Questions piled in Brianna’s mind faster than she could assemble them. Her mouth opened, but Marie shook her head. “There’s no time, I’ll explain later. Come, we must hurry.”
Still Brianna did not move. Her mind sped through reasons why Marie would be conspiring with her uncle and why she might actually be helping Colin. Fatigue weighed at Brianna and scattered her thoughts in all directions. “I don’t trust you.” She shook her head to clear it. “Why did you not rescue Colin?”
“A room in the manor is easier to get a key to than the dungeon.” Marie pulled her shoulders back. “Were I in your situation, I would give pause as well.” She stepped toward Brianna, and her face became visible in the scant moonlight. “I’m asking you to trust me as you did before. If not for yourself, please do this for the babe.”
Brianna’s weakened knees propelled her onto the window seat behind her. “What?”
Something distant banged in the hallway. Marie jumped slightly and eyed the door, her body locked in place.
“The servants said you were ill this morning,” she said without turning toward Brianna.
“People get ill.”
“You look exhausted.”
Exasperation swelled. Marie’s anxious energy picked at Brianna’s nerves. “I haven’t slept.”
Marie gave an annoyed tsk and shot Brianna a sharp stare. “If you want your freedom, then come. I do not risk my life to argue all damn night.”
Brianna’s body stood before her mind decided to.
She had to trust Marie.
What other choice did she have?
• • •
Once again, Brianna found herself creeping along the dank halls of her uncle’s manor, every careful footstep made with the same silence as before. One hand covered the flat of her stomach. Whether she was truly pregnant or not, the heat of her palm brought a level of comfort.
Doubt niggled at the back of her thoughts. Had Marie been right? Brianna applied light pressure to her stomach. It felt no different.
Marie jerked to a halt ahead and turned back to Brianna, her eyes wide. “Someone’s coming,” she mouthed.
Footsteps followed her warning, hard and insistent upon the stone floor.
The hall had an alcove several feet back, yet when the women returned to it, Brianna realized it was little more than a shallow dip that would barely accommodate them.
They pressed their bodies against the stone so they faced one another. “Find safety,” Brianna breathed. “They will think I escaped on my own.”
Marie clasped Brianna’s hand in a delicate fist of ice. “I won’t leave you.”
The footsteps turned down their hallway, silencing both women.
Brianna pushed against the stone, wishing she could force the wall to sink in, to make their sanctuary deeper.
“Marie, you naughty girl.” Robert’s voice echoed down the hallway.
Marie’s pulse raced beneath Brianna’s fingertips.
“I see your gown peeking from the wall.” Robert’s tone held the lofty air of confident flirtation. “Are you hiding from me, or do you offer pleasure in the shadows?” His speech grew louder as he drew nearer.
Marie dropped Brianna’s hand and stepped away from the safe façade of their alcove. “Robert, what a pleasant surprise.”
Marie’s hands clasped behind her back, the way she had shown Brianna, to make her bosom thrust forward in invitation. The way she easily concealed the dagger glinting between her fingers.
“I have yet to be alone with you.”
“And what would you do with me if we were alone together?” The hem of Marie’s gown snagged against stone as she stepped forward.
A thick silence descended, and Brianna did not have to see his face to know the look Robert gave Marie. She could feel it.
“Things I’ve imagined doing time and again. Things my father could never do.” The possessive edge rang sharp in his words.
“Then you’ll have to come closer,” Marie taunted.
Brianna pressed deeper into the alcove. Marie’s impending attack stretched taut in the air.
A hollow punching sound filled Brianna’s ears, followed by a slow, wet suck. A low groan.
No more could she hide like a coward. She swung out into the hall, expecting to see Robert dead upon the floor.
He was not.
He stood before Marie, his hand pressed to his chest, eyes wide with shock. His hand peeled away, bright and slick with blood.
“Guards!” He staggered toward Marie. “Guards!”
Her shoulders rose and fell with exaggerated breath, but she did not move.
Brianna stepped forward and found Marie’s glassy stare fixed on the quickly spreading stain on Robert’s chest.
“We have to run.” Brianna grabbed Marie’s slender arm.
The woman’s body flinched, and her eyes ripped away from Robert’s sagging form.
“Brianna.” The word gargled from his mouth, expelled in a splash of black blood.
She jerked her head away. She could not look at him lest she lose her courage. Instead, she tugged at Marie, and together they ran down the hall with feet that stumbled in clumsy shock beneath them.
No clattering of weapons echoed down the hall, nor was there the heavy sound of footsteps. The door to their freedom stood several dozen feet away. Brianna could almost feel the cool night air in her lungs.
A door swung open beside Marie, and a startled scream escaped her throat. A wet, tearing sound filled Brianna’s ears, like what she had heard in the dungeon when Jonathan killed the guard. Her stomach twisted, and a wave of nausea sapped the strength from her legs. She knew that sound too well.
Chapter Forty-Five
There was no time for Brianna to go to Marie’s aid. The woman’s weight crashed into her and threw them both to the narrow floor of the hall.
Their landing was an awkward tangle of skirts and limbs. Nothing they could escape, not with five guards standing around them with swords at the ready.
