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He yanked off her gag. “No one will hear you down here while everyone is beyond the castle walls looking for me—including your mate. Wouldn’t he be surprised to learn you decided to take a swim in the cold, black sea at my urging? Only he’ll never know I had anything to do with it.”
“You can’t mean to kill me.” Yet she knew he intended just that.
“Centuries earlier, my grandfather should have owned this place.” Archibald pulled her down the path leading to the breakers.
She balked at being moved, but she knew he could just as well toss her over his shoulder and then take care of her before long anyway. The thought that both Grant’s mother and father died in the same manner chilled her to the core. Somehow she had to prolong this so Grant or one of his men would realize she was gone. They could trace her scent and, hopefully, realize she’d ended up in the sewer pipe and then landed on the beach, and not that she’d walked into the room and then left. She belatedly realized Archibald had no scent. Why wouldn’t he? They wouldn’t know that he’d forced her to leave with him and that she was in trouble. She feared they’d never learn of it in time. She had to stall him.
“Your grandfather Uilleam killed mine on the battlefield, didn’t he? He wasn’t cut down by one of the enemy clan’s swords, but by his own loyal man,” Colleen said, sure of it now as chilling raindrops ran down her face.
“Sometimes a fine line exists between your enemies and your friends. Gideon Playfair fought bravely in battle and died. That’s all anyone needs to remember,” Archibald said.
“He died at your grandfather’s hand,” she said, trying to yank her arm free of Archibald’s fierce grip as he moved her closer to the breakers. The aspect of being in that icy water was all the more terrifying since she’d already felt its chilling pull when she and Ollie were swept away. She never wanted to experience that again. She kept telling herself she’d read about people winter-swimming in frigid water, believing it was healthy for the body. But doing it all tied up with the threat of being smashed against jagged cliffs? She didn’t believe that would be good for anyone’s health.
“Then John MacQuarrie had to learn of the theft in the accounts and tell Neda. Uilleam explained to her that John had lied about the figures, but she still believed John,” Archibald said.
“Because John hadn’t lied, and Neda knew it. Uilleam must have broken her heart.”
Archibald shrugged. “All in doing business.”
“So he never really loved her. She was just a means to an end. What are you planning? Why kill me?”
Fury in his expression, he scowled down at her. “My father was a good friend of your father. If Theodore hadn’t been such a bloody—”
She slipped and fell on the rocks, freeing herself from Archibald’s steel grasp for an instant and landing on her butt.
Archibald immediately dove for her and jerked her to her feet, his breath unsteady. “Well, they got rid of Robert’s mate, figuring as much as he loved her, he’d neglect the estates or kill himself. He did neither. The first opportunity Haldane and Theodore had, they helped him join his beloved mate. But Neda still wouldn’t install Theodore as a manager of the estates. She knew him too well—his drinking problem, his lack of caring anything for the properties, his inability to handle money. He would have bled the estates dry. He hated Robert MacQuarrie, and he hated Grant and his brothers for the affection your grandmother doled out to them.”
“If Theodore had become manager, how would that have helped your father?”
“Haldane and Theodore were the best of friends. They would have found a way to rid themselves of Neda Playfair. That was the plan. But Theodore was too much of an arse and was so furious that his mother didn’t let him run the properties that he left for America and abandoned my father. And after all they’d done together, too.”
“So when my father did inherit the castle, you thought you could convince him to let you take over management, but what happened? By that time he didn’t care?”
“Aye. The bloody sot was too fond of his bottle. Then I had the idea that if he died, you would inherit. But damn if you didn’t take up with Grant. I never expected that. He’d made it well known he wasn’t happy that Theodore’s daughter was coming here to tell him how to run things. I figured I’d step in and be your Highland hero. Take him to task. Protect you. It was working so well. But I never expected you to stoop so low as to give in and go with him. I still didn’t believe you would fall for him. In the past, you’d always ended up mating betas.”
“You’re not a beta,” she said.
He smiled, albeit the look was pure evil. “You’re right. It was killing me not to be like Grant was toward you. I figured the time would come when I could be myself around you—after we were mated.”
“Only he’s my hero,” she said, chin up, glowering at Archibald. “And my mate.”
“So where is your hero now, eh, lass? He will lose you, like he lost his mother and his father. Maybe he won’t manage your loss as well and will join you in the deep, briny sea.”
Even if she didn’t make it, she knew Archibald wouldn’t, either—her only bright side to this deadly situation. “They’ll kill you. You won’t be able to escape.”
Archibald waved his hand at the darkness. “A raft. How do you think I got here in the first place? I have no plans to die today or any other. And I’ve left no hint of my scent anywhere.”
The notion that he could get away with murder made her sick to her stomach. She saw the black rubber raft tied up against the rocks, black as the water, and she could see how Archibald had managed to make his way here without anyone spotting him. Though in ye old times, men serving guard duty on top of the wall walk probably would have noticed if a wooden boat had ventured to the cliffs, but it surely would have been dashed against the sharp-edged crags.
She thought the raft looked half-waterlogged, between the rain and the waves, and drooped a little on one side. Losing air? A hole or two in the rubber sides?
He would drown, she hoped, if she had to.
Chapter 25
This had to end now, Grant vowed. No more Borthwicks would harm his family. As soon as he realized Archibald wasn’t with his other men out front, Grant returned to the bedchamber to check on Colleen. He didn’t believe any harm could come to her there, but he still felt wary about leaving her alone. Partly because he was afraid she might have tried to follow him—as alpha as she was.
