Enticing Eve: Scandalous Secrets, Book 2 (39 page)

Why had he kept her alive?

What was he going to do to her?

As if he could read her thoughts, the man spoke. “I won’t kill you. Unlike your husband, I don’t hurt innocents. He will believe I have killed you.” The man licked his lips, his once pale cheeks now a bright crimson from excitement. “By the time I kill him, he’ll beseech me to end his misery. His guilt will consume him. He’ll think I tortured you, killed you, because of him.”

Eve tried to ask why, but a piece of cloth was wedged in her mouth. All that escaped her throat was a garbled grunt.

“It’s your fault I gagged you,” he chided. “You almost ruined everything by screaming. I had to work fast, or he would have found you. Those walls aren’t thick, after all. It is how I learned of his wicked deeds. I overheard him speaking to his friend while lurking in the hidden recesses of the dwelling.”

Who is this man before me?
Eve wondered.

Unable to speak aloud, Eve pleaded with her eyes.
Who are you? Why are you doing this? Please let me go.

The man yawned, apparently unimpressed.

Eve surveyed her surroundings. She was in the barn she realized, as a horse whinnied behind her.
 

Struggling against the rope that bound her wrists, she tried to reach into her boot for her blade but couldn’t grasp it. Eve then attempted to wrench free, taking great care not to be obvious. The stranger turned away from her, surveying the main house through the windows.

“Not long now,” he mumbled. “The show is about to begin.”

What show?

The maniac rubbed his hands together, as if giddy with the prospect of his plan. “Yes, the horizon will burn blood red. If I am lucky, either the smoke or flames will consume him, saving me the effort. He thinks you are in the house, after all. If he truly loves you, he won’t leave until he’s found you.”

Even though Eve’s mind was still foggy, she tried to piece together the madman’s riddle to no avail as she continued her attempt to free her wrists from their confines.

The madman turned towards Eve again, and her hands stilled. “Does he love you?” He tipped his head to the side as he proceeded towards her, stalking his prey before placing his cold, calloused thumb and forefinger on her chin then turning her face, studying Eve’s profile. “Do you think he truly cares about you?”

If he wanted an answer, Eve couldn’t speak one, and she opted not to nod either. No, if he wanted a response, she’d make him take the cloth out of her mouth. She’d have a better chance of escaping if she could talk, a better chance of keep him preoccupied.

“What say you?” he asked, his hand stilling in the process of pulling the cloth from her mouth. “Do you promise not to scream?” he asked.

Eve nodded.

“No one can hear, I assure you,” he said then removed the cloth, tossing it onto the hay-strewn ground. “I hate hearing a woman scream.”

Coughing, she tucked that tidbit of information away for the time being. “Who are you?” she croaked.

The stranger’s bloodshot eyes gleamed. “I am Lachlan MacAlistair’s eldest son.”

“Keir,” she whispered. Colin had confided the name of Lachlan MacAlistair’s illegitimate son to her the night the floodgates opened and he told her everything.

“You’ve heard of me, I see,” Keir’s cheeks flushed a brighter shade of red, almost the color of his hair. “I’m famous.”

Infamous was more appropriate, but Eve didn’t test him instead choosing to keep her voice calm, struggling to keep her tone free of accusation. “Why are you doing this?”

“Ha!” Keir raking his pale fingers through his matted hair. “That is the question, is it not?”

“You are an earl. Colin told me,” Eve said. “Why does Lachlan’s inheritance matter? Why does Colin matter?”

All humor in Keir’s eyes was replaced by a flash of hatred. “Your husband is a fraud. Lachlan despised him. Lachlan changed his will, you know – including me before he died.”

“But he was unable to execute it before he passed away,” she surmised.

“No, he did so. His last will and testament was signed and legally binding; however, it disappeared.” Keir spat onto a mound of hay. “It was stolen, I know it. I am certain that your greedy bastard of a husband did it. Colin MacAlistair denied me my rightful inheritance.”

“Colin was away when his father passed,” Eve said, “there is no way he could have done so.”

“Your husband is clever,” Keir asserted. “My father told me never to trust him.”

Eve struggled to free her wrists. “Colin was abroad at the time of his father’s death—”

“Don’t you dare refer to Colin as that man’s son!” Keir roared, rounding on her. “Colin is a bastard, nothing more.”

So are you
, Eve thought. Her captor’s hypocritical assertion might have been amusing if he weren’t currently trying to kill her husband while keeping her tied to a chair after knocking her unconscious.

“Ah,” Keir whispered as he returned his attention to the window. “Let the fun begin.”

Eve peered over her captor’s shoulder. She couldn’t see the main house though she could see smoke billowing into the nighttime sky above. An orange haze was now illuminating the darkness.

Had the raging lunatic set fire to the house with Colin in it? What of the servants? Eve struggled harder to break free, twisting and turning her wrists.
 

With every attempt to free herself, the rope sliced deeper into Eve’s flesh. Pain seared through her skin until Eve was certain her wrists were now bleeding. She stilled, allowing the sticky liquid to pool around the rope.

“This was all too easy,” Keir muttered, looking for a brief moment at Eve as if he suspected her of an escape attempt. He studied her. “You were so easily manipulated. I heard Colin confiding in his friend how his guilt ate away at him. I knew if I placed the seeds of doubt within your mind, you’d construe your husband’s misplaced guilt for malice.”

Remorse, hard and relentless, pounded through Eve’s veins. How could she walk right into Keir’s trap? Where was Logan? She should have looked for him first. What made her think she could handle the intruder herself or assume that Logan would hear her?
 

“It hurt him more than I anticipated,” Keir continued. “Your fear of him, your mistrust crippled him.”

