Faye reached for her dagger at her side and found the sheath empty. Frustration welled in her throat like a scream. Now she would be facing her enemy without a weapon.
Quickly, she scratched out a letter to Monroe, detailing what she’d uncovered and expressing her fears that Moiré had done something with Ewan.
It was a risk she had to take as an idea slowly came to her. Especially when danger lay in wait on the other side of the door.
Faye got to her feet and said a silent prayer that her plan might work. A band of tension squeezed at her chest.
She pushed through the door and found Moiré was indeed waiting in the hallway, her gaze tight with concern. “I’m so sorry this is happening to ye,” Moiré said in a honeyed voice.
Faye studied the woman she had once called a friend. She wanted to curl her fingers around the other woman’s neck and squeeze until all the secrets spilled forth.
“Ye needn’t worry after me,” Faye waved her hand. It was a dismissive gesture she figured Moiré would ignore. “I’m sure ye’ve better things to do.”
Moiré put a staying hand to Faye’s forearm. It was all Faye could do to keep from jerking away from the wicked woman. Faye had used attraction and her own sexuality to manipulate people for years, but never once had she done so to inflict harm. Not like Moiré, who wielded her sweetness, with endearing platitudes and ready trust, in the cruelest of weapons.
Moiré smiled. “What would possibly require my attention more than aiding my cousin’s wife?” There was an underlying bitterness to her words. Had it always been there, and Faye had not noticed it?
“I need to speak with Monroe,” Faye said. “To ready plans for me to depart.”
“I’ll speak with him for ye,” Moiré said affectionately.
It was as Faye had expected. Still, confirming Moiré would try to block any opportunity Faye used to notify someone was like a blow. Which was why she’d come up with another plan.
“I confess,” Faye said. “I’d hoped to go to the cottage where Ewan is. I want to confront him.”
Moiré hesitated, and Faye could practically hear her thoughts shifting how a change of location might work to her advantage.
At least in this way, Faye could get to Ewan, to find some way to help him. And get to a servant who could tell Monroe about the note.
“Of course,” Moiré replied at last. “Though we ought to hurry if we plan to catch him.”
She and Moiré rushed to the stables to gather their horses once more. As anticipated, they didn’t see a single person on the short trek. But the stable lad was there. Also, as anticipated.
“I’ve left a missive on my husband’s desk,” Faye said to the boy. “See to it that Monroe gets it immediately.”
The boy nodded.
Moiré’s stare darted to Faye.
Faye offered an apologetic smile. “I simply told Monroe about Ewan’s infidelity and my desire to leave. I’d written it before ye said ye’d handle it for me.”
“I’m sorry ’tis come to this,” Moiré said with such affected sorrow that it almost made Faye second guess her assumptions.
But nay. She’d seen the handwriting with her own eyes. It had truly been different. And mayhap Ewan was not in danger, but if he were, at least it would be a way to save him.
They rode out to the village in silence. All the while, Faye’s mind raced with scenarios. What would happen if she were attacked? Or if Ewan were already dead?
Or if there truly were an affair, and Ewan and Blair were meeting for a tryst?
The horses were no longer tethered at the cottage when Faye and Moiré arrived. But before Moiré could try to turn her horse back toward the castle, Faye dismounted and rushed into the cottage. Her stomach twisted into anxious knots over what she might find.
She pushed through the door and stopped. The odor of blood rushed to greet her. A massive dark stain had spread over the hard-packed floor. The hut was empty, but it was obvious someone had been there. And someone had been killed.
She staggered inside and caught herself against the rough wall. On the opposite side of the home, highlighted in a slice of sunlight streaming in from the open door, was a bloody handprint smeared against the dingy whitewash.
The door slammed closed, plunging the hut into near darkness, save for the light limning the broken shutters.
Faye spun around, her whole world whirling with shock. “What’s happened to him?”
A sob choked out of Moiré.
“Where is he?” Faye asked. “What have ye done?”
“I’m sorry,” Moiré’s face crumpled. “’Twas my da.”
Faye shook her head, not understanding.
“He wants the chieftainship,” Moiré said amid her tears.
“What’s happened to Ewan?” Faye demanded. Her words reverberated off the stark walls and echoed back to her.
Moiré put her face in her hands, and Faye took a step closer to better hear her. Fast as lightning, Moiré withdrew a blade from her sleeve and shoved it to Faye’s stomach while pressing at her lower back with her other hand.
Faye froze, at the mercy of the madwoman. If only Faye had her dagger—if only it hadn’t jabbed at her side and she hadn’t thrown it away from her. She wasn’t entirely helpless, of course. She could attack Moiré, hit her with an elbow, toss her to the ground and put a foot to her throat.
And if Faye weren’t with child, she would immediately do those things. Except there was a sharp blade at her belly. One ready to take her babe’s life before it could even be born.
“Get outside,” Moiré said in a hard voice. “And if ye so much as sigh, I’ll plunge my dagger into yer belly.”
A shudder of fear consumed Faye. She would do nothing to put her babe at risk. And so it was that she allowed Moiré to lead her from the village and through the woods. Faye walked, tripping over tree roots, her feet made clumsy by her terror—for
