Tristan felt ill. How was he to do it? He cursed inwardly and shook his head. This was precisely why he should never have become attached to her! Why he should not have allowed himself to care for her!
He had been paid four hundred pounds to kill the earl. It had apparently taken the man who had paid him almost four years to get the money.
Tristan didn’t care how long it took. Men of nobility cost more to kill. They usually had more barriers, including more guards for him to have to go through. If he was caught killing anyone of nobility, or a man of the cloth—like the evil bishop he killed last year, he would hang.
None of them ever had a daughter who almost died in his arms, one who reached straight into his heart, grabbed hold of it, and shook him to his very core. To never see her again would mean the end of him.
What could he do?
“Tristan, will you tell me what has come over you?” Rose asked quietly, coming up at his horse’s flanks. “Is it…the pestilence?”
How could he tell her? He writhed in his saddle, tormented by the truth. “Lass,” he said miserably, “’tis worse than the pestilence.”
“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes opened wide. “What is worse than the pestilence?”
He looked away and swallowed a deep breath. He stopped his horse. She deserved to know the truth, and he would tell her on his feet.
“You are frightening me,” she told him, bringing her horse to a stop next to his.
“Fergive me,” he muttered as they dismounted. “I wish ’twere not so.”
She went to him and reached for his arm. He felt even worse when she touched him, so he moved out of her reach. When she set her huge, sorrowful eyes on him, he reached for the pouch attached to his belt. He was trusting his life to her. She knew more about him than anyone, more about his kin. Now, he was giving her proof of other men he had killed. He had to be mad. “Can ye read?”
She nodded and he pulled out the small, folded parchment from inside the pouch. He handed it to her without a word and watched her as she unfolded it. “What is it?”
“The list of the men I have been paid to kill.”
She read the names and went white. She took a moment to try to compose herself by taking a deep breath and swiping at her eyes.
“That is why you are going to Dumfries.” She looked up from the list, her eyes, wet with tears. “To kill my father.”
She didn’t react until he nodded. She threw the note to him, covered her face in her arms, and hurried back to her horse. “I must tell him! I must warn him!”
“Lass,” he took a step and reached for her, but she pulled back.
“Do not touch me, Tristan!”
Something in his heart lurched at how easily his name could become a dagger.
“’Tis you!” she screamed at him. “You who has been after my father all along! You lit my house on fire! My mother—”
“Nae!” he defended, cutting her off. He had to stop her way of thinking now, before any hope of forgiveness was lost forever. “This is the first time I have come fer him. If ’twere me in the past, I would never harm a child or kill a woman, and I’m goin’ to find oot who is guilty of that and kill him.”
“Is that your remedy for everything? Kill?”
His mood grew darker. “Fer some, aye. But I didna kill yer mother or set fire to a home with any chance of a child being inside.”
She nodded and stared at him. “Will you leave my father alone? Please.”
“I was paid four hundred pounds by someone who wants him dead fer a crime—”
“He committed no crime, Tristan!” She closed her eyes and then swiped her cheeks again. “Do not do it. Please.”
He expected this. “Rose—”
She slapped his hand away, and then punched and kicked when he lifted her in his arms and deposited her across the saddle on her belly. He could have told her to take her horse and go. He could have given her directions to her castle and a day to get there before him. He didn’t care if Callanach was prepared for him. But he knew if he let her go now, there would be nothing left of them. He didn’t know if there even was a them. He just knew that he liked life better with her in it.
“Tristan, what do you think you are doing?” She fought him while he tied her horse’s reins to his. “Let me down. Let me go home and do not follow me!”
“I canna do that, Rose,” he tried to tell her, mounting the saddle behind her.
“Oh, aye, your reputation. I do not care about your foolish reputation! I care about my father!” She tried to push herself off him. “Let me sit up, you son of a wh—”
She squeaked out a gasp when he slapped her arse. “Watch yer tongue, Woman.”
She pushed herself up enough to look him in the eyes and slapped him across the face. “Watch your hands, brute, or next time I will slap you with something sharper.”
His face stung, as did his heart.
“Sharper than yer tongue?” he said, calming the fear behind the dark veils in her eyes that he would strike her harder. He would not. “I doubt such a thing exists.”
He dropped the reins, fit his hands under her arms, and then pulled her up and sat her sideways across his thighs. He took up the reins again and continued on toward her home beyond the city.
“Please do not kill my father, Tristan.”
He tried to harden his heart. He was used to doing it. He’d done it all his life. He’d been taught to prepare for death at all
