“Whatever business ye have,” she said carefully, “ye have mistaken me for someone else.”
The man laughed quietly. “Nay. I very rarely mistake people.”
Every muscle in her body tensed.
The man folded his hands behind his back, and for one glorious heartbeat, she believed she had a chance.
There was no time to think about it. She gathered her skirt in her hands and sprinted toward the festival, the music suddenly sounding impossibly far away.
“Help!”
The cry barely escaped her lips when something snapped tightly around her ankle.
Twine.
It jerked her leg so violently that she pitched forward, crashing into the grass.
The fall was hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Pain splintered through her knees and palms, and before she could push herself up, a rough hand grabbed a fistful of her hair.
She cried out as the younger man dragged her backward with startling strength. “Let go!”
Her scream was shrill as she twisted violently, clawing at his wrist.
For a brief moment, his grip loosened, and hope flared in her chest. She sucked in a breath to scream again when a strip of cloth was pulled brutally over her mouth and another over her eyes.
Darkness swallowed her.
“Nay!” she groaned.
She kicked blindly, her heel connecting with something solid, and the younger man cursed. He caught her hands behind her back, his grip tightening.
“Hold still,” he grunted.
Edith fought him. Her elbow drove backward, and her shoulders twisted violently as he attempted to fasten twine around her wrists.
The twine bit sharply into her skin as he bound her, and only then did she stop struggling long enough to breathe. Her chest rose and fell frantically, sweat gathering on her forehead.
“No one heard ye,” the older man said, as though this were a regular conversation. “The music is loud today.” His footsteps stopped right in front of her. “Ye made this remarkably easy.”
Edith glared toward the sound of his voice beneath the blindfold.
His hand came around her head, undoing the gag.
“If ye harm me…” Her words were nearly a growl. “The Laird will give ye nothin’.”
The man laughed softly.
“On the contrary,” he said, moving even closer to her. “I believe he will surrender everything he has, should the alternative be losin’ ye.”
Edith’s blood ran cold.
“Who are ye?” she demanded, though she already suspected the answer.
Only one man had a vendetta against Aaron, and she had heard of him enough in the past weeks to know this.
“Edward MacFaris,” he said simply.
Her heart sank, her mind flooding with everything she had overheard in passing over the past weeks.
