“But won’t he just rat you out?” the first American speaker asked. “Look how he is still struggling.”
“That is my concern,” Mr.Flett said simply.
“It makes the most sense to kill him, Mr.Flett,” Will said quietly. “Whatever your feelings toward this man, are you willing to trade your life for his?”
“Aye.” His stepda shifted his weight from his cane to his strongest leg and then back again. “I cannot provide for my family anymore. He can.”
And that was the harsh summation of their fraught relationship. Sigurd wasn’t saving Thorfinn; he was protecting his real children. But even if that knowledge still managed to cut out a piece of Thorfinn, he wasn’t going to quibble over his stepda’s reasoning right now.
“Let the captive up, Heinrich,” Will ordered. “Keeping him alive is a bloody foolish mistake, but it’s Mr.Flett’s consequence to confront.”
Heinrich didn’t protest verbally, but he delivered a vicious kick to Thorfinn’s face. Once again blades of pain exploded across his nose andover his cheekbones. Despite the black and gray dots momentarily filling his vision, Thorfinn immediately pounced to his feet, and his loosened eye patch fell to the ground. Hot blood dripped from his nose and mouth, but he’d already managed to shake the cobwebs from his good eye. His early life at Muckle Skaill had taught him how to take blows.
His gaze met his stepda’s icy-blue one. For once Sigurd didn’t look either judging or impassive. There was true fear in him now and something else Thorfinn had never expected to see. Defensiveness.
But Thorfinn could feel nothing but sick horror toward this man who had sheltered him once upon a time.
“I made good ... coin,” Sigurd said, a pleading note in his voice. There was no doubt that his stepda was upset. His words even sounded slurred as his mouth worked soundlessly for a few beats. “It wasn’t ... for me but ... the bairns. I couldn’t provide ... for them, and I ... wanted ... no reliance ... on you. I’ve hidden the money ... to be used when ... needed.”
“The HMSHampshire? Over six hundred souls? Lord Kitchener?Reggie?” Thorfinn couldn’t stop the accusation from passing his bloodied, cracked lips despite Sigurd’s visible struggle to speak. His stepda had helped plan the deaths of so many because he’d made good coin? Because he’d wanted free of his stepson? Agony—sharper and more penetrating than all the physical hurt—serrated Thorfinn.
“He was never ...ourLord Kitchener,” Sigurd spat out as he rubbed his head, the one side of his mouth drooping. “Do not act ... as if ...Iam a traitor. I owe no ... fealty to the king of England or any of its leaders. We are not ... British or Scottish. We are ...Orcadian. Why should I fight for ... the people who have subjugated us ... and charged us fees for farming our own land? As a boy, I saw people ... whose ancestors are buried in our howes ... being forced to leave for No ... Nova Scotia and New York ... while English lords made themselves a pleasure ground here ... onourisle. When King Christian ... I of Norway pledged this land to King James ... III of Scotland as surety forPrincess Margaret’s ... dowry payment, Orkney was to remain in the possession of the people who tilled it, but that promise ... was broken tenfold. Who is ... traitor ... I ask you? The pretender who sits on ... throne is ... German himself—cousin to ... Wilhelm!”
It didn’t matter that Sigurd was choppily talking about a transaction that had occurred in the 1400s, a conflict from the 1700s, and a marriage from the 1800s. The old islander had never considered himself Scottish, let alone British. He had watched his neighbors suffer starvation during the Enclosures. He had worn his body down tending a land owned by a rich, cruel noble. And he’d held his sobbing wife as she’d recounted life in Muckle Skaill. Thorfinn could never, would never, accept his stepda’s decision to spy for Germany, but he could see how the man could wrongfully persuade himself that his deeds were somehow justified.
“You two can discuss this later.” Will lashed a rope to the bindings on Thorfinn’s wrists. “For now, Sigurd, you can return to your croft. We have matters well enough in hand. We’ll leave your stepwhelp in the cave that we used for sending signals.”
With one last charged look in Thorfinn’s direction, Sigurd slowly and unsteadily ducked under the broch’s entrance. The other spies stayed as they discussed the details of their upcoming assault on the supply depot.
A whisper of unease inside Thorfinn burgeoned into a frenzied roar. Why were these men spewing more particulars about their scheme if they planned on keeping him alive? Wouldn’t they just have shepherded him to the cave and then had this discussion? They had rid themselves of Sigurd’s presence. Why nothis?
“Should I take the prisoner to where we told Sigurd that we’d leave him?” Heinrich asked, giving his rope a particularly vicious tug.
Will glanced over at Heinrich, his expression stern. “I only wanted to ensure that Sigurd does not cause trouble. We still may need the old man before this night and day are out.”
The sentence of execution fell upon Thorfinn’s last hope like the blade of the guillotine. He would not give these men the pleasure of a shout of protest, but it roared silently through his every fiber. Who would care for the children? And Rose, passionate, fierce Rose? Would she blame herself for his disappearance since she had told him about the spy ring?
Aye, she would. She shouldn’t, but she would. Thorfinn fought like old Clootie himself against his bindings, but the cruel, unforgiving rope only cut deeper.
“So can I kill him now?” Heinrich withdrew a rather wicked-looking blade.
“No,” Will said. “We’ll bring him with us to the sea cave in case we need to keep Sigurd in line. We can leave him tied up there. When the tide returns, it will kill him for us.”
Although Thorfinn did not intend to make a sound, his throat convulsively clenched, and a choking sound emerged—like a cry from his soul. The waters would start rising soon, and before anyone was awake to save him, he’d be dead—and with him the chance to preserve the fragile peace. His death would be followed by so many, many more.
The frantic knocking on her bedroom door woke Rose with a terrible start. It felt late or early or both. Light peeked through the drawn curtains, but then again it was a constant presence this time of year. Pressing her hand against her speeding heart, Rose debated whether she should get up or try to quiet her body for sleep once again. If one of the guests staying at Muckle Skaill instead of in Kirkwall had an issue, one of the staff could handle it. She even had Young Thomas on duty tonight, working both as front-desk man and bellhop to test if he liked the work. Ann Inkster had taken the earlier shift.
The thumping increased exponentially.
“Miss Van Etten?” It was Young Thomas’s voice.
“Please, Miss Van Etten!” Freya’s high tones came next.
Rose popped from her bed like a cork. What in the devil were the two youngsters doing together at this time of the night? Heaven only knew what kind of trouble they could have gotten into.
Ignoring the cottony feeling inside her head, she whipped a robe over her lingerie. Securing it tightly with the sash, she jerked open the door to find not just the adolescents but Astrid as well.
“What is going on?” Rose demanded.