Eve knew something Keir did not. “Colin confessed everything to me. You have told me nothing I wasn’t already aware of.”

Keir turned towards her, rage contorting his facial features. “I gave him less credit than he deserved, I see.” He returned his attention to the fire. “It matters not for he will still die knowing he couldn’t save the woman he loved.”

Concentrating on the rope, Eve continued to twist her wrists until she was certain the rope was loosening. With her skin chafed and bloody, she rubbed her wrists together, hoping that her hands could slide through the slack if moist.

“How did you hear his conversation with Logan?” she asked, trying to keep the madman preoccupied.

Keir stared out the window. “As I explained to you previously, I was listening in the walls.”

“You are a coward,” she provoked him. She hadn’t planned to say it aloud, yet she couldn’t stop herself. “Lurking behind walls, hiding behind anonymous letters … only someone faint of heart does that.”

Keir refused to look at her. Either he hadn’t heard her, so completely enthralled by the havoc he was causing at the main house, or he viewed her as a nuisance.
 

High-pitched shrieks traveled through the smoky air. Servants fleeing from the flames perhaps?

Please, God, keep Colin safe. Please keep everyone safe.

She repeated her silent prayer until Keir rounded on her. “It’s time for me to go, my dear.” His tone was cloying causing a knot to form in her abdomen.

Something was wrong.

Keir held a dim gas lamp above his head. “I couldn’t tell you this earlier because you would have screamed. You will indeed die, tonight. Colin wouldn’t suffer nearly enough if he thought there was even a slim possibility you survived.”

He tossed the lamp onto a pile of hay, which ignited into hot flames and smoke. It was as if the temperature of the barn had risen several degrees in an instant.
 

Eve’s cheeks burned from the heat.

Several horses whinnied behind her, their hooves pounding against their wooden stalls. Eve had no idea how many horses were housed here; however, their desperation was clear.
 

They wanted out.
 

So did she.

For the second time tonight, Eve screamed. The sound, loud and blood-curdling caused Keir to laugh.

“Keep screaming,” he instructed. “By the time your husband realizes where you are, you shall be dead, and he’ll be mine to kill.”

Keir opened each of the stalls, allowing the beasts to flee.
How nice,
Eve thought,
that he draws the line at killing animals.
 

“Don’t do this,” Eve shouted. “Colin will kill you if you hurt me.”

Keir jeered. “Let him try.”

“If you do this, I will haunt you,” she avowed, trying again to loosen the ropes binding her wrists. “As God is my witness, you will pay.”

“Well, well, look at you,” Keir rubbed his hands together, his smile wide. “Had I known you possessed this much fire, I might have kept you for myself. Sadly for you, it is too late. You are fated to die tonight. Perhaps you will burn in hell with your husband.”
 

He tipped his head before slinking out of the barn and into the dead of night. Eve knew screaming was futile as the crackling of the fire, hot flames, and thick smoke now held her undivided attention. The barn would probably be engulfed in minutes though the smoke would more than likely kill her first.
 

It was small comfort.

Struggling to break free of her restraints, Eve noticed that though messy, her bloody wrists had gotten her nowhere closer to freedom.
 

She tried to tilt her chair over in the hopes that she could reach her blade. Back and forth, she swayed until it tipped over at last causing her to cry out in pain as her side hit the hard floor, one of her arms crushed between the weight of the chair and the floor.
 

Try as she might, Eve still couldn’t reach her blade.

Her eyes darted about the barn, desperate for anything that could help save her life. Near the fire, closer to it than she wanted to be, lay shards of glass from the lamp Keir had shattered. She could use those to slice through the ropes.

Eve coughed against the thick black smoke that had enveloped the barn’s interior. Using her shoulders and her knees, she inched slowly along the floor until the heat from the flames all but seared her flesh.
 

She reached for a piece of glass, her fingers fumbling with it, sawing at the rope. The rope began to fray.
 

Just a little more ...

Coughing harder now, Eve kept her head on the ground. Her wrists broke free in time for her to claw herself away from the flames. She paused long enough to untie the ropes that bound her ankles to the chair.

Running from the barn, Eve tripped over a branch. Pain wracked her joints as she hit the hard ground with a loud thud. She still coughed, her lungs fighting against the black smoke that filled them mere moments before.

Those same flames had now fully engulfed the barn. She turned towards the main house noting the red and orange flames consuming the interior of the structure, its thick smoke billowing above into the nighttime sky.

It was a clear night, in spite of the earlier rain, Eve noted. Stars dotted the veil of black sky, and the full moon glowed as if mocking the man-made cloud of smoke.

Eve pushed herself up against her palms then got to her feet. She had to help Colin. Keir was going to kill him.

Setting
 
off
 
at
 
a run,
 
Eve
 
struggled to
 
remain

upright, her ankles twisting in the hidden striations of the dark ground beneath her feet.

With each setback, she sprang again to her feet.
 

Dear God, please don’t let it be too late.

Her thoughts traveled to Keir’s accusation about Colin being a murderer. If Keir wanted to see a murderer, she would make certain he did. For, God help her, if she found Keir, Eve would kill him without a moment’s hesitation.

Keir wouldn’t stop torturing them until he was dead.

Eve would make certain that Keir joined his wretched father in hell.

* * *

Colin pushed through the thick veil of smoke, his handkerchief pressed tight over his nose and mouth.

Where is she?

He found the entrance to a hidden corridor that snaked through the walls of the estate. He raced through the winding path without a shred of luck finding Eve.

Eve wouldn’t be in danger if you hadn’t come back.
His conscience taunted him.
She’d be safe if you hadn’t pursued her.