by Lydia Dare
He straightened his shoulders, but a frown settled on his face. “I’m sure she’s happy in her new role. At least she assured me she would be.”
“Her new role?”
He inclined his head with a tight nod. “Aye. I left before the nuptials, but I am certain that by now she is the Countess of Brimsworth.” He took a steadying breath and focused on Blaire. “But that’s not why I’m here, lass. Cait sent me, you see—”
“Who the devil is Brimsworth?” Raking her brain, she couldn’t recall ever hearing the name, not even anything similar. Cait had married some stranger? In the few days Blaire was gone? She couldn’t quite believe it. In fact, she thought she might faint, something she’d never done in her life. “I always thought she’d marry ye.”
“So did I,” he said quietly.
“Who is this man?”
Alec heaved a sigh. “Brimsworth is a fellow she met in England, heir to a wealthy marquessate, evidently. But, honestly, Blaire, I’d rather not discuss that particular situation, if you don’t mind. That’s not why she sent me.”
Aiden stepped forward and steadied Blaire with his hand, though his eyes never left MacQuarrie. “Why are ye here? And why did Caitrin confide the truth ta ye?” No matter their differences, Lindsays supported each other, and at the moment she was very grateful for her older brother.
“Cait had a vision.” Alec focused on Blaire. “You’re in danger. She sent me to warn you.”
“In danger?” Aiden echoed, clearly concerned.
“What vision?” Blaire pressed forward. “What did she see?”
MacQuarrie shook his head as though he didn’t believe it himself. “A monster,” he admitted. “She said it was a monster with black eyes, coming for you. A dead monster. I don’t know any more than that. She said the visions aren’t always clear, but she was nearly hysterical with whatever she did see.”
It must have terrified her if she had confided the secret of their coven’s existence to MacQuarrie. Black eyes? A vision of James flashed in her mind, but she shook the thought away. She wasn’t certain what he was, but he wouldn’t ever hurt her. At least she didn’t think so. He might kiss her into oblivion, but the man was alive. She was fairly certain parts of him were, in any event. A blush crept up her cheeks at the thought.
***
James nearly dragged Matthew from room to room in his search for his missing ring. They moved from parlor to parlor, from kitchen to retiring room, from the library to the dungeon and every bedchamber they stumbled across. His ring was nowhere to be found. They’d upended beds, rifled through wardrobes, and knocked on walls, looking for secret openings. They’d scared one of the new maids to death, or nearly. Fortunately, Matthew still possessed his ability to enchant humans, or she’d have brought the whole household down on their heads.
Just as the sun began to sink in the sky, James finally pushed to his feet from the floor of the last bedchamber, dusted himself off, and sighed heavily. “It’s not here,” he complained.
“It has to be,” Matthew insisted quietly. “It’s here somewhere. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to feel your presence. You wouldn’t have awoken.” They turned to walk down the long corridor that led to their own chambers.
“When, exactly, did you begin to feel my presence?” James asked.
“I assume it was when you woke,” Matthew said with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he turned toward James quickly and stopped. “Of course, it was when you woke.”
“I don’t understand.” And he didn’t, not any of it. If this mess became any more tangled, James would never find his ring, would never see sunlight again.
“You slept for nearly two decades, correct?”
James could see the story unwinding in Matthew’s mind. “I assume so,” he said slowly, beginning to catch on. “I woke when the Lindsays arrived.” He rolled it around in his mind. What an idiot he’d been! “When my ring arrived,” he growled.
“I can’t think of any other way it could have happened,” Matthew agreed. “The rings tie us together. Mine allows me to feel you, and vice versa. The only way I wouldn’t feel you would be if there was a great distance between you and your ring.”
“Such as the distance between Briarcraig Castle and Edinburgh?” The distance between the witch’s residence and his prison. The distance between her comfortable home and the damp walls of the cellar where he’d lost twenty years of his life-after-death.
“Evidently.” Matthew looked truly shocked at his own discovery. “It would make sense.”
