Chapter Three
Katrina watched, her heart in her throat, as the guards carefully rolled the body to reveal one of the maids of the keep.
Elena, her name was, Katrina recalled. She worked in another wing of the keep, but Katrina had seen her around for years.
They’d grown up together. They were similar enough in age that it wasn’t unreasonable that her brother had seen Elena’s corpse and thought it Katrina’s.
And now she was dead.
Because…what? She’d wanted to try on a pretty dress that Katrina barely even liked?
“What happened?” she asked, her voice a horrified whisper.
“That is precisely what I intend to find out,” Edward said. He had an arm wrapped around her shoulder, his fingers tight on her, as though he did not intend to let her go. “Why would anyone attack ye, Katrina? Have ye any idea?”
Her mind flashed back to Arran and Kenna in the inn, their faces intent as they’d asked for her help.
She might not be able to aid them, but she wasn’t going to betray them, either.
She shook her head.
“These are uncertain times,” she said vaguely, hoping her brother attributed any strangeness in her expression to their situation, not to her dishonesty. “Ever since the Lennox heir resurfaced, unrest has been spreading. We kenned that it would come to our door eventually.”
Edward nodded, but he still looked less than certain.
“Aye, to be sure,” he agreed. “But why MacAllan? We have always been neutral; we will remain neutral. It’s essential now more than ever. And even if suspicion landed upon the clan, why ye, Katrina? Why not me? Or father?”
She didn’t have a good answer for that, of course. She was the laird’s daughter, but she held little political power. Edward would inherit one day, but everyone knew that Katrina was happiest acting as a healer, not a lady.
It felt grotesque to step over the puddle of blood that remained after the body had been removed, but Katrina could not bear to stand there staring at it any longer.
She needed to get into her bedchamber. She draped the heavy cloak over the back of a chair and thought about what Arran had said about not knowing who to trust.
“There have been whispers,” she said, not turning to face her brother, “about who killed the Lennox family. Some say that it was… a conspiracy. If someone thinks that Clan MacAllan was involved, they might attack.”
She dared a glance at Edward, who was looking grim.
“I ken that,” he said. “It is too convenient to believe the dead Englishman acted alone.” He shook his head firmly.
“I dinnae ken who among our people was responsible, but I do ken with absolute certainty that MacAllan wasnae involved. We are innocent. There is no reason for suspicion to fall upon us.”
Katrina nodded, but privately she thought that her brother was giving rather too much credence to the safety that neutrality provided.
Aye, she still thought it the best route to minimize the harm that would come their way…
but she could not convince herself that it would mean that they would escape danger entirely.
As more maids came in to clean the blood of their fallen comrade, Katrina drifted vaguely toward the window, not certain what to do with herself in the aftermath of this strange series of events. Her eyes wandered in the direction of the village where she had met Arran and Kenna.
And then she saw it—a hint of chipped stone beneath the windowsill, like the place where someone might have wedged a knife in order to access a room where they did not belong. And then, jammed between the wood and the stone, a slip of paper, the words upon it printed in neat, small letters.
I know where ye went and who ye saw.
Katrina’s blood turned to ice in her veins. This attack hadn’t been an accident. It hadn’t been a random slash at whichever member of Clan MacAllan happened to fall before the knife.
It had been about her—and Arran and Kenna.
Katrina whirled away from the window with such haste that she startled the pair of women scrubbing at the floor.
With a muttered apology, Katrina quickly threw on a clean dress and then, after the barest moment’s hesitation, went rummaging through her medical bag to slip a sachet of herbs in her pocket.
She’d never before felt that she needed to carry such things while within the keep itself, but these were difficult days.
Thus armed, she hurried down to her father’s study, desperate for answers. If Laird MacAllan knew anything about that horrible night ten years prior, Katrina needed to know what that was right now. Knowledge would become a vital weapon as war brewed just beyond the horizon.
Her brother was already there, his face still ashen as he explained what had happened.
Laird Duncan MacAllan rose the moment his daughter came through the door, crossing the room to embrace her with no less fervor than Edward had done.
Though well into his fourth decade of life, Laird MacAllan was still hale, broad and strong about his shoulders.
