Inverness first. The letter from his friend mentioned something about trade, gossip, and a joke that didn’t land. The note from Stella’s grandfather came next. It was, as usual, stiff and polite. It was all about the old man asking after the child’s health and sending a blessing she would never hear.
Jack set both aside and reached for the last letter, feeling the wax give way with a dull crack.
“Hm. Cheap paper.”
He unfolded the letter. There was nothing on it but a sentence. One that was written with a bold hand that must have pressed too hard on the paper. He stared at the letter hard, as if the words would jump out and try to attack him.
If ye marry Lady Emma, she’ll meet the same end as yer first wife.
He read it again. Then again, slower. The words did not change, and his breathing grew shallow. He called for the nearest maid and asked her to fetch Duncan.
When the maid left, he stood and walked to the fireplace, staring at the coals and the way they burned bright red. The question played in his mind over and over again, and he hated the simple fact that he had no answer to it. His eyes were still on the fire when he heard a knock at the door.
“Enter,” he called.
Duncan stepped in, his hair still damp from training, although he had changed into a clean shirt. “Ye sent for me?”
Jack held up the half-folded letter. “Did ye see who delivered this one?”
Duncan shook his head. “I told ye earlier, I didnae.”
“Aye. But did ye see anything? ‘Tis important.”
“Nae at all. The lad who gave it to me said that he was paid to hand it over at the gate; that is all. Why? What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” Jack replied. He refolded the letter neatly. “See to the men. We’ll ride to the gate at first light.”
Duncan didn’t move. “Jack, if there’s trouble?—”
“Daenae worry, I’ll handle it.” Jack met his brother’s eyes. “Go on.”
A beat passed before Duncan bowed his head and left the study.
Jack stood where he was until the door clicked shut. He moved even closer to the flames. He could keep the letter as proof. He could show it to Duncan, send men to the gate, turn over stones until some rat emerged. But the thought of this ink lying around in his home was worse than the thought of starting from nothing.
So he did the next best thing and fed the letter to the fire.
It curled fast, the flame darkening the edges first, then licking through the words. The line about Emma blackened and turned to smoke, and soon, the whole letter was gone.
“Over me dead body,” he said, almost too quiet for the room to hear.
He poured a finger of whisky and downed it standing at his desk, feeling the first mouthful burn a clean line to his stomach. He set the glass down and capped the bottle.
He thought of her on the garden path with her sister, the sun on her hair, the dirt brushed from her dress where his brother’s blade had stopped at her feet. He thought of the way she looked at him in the yard and how furious she had been with herself forit. He didn’t even need to speak before he felt determination rise within him.
Nothing, and he meantnothing,would happen to Emma under his watch.
CHAPTER 13
The castle had fallensilent as Emma and Ava crossed the long gallery. A shaft of moonlight filtered through the high windows and lay softly across the floor, catching the portrait frames as it passed.
They stopped at the portrait of Jack and Stella, the same one Emma had seen the first night she had spent at the castle. The child’s face was bright, reaching toward her father with a small, open hand. Beside it, a clean rectangle of darker plaster marked where another painting had once hung. The gap, for some reason, made the air feel colder.
“I daenae ken why they took hers down,” Emma murmured.
Ava’s lips thinned. “Was she nae killed by the Laird?”
Emma frowned. “We daenae ken that yet.”
