“Nay.” He shook his head as though to clear it. “Lady Kendra, I don’t know how to…” He blew out a breath. “Here they come.”
Ford walked up with the two men, his face as white as Cameron’s. Whiter, even. Kendra clutched his arm. “What is it?”
Her whispered words failed to carry through the din that surrounded them, but it didn’t matter. Ford knew what she was asking. “The man Jason killed…” he started, then just looked helplessly at the other young men.
“He was Adam Leslie,” Cameron said. “Cait’s brother.”
SEVENTY
CAITHREN HEARD the door latch rattle in the other room. Geoffrey was back. Somehow he realized his brother was dead.
While she waited for him to burst in and murder her, she knelt for the tenth time in as many minutes to feel Wat’s neck for a pulse. Nothing.
The rattling stopped, but she felt little relief. Tears flooded her eyes. Trembling, she sat back on the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. For long minutes she stayed that way, rocking herself, a human ball of misery.
Her head jerked up when the window moved, a disembodied hand shoving it open the rest of the way. Through a blur of tears, she watched a second hand clench the ledge. A head and shoulders appeared—wide shoulders and unruly red hair beneath a man’s hat. A woman hoisted herself up and through the window, landing on the floor with the grace of a cat.
Her heart pounding in fear and confusion, Caithren rose. The woman topped her by a good foot—she was taller than Jason or any man Cait knew. A sword hung from her belt, and a pistol peeked from the top of one boot. She was dressed like a man, but no one would have taken her for one. Ever.
Cait dashed her tears away and blinked. She heard another rattle of the door latch, but she was too stunned to react. “You…you’re…”
“Emerald MacCallum.” The woman stared pointedly at Wat. “I take it he’s dead?”
“I-I reckon so.”
Emerald reached to touch Cait’s hand. “Don’t fash yourself, dear. I don’t normally hold with killing my quarry, but these brothers…well, the world is better off without them.”
“B-but I’ve never killed a man! And I didn’t mean to, even though he was such a bad one. I swear on”—Cait reached for her missing amulet, then let out a sob—“on my mam’s grave.” She searched Emerald’s golden eyes, tears falling from her own. “Will I ever get over it?”
“Nay.” The single word was blunt, yet kind. Emerald patted her on the back. “But others will thank you for it, and some day, you’ll realize it wasn’t really wrong. You’ll never get over it completely, but you will learn to live with it.” She backed away toward the window. “It will, however, change you, maybe even for the better.”
Her hand on the sill, Emerald stilled. “A wee keek back keeps you on the right path.”
For a moment, Caithren could only stare. One of Mam’s sayings. Let life’s experiences guide you forwards.
“You came for the reward,” she said softly, remembering Jason accusing her of the same.
The other woman nodded, then shrugged and turned to duck out. Their gazes both flew to the ledge when another hand appeared beside hers, larger and squarer, with a light sprinkling of black hair across the back. Caithren gasped. A second hand settled next to it, then a face rose into the frame.
Jason’s face, though so colorless Cait feared for his life.
Emerald reached down a hand and pulled him up and into the room.
He stood there, visibly shaking, looking back and forth between Caithren and the woman he’d once thought her to be. Before he could say anything, Emerald climbed out the window and was gone.
He looked back to Cait, his face still pale, his eyes wide. “Was that Emerald MacCallum?”
“Aye.”
He shook his head, then fixed her with an intense green gaze. “Are you all right?”
Though she wasn’t hurt, she also wasn’t all right. Tears threatening, she bit her lip.
“Caithren?” he asked uncertainly. He held out his arms and she rushed into them, fresh tears flowing at the feel of him crushed against her. She drew deep of his familiar, comforting scent, underlaid with a trace of the sharp smell of fear. He was warm and solid in her arms, his body still shuddering.
With a long sniff, she pulled back. “I…I cannot believe you climbed up the wall. Four stories, with your fear of heights.”
“What do you take me for?” He looked hurt. “I love you, Cait. I would move heaven and earth to make you safe. Climbing that wall was nothing.” At her look of disbelief, he released a shaky laugh. “Well, not nothing, but I would do it again. For you. But give me a few days first, will you? I need some time to recover.”
She laughed through her tears, reaching forward to clutch his hands in hers. “Geoffrey went to the wedding to find Scarborough. You were right, Jase—he was wearing the fat man disguise, with the beard—”
She broke off at his gasp. His gaze was riveted over her shoulder.
“It’s Wat.” Her lids slid closed, but the tears leaked through them anyway. “I didn’t mean to kill him, I swear it.” She opened her eyes, willing Jason to believe she hadn’t done such a terrible thing deliberately. “I hit him over the head, but he didn’t fall, and then he pulled a pistol, and it went off, but it was pointing up in the air. I don’t know what happened!”
Jason looked up at the ceiling. “It ricocheted.”
She followed his gaze and saw the Elizabethan molding was damaged. “I only meant to knock him out so I could go find Adam—”
At her brother’s name, she froze. With a mighty effort, she pulled herself together. She had no time to feel this wrenching regret; not right now. She’d allow herself that luxury later.
“I must get to the
