Chapter 15
The ride back to the Keep was as quiet as the ride there had been, but the feeling was different.
Before, Arran had been doing his best to hold down his anger, as he knew that Kenna needed to get away and not what he wanted to provide for her, which was her husband’s head ripped from his shoulders with Arran’s bare hands.
He hated to think about what would happen when she was truly gone, when she returned to England with that brute, and he went back to his quest to find the people who had killed his family.
It would be the same as things had been before—except, of course, for all the ways in which it would be completely different.
He could not imagine a day when he wouldn’t think of her. She would remain with him long after she was gone.
The Keep had gone still for the night when they slipped into the stables.
A half-asleep stable boy stirred from where he lounged in a pile of hay when he heard Torrin’s hooves, but Arran waved him off.
Kenna, too, was nearly asleep on her feet as he groomed Torrin.
It had been, after all, quite a long day.
He escorted her upstairs and pretended that this was their real lives. That he had a right to care for her like this, to tuck her into her bed. That they didn’t need to sneak through the servants’ entrance, lest someone might report back to her husband or father.
He couldn’t do any of that, though. He had to say goodnight at her door. She gave him a sleepy, satisfied smile, then pulled his hand up to her cheek for one last caress.
“Thank ye,” she said again, and it crushed him to think that she had thanked him twice for the simple act of caring for her.
He saw the gratitude in her expression and he decided.
He wasn’t going to let her slip away. He was going to fix this. He didn’t know how, and he knew that he could not do it alone. But he was not going to abandon her back to her fate.
“Goodnight, Kenna,” he said softly… and then he went to find Laird Callahan.
It was time for him to finally tell the truth.
For years, Arran had kept his identity a secret. He’d kept so much of himself a secret. It had been necessary, if overwhelming.
But he would take the risk… for Kenna.
Callahan had slept poorly for years; everyone in the Keep knew that. He’d likely be in his study, even at this hour. Arran would find him, explain everything, and ask for help. Surely Callahan would help him.
He was just crossing into the wing that housed the study that the Laird preferred when he was drawn up short by the sound of an English voice.
Ashbourne. And he was talking to… MacBrae.
Arran started to get a very bad feeling.
“... do not think that I have received a proper return on my investment,” Ashbourne was saying in smooth, exaggeratedly polite tones that held a world of implied threat.
“I paid you handsomely for a biddable wife that would give me an heir. And instead, I got…” He chuckled humorlessly.
“Well, you know what a disgrace I’ve gotten.
Perhaps I would prefer to return the faulty goods and reclaim that which I have given you. ”
Arran fought the sharp inhale that would have alerted the two schemers to his presence. Everyone in Scotland knew that MacBrae had made good use of his English steel and his English gold. Even if MacBrae could give back the money—which Arran doubted—he would do anything to avoid it.
“I have other daughters,” MacBrae said hastily. “Orla is of age, or, if ye prefer them younger, Elspeth is sixteen, a perfectly suitable age for marriage. Ye could mold her the way ye wanted. Besides, they’re naturally more biddable than Makenna. Their mother is better stock than my first wife.”
Arran’s stomach roiled at the way MacBrae spoke about women that he was meant to protect. And to call sixteen perfectly suitable for marriage, let alone to a man as old and cruel as Ashbourne…
It was beyond fathoming.
And Ashbourne, disgusting bastard that he was, seemed to be considering it.
“There is a problem of legitimacy,” he said, like he was talking about a minor inconvenience and not the lives of two women. “I’ll not be a bigamist, and divorce is… out of the question.”
“That willnae be an issue,” MacBrae said smoothly. “Makenna can be handled discreetly.”
Arran felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to lunge from the shadows and confront the two villains. But he had enough sense left to know that it wasn’t sensible, that a front-facing attack wasn’t always the best way to win a battle.
Besides, he would never get a better opportunity to gain information, and for now, at least, he knew that Kenna was safe, asleep in her bed.
“Good,” Ashbourne said, entirely unruffled by MacBrae’s offer to murder his own daughter and then offer up another to take her place. “You need to recall that my silence on the Lennox matter has not been free.”
