Page 88 of The Midnight Secret

‘Well, then...to your very good health,’ the earl mumbled as he raised a small toast.

It was true the dram was warming. Effie felt the small, hot bullet travel down her throat and into the very centre of her; until that moment, she hadn’t realized she was shivering. She tried not to think of the quietly mannered scene still playing out behind her back: wheels on gravel; blankets in a biting wind; a frail body and a lithe one; duty and promise. The best thing she could do now was to say what she had come to say and get away again as quickly as she could. There was nothing to be gained from seeing Sholto again. He wasn’t the reason she had come here – at least, that’s what she had told herself – but he was the reason she would run.

‘So.’ MacLeod cleared his throat and regarded Archie with a quizzical look. ‘I’m told you wish to discuss something important. Shall we take this into another room?’

‘On the contrary – it’s Effie who’s got news for you.’

‘Wh-what?’ MacLeod blustered.

Archie motioned to Effie to take the floor as he stepped back with a look of pride.

Anticipation billowed, and she saw the wary look on both noblemen’s faces as they tried to guess at her motives for being here. It hadn’t crossed either of their minds that she might be here to help.

‘I know where the horn is,’ she said simply. ‘The Rory Mor horn.’

MacLeod gasped, looking first astounded, then furious. ‘And how the devil would you know about that?’

‘Because I found it in one of the cleits back home. On St Kilda.’ She looked curiously at him, wondering why he looked so angry when she was giving him good news. She glanced at Archie, who gave her a nod of encouragement; he was usedto bluff and bluster. ‘It was in a tumbling-down cleit that none of us villagers used. It had been the property of a family that emigrated years back, and it had stayed empty. Maybe that’s why Mathieson used it.’

‘Mathieson?’ MacLeod queried.

‘Aye. I had noticed that he kept lurking about it whenever he came over but never paid much heed – until I was cragging on the rocks a few days before the evacuation and I saw him coming out, all suspicious.’

MacLeod’s frown deepened. ‘Suspicious how?’

‘Looking around him, as if checking no one had seen him. He didn’t see me, of course, so when he went back to the village, I went over and had a look inside to see what he was up to. And that’s when I found the horn. It was hidden beneath a dead lamb, so I almost missed it.’

Sir John raised himself to his full height, wearing a look of consternation. ‘Let me get this straight – you’re saying you saw my factor, Frank Mathieson, put the Rory Mor horn into the cleit?’

Effie shook her head. ‘No. I only found it in the cleit he’d visited. I can’t swear an oath thatheput it there,’ she shrugged. ‘But, as I said, we never used it, and I do know it couldn’t have belonged to any of the islanders. The most valuable things we owned were Old Fin’s accordion and his gold sovereign he kept up the chimney.’

‘I see.’ MacLeod shared a cautious look with his host. ‘And where is it now, the horn?’

‘Still on St Kilda.’

MacLeod caught his breath, as if steadying himself. ‘In the cleit?’

‘No. I moved it.’

‘What! Where? Why?’

‘I moved it somewhere else. I could tell from the silver that it was valuable – and from the way he’d tried to hide it, I knew he wasn’t supposed to have it.’

‘So you intended to blackmail him, I suppose?’

‘Now steady on,’ Archie said sharply, a flash of anger upon his face. ‘Effie’s come here to help you. Not to be insulted.Sheisn’t the one who stole from you.’

There was a tense pause before MacLeod conceded. ‘...Forgive me, Miss Gillies. I misspoke...butwhydid you decide to move the horn?’

Effie blinked, her cheeks burning from the slight. She couldn’t explain it without telling them everything Mathieson had done – and was threatening to do – to her. And that wasn’t something she had shared even with Archie. She never wanted to think of it again; she wanted it all dead and buried. With Frank.

She swallowed, speaking slowly. ‘I didn’t know what the horn was or why he cared about it; I only knew that he did. It was important to him. By hiding it somewhere else, I figured it would give me...’ She struggled for the right word.

‘Leverage?’ Archie guessed, watching her closely.

She nodded and a pause followed. ‘...He wasn’t a good man. He had threatened me and my friends, all in different ways...’

She saw MacLeod’s features darken.

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