The thought burned through him, a singular, savage focus that drowned out everything else. She was at the edge of the pier, half-carried, half-dragged onto the boat. Harcourt kicked the mooring loose. The vessel lurched, drifting away from the dock with the slow, terrible inevitability of a tide pulling something under.
“Nay!” Halvard roared.
Sten fought at his side, his sword swinging in brutal arcs, driving Harcourt’s men back. Halvard shoved past them, shouldering through bodies, ignoring the sting of a blade that bounced off his arm. The boat was moving. Any injury he sustained was immaterial compared to the fact that he was about to lose Elsie.
“Halvard!” she called, his name tumbling past her lips in a frenzied gasp. “Halvard!”
Halvard ran. He hit the middle of the pier at full speed and leapt, his boots slamming into the deck. The impact rattled his bones,but his hands were already on Elsie, hauling her back toward him.
She cried out, clutching at his tunic, rain plastering her hair to her face. Her skin was pallid, drenched in sweat as in rain, but she was safe and unharmed—only shaken.
Behind them, Harcourt turned.
His expression was wild now, the cold composure finally cracking, his eyes blazing with hate as he drew his sword.
“You,” Bowen snarled, lunging forward. “You took everything from me!”
Their blades met with a violent crash. The boat rocked hard, waves slapping against its sides, the rain blinding and relentless. They circled each other on the slick deck, Halvard’s gaze never leaving the man. He couldn’t afford to lose sight of him and let him get away now.
Elsie crouched behind him, her fingers locked in his belt like an anchor. Behind them, Sten was still fighting the last man standing, their grunts and the clang of steel on steel echoing in the pier.
Harcourt attacked with furious precision, his strikes fast and vicious. He was a man possessed, his only goal now to harm him and Elsie.
“This is your fault!” Harcourt shouted, slashing wildly, rain streaking his face. “She is the reason it all fell apart!”
“Ye’re delusional!” Halvard growled. “I never wished tae wed yer daughter! If ye had taken it with grace?—”
“Grace?” Harcourt snapped, his mouth twisting into a sneer, his words colder than the drops lashing at their skin. “Grace? You made sure both my daughter returned to England disgraced! To be refused by a laird! A savage like yourself! And all for a woman who is beneath her. Do you not see the insult? Do you not see the disgrace?”
“There need nae be disgrace!” Halvard insisted. “I never meant any insult, Harcourt! This match was arranged fer me, as much as it was arranged fer yer daughter. I would have done it, I would, but I couldnae wed her when I loved and wed another.”
Harcourt let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “Love… what a foolish notion. Society doesn’t care about matters of the heart, Laird MacLeod. All they care about is that you rejected my daughter and I won’t let this disgrace go unpunished.”
With a sudden, desperate move, Harcourt lunged past Halvard, grabbing Elsie by the arm and hauling her toward the rail. Elsie screamed as he shoved her, her body tipping dangerously over the side, the black sea yawning under her.
Halvard moved without thought.
Lunging forward at the very last moment, he caught Elsie around the waist, hauling her back against his chest just as her feet slipped free of the deck. In the same breath—one heartbeat, one instinct—Halvard raised his blade high and drove it forward.
Steel met flesh.
His sword found its target n Harcourt’s chest. Harcourt’s breath left him in a wet, startled sound as Halvard’s sword pierced straight through him. His eyes widened, the fury in them faltering into disbelief, as if he could hardly wrap his mind around the fact that he had been defeated.
Halvard shoved him back without so much as another thought. Harcourt stumbled, blood darkening his coat, rain washing it down in rivulets as he collapsed onto the deck.
The sea roared on, indifferent.
`The moment Harcourt fell, the fight went out of the night.
Halvard barely registered the rest—the men who had just arrived from the inn driving Harcourt’s remaining guards into the sea or the boat grinding uselessly against the pier, the rain easing from a lash to a pour. All that mattered was the weight in his arms.
All that mattered was Elsie.
His sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the deck, forgotten. He gathered her to him with both arms, hauling her tight against his chest as though he could fold her into himself, as though that might keep the world from ever touching her again.
She was shaking—not violently, but deeply, tremors running through her as the terror bled out of her all at once. Her hands fisted in his soaked tunic, clutching as if he were the only solid thing left in the world.
“Elsie,” he breathed, his voice rough, unsteady. “Look at me.”