Everything inside Arran turned to ice.
He had known that MacBrae was a greedy opportunist, but he hadn’t suspected until recently that MacBrae might have had something to do with the explosion itself. But here it was. Confirmation.
The plot that had killed Arran’s family… MacBrae had been behind it.
“I havenae forgotten,” MacBrae said, and it was this, of everything he’d discussed, that made his voice go cold.
“Good,” Ashbourne said. “See it done. I don’t care which daughter you send me. Just make sure that this one isn’t so difficult or so bloody defective. I want an heir, MacBrae. I will not forgive a second failure.”
Arran clenched every muscle in his body tight to make himself stay where he was until he was certain that both men had left. If he was going to keep Kenna safe, he needed the element of surprise. MacBrae and Ashbourne could not know what he had heard.
And now he needed Callahan’s help more than ever.
Even though it felt bizarre to continue on the same task as though nothing had changed, Arran kept going to Callahan’s study and was relieved beyond measure when he found the laird there.
Callahan didn’t look surprised to see him.
“Arran,” he said, his tone not quite warm but not forbidding, either. “What brings you here at this time of night?”
Arran knew that his expression could not foretell anything good. “May I sit, your lairdship?”
Callahan raised a single eyebrow but gestured permissively to the seat across from him.
“What’s bothering ye, lad?”
Arran rubbed between his brows. “I overheard MacBrae and Ashbourne talking. Conspiring,” he amended, feeling too overwhelmed to speak diplomatically. “They admitted that they—or MacBrae, at least—had something to do with the explosions, with Lennox specifically.”
Callahan didn’t react, as though he was holding himself with extreme care.
“Just Lennox?”
Arran shook his head. “I dinnae ken. They didnae mention other clans, but… surely it was all connected, aye?”
“So one would think,” Callahan muttered, almost to himself. “But admitting misdeeds of the past is not ‘conspiring,’ as ye called it. They have more planned?”
Arran nodded, his previous nausea returning in full force. “They are planning to kill Ken— Lady Makenna and marry off one of her younger sisters to Ashbourne. He is… displeased that she hasnae yet given him an heir.”
The horror of it was almost unfathomable. He’d feared that her herbs against pregnancy were a threat to Kenna’s health but not like this.
“I see,” Callahan said. His tone was careful as ever. “And ye plan to, what? Run away with Lady Makenna?”
Arran must have looked startled because Callahan smiled.
“Come now,” he said. “Give me some credit. It’s clear that there is…
affection between ye. And I dinnae judge ye for it, though she is a married lass.
It is clear to anyone who wishes to see that Lady Kenna has been ill-used by her father and that her husband, too, does not value the woman he has been given.
Ye dinnae act against good morals in caring, but I exhort ye to use good sense.
If ye flee with her, ye will be running for all your days.
You will live hunted. Can ye live with that? ”
“To spare her the torment she faces daily? Aye, I can.” The answer was easy.
Callahan nodded, but his focus on Arran’s face was intense. “Even if it means that you must choose between saving your lass and… reclaiming your fate?”
For what felt like the dozenth time that day, Arran went still. He’d known Callahan was canny, and he had long suspected that the man knew more than he let on.
But this was as close to talking about it as they’d ever come.
For the first time, Arran looked Callahan straight in the eye and spoke to them as the equals that they were. Rightful laird to rightful laird.
“A legacy isnae worth much if ye dinnae behave with honor, is it?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question. “I willnae abandon her.”
He didn’t plan to abandon his legacy, either, but he didn’t need the other man to believe in him. Arran knew his fate. He’d been following its path for over a decade. He would follow it to its end. There was simply no other choice.
Callahan nodded again.
“Very well,” he said. “Godspeed, Arran Burns. Be swift, and make certain that none from these parts ever see a hint of ye again. If ye wish to keep your woman safe, ye must be like a ghost. Dinnae look back.”
“Thank ye, my laird,” Arran said politely. He would not follow this advice in the least. But that was a problem to manage later.
For now, all he could focus upon was keeping Kenna safe.