“Stay back!” she cried, her voice shaking but loud.
The older man sneered, advancing. “Ye’ll fetch a fine ransom, lass?—”
Before he could finish, Michael met him head-on, steel clashing against steel. The courtyard rang with the sound of battle—grunts, boots scraping on stone, the hiss of metal sliding against metal. Michael engaged the man in a fight, stepping to the side as the other man’s blade came down to cut him. He parried the blow, pushing the man back, but there was nothing easy about this. Lydia could see it in the man’s movements; he was not a mere brigand. He was moving like a trained soldier, and Lydia knew immediately it wasn’t a random attack.
But she didn’t have much time to ponder who it could be who wanted her dead now that she was married to Kieran. The younger attacker darted past, heading straight for Lydia, and she swung the knife wildly, grazing his arm. The man snarled and grabbed her wrist, twisting until she gasped in pain, the knifedropping from her hand. She tried to fight him; she truly did. She lashed out at him, trying to push him off, but the man was strong, and she was caught in his vice-like grip.
“Ye’ll regret that, Me Lady,” he spat.
As she struggled, thrashing to throw him off her, the man tried to stop her, his armed hand trying to grab her other wrist—only to slash across her forearm, blood blooming instantly under her sleeve.
Before she could even cry out, Chloe—brave, reckless Chloe—hurled the copper pitcher she had been carrying straight at his head. It struck the man with a dull thunk, and he staggered, giving Lydia the chance to kick him hard in the shin. Howling, the man stumbled back, just as Michael’s sword found its mark in the older man’s chest.
The younger one saw his chance and bolted, vanishing toward the gate before Michael could catch him.
Silence fell—a thick, suffocating silence broken only by Lydia’s ragged breathing. All around her, the servants and noblemen and women who had been in the courtyard at the time of the attack were slowly, hesitantly coming out of their hiding places, their eyes wide and fearful, even though none of them had been the target of the attack.
She had been the only target. She had been the one they wanted.
When she reached Lydia, Chloe was shaking, her face pale. “Are ye… are ye all right, Me Lady?”
Lydia nodded though her hands still trembled so violently that she couldn’t push herself up to her feet. “I… I think so.”
Michael cursed under his breath and wiped his blade clean as he barked orders at his men to run after the attacker who had managed to escape. “Damn it all. That wasnae just a common thief.”
Lydia’s eyes darted to the dead man at their feet. Blood pooled under his body, drenching the earth in crimson. As everyone around her rushed to find the man and alert Kieran of the attack, Lydia could hardly register any of it. Her world had narrowed down to one, singular point—that wound on the man’s chest which was still fountaining blood.
Chloe reached for her hand, squeezing it tight. “Ye’re safe now,” she said, and though her voice trembled, it was still comforting to hear it.
But Lydia wasn’t sure she believed her. Because somewhere out there, someone wanted her dead, and as Michael’s expression hardened, Lydia saw in his eyes what he didn’t say aloud—just as she expected, this attack wasn’t random. It was the same darkness that had taken Kieran’s previous wives.
And now, it had come for her.
CHAPTER NINE
“Stay back!”
That familiar voice, now shrill and terrified, caught Kieran by surprise. In his study, there had been nothing but silence and the distant hum of the courtyard below, but now, that silence was pierced by an all too familiar scream that had his heart racing.
He was on his feet in seconds, rushing to the far window that overlooked the courtyard, just as the door to his study flew open without so much as a knock.
Whipping his head around, his hand reaching for his dirk by instinct, he saw a guard standing there, red-cheeked and panting as if he had run up the two flights of stairs, all the way to the study.
“Me Laird!” the young man bellowed, just as the door slammed against the wall with a deafening crack. “Come quickly! There’s been an attack!”
From his vantage point, Kieran could hardly see what was happening in the courtyard, but at the guard’s words, bile rose to the back of his throat. He knew that voice; he knew it belonged to Lydia, and he knew something terrible must have happened to her.
With two large steps, he reached the young man, grabbing him by the shoulder. “What is it? What happened?”
“I… I’m nae so certain,” the man stammered. “I was sent to alert ye, but I wasnae there to see it.”
From the courtyard, shouts still reached him but not the sounds of battle. Kieran pushed his way past the guard, who then swiftly followed him down the stairs to the ground floor, their footsteps echoing off the stone walls around them, mimicking the frantic rhythm of his heart.
When he spilled out into the courtyard, the sight that greeted him was not one he expected. There was no carnage, no sea of blood. There was only one body and the concerned, pallid faces of the guards around him.
“Where is she?” Kieran shouted. “Where’s Lydia?”
“She was taken to the healer’s croft, Me Laird,” another solider said, rushing to meet him by the entrance steps with a hurried bow. “Chloe and Mr. Andrews took her there.”