He was a quiet man by nature, much like his son, but he resembled Katrina more than he did his heir.
The relieved look he gave her now made her fear that many of the gray hairs upon his head were her doing.
“Katrina, my lass, thank the Lord above that ye are unharmed,” her father said, running an affectionate hand over her hair. “Though God have mercy on that puir lass’ family. How could this have happened?”
“We will strengthen the guards within the keep,” Edward declared; Katrina could tell that her brother was trying to cover up his uncertainty with a facade of conviction. “And Katrina, ye shallnae go anywhere without a guard. Not until this mess is resolved.”
Katrina wanted to argue this point, but she had more important things to discuss. She clutched at her father’s hand.
“Father,” she said. “This must be the matter of the Lennox heir, aye?” She dared not call Arran by name, lest her father detect the secrets behind her eyes.
The laird looked grim. “Aye. I fear his return will mean a great deal of trouble for us all,” he said.
This was something, but not enough.
“But ye cannae think that he began his attack here, do ye? Surely it must be those who stand against him, MacBrae and his ilk?”
For all that Katrina had insisted upon neutrality when speaking to Kenna and Arran earlier, she found that now she longed for her father to offer the opposite, for him to insist that action was better than inaction.
But at the mere mention of MacBrae, she saw something cautious go into her father’s expression.
“I didnae suspect that it was Arran Lennox who tried to harm ye,” he said. He chose his words carefully, ever the diplomat. “But I willnae stand with him against Bruce MacBrae, either.”
There was a distinct chill in the way he pronounced the name. In an instant, Katrina knew that her father was just as certain as she was about the villain in this story.
“So he did it, then,” she murmured, ignoring Edward’s quizzical glance. “MacBrae. He killed the Lennoxes.”
Her father said nothing. He did not even look her way.
“Were the MacAllans aware?” she asked, horrified.
This caused her father’s gaze to snap around to her. “Nay,” he insisted. “Nay. I cannae say who did what, except for this: the MacAllans had no hand in the widespread treachery that happened that night.”
Katrina felt her shoulders slump with relief.
“Well of course we bloody didnae,” Edward snapped. “We remain neutral. It is how we survive.”
Her father nodded at his heir’s words, but the gesture was vague.
“Aye,” he agreed. “There is safety in neutrality. But I have come to fear that it is not enough anymore and today’s events have only confirmed my suspicion.”
Katrina and her brother exchanged a wide-eyed glance. Did her father intend to choose a side after all?
But when he looked back at his children, his focus was on Katrina alone.
“I think it is time that ye are married, lass,” he said gently. “A husband will protect ye better than I can.”
There was a moment when Katrina was certain that she’d heard him wrong. And then she realized that her father’s expression was deadly earnest and that her brother did not even look surprised.
“What are ye talking about?” she demanded. Then, whirling on Edward, “Ye knew?”
“Ye will be safe at MacFarlane Keep,” he said gently. “Hell, Katrina, look at what happened today. Do ye think that Father or I could ever forgive ourselves if it had been ye?”
“MacFarlane…” she echoed, horrible realization sinking in. “Ye cannae mean-ye have already chosen the man I am to marry? And ye didnae even tell me about it?”
Her voice was high-pitched, hysterical. All the things she tried never to be. But this betrayal was… unconscionable.
“Ye said ye wouldnae force me to marry,” she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears.
It wasn’t that she was opposed to marriage on principle, she supposed.
Sometimes, though she wasn’t certain she would ever admit it, she’d imagined the man she might like to one day make her husband.
Another healer, perhaps, or a scholar. Someone who was like her, who plied his trade in helping others.
A man who lived by his mind, not by his fists.
Sadly, such men seemed to be vanishingly rare.
Her father’s face twisted anxiously. “I ken that, lass, but things have changed. And Brodie MacFarlane will keep ye safe. Ye will be the lady of the keep one day!”
He said this encouragingly, as if such things mattered to Katrina.
And then she caught up to what he had said earlier.
“Brodie MacFarlane?” she whispered, horrified.
Brodie was the opposite of the kind of man she wanted.