Sense? Nothing made sense. Why he’d been attacked. Why he’d been locked up. Why his ring had been taken. None of it. “Where could it be?” he asked, more of himself than Matthew. They’d searched the castle from top to bottom, including the bedchambers occupied by the Lindsays.
“The stables, perhaps,” his friend suggested. “We haven’t looked outside.”
Well, that was true. They had vast acreage yet to search. But something about that didn’t feel right. Why would the Lindsays return to Briarcraig, bringing with them the key to James’ escape, and then leave it lying about the property unguarded?
They wouldn’t, of course.
It would be protected, and who better to protect it than a battle-born witch?
A sinking feeling hit James squarely in the gut. “You said the mothers trained their daughters, the next generation?”
Matthew confirmed this with a nod.
“Then she must have it.” She must have known all along. But what game was she playing with him? James intended to find out.
He stormed from the musty bedchamber and stalked down the corridor toward the rounded staircase, ignoring Matthew’s warnings that he stop and think. He’d been thinking long enough, all day on his hands and knees searching for something he’d never find because she had it all along.
James could hear her tinkling laugh on the main level, and he followed it down the steps and to a small parlor at the end of one corridor. Furious, he tossed the doors open and burst inside. Everything went quiet. An old fellow with wispy, white hair and two golden-haired lasses sat across from Blaire and the MacQuarrie fellow. All of them stared at James as though he’d sprouted horns and a forked tail.
“Blaire.” James didn’t even try to hide the growl in his voice. “A word, if you don’t mind.”
A warm fire blazed in the hearth, lighting the room with warmth, but James could only feel the chill in Blaire Lindsay’s stare. Well, damn her. He didn’t care what she thought of his manners at the moment.
When she rose from her place on the divan, Mr. MacQuarrie stood as well. “Ah, Kettering,” the interloper began smoothly, “we wondered where you had gotten off to.”
James didn’t even spare the man a glance. He only had eyes for the warrior witch who gestured to the newcomers. “Lord Kettering, allow me ta introduce our neighbors—Mr. Fyfe, the local magistrate, and his daughters, Miss Fyfe and Miss Crissa. And this,” she waved her hand toward James, “is Baron Kettering of Derbyshire.”
Both girls sucked in breaths at the mention of his title, and one of them actually twittered.
“Pleasure,” he growled. “And now, Miss Lindsay, I’ll have that word.”
“Ah, but dinner awaits,” MacQuarrie interjected.
Dinner indeed. James leveled Blaire with his most scathing gaze. If she didn’t hand over his ring, he’d just as soon dine on her. Matthew’s rules be damned. “Why don’t you escort the nice lasses into the dining room and tell the captain we’ll be right along.”
MacQuarrie squared his shoulders and stood his ground. “Under the circumstances, my lord, I think it would be best for us all to go in together.”
Blaire’s brow furrowed as though she was working through a difficult arithmetic problem in her head. Then she met MacQuarrie’s eyes. “It’s all right, Alec. I’m certain Lord Kettering and I will be right behind ye.”
James barely managed not to snort.
“But, Blaire,” MacQuarr
ie continued, “I don’t think it’s wise—”
“Havers, Alec!” She laughed, though it sounded hollow to James’ ears. “I can certainly take care of myself, as ye well ken.”
That seemed to appease the interfering Scot, and he slightly inclined his head before offering his arm to one of the golden-haired lasses, the one who twittered. Then he directed the Fyfes from the parlor, even if it was a bit reluctantly.
Blaire folded her arms across her chest and scowled at James. She was annoyed with him? “Just what do ye think ye’re doin’? Stompin’ around, barkin’ orders? Actin’ like the lord of the manor? I doona even like those lasses, but the way ye’re behavin’ is inexcusable.”
The last thing James wanted was to hear her chastise his behavior. It was beyond the pale, considering everything her coven had done to him. Before he could stop himself, he stormed across the floor and backed her against the far wall. He ignored the gasp that escaped her and tipped her chin back so that she had to look him in the eyes. “I want my ring, and I will not wait any longer for it.”
