Stuart Avrie drew a breath, and his gaze moved over her, considering. “We are so close to having all we ha’ ever wanted.”
She did turn her head then and look at him. “Allyouha’ ever wanted,” she corrected. “Take the glen, Husband. I want only his heart.”
Abruptly she switched her gaze to Jeannie, who felt its touch like the bite of cold iron. “Only, I think it no longer lies within his body.”
The breath scraped in Finnan’s throat as he drew a ragged breath. “Let her go,” he said. “She has no part in this.”
“Oh, but I think she does.” Deirdre’s smile looked sharp as the blade in her hand. “Hard to believe my brother could care for anyone—actually experience love—and feel it true. But I suspect ’tis so. He will do anything to save her, Husband. He will seek to save her, as he never did me.”
Finnan did not attempt to argue it, merely stared at his sister in mute agony. His chest rose in another convulsive breath. “Only let her go, and I will do anything you ask, die any way you choose.”
“Och, you will do whatever I ask, Brother. Remember how it was when I entertained you with my blade all last night? How much better if I give her the same treatment? Cut her face, so ’tis not so pretty. Slice through that white flesh.”
“Deirdre,” Stuart said, an objection, and she rounded on him, displaying sudden fury.
“You shall not deny me this! Call your brother—the two of you will hold her down while I let her blood. See what he offers us then.”
“I offer it now!” Finnan bellowed. “You want my signature on some paper? Bring it. You want my heart bleeding on this floor, Deirdre? Take it. But first you will set her free.”
Jeannie’s emotions rose like a wild conflagration, like unstoppable flame, and she turned her gaze on the man who arched against the stones. All the strength and loyalty ever he had harbored, and for the sake of which he had fought, was now hers alone. He gifted it to her on the strength of his love, far more than she had ever hoped to gain. Ten years had he battled, so hard had he struggled. This glen meant all to him, yet he laid it—and his life—at her feet.
“Get your paper,” Deirdre told her husband. “Call your brother.”
“We will no’ need Trent to finish this.” Stuart drew a paper from inside his vest. Carefully, he circled Finnan as he might a maddened dog on a chain.
“Let her go first,” Finnan said again. He did not so much as glance at Jeannie, but nodded at the sheet in Stuart’s hand. “And you will need to unbind me if you want my hand on that.”
“You will give over all ownership of the glen?” Stuart pressed. “You surrender it to me and mine?”
“So long as you guarantee Mistress MacWherter’s safety.”
Stuart grunted and slanted a look at his wife. She said nothing, but avid light filled her eyes.
Jeannie had seen Finnan harbor that same light, and fear twisted her gut.
“No,” she said, only that, but it snared Deirdre’s attention. The woman clutched the knife—the same with which she had cut her brother?—and circled behind Jeannie.
“Go ahead, Husband, unfasten his right hand—bring the ink and let him sign. If he makes one wrong move, she will die.”
For answer, Stuart dug into the pouch at his belt and produced pen and ink. He fumbled with those and the sheet of paper, laid them all at Finnan’s shoulder. Then he caught up a key that hung on a chain round his neck—that to the shackles, as Jeannie saw.
Her poor, beleaguered heart rose. Dared she hope they might escape this with their lives? Once Avrie had his paper, surely there remained no reason to kill them. He would have full claim to the glen. Yet she could feel Deirdre close behind her, bristling with menace.
Stuart went down on one knee and used the key on the iron at Finnan’s right wrist. As soon as it came free, Finnan gave a mighty bellow—Jeannie’s name—and heaved his body upward.
All his remaining strength lay in the movement, and it tore the shackle on his other wrist—that on which Jeannie had worked so diligently—from the ancient mortar between the stones. As he rose he swung the chain, still attached to the shackle, in a wide arc that took Stuart Avrie in the side of his face. At the same moment, Jeannie leaped forward out of Deirdre’s reach.
“Finnan!” she cried, drew the long knife from her sleeve, and placed it in his waiting hand.
That left her unarmed save for the dirk at the small of her back. She spun to face Deirdre, already looming above her, knife at the ready, and a wild look in her eyes.
All her life Jeannie had lived a civilized existence. The most vicious aspects of Dumfries were its gossip and alehouses; her greatest fears had been want and uncertainty. Now she faced danger at its most primal in the form of Deirdre Avrie with a stained blade in her hand.
Would she rise or fall? Stand or flee? Jeannie spared a thought, if not a glance, for the man on the floor behind her who, from the sound of it, was engaged in a battle of his own. Then she looked deep inside herself. She drew the dirk from her back and leaped at Deirdre Avrie.
Chapter Forty
Finnan ached to know what happened behind him. He could hear that his sister and Jeannie confronted one another, and he knew Deirdre had that wicked, sharp knife in her hands. But he dared not steal so much as a glance over his shoulder, for he found himself in an unholy, unequal battle of his own.