Brianna struggled to a sitting position. Marie did not.
She lay on her back with one hand draped limply over her upper abdomen. Blood glistened beneath her fingers.
Brianna’s body went numb, and her heart squeezed beneath the press of a thousand daggers.
“No,” she said, her head shaking. “Marie, no.”
“NO!” The cry echoing down the hall was ragged, rough with emotion before it strangled into a heart-rending sob.
Footsteps shuffled toward them with haste.
She turned away from the dark hall. She did not want to see her uncle’s face as he approached. For all the cruelty he had inflicted upon her, she could not bring herself to see the grief etched on his face.
She gazed down at Marie. The woman’s eyes fluttered several times before focusing on Brianna. “Take care of Colin.” She swallowed thickly, a choked sound that stabbed deep into Brianna’s soul. “For both of us.”
Brianna could not draw breath through the tightness of her throat. “Marie—”
“Damn you,” her uncle roared. The two guards in front of Brianna were shoved aside, and her uncle appeared between them.
His face was white, his hair flying in all directions, his body draped in a black dressing gown. He looked like the devil himself.
Brianna couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
He caught Marie by the throat and lifted her with an unnatural strength. “You killed my son.”
Her limbs flailed in weak defense, but still he did not release her. A knife glinted in the low light. Marie’s own dagger.
His fist jerked across her throat, and the paleness of her chest splashed red with a river of blood.
Brianna found her breath. It came in frantic spurts and bounced against the ragged stone walls.
Her uncle released Marie’s neck, and she fell to the ground like a discarded doll. Blood continued to seep slowly from the wound.
He stepped toward Brianna, but she could not tear her gaze from Mari
e. The woman once so full of vitality now lay prone and lifeless.
She had sacrificed her life protecting Brianna.
A bloodied dagger broke through Brianna’s gaze, its point merciless where it prodded against the tender flesh of her throat.
“I should kill you,” her uncle snarled. “I could do it as easily as I killed that whore.”
Brianna’s pulse raced, spurred by the metallic scent of Marie’s blood. Tears burned her eyes, and she had to fight the urge to wrap her arms around her belly.
The blade’s pressure increased, and a warmth trickled down her throat.
“Killing you would be too gracious.” He relaxed the blade’s pressure. “I’ve worked too hard to see you fall so quickly. I spent months convincing your father of your illegitimacy while you grew in your mother’s womb. I spent years convincing him to keep you from marriage.”
He leaned closer until his black stare blended with the dim hall. “I spent decades waiting for him to die.”
His chest deflated with a hissing breath. “Do you know your old nurse signed the confession implicating your guilt?” He stared without blinking. “Do you?” His shouted words flew into her face.
Brianna’s heart withered beneath the scorching wrath of his words. Magda, dear sweet Magda, doubtless the woman knew not what she had done.
He drew a deep breath with flaring nostrils. “I have enough men to take Edzell by force.” Another exaggerated inhale. “And I will.” Inhale. “Tomorrow night.” Inhale. “And your husband will die by my blade.”
Her strength waned. “How could you?” The words slipped from her mouth, between lips that did not move.
Such a paltry question did not begin to encompass the betrayal and pain coiling through her.
“Your father was weak. He let Edzell’s potential slide away. He could have pushed harder, generated more wealth.”
He looked over her shoulder and his gaze grew distant. “My son would have been a good laird had you but given in to his fancy to marry you.” His eyes glittered with something dark and wild. “But now he’s dead. And you will pay the price.”
An arm clamped around her waist, and she felt herself pulled backward. Away from her uncle’s glare, away from Marie’s lifeless body. Away from the door that led to freedom.
• • •
Colin’s body lay immobile on the stiff mattress, his limbs heavy with exhaustion. He groaned with the effort of movement, and a throbbing pain erupted in the back of his skull.
Maybe he could sleep just a few minutes longer.
“Laird?”
Damn.
He blinked his eyes open to the dark room. “Why are ye in my room in the middle of the night?”
“It’s early morning.” Jonathan’s face came into view. “With all due respect, laird, you keep asking that same question, and I keep telling you that we’ve blocked out the sun from your room. You said it split your head.”
Confusion furrowed Colin’s brows. “Keep asking ye?”
Jonathan’s watchful gaze did not leave Colin’s face. “Aye, you’ve been like this now for two days.”
Flashes of images came back. The scent of herbs as the healer worked over him, the sun shredding into his skull when he opened his eyes, the jarring horse beneath him, the awkward tilt of his ankles where his feet dragged along the floor of an empty hall.
Brianna.
“Where is my wife?”
Jonathan’s looked down at his clasped hands. “At Lindsay’s manor.”
Colin pulled himself to a sitting position and gritted his teeth against the throb in his head. “For two days?”
Jonathan nodded. “She was captured in our escape, laird.”
The breath punched from Colin’s chest.
“Why? How?”
The lad shook his head. “She said she could outrun them. She said she would meet us back at Edzell.” His thin shoulders sagged. “I think she knew she wouldn’t be returning. I should have known.”