“Ring?” she sputtered.
Her innocent grey eyes blinked at him. Beneath that beautiful exterior lay a witch. A very devious one at that. “Don’t play me for a fool, Blaire. I know you have it, and I want it back. Now.”
She pushed at his chest with a strength he’d never found in a woman before, and he stumbled back a few steps before finding his feet. He advanced on her, but a fireball burst to life in her palm and she looked prepared to engulf him in flames. He stopped inches from her, just as she pulled her arm back to throw her fire, and he stepped back.
“I doona ken what ye’re talkin’ about, Kettering, but this evenin’ is difficult enough without ye makin’ it worse.”
The liar. He glared at her as he tried to figure out how to disarm her. “You thought to distract me with your pretty eyes and silky hair, and it almost worked. But I do need my ring to go on with my life, and nothing will make me forget that.”
***
Blaire could only gape at him. She had no idea what he was so angry about. He looked positively enraged, and, for a brief instant, Cait’s warning echoed in her mind. A monster with black eyes. Surely it couldn’t be James. It couldn’t be. Though, at the moment, he didn’t seem remotely like the James she had known these past few days. He barely resembled the man who was so easy to smile and who kissed her until her mind spun. He seemed something else entirely. Something dangerous.
“On my honor, Kettering, I have no idea what ye’re about.”
“My ring,” he gritted out, wiggling the fingers of his right hand. “I know you have it.”
“I think ye’ve taken leave of yer senses, my lord. I found yer pocket fob, but I have no’ laid eyes on yer ring. I doona even ken what it looks like. I offered ta help ye, but ye’ve told me nothin’.”
“Don’t pretend with me.” He stalked toward her, and Blaire lifted her ball of fire higher so he wouldn’t forget the power she held. “You know your mother and the others attacked me. Deny it.”
She could not. Blaire shook her head. “I suspected as much, and I’d very much like to ken why.”
“Suspected.” He snorted. “I have it on the highest authority that one generation of witches trains the next. Which means you know exactly why they attacked me. You know why they stashed me away in this godforsaken castle. And you have my bloody ring.”
Blaire nearly lost her breath at the power of his words. She didn’t know any of those things, and the fact that she didn’t almost brought her to her knees. Why didn’t she have his answers? Why didn’t her mother prepare her for this moment? What she did know was that she’d been right about him; he’d admitted as much. Her mother had trapped him. He’d said so himself. “What are you?” she asked, making certain her voice remained even. Not a tremor would escape her lips. Not if she could help it.
Kettering chuckled, though no joy could be detected in the sound. “You know that, too. Don’t you, my pretty little witch?”
No one ever called her pretty. Why did the first man to do so have to act as though the admission was painful to his soul? “What I ken is that ye’re a suspicious, self-absorbed Sassenach.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “Suspicious? I suppose one becomes such after being locked away for two decades.”
Two decades? Nearly double the time she suspected. Kettering had been here at Briarcraig her entire life, and yet her mother never breathed a word of it. Had she ensnared the baron right before her death and forgot to mention it, Blaire could possibly understand—but for twenty years. Her mother could have told her the truth of the matter at any time. Yet she had not. The room began to spin a bit, and Blaire struggled to maintain her composure. She edged away from the baron and started for the door.
“Don’t even think to run away from me.” Kettering advanced toward her again.
But Blaire didn’t pay him any attention. She made it to the door first, and she bolted up the stairs and down the corridor to her bedchamber. She shoved a wooden chair under the handle, though she doubted that would keep the baron out if he was of a mind to gain entry to her room. Blaire paced the floor, back and forth. None of this made any sense. So what did she know?
One: Briarcraig was the home of the battle-born witches.
Two: Her mother had stopped visiting the place before Blaire was born and had forbidden Aiden from ever speaking of it when he was a child.
