Page 8 of Seductive Scot
The blood rushed through Deirdre’s veins, causing a rapid beating and a monstrous ache in her temples. “Nay, my lord,” she lied, a clear memory of standing outside Grace’s healing room door coming to her.
Open the door, Grace. I know ye have yer sister in there. Those were the words she’d said.
Damn Yearger. Damn him and his lies.
He’d convinced her that if Shona fled it would reflect poorly on Deirdre as the head lady-in-waiting. She was a horrid person. She ground her teeth together, her self-loathing nearly unbearable. Why had she cared? Why hadn’t she questioned Yearger?
“No matter. They are loose threads, and I’ve never liked such things. If one person pulls on the dangling thread, everything can unravel.”
She was going to toss up what little food was in her stomach. She took several long, deep breaths before she could respond. “But if they are with their family…” She prayed he’d say it was, of course, impossible to kill them now. Instead, his lips stretched into a chilling smile.
“I have already procured a solution to that particular problem, but you need not fret about it. They should be dead within a fortnight. You are safe, my dear. No one will ever know what part you played.”
Nausea roiled within her, and she felt hot and weak at once. She had to find a way to escape immediately. She had to get to Castle Hightower and warn the MacKinnish family of the danger coming their way.
Escaping was much easier in her mind than in reality. The next night, Deirdre tiptoed down the stairs of Castle Lochlavine, which they’d arrived at earlier that day just as it had begun to snow. She’d been dismayed to discover that Algien was not a fool. It would have been so much easier if he was. The first thing he’d done when they had arrived was to demand every Irvine warrior swear an oath of fealty to him as their future laird. If anyone refused, the warrior would first watch their family punished for his betrayal, and then the warrior himself would forfeit his life. So Algien had effectively made it so Deirdre could not even ask her own people for aid without asking them to risk their lives and the lives of their families.
But, she thought, as she crept down the last of the stairs and moved through the shadowy passage toward the door to the back gardens, Algien clearly did not believe thatshewould betray him. He’d set no guards on her and given her no restrictions. Even as she was relieved for it, she was distressed to realize her life had forced her to become a very talented deceiver. She’d never imagined she would turn out to be a woman of such questionable character. Nor the type of woman who’d been willing to turn a deaf ear to her sister’s pleas not to make her wed a man she did not wish to wed. If she lived a thousand lifetimes, it would not be enough to make amends to Maggie. But if shedidlive to see Maggie again, she would do all in her power to show Maggie and herself that she was not as broken as she felt.
Light streamed out of the great hall, and Deirdre held her breath as she moved through the darkness, pressed against the far wall and praying no one would come out and stumble upon her. She was almost past the door when someone said, “My lord, this is Donald MacKinnish, the man I told you about.”
Deirdre paused, surprised a MacKinnish was here. Her stomach clenched with one plausible reason: betrayal.
“So you wish to serve me,” Algien said from within the great hall.
“I wish to serve any man who will give me enough coin,” the man, Donald MacKinnish, replied. Grimacing, she glanced between the doors at the end of the passage that led to her escape and the great hall door. She should simply go, and yet, she might be able to learn something that could aid the MacKinnish family if she waited. She owed them that for her part in this mess, however unwitting it had been.
She crept closer to the great hall door and peeked through the crack. Her pulse skittered wildly at her neck, and perspiration gathered at her back underneath layers of linen léine, a gown, and a heavy cape. Close to the tapestries that hung on the far left wall of the hall and beside a large window that overlooked the rolling hills, Algien stood beside Nigel, one of her brother’s most trusted guards. Algien twirled a glinting object in his hand.
Deirdre frowned, at first fearful it was a dagger, but after a moment, she realized it was a cross that captured the glowing light of the lit torches on the wall each time he spun it.
He paused to regard Donald MacKinnish. “Are the loyalties of all MacKinnishes as easily purchased as yours?” Algien demanded, holding the cross up above his head to the light.
“Nay, my lord, but the MacKinnish passed me up too many times for a place on his personal guard, so I do nae owe the man much loyalty. I need to advance, too. I need coin for my wife.”
“A foolish man lets a woman demand things from him,” Algien said, turning the cross back and forth. Deirdre studied it as he did. It had a small raised sphere on each of the four ends that almost looked pearlescent. “So you’re willing to kill for coin,” he went on, as if he were discussing giving the man the job of stablemaster instead of murderer.
“I do what I must, my lord,” Donald MacKinnish said.
“We all do, Donald,” Algien replied. “See this cross?” He waved it in front of the man’s face.
“Aye, my lord.”
“A man died because of this cross.”
“How’s that, my lord?”
“I’ll tell you how, Donald,” Algien said in a low but lethal voice. “He lowered his guard and underestimated a woman, Grace MacKinnish. She hit him in the face with it and escaped him, an escape that eventually led to the man’s death. Now, why do I tell you this?”
“So I will nae underestimate Grace MacKinnish?”
“That’s right, Donald,” Algien said, tossing a bag of jingling coins at the man. “When you go to kill Grace and her sister, you’ll have the advantage since they won’t suspect you, but don’t lower your guard. The women have proven to be canny. And if you happen to run across a lady named Maggie Irvine—”
“My lord,” Nigel interrupted, “Lady Maggie is Lady McCaim now, remember?”
Algien flashed a feral smile. “Of course I remember, you idiot.” With that sharp reprimand, he focused on Donald once more. “If you see Lady MaggieMcCaimand the opportunity presents itself after you have taken care of the MacKinnish sisters, then kill Lady Maggie.”
Deirdre’s mouth parted on a soft gasp.
