Page 43 of Bargaining with the Devil

Isobel told her once that it wasn’t only the song she played that touched her audience, it was the joy she infused it with. Isobel said it fairly shone from her face while she played.

She’d left her violin behind along with everything else when she went with Teddy. And she hadn’t played it since, although Isobel had brought it among their possessions when they relocated to Kirkcudbrightshire after their return from France.

She’d picked it up a number of times. Checked that the fiddle and bow remained in good repair. Even put it in position, the ghosts of melodies flitting through her mind and fingers.

But she never played. The light had gone out. The joy was gone, dead and buried, along with the family who’d nurtured her talent and her delight in music.

Why, of all things, was she humming now? And this tune? For it wasn’t just a random melody. It was one of her favorites to play back in those happier days.

The answer, upon more reflection, was Quinn. He poked at her and asked her questions she didn’t want to think about and teased her and invaded her space. Not a recipe for happiness, surely? But he also made her feel lighter. So odd, that a man with so much darkness in him could lighten her life.

Except he wasn’t dark, not fully. Somehow he’d been able to do the things he did and take on the life he had without it painting his soul with pitch. And now he was extending that grace to her, confusing as it was.

She’d wanted to go to bed with him. It wasn’t just that he had awakened hunger in her body. He had relit the small flame that had gone out in her heart.

No. Not my heart. I will not, cannot, let him into that. That wasn’t what this was. She’d had that once before—or thought she had. How wrong she’d been.

But this was something. Something that felt precious.

As she made her way around Heston’s shore, nature’s music and the tune swelling her heart were soothing; she allowed them to lull her.

They concealed the footsteps behind her until it was too late.

Ahand covered her mouth. She was jerked violently backwards. A sudden blow on the back of her head stunned her and knocked her to her knees.

Disoriented, she tried to push herself upright, but hands on her shoulder forced her face down onto the wet shingle. Something rough abraded her cheek, and mud coated her lips, making her gag.

“Look what we have here,” a masculine voice said, chuckling. “If it isn’t one of my brother’s whores.”

Understanding, followed immediately by terror, cut through the disorientation. Lymington.

She tried pushing back but had no leverage. Her arms were pinned beneath her, and she wasn’t strong enough against cruel hands holding her down. She tried kicking, but her legs were tangled in her skirt.

A knee came down on the small of her back. Sharp pain flashed through her innards. She tried twisting away, and the knee applied more pressure. Desperate to ease the pain, she stopped struggling.

Air, mud- and sea-flavored, was in too short a supply. She was immobilized, in pain, still slightly muzzy-minded from the blow to her head. Sucking in what breaths she could, she faced the sickening conclusion that she had very little choice but to submit.

“I’ve heard of your predilection for walking alone along the shore,” Lymington said conversationally, breath touching her ear. “I’ve been planning to make good use of that information at some point. I could have had one of the men take care of you well before now, but for the trouble you’ve caused, I preferred to keep that pleasure for myself.”

Her gut twisted at his words. People had seen her walking. Well, of course they had. She encountered neighbors regularly. But the men of whom he spoke had not only observed her, they’d reported back to him. For how long? And who were they? Fishermen, perhaps, men who worked alongside Nathaniel in the bay?

Surely people she interacted with regularly, in church or at community gatherings. She could think of no one with whom she was not on friendly terms. Whoever they were, they’d thought nothing of reporting back to Lymington even knowing he meant her ill.

And— Her skin crawled, because he must have been watching her too at some point, for how else would he have recognized her?

He yanked her hands one by one from beneath her, looping rope around them and tying it tightly. He used the rope to jerk her to her feet. The rough fibers bit into her wrists as he swung her around.

And she got her first look at him.

She froze.

No. You’re dead.

Nathaniel slit his throat two years ago. There was no chance he hadn’t died. None. Nathaniel had described it to her in detail. There was no coming back from that sort of wound. And she didn’t believe in ghosts, at least not of the supernatural variety.

Lymington looked so similar to Jeremiah Compton on first glance—the face that still haunted her worst dreams—that he could be his dead brother. Compton’s face was forever engraved in her mind. In her nightmares.

But he was dead, and Lymington was alive. And Lymington was more dangerous than a ghost.