“No! By helping me exorcise the spirit of Catriona.”
He rubbed his hands over his face and into his hair, wishing she wouldn’t say these things. “Are you insane?”
She threw her hand up into the air as if he was the unreasonable one. “I’m trying to stay alive. You can’t protect me because you refuse to see who truly threatens me.”
“My dead wife? Bloody Christ, Gillian, stop it!” She tried to speak again, and his temper flared hotter. “Stop it! I can’t listen to any more of this rot.” He needed a drink before his head exploded. Gillian glared at him, white-lipped, left arm ramrod straight and fisted at her side.
He crossed to his desk, where the cup of whisky he’d poured earlier rested. He lifted it to his lips, then paused, peering into the cup.
“What the hell is this?”
A tiny doll floated on the surface of the whisky. He fished it out and dangled it in front of his face, scowling at it. “What is this? One of your charms?”
Gillian’s expression of tight rage faltered, her eyes widening on the doll. “That’s why he took the doll.”
Nicholas crossed to the fireplace and tossed the whisky in it. The fire blazed up. “Who?”
When Gillian didn’t answer, he turned to look at her. She looked tormented, her brows drawn up, white teeth worrying her bottom lip.
“Who?” he repeated, inspecting the wet doll with new interest. It had flax for hair and wore fine velvet clothes, ruined now from the whisky. It must have been part of the dollhouse in the west wing.
Gillian lifted her shoulders and turned away from him. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
Nicholas closed his eyes, his head dropping forward as the irritation welled up inside. “Oh God. Let me guess. A ghost put it there? Kincreag’s ghosts have nothing better to do than drop dolls in my whisky?”
“Malcolm doesn’t.”
Her soft words hit him like an ax and buried in his chest. His son was condemned to wander endlessly though Kincreag, trying to get Nicholas’s attention by dropping dolls in his whisky? It was absurd. And it was cruel. His hand fisted around the tiny doll. He’d been as patient as he could be with all the other ghost nonsenseshe prattled on about, but this was too much. He flung the horrid thing away from him. It bounced off the wall and skittered beneath a cabinet.
Gillian turned, her gaze darting from the cabinet back to him.
“You’ve gone too far, Gillian. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, or if you really think these things are happening, but I won’t listen to another word. Do you understand?”
He expected an argument and prepared himself for it. But she didn’t argue. Her large gray eyes regarded him with sadness and resignation. Her shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath. Then she crossed to the door.
“I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not. I warned you. You’ll be confined to your chambers until you can promise me—”
“No, Nicholas. I’m leaving Kincreag. I’m going to Lochlaire.”
Her words brought him up short. “I won’t let you.”
“My father is dying. You would keep me from him?”
And that easily, she trapped him. A vise closed on his heart as he stared at her. “I’ll go with you.” The anger drained from his voice, making it sound hollow to his ears.
“I think it best I go alone—with my sisters, of course. Sir Philip and his men will escort and protect me.”
Nicholas rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Gillian, wait . . .”
The door closed behind her, shutting him out.
20
In the end, Nicholas let her go. He almost changed his mind when he saw her, sitting wan and frail upon her gray horse. She’d been through a great deal. She should not be moved so soon. She needed rest. But when she refused to look at him as she passed through the gate, he did nothing, just stood there, stone-faced, hands clasped hard behind his back to hide their shaking. Evan rode beside her. She’d tried to refuse the knight’s protection, but Nicholas had insisted. He’d made it clear to Evan that if anything happened to her, there would be the devil to pay.
Nicholas toyed with the urge to follow her, but he was still angry, too. He knew Gillian would never purposely be cruel to him, and yet he could not believe his son still roamed the halls of Kincreag, condemned to haunt this place. He’d been so small when he’d died. What God would sentence a baby to endless wandering? He couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t.