Memories washed over Colin’s mind like vinegar splashing a wound. The darkness of the dungeon, the way Brianna had risked everything to free him, the battle between the guards who had discovered them.
She had saved his life and now remained in his place.
He stared down at the signet ring on his hand. It did not glint in the cover of his darkened room.
They would have escaped had he not returned to reclaim the damned ring. The guards attacked them in the solar, where he’d received the knock to the back of the head that rendered him unable to function.
His heart shied away from the memory, but he forced himself to continue. Brianna and Jonathan, both significantly smaller than he, had carried him through the halls toward safety.
Brianna had sacrificed herself to save him. She was captured because of his actions. Impulsive actions.
The pain swelling within his chest made breathing difficult. His father was right, and now Brianna paid the price.
“Is she—” Colin swallowed, unsure if he could even form the bitter words. “Is she locked within the dungeon?”
To imagine Brianna, all delicate scents and light and love, curled on that stone floor, surrounded by the stink of despair, tore at his heart.
“I don’t know, laird.” Jonathan’s soft voice indicated his assumption. And it sliced through Colin’s soul.
“Why have you not attempted to rescue her?”
“We have scouted the perimeter. Lindsay has too many men. He has fortified his manor in expectation that we would come to her aid. Rescue attempts have been—” His lips drew tight. “Rescue attempts have been impossible.”
Colin dragged his legs over the edge of the bed. “There must be a way.” Determination pumped through him and elevated above his pulsing skull. “I would rather die than allow her to spend another day in that dungeon.”
He rose to a standing position, and the room rocked beneath his feet. His hand braced against the stone wall, but the swaying did not cease.
“She will not be there after today,” Jonathan said. “Lindsay intends to have her sent to Edinburgh with a note implicating her in her father’s murder.”
“Edinburgh?” Colin asked.
Jonathan averted his gaze, but not before Colin saw the flash of angry hurt. “Yes, Edinburgh. To be hanged.”
Colin’s chamber was too dark, the air too still and hot. He turned away from Jonathan and squeezed his eyes shut. The ground rolled again and everything spun together. He locked his knees and pressed his weight against the wall. He wouldn’t get sick. Not now. Not when Brianna needed him most.
“How do you know these plans?”
“George came here last night,” Jonathan said. “His mother overheard two of Lindsay’s guards at the tavern.”
Colin cursed between clamped teeth. While he appreciated the lad’s information, he didn’t want George involved.
He split his thumb and forefinger over his chin and scratched the week’s worth of beard growth.
If Brianna went to Edinburgh, there would be no returning, there would be no escape.
He would never see her again.
His stomach roiled at the thought. Rescuing her from Lindsay’s manor would be difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.
The risk was worth her life.
“We go to the manor at sunset to rescue her.” Colin straightened and gave Jonathan a hard look.
The soldier rubbed the back of his neck. “We cannot, laird.”
“Ye’ve considered her rescue, but no attempted it. I will be damned if I let her go to Edinburgh and be tried for a murder she dinna commit.”
Jonathan’s shoulders tightened visibly. “There was more discussed at the tavern. Lindsay plans to attack Edzell tonight. If you are not here to defend the castle, she will fall.”
Colin’s head ached like a battle axe wound. “Alec,” he ground out. “Has Alec returned yet?”
The defeated look in Jonathan’s eyes answered Colin’s question before the guard was able to
. “No, laird. Still nothing.”
What was taking Alec so damn long?
“Is there anything else ye wish to tell me about the overheard conversation that ye may have left out?” Colin asked.
“No. From what George’s mother said, they were bragging about their employer’s impending wealth and how much coin they would receive for their services.”
The searing pain in Colin’s head ebbed. The men were bragging. They were overconfident. Based on their words in the tavern, they already considered the battle won.
But it was not.
The battle was only beginning.
Chapter Forty-Six
Brianna paced the narrow space of her room, not that it did her any good. She stopped abruptly and laid her fingertips to the warm base of her belly. The flesh there was puffy, the way it often was just before her courses started.
But she hadn’t had her courses in over five weeks.
In light of her concern for Colin, she had not realized the time gap until now. She’d read enough books to know what the delay meant.
Marie had been right.
Brianna’s knees brushed the side of the mattress, and her fingers latched around the carved grooves in the bedpost, seeking its immobile strength.
Her stomach would swell with Colin’s baby. It did not yet quicken in her womb, but it would.
Despair grew where elation may have once taken root. She had naught to offer the child. There was nothing left but cruelty, chaos, and hopelessness.
Her uncle would take Edzell tonight and either kill or enslave all her people. The weight in her chest compressed. If Colin still lived, her uncle would see to his death. The threat of tears washed the room in a smear of dismal grays. Even her own life would soon fall forfeit. Perhaps she would be allowed to birth the babe prior to being executed, but then the child would be raised in an orphanage.
“Forgive me.” She cupped the tender swell of her belly.
Guilt rode her conscience.
She had never wanted this baby. She had taken measures to ensure this would never happen.
And now it had.
Another life would be implicated in her tangled, short-lived world, protected within the fragile shell of her body.
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