A loud crack challenged the thunder.
“Mast down!” shouted the bosun.
In grim disbelief Rourke watched the mizzenmast crash to the deck, shredding rigging and splintering deck boards.
As crewmen scurried to secure loose rigging, Hegarty appeared, cursing and stomping up the stairs from belowdecks. The dwarf wore Rourke’s best waistcoat like a tunic, his wild mane of red hair dragging with the weight of the rain. He put his head down against the strengthening gale and made his way toward Rourke.
The ship pitched and Rourke grabbed the dwarf before he could be swept overboard. “Look at my ship! You’d damn well better be through.”
“ ’ Tis a poor day for magic.” Hegarty glared at him as if he blamed him for calling down the storm. “We must stay until it’s done.”
“No more. We’re through here. If we survive this storm, I’m making a new heading straight back to the West Indies.” And buying that plantation on the Isle of St. Christopher he’d been eyeing. He’d bloody well had enough of the sea.
Hegarty clung to his wrist, his small fingernails digging ridges into Rourke’s skin. “Today is the day, Pup. She must come to us. The prophecy will unfold at last.”
The words twisted like a dull blade in Rourke’s gut. “And I would be far, far away when it does. I promised to bring you back and so I have. On the morrow, I’m leaving, with or without you.”
Hegarty regained his footing and smiled with that infuriating surety that always boded ill.
Rourke shook his head against the canny look in the smaller man’s eyes. “You’ll not pull me into this, Heg. I was not named in the prophecy. Only her.”
“Named? Not precisely.” Hegarty continued to smile, unnerving him.
“Dammit, man, you’ll not involve me. ’Tis you who is determined to set this disaster to flight. Why can ye not leave well enough alone?”
“Well enough for whom?” The dwarf’s smiled disappeared, his dark eyes flashing as he pressed the tip of his finger into Rourke’s soaked chest. “Naught will be right until the prophecy unfolds. It will unfold, Pup, and it will involve ye whether ye like it or not.” He flashed Rourke a smile of such certainty that the hairs rose on Rourke’s sodden flesh. “Now release me so that I may return to the business at hand.” He patted Rourke’s chest. “Do not look so grim, lad. Ye’ve been waiting for this all your life, whether you know it or not. You’ve been waiting for me to find Brenna Cameron.”
CASTLE STOUR,
NORTHEAST SCOTLAND,
PRESENT DAY
A fine tension ran the length of Brenna Cameron’s spine as the tour guide’s thickly brogued voice echoed off the dungeon walls. Electric lights in the shape of medieval torches lined the dank space, illuminating display cases of gleaming swords and lances. Tourists—nearly two dozen of them—milled about, studying the weapons that seemed to infuse the low, dreary room with an air of ancient menace.
Brenna shoved her hands into her jacket pockets as she wandered among the families and traveling couples, pretending an interest she didn’t feel. She needed to blend in and look like one of the tourists. She couldn’t afford for anyone to guess the real reason she was here. Not yet. Not until she found him.
“Imagine these kitchens as they would ha’ looked in the sixteenth century, before the fire, before this space became the castle’s dungeons.” The guide motioned dramatically, his bald head bobbing with each word. “Imagine the tables fillin’ every bit o’ space. The hen wife pluckin’ the fowl, the
turnbrochie
turning the roasting spit over the fireplace. Pots and cauldrons a-steamin’ and a-bubblin’ with stews and broths.”
Brenna’s fingers closed around the roll of peppermint Life Savers in her pocket. She pulled it out and popped one candy in her mouth with not-quite-steady hands. Aunt Janie had whisked her out of Scotland when she was five, then died when she was ten, leaving her with nothing but the sapphire pendant around her neck and the title of the man responsible for their flight—the Earl of Slains. He lived here somewhere, in some part of this partially restored castle. And she wasn’t leaving until she found him and confronted him about what he knew.
On her deathbed Janie had made Brenna promise to return to Scotland for her twenty-fifth birthday. Unfortunately, Brenna didn’t remember the name of the town or village where she’d been born. She remembered almost nothing from those early years. The earl was her only clue.
The guide motioned the group to follow, then started for the far corner, away from the stairs. Brenna sighed, her patience stretching thin. She needed to find the earl, or at least identify the way into his private living quarters. That wasn’t likely to happen down here in the dungeons.
She’d tried to contact the earl from home to ask what he knew about her, but his swift, emphatic response had startled her.
Stay away
. If he’d claimed not to know her, she’d probably have let it go. The last thing she wanted to do was reopen the deeply buried wells of loneliness and hurt she’d lived with after Janie died. Yes, she’d promised Janie to return to Scotland for her twenty-fifth birthday, but really . . . who would know, or care, if she didn’t?
But the earl clearly knew who she was. And she was determined to know why. Was she due an inheritance he didn’t want to part with? Was her arrival likely to be an embarrassment in some way? Well, too bad. She needed to know who she was and why Janie had taken her away from everything she’d known. She needed to know what had happened to the father who’d loved her.
Once the group gathered, the guide continued his speech. “During the excavation of these kitchens, an amazin’ discovery was made in this pantry.” He led them to a small alcove in the far back corner, reached in, and pulled a light cord. “A hidden door that opens onto a passage out to the cliffs.”
The guide ducked into the low-ceilinged pantry and motioned those closest to follow. Brenna was caught by the surge and pulled deep inside the small space.
“The door dates from the original construction over four hundred years ago,” the man continued. “The first Earl of Slains conquered the castle soon after it was built, but apparently never learned of the door. During the mid- 1600s, the kitchens were moved to the outer ranges and this space turned into a prison, or dungeon. In 1687, during the time of the third earl, the castle was destroyed. A fortune in weapons went up in flames—weapons hidden here during the Covenanting Wars. Had the earl and his people known of this passage, the weapons would surely have been moved to safety.”
