too much grief.
Too little profit. Connor thought of the baby in his arms two weeks ago, red-faced and furious, wrapped in a blanket with no name, no kin standing beside him, and no explanation but an ugly note written by a coward.
He had seen a problem first. A responsibility. A question of blood and protection.
“I came to take him with me,” the woman declared.
He shook his head, a low laugh escaping his lips. “Nay.”
Her head snapped up. “His mother asked me to take care of him and love him.”
“Love doesnae give ye the right to carry him out of me castle.”
“And being a brute with dungeons gives ye any right at all?”
Connor stepped closer before he thought better of it. “Ye accuse me because I didnae allow a woman I didnae ken to steal the bairn I’m responsible for from me castle?”
She faltered, only for half a breath.
“I wasnae stealing him,” she protested. “I was saving him.”
“From me?”
She didn’t respond, and yet her silence carried too much behind it.
“How did ye find the castle anyway?”
“It doesnae matter.”
“It does to me.”
Her breath caught once. She looked away from him, toward the bars, though there was nothing there but torchlight and stone. “Trust me, it doesnae.”
Connor looked away from her for the first time while the key pressed hard into his palm. He remembered the note. He has no name.
Those four words had irritated him at first for their coldness, for the insult of leaving a child at a gate like an unwanted carriage. Now the absence opened into something else. A mother had died before giving her son the first thing that belonged to him.
When Connor looked back, the woman was watching him with a hope she had no skill at hiding.
“I believe ye,” he sighed.
It cost him nothing to say it, but it changed everything to mean it.
The woman’s face softened before she could stop it, and the change made her look younger. More tired. More dangerous in another way, because hope made desperate people reckless.
“Good,” she said. “Does that mean I can take the bairn and leave?”
A wide grin spread across his face. “Of course nae, lass.”
The hope in her eyes vanished. “What?”
Connor curled his fingers around the key. The answer had become clear while she spoke.
If Jane Tolford’s family had lied once, they could come again. If Lachlan was involved, the danger had Moore blood in it. If this woman had risked the dungeons for the child, sending her away would only make her try again with less chance of surviving.
“That just means ye’ll stay here with him,” he said.
She stared at him, stunned and furious. “What?”