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Helen decided to let it drop. “Then what happened?”
“And… and I cried. I didn’t want to—I tried not to, but I couldn’t seem to help myself,” she confessed miserably. “I hated crying in front of him.”
Helen’s mouth tightened, and she concentrated on braiding Abigail’s hair. For a brief, fierce moment, she wished that Alistair had killed Mr. Wiggins.
she let him. Because although she’d never said anything, he knew she wasn’t the type of woman who could live simply for the moment. Sooner or later, she would start to wonder about the future, perhaps question if she could spend it with him. And then, inevitably, she would discover that he had no future to offer her.
Then she would leave him.
Lowering thought. He pushed it aside, at least for the moment, because he’d learned that there was no use fighting fate. Eventually she would leave him; eventually he would mourn her, but not today. He threw back the covers, washed, retied the eye patch carefully, and dressed. Sophia had said that she’d be leaving this morning, and he fully expected her to be downstairs, impatiently waiting while her bags were loaded into the carriage.
The hallway downstairs was deserted, however, when he stepped into it. He checked the front drive, but although the carriage did wait there, his sister was nowhere about. Perhaps she was taking breakfast. He strode back into the castle and made his way to the dining room, where he found one of the maids laying out silverware. She curtsied when she saw him.
“Is Miss Munroe about?” he asked.
“She hasn’t come down, sir,” the maid replied.
Alistair grinned. Sophia had overslept—a rarity and an occasion for ribbing. “Go up, please, and rouse her and Miss MacDonald. My sister wanted to make an early start this morning.”
“Yes, sir.” The maid curtsied again and scurried from the room.
Alistair found a basket of warm rolls on the sideboard and took one; then he wandered into the hallway again. He wanted to be present when his sister made her belated entrance. He munched on the bun, strolling down the hall toward the kitchens, and then he heard it. The sound sent a prickling chill down his back and turned the bun in his mouth to ashes.
Weeping. A child weeping.
Helen hadn’t gotten to this part of the castle yet, and there were several unused rooms off the ancient hallway. He strode from door to door until he located that forlorn sound, and then he pushed it open. The room was dim, dust motes floating in the feeble ray of sun creeping in from a dirty window. At first he couldn’t see her, until she moved and whimpered.
Abigail crouched in a corner, next to a sheet-draped settee, the puppy clutched in her arms.
He started forward slowly, not sure of the problem or if he could do anything about it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wiggins sneaking from the other door at the far end of the room.
Red washed over his vision.
He had no memory of moving, no memory of intent, but when next he was aware, he had Wiggins’s scrawny neck in his grasp, and he was throttling the life from the man and knocking his head against the flagstones in the hallway.
“Alistair!”
Someone close by called his name, but he was interested only in the foul, reddening face in front of him. How dare he? How dare he touch her? He wouldn’t again. Never, never again.
“Alistair!”
A soft, feminine palm was laid against his scarred cheek. Gentle pressure turned his head. Then he was staring into harebell-blue eyes. “Don’t, Alistair. Let him go.”
“Abigail,” he rasped.
“She’s fine,” Helen said slowly. “I don’t know what he said to her, but he didn’t physically harm her.”
That, finally, was the only thing that restored reason to his brain. He abruptly let go, straightening and backing up a step. Only then did he see that Sophia and Miss McDonald stood at the bottom of the stairs, still in their wrappers. Miss McDonald had one arm around a wide-eyed Jamie. Helen stood shivering only in a chemise. She must’ve run down the stairs without even stopping to put on a wrapper. And Abigail was behind her, her face tearstained as she held the puppy in her arms.
He took a deep breath to steady his voice and asked low, “Did he touch you?”
Abigail shook her head mutely, her eyes locked with his.
He nodded and looked back to Wiggins, who was gasping for breath on the hall floor. “Get out. Get out of my castle, get off my lands, and make sure you never show your face near me again.”
“Ye’ll regret this!” the little man rasped. “See if ye don’t. I’ll be back. I’ll take that little bitch—”
Alistair balled his fists and took a step toward him. In a flash, Wiggins was on his feet and running out the castle doors.