Three: The property had only resurfaced after her father’s death when the meticulous solicitor Aiden had hired at Mr. Ferguson’s suggestion searched every nook and cranny for a way out of their debt. If the solicitor hadn’t stumbled upon Briarcraig, the castle might have lain untouched for decades, perhaps centuries even.
Four: James Maitland, Baron Kettering, whatever he was, had been locked away in that tiny cell for two decades, presumably to be sealed away until the end of time. At least that’s how it appeared at the moment.
And five: after twenty years in a tiny cell, Kettering looked no worse for wear. In fact, he seemed healthy, vigorous, and strong. And handsome. She mentally removed that last from her list. Regardless of his physical perfection, he didn’t seem remotely like a man who could have lived through such an ordeal, let alone look so hale and hearty afterward. Which brought back her original question—what exactly was he?
A knock sounded on her door, eliciting a startled gasp from Blaire.
“Aiden’s waitin’ on ye for dinner.” Brannock’s voice filtered into the room. “And the Fyfes too.”
Blaire squared her shoulders. Whatever Kettering was, she wouldn’t let him chase her away or allow him to endanger the others’ lives. “Just one moment, Bran, and I’ll be right there.”
***
James had watched Blaire escape into her room, unnoticed from the shadows of the corridor. He wasn’t certain what to think about her performance in the parlor, if it even was a performance. At the time, he’d been so furious, but looking back, she did appear unsettled by his insistence that she had his ring.
Still, it didn’t seem possible that she didn’t know, not from what Matthew had said of the covens’ practice. She just seemed so sincere in her denials. Even now, he wanted to believe her; he wanted to believe that she wasn’t toying with him as her predecessors had done, that the connection between them was as real to her as it was to him. He had no doubt that he was developing feelings for the witch. But he wasn’t at all certain what to do with them.
How was he to know the truth?
“One would think that after the many years we’ve known each other, you’d pay some notice to my advice,” Matthew said at his side.
James hadn’t even noticed Blodswell’s approach. Apparently, he wasn’t himself in many different ways. The witch had cast her spell on him, whether she’d meant to or not.
“I never expected to see a battle-born witch retreat,” Matthew said. “What did you do?”
“How many battle-born witches have you known?” James flung at hi
s maker. “And what makes you think I’ve done anything?”
Matthew scratched at his temple. “Oh, perhaps the way the lovely Miss Lindsay ran from you up the stairs like the hounds of hell were nipping at her feet.”
Perhaps they were. “She didn’t admit to having the ring. And I can’t tell the truth between fact and fiction.” He’d let himself get too close to the girl. So close he couldn’t remain objective.
“I heard,” Matthew murmured. “She seemed sincere. And truly bothered by your accusations.”
Indeed she had. Which was why this was so confoundedly difficult.
James realized Matthew hadn’t even responded to his query. “How many battle-born witches have you known in your lifetime? You didn’t answer my question.”
“Several. But I only knew one of them well. I met her during the Crusades, though I had no idea what she was at the time. She fought beside me like a man until she was wounded and her ruse was exposed. I came between her and a blade that would have taken her life.” He inhaled deeply and scrunched up his eyebrows, as though he was digging for a memory or two. “That was how I became thrice blessed.” At James’ confused expression, he clarified. “Three rings. Thrice blessed.”
Matthew cocked his head to the side as though listening for something.
“What is it?” James needed to know.
“They’re in this area.” Matthew’s cheek jumped as he clenched his teeth.
“Who?”
Before he could answer, quick footsteps sounded in the corridor.
“We’ll discuss it later,” Matthew said, though he’d truly worried James at this point.
Brannock Lindsay skidded into the corridor, his breaths coming in gasps. “Oh, there ye are. Aiden said ta tell ye that dinner is ready, and everyone is waitin’ on ye.”
Matthew reached over and ruffled the lad’s hair. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, and flipped it with his thumb so that it flew through the air, right into Brannock’s hand. It was a shame that Matthew never had children of his own. He’d have been a great father.
“Thanks!” the lad cried as he spun on his heel. “I need ta show Aiden!”