“Halvard!”
Even as the men tightened their grips and hauled her toward the edge, even as terror threatened to tear her apart, she still believed in him. She still believed he would come.
The sea loomed ahead—black, endless, whispering promises of disappearance.
“Let me go!” she cried, her voice torn raw by the wind.
One of them laughed, low and ugly, tightening his hold.
Harcourt walked out onto the pier, standing before Elsie, his boots unhurried, his cloak stirring in the breeze. The moon caught his face in sharp angles, revealing that calm, cold expression she had come to dread—the look of a man who believed himself entirely justified. Around him, more of his men crept out from the shadows, and Elsie lost count of them quickly as they spread around the pier.
“Careful,” he said mildly to his men. “She’s worth more intact.”
Elsie twisted her head toward him, fury cutting through fear. “You’re mad,” she spat. “This will damn you.”
Harcourt smiled. “No, my dear. This will balance the scales.”
They reached the edge of the pier where the small boat waited, its dark hull bobbing restlessly against the rocks. The waves slapped against it like impatient hands.
Harcourt stepped closer, studying her as one might a prize animal.
“We’ve always known it was you,” Elsie spat, straining against her captors once more. She would be damned if she let Harcourt lay a hand on her. “Halvard has always known. Did you truly think we’d come here unprepared?”
“No,” said Harcourt, giving her pause. “Of course, I didn’t. And that is precisely why I didn’t come unprepared.”
Her stomach dropped, understanding crashing into her like a wave.
It was a far more elaborate trap than they had thought. Harcourt hadn’t truly thought that Elsie would show up alone at all. He had never bet on her lying to Halvard, he had never expected her to keep his man’s instructions a secret. If anything, he had always known Halvard would be there—and he had brought the men he needed with him to kill two birds with one stone.
Elsie surged forward with a cry of rage, only to be wrenched back again. “You used my sister! You used my sister to trap me and Halvard!”
Selene. Where are you? What has he done to you?
Harcourt’s eyes glittered. “Halvard MacLeod used my daughter.”
The words struck hard, giving Elsie pause.
“Margaret crossed half the realm,” he went on, his voice cool and precise, “expecting a crown of sorts. A ladyship. Power, respect. She returned mocked, whispered about, pitied.” His mouth twisted into an ugly grimace, one that revealed the true extent of his cruelty. “All because your husband decided to humiliate us.”
Harcourt was after one thing—power. He was a man possessed, and he would go to great lengths to get what he wanted.
And what he wanted now was revenge.
“We are married. We are married under God, and there is nothing you can do to change that,” Elsie said, her chin lifting in defiance.
“That,” Bowen said, stepping close enough that she could smell the leather and cold iron on him, “only makes it sweeter.”
The men hauled her closer to the boat. She dug her heels in, heart hammering as the water surged louder, closer.
“Halvard,” Harcourt said, “took my honor, my reputation… the future I had secured for my bloodline. And now—” his gaze dropped to her, cold and cruel—“I will take from him.”
Elsie’s chest constricted painfully with terror. It coursed through her veins like poison, paralyzing her, the thought of what was to come burning through her mind.
“So you wish to kill me?” she asked with a bitter scoff, shaking her head. “All because your daughter didn’t end up marrying him? You could have chosen a different match for her! You could have found more suitors.”
Fury colored Harcourt’s cheeks then, and he stepped closer, his breath hot on Elsie’s face as he spoke. “You presume to tell me how to manage my affairs? I did what was best for my daughter and for her future. You are nothing but an insolent brat and you know nothing of these things. What do you know of sacrifice? Of strategy? What do you know of duty? Nothing.”
Elsie glared at the man, her eyes narrowing as she took in his form. He didn’t seem so large to her suddenly—more of a small, pathetic man who clung to power and craved it more than anything.