He was fiercely ambitious—even she, distant from politics as she was, knew that.
He would never be content with a wife who kept to herself, who gathered herbs and brewed medicines.
She would become a trophy, forced to smile and nod as he showed her off as a sign of his power.
“Father,” she said, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. “Nay. Please. Dinnae do this.”
Her father looked regretful, but resolute.
“We have already made arrangements,” he told her. “I ken it isnae what ye wished, but… I will see ye safe, Katrina.”
She couldn’t say anything else. If she did, she would burst into tears, and she could not allow that. She had her pride, after all.
So, she just gave her father and brother a crisp nod, as though she was submitting to this wretched fate. She turned on her heel and left the room, the guard her brother had assigned to her trailing in her footsteps. Meekly, Katrina headed down the corridors that led to her stillroom.
“My lady, are ye certain that ye wish to go out there?” the guard asked. “It’s nigh dark, and ye seem upset…”
He trailed off as Katrina turned toward him, her hand clenched at her side. She gave him a soft smile—
And blew the powdered herbs from the sachet directly into his face.
He blinked, astonished, and coughed once before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground.
“Sorry about that,” Katrina told his unconscious form. “It isnae more than poppy, valerian root, and a few additions of my own design. It willnae hurt ye… though ye will likely have a devil of a headache when ye wake.”
A touch awkwardly, she tried to adjust his position so at least he wouldn’t also wake with a crick in his neck.
“But I cannae just give in to this fate,” she told the sleeping guard. “I cannae.”
She raced back to the stable, throwing a saddle on the same mare she’d ridden earlier. The horse gave her an irritated look, clearly put out at being asked to work twice in one day, but she humbly submitted to her tack and moved quickly enough when Katrina urged her into a canter.
This time, Katrina scarcely noticed the race back to the inn where she had met Kenna and Arran earlier. Her mind was too full of the horrifying prospect of marrying Brodie MacFarlane, of the pain of her father and brother betraying her, of the conviction that she’d been painfully wrong earlier.
There would be no neutrality in this coming conflict, at least not for her. She was going to fight, damn it all. She would fight for the future she wanted.
She hastily tied the mare to the hitching post at the inn and hurried inside.
There was a hooded man sitting in the same corner where she’d sat earlier, and Katrina approached, nearly throwing herself into the spare seat before she realized that the man there was not Arran at all, but rather a hard-eyed warrior who grinned lasciviously at her.
“Come for a cuddle, lassie?” he crooned, malice in his tone. “Dinnae fret. I willnae bite—at least not verra much.”
With a gasp, she whirled and stumbled away, heading for the back entrance to the inn. She tried to wrack her brain. Where would Kenna and Arran have hidden themselves? How could she find them without arousing anyone else’s suspicion?
She drew up short when she encountered another cloaked figure waiting outside the back door. He was whittling a piece of wood, but his gestures felt malicious rather than idle.
“Good evenin’, miss,” he said, and there was something about the icy politeness of his tone that made him seem even more dangerous than the man inside.
She began to fear that this had been a mistake.
She could not give in and marry Brodie, certainly, but mayhap she had been a tad reckless in racing off into the night by herself. She simply couldn’t sit still, though. She could not remain passive.
But maybe she needed to think this through. Maybe she needed to have a better plan.
She wasn’t certain if returning home was the right choice. It would be much harder to escape again once the poor guard she’d dosed had been found, but it was increasingly clear that she could not stay there. She headed back to the front of the inn.
She would get the horse, and she’d ride somewhere else, somewhere safer, and she would—
She stopped short for the second time that day as she was confronted with a spreading pool of blood.
It was so much blood. Katrina was no stranger to injury or violence. She’d healed wounds of all kinds. But this… this was an unfathomable amount of blood.
And in the middle of it lay the poor mare, the one who had been asked to do so much today.
Dead.
A horrified sob caught in the back of her throat as an enormously tall man stepped from the shadows, a bloody blade glinting in his hands. His piercing blue eyes locked on hers as he smiled a horrible smile.
“Well,” he said, his tone light and almost pleasant despite the brutal violence in front of them. “Isn’t this a verra nice surprise?”