The insistent rap at the door vibrated into Glenna’s rib cage, and she gasped before Frang’s palm covered her mouth.
“Shh,” he warned, his sparse, coarse eyebrows drawing together. He whispered his hot breath into her ear. “Answer easy, ken?”
Glenna nodded, and Frang slowly removed his hand from her mouth just as another insistent knock sounded. Glenna couldn’t help the whimper that squeaked out of her.
“Miss Douglas?” a servant girl queried from beyond the door.
Glenna tried to answer but had to clear her throat before any sound would come. “What is it?”
“Laird Cameron wishes to inquire of you. Are you well, miss?”
Frang Roy sent her a meaningful look.
“My father is resting. I don’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but he wants you right away. In his chambers, miss.”
She met Frang Roy’s gaze as he nodded.
“I’ll be along when I’ve finished here.”
“Aye, miss.”
The echo of footsteps retreated in the corridor.
“I am nae the only one who knows the truth,” Frang warned her quietly. “And once it has been brought out into the open, I canna help you.”
“Frang, this is madness,” she choked. “Am I to believe such horrid accusations about my own father on naught but your word?”
“That brooch of your da’s,” he said. “Look closely at the portrait in the hall and you’ll see it. You’ve been lied to all your life.” His callused thumb stroked her jaw for one gruesome moment, and then he released her and stepped back, his wide grin revealing the decaying gaps in his teeth as he reached inside the neck of his filthy shirt, withdrawing a small leather pouch on a thong around his neck.
“Look here what I’ve managed to lay hand to. Steep half o’ this in a drink before your lover comes to you tonight, and give it to him.” He ducked his head and then pressed the pouch into her chest, where Glenna raised her hands to take it, if only to keep his fingers from brushing against her skin. He continued. “After all in the hold are abed, unbar the door for me. I’ll cut his throat while he sleeps. We have nae need to worry anymore about him after that.”
Time seemed to stop then, and Glenna felt an icy chill race up her spine. In that moment, she saw Tavish Cameron’s blue eyes in her mind, heard the rich timbre of his voice echoing in her memory. Harriet’s son, the man who had brought Roscraig back to life…
Glenna shook her head. “Nay. Nay, you can’t do that. I…I will be suspect. Of course. After all, it is my home he thinks to steal. And…and my bed he sleeps in. There are guards…”
“Then give him all of it,” Frang said pointedly. “It’ll take longer that way, mayhap a pair of days. I’ll wait nae longer than that for a sign that I have your cooperation, you ken?”
Glenna shook her head slightly, the roar in her head making his words and their meaning foreign.
“I’ll already have all the coin I could ever want. If you refuse my help, you’re free to stay behind and fend off the king,” he said. “I’ll find another woman, aye. Mayhap even the mouthy Miss Keane might be persuaded to comfort me in my new wealth.” He raised his hand and cupped her breast. “Although ’twill be your face I see with each stroke.” Glenna’s nostrils burned as he stepped away. “Go, lest he send another maid after you and discover me here.”
She turned and grasped the door handle and then looked back over her shoulder at her father. She glanced up at Frang Roy but could not bring herself to hold his gaze.
“You swear you won’t harm him after I am gone?”
“Aye, I swear it,” he answered. “He’s the only one who’ll be able to convince you what I say is true.”
It took every ounce of strength in her arms to open the door and step into the corridor, leaving her father with that beast of a man.
But Frang Roy had opened another door in Glenna’s mind that night. And she was infinitely more fearful of walking through that figurative portal than the one she exited now.
She closed the door behind her.
Chapter 12
It seemed to Tavish that the maid had been gone for more than an hour, and it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on the conversation with the two barons before him. He felt more than a pinch of chagrin that he’d allowed himself to send the maid to locate Miss Douglas in the first place, but now that he was waiting for an answer, he could barely pay heed to the old noblemen who were quite openly curious about his plans for Roscraig.
