Page 55 of This Laird of Mine

Jules clamped back a moment’s fear. They had taken one of the tunnels, and not the one in the middle like he and David had.

They rounded a curve in the tunnel and entered a chamber carved into the stone. Bright light spilled through the open space, revealing three people in hooded cloaks with their backs turned.

Jules drew his sword, poised to strike, when the hooded figure in the middle turned around. “Welcome, Lord Kildare.” Beady eyes peered out from beneath the hood. “If you know what is good for you, you’ll put that weapon down.”

A female voice.

The two hooded figures on either side of her turned to reveal Claire and Penelope both tied and bound, on their knees, with a knife at each of their throats. Penelope’s blue eyes glittered with tears. Claire’s golden eyes sparked with defiance.

“Look what dropped into my lair?” the woman said, stepping toward Claire, stroking the side of her face with the back of her hand.

Claire pulled away despite the danger. “Leave me. Find the girls.”

“You’ll never find them, at least not before it’s too late.” The cloaked figure turned her hand around and dug her nails into the side of Claire’s face, leaving three long, bloodied scratches.

Jules took a deep breath as he fought the fury building inside. He and David could easily take the three of them if it weren’t for the women. He had no doubt that if either of them made a move, Claire and Penelope would be killed. Jules set down his sword, and David followed his lead.

The woman lunged forward and grabbed both weapons, hurling them behind her. A sinister laugh erupted from her. “I have been waiting for this moment for the last six years.”

“Who are you?” Jules demanded. Six years ago he had been summoned home from his position as Lord Lennox’s squire by his father.

“You actually have no idea, do you?” The woman came closer. “Oh, this is delicious—better than I could ever have hoped for.”

Her voice sounded familiar, but such a thing would be impossible. His mind was playing tricks on him. “Reveal yourself.”

“Not before I reveal my purpose.”

“Revenge?” Jules ground out. “What else could this be?”

The woman came to a stop just out of his reach. If only he could grab her and the dagger in his boot before they slit Claire’s throat. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to strike.

The hooded figure must have seen his subtle movement because she took a step back. “But is that revenge against you? David? Claire?”

“Without knowing who you are, it makes it hard to tell,” David growled, earning a glare from those beady eyes.

“Would you like to know?” The woman’s voice changed; became less strained, as though she had been modulating it before to hide something. A shiver raced down his back. He recognized that voice—the new one. He could only stare as the woman reached up and gripped the edges of her hood. Slowly, she slid the dark wool back to reveal a head of darker hair streaked with gray and an age-lined face.

A familiar face.

“You.” Jules’s voice remained steady and did not betray the shock tearing his gut.

“Me.” She smiled, the look sinister.

He remembered that smile—the one that always marked her as a little bit mad. “You are supposed to be dead, stepmother.”

“Your stepmother?” Claire whispered.

Jules’s heart hammered against his ribs as he tethered his shock and his rage. He had spent sixteen months and twenty-seven days in gaol for a murder he had never committed. Undeniable proof now stood before him as his brain scrambled back to the past. “You staged your own death, Agatha. Why?”

“You refused to give me the one thing I wanted. The thing I longed for most in this world. You made me suffer, and I wanted your death.” An angry flush touched her cheeks. “But you didn’t die. So now it is my turn to make you suffer as I have through the years.”

She reached beneath her cloak and pulled out a coiled length of rope. She held it out to David. “Form a loop in the rope and slide it around your wrists.”

David didn’t move.

“If you do not do as I say . . .” she let the words trail off as she looked at the man who held Penelope, “the young one dies.”

Penelope whimpered.