Brenna glanced toward the door, wanting out of the press of people, but for the time being she was going nowhere. While she languished in his dungeons on this never-ending tour, the earl was probably driving off in his chauffeur-driven Bentley for parts unknown.
“How did the castle burn?” a young Brit asked, his hair fanning from his head in long spikes.
“ ’ Tis said a pirate and his lady attacked the third earl and set his castle aflame.”
The young man laughed. “Did they best him?”
“Och, aye, though he was not greatly missed. A bad one, the earl was.” The guide ran his hand over one of the shelves. “Can ye see the door?”
No sooner had he uttered the words than the wall behind him swung inward, causing one of the attached shelves to hit him in the shoulder. A small girl of six or seven poked her head through the opening. Short red hair framed a gamine face liberally sprinkled with freckles.
The guide clutched his chest overdramatically. “Ah, Lintie, lass. Ye stole ten years from my life, ye did.”
The girl giggled. “The earl’s using the observe-tory. You canna be coming in.” With that, she closed the door.
Brenna’s heart stopped beating for an instant before taking off like a flock of doves. She’d found him.
The guide let an expletive escape under his breath. “The one time I don’t want him to be around.” He shrugged. “That was the earl’s granddaughter. Apparently he’s chosen to use the cave this morn. I’ll not be able to show you the tunnel.”
A chorus of disappointed murmurs filled the small space as the guide motioned them out of the pantry. Brenna hung back, taking off her jacket in a sudden flush of nervous heat. As the tourists disappeared out the pantry door, Brenna whirled and grabbed one of the shelves, swinging the hidden door open. She slipped through and closed it behind her, holding her breath as she waited for someone to reach through and snatch her back.
The sound of small, bare feet raced away from her, down the long, primitive tunnel that wound through the rock, echoing the pounding of her heart. The musty smell of damp stone enveloped her in the dimly lit space.
She took a deep, unsteady breath, pushed away from the wall, and started into the cave, stepping lightly, silently, over the uneven rock. Her pulse raced. Her scalp grew damp with sweat at the prospect of confronting the earl. But she wanted to know, dammit. She
needed
to know why she’d been abandoned.
Her father had loved her. She was sure of it.
Her fingers reached for the comfort of the sapphire at her throat as the only memory left to her of those early years brushed over her. He’d held her in strong arms, tight against his chest, as the winds of a brewing storm whipped her straight auburn hair in a frenzy around her face. She’d laughed at the feel of it. His answering laughter had rumbled in his chest, filling her with joy. Then he’d lifted her high, twirling her once as he grinned at her with pure adoration.
She remembered the rain had started, and he’d tucked her against his chest, shielding her as he’d run for cover. Keeping her safe.
He’d loved her, dammit. He’d
loved
her. Why had he let Janie take her away? Why hadn’t he come when she’d needed him?
He would have. If he’d been able. With the wisdom of an adult instead of the hurt of an abandoned child, she knew that now. The fact that he hadn’t come had something to do with the Earl of Slains.
And she intended to get to the bottom of it.
Voices carried to her from deep in the tunnel, one deep, elderly, and angry. She rounded the final corner and saw him. His bent shape stood in silhouette against the upside-down Hershey’s Kiss shape of the cave’s mouth, the freckled girl, Lintie, standing before him.
“How many times have I told you to stay away from the tourists? If I catch you again, I will take my cane to your backside, lassie!”
Lintie darted away from him, out where raindrops bounced on a small patch of rock that extended beyond the cave’s mouth like a porch. The child climbed onto the rusted iron railing that encircled the ledge, then threw her grandfather a mulish expression and jumped, disappearing over the edge.
Brenna gasped, her heart in her throat, and ran for the rail.
“Who are you?” the elderly man demanded as she brushed past him.
“The girl . . .” She’d seen the treacherous cliffs and jagged rocks as she’d driven the coast road. The child couldn’t possibly have survived such a fall. But as Brenna lunged for the rail, she heard the unmistakable sound of little girl laughter, and the tightness eased from her chest.
She peered over the rail to find the child sitting on an outcropping of rock, her face tilted up, her mouth open, catching raindrops. Behind her, the rock slid off into a crude, precarious path amongst the sharp, knifepoint turns and crevices of the cliff face.
The secret cave had a secret path.
“Who are you?”
Brenna whirled to face the distinguished-looking white-haired gentleman.
The earl
. He had to be. Anger and nervousness flared within her in equal measures as she prepared to open what she expected to be an ugly can of worms.
She strode out of the rain and back into the cave as the man moved toward her, the clip of cane on stone echoing over the rock.
“You’re the Earl of Slains.”
“I am. And you’re trespassing.”
“I have a reason. You had something to do with my being sent to America as a child. I want to know what.”
He peered at her suspiciously. “And who would you be, then?”
She hesitated, watching him carefully. “I’m Brenna Cameron.”
His reaction was far more than she expected. The earl’s eyes widened. His cane clattered to the floor as the color drained from his face.
My God.
Had she somehow inherited his castle out from under him?
The earl’s expression changed abruptly, his pale face flooding red as he took a menacing step toward her. “Out!” His voice cracked with the effort of shouting. He stumbled forward and picked up his cane, then brandished it at her. “Get her out of here!”
Too late, she saw the angry-faced guide rushing toward her from the tunnel. She swung her gaze back to the earl, holding her ground against the threatening cane.
“No. You can’t do this. You owe me an explanation.”
But the guide grabbed her by the arm and roughly yanked her away. Brenna struggled against his hold, shouting over her shoulder, “Tell me what you know!”
The earl’s hoarse voice followed her as the guide hauled her away. “You burned this castle three hundred years ago, Brenna Cameron. You’ll not do it again!”