“Good night, then,” Finley called out as he opened the door.
He slammed it shut in answer.
Lachlan didn’t bother retrieving his horse from the stable for the short walk through town and up the foot of the cliff. The chill sea air was good for his head and his temper. It was not difficult to find the path that led toward the rear of the town, although his resolve wavered as the condition of the trail rapidly deteriorated. He kept looking up as he strode up over slippery rocks and stumbled in washed-out ruts, the moonlight revealing his folly.
It was a ruin of a house jutting from the cliff.A ruin.
By the time Lachlan stood before the towering stone structure, he could make out the three distinct floors, the tall, narrow openings of shutterless windows, the pointed peaks where the roof had once been at the very height of the cliff. He looked back down at the town, and the moon-slicked bay beyond. He could once more see the square of light from Finley Carson’s house. No doubt she was warm inside, smiling smugly to herself at what she had known Lachlan would encounter on the cliff. But he would not give her the satisfaction of returning to the little longhouse.
He turned to regard the grand, arched doorway standing empty before him. Likely this structure had once housed the chiefs of the Carson clan. But now, all around him, the sea wind was the only thing inhabiting the manor, swirling through the perforated stone column, playing as on a set of pipes a low, haunting song, the pitiful cry of some abandoned and betrayed thing. It raised the hair on his arms and neck, so familiar a tune was it to his heart in that moment. He’d drunk too much, aye, that was all. Lachlan hadn’t wept since he was a very, very young lad—a bairn, near—and then it had been over his beautiful mother, who he’d been told was never to return to him. Standing before that burned-out disaster that represented his life, he was as close to once more weeping since that long-ago day.
Lachlan slung his bag higher on his shoulder and entered the ruin.
* * * *
Finley lay in her narrow bed, staring at the low ceiling, now draped in shadow from the nearly spent lamp. It would have been an outrageous luxury to enjoy such light after the sun had gone down, but there was plenty of oil to be had since the new treaty with the Blairs. Plenty of light to lie alone in, and relive her disastrous wedding day.
What a fool Lachlan Blair was, to think that any such habitable place in the town would be so empty without just cause. The old house was a burned-out ruin—full of ghosts, if you asked any of the old folk. She felt her mouth curve in a slight smile as the faint rumbles of thunder tickled her eardrums, but the amusement was short-lived.
What a foolshewas. And a bigger fool she would be on the morrow, when it was learned that her new husband preferred the ghosts of his enemies over her, even when so drunk he could barely sit a horse. She heard the soft patter of the storm on the roof.
Even in the rain, she amended to herself.
“Maybe he’ll catch a chill and die,” she said out loud, trying to infuse some hope into the situation. But it did nothing to cheer her, and she couldn’t help but imagine her da’s face when he returned home on the morrow. How disappointed he would be with her. Again.
Finley blew out the lamp and turned over to face the wall in the dark, where she could neither see nor feel evidence of her tears.
* * * *
“It doesn’t make good sense,” Vaughn Hargrave said aloud, his words falling flat against the rough stone walls and sliding down along with the rivulets of dark water and patches of furry scum. His hands dangled between his knees, the finely turned pelican in his right hand nodding as he gestured with it. “How many times must one man die before he is actually dead?”
He turned his head to look at his companion. The man only stared back at him wordlessly, but Vaughn thought perhaps there were tears in his eyes.
“Yes,” Vaughn sighed with a nod and dropped his gaze back down to his stained boots. “My feelings precisely. So frustrating! Argh!” Normally he wouldn’t slouch on a stool in such a common manner, especially in the presence of another person, but his exasperation was getting the better of him this evening. He needed the comfort of the vault, and he needed the company.
And besides, the servant would never say anything to betray his lord’s abnormal display of melancholy.
“I thought I had dealt with him myself,” Vaughn went on patiently, as if detailing the logic of it would somehow reorder the events. “Shot him through the gut. He should have died in a ditch along the road somewhere. But no! He found someone to take him in! Can you imagine?”
The servant sighed.
“Yes—whowoulddo such a thing? A peasant looking for loose coins, that’s who.” Vaughn shook his head. “Meg found him, though—I knew she would. Even though she betrayed me in the end, I knew if anyone could find him, it was she. I am an excellent judge of people, as you know.”
Vaughn Hargrave hummed to himself, his thoughts working around each other in an intricate dance in his head and he observed them, looking for the pattern, trying to predict the order of it.
“But I saw his body on that hillside,” he said in a low tone. “I felt the cooling flesh with my own hand—there is no other sensation like it, of that I can attest.” He perked up and looked at the servant again. “If you’d like to see, I can—no? Suit yourself. But hewasdead. His cloak, his blade, his hair—his brains on the ground.Dead.”
Hargrave tapped the cool, sticky metal of the pelican against his other palm. “And dead he stayed until Lucan Montague carried him into London. Lucan Montague, of all people! That snot-nosed brat repays my kindness byresurrectingThomas Annesley! The ingratitude is appalling.”
He stood from the stool, his irritation provoking him to physical restlessness once more. He paced the width of the vault, the soles of his boots making delicious, gummy whispers on the soft floor.
“The king was remiss in not having him hanged straightaway, yes. His Majesty cannot escape his share of responsibility. But what can you do with royalty?” Vaughn held out his hands beseechingly. “If it soothes Henry to think Thomas Annesley jumped to his death, I shall not disabuse him of the fantasy. It only plays to my benefit as the last documents for Darlyrede are settled—a dead man can make no dispute. But after the debacle at the shit pile that is Roscraig, you and I both know that Thomas Annesley isnotdead, and that I simply cannot abide. I can’t, and I won’t.”
Vaughn stopped his pacing to stare at the dark, stony wall, marbled with moss and mineral-striped water, old crusts of matter too diverse to ever know their sources.
“I think Lucan Montague might have believed him,” Hargrave mused aloud. “And since Montague first alerted Tavish Cameron of his inheritance, it stands to reason that the pious whelp’s next destination could only be Carson Town. If only he had stayed in France.”
He turned from the wall and walked toward the servant. The man seemed to squirm excitedly, but Hargrave would not reward impatience.
