“Where is he?” he demanded of Thomas Campbell.
“I doona ken where he went, Laird.” Thomas stumbled out of the forge on unsteady legs, obviously shaken by how close he’d come to death. “He disappeared right after ye did.”
A sick fear lodged in his gut as Liam turned and rushed back toward the warehouse. Mena flattened herself against the door to get out of his way as he stalked past her to check the shadows and corners below the place where the barrel had landed.
No Andrew. He was safe. But as Liam inspected the shelf from where the whisky had fallen, one thing became staggeringly clear. The barrel had been pushed by someone. And if Liam hadn’t stepped toward Mena when he did …
It would have crushed him.
CHAPTER NINE
“Andrew?” Mena pushed open the door to Andrew’s bedroom only to find him bent over in the corner scrubbing the stones with a bucket and brush. “Whatever are you doing?”
“Miss Lockhart.” He scrambled to his feet and scowled at her. “What are ye doing in my room? Is my father with ye?”
Mena read something beneath the aversion in his voice. Anxiety, maybe, or guilt, as though she’d caught him doing something wrong. The farther she ventured into his chamber, the more concerned she became. It was done entirely in red and black, but for the goose down fluffs that now covered the floor and almost every other surface of the otherwise tidy room. They rolled across the stones and carpets in the slightest breeze caused by her skirts. The disemboweled corpses of his pillows lay strewn at the foot of his bed, and one or two hung limply by the wardrobe.
“There was an … incident at the distillery. Your father is dealing with it now,” she explained. She didn’t feel comfortable calling it an accident. Because she’d become certain that it wasn’t. She’d seen more than she’d let on. A figure in the darkness.
The Brollachan?
“Andrew. Tell me what happened here. Did you … did you do this?” Motioning to the chaos, she bent to pick up a shoe that appeared to have been torn apart. Just what was going on in this ancient keep?
“Aye. It was me.” He hadn’t moved from whatever he protected on the floor in the corner, though he regarded her with the frozen, unsure expression of a culpable party in a crime.
Heart squeezing with concern, Mena stopped at his writing desk, where charcoal renderings of dark shadows and red eyes stared up at her with spine-chilling familiarity. That shadow. She’d seen it before the ledge supporting the Scotch barrel had given way and nearly crushed Ravencroft. How terrible it was, to not trust your own eyes. Had Andrew seen the demon as well? Did he have something to do with this?
“Andrew, do you mind explaining to me—”
A commotion interrupted her. It came from the wardrobe, the heavy wood doors trembling as something pressed against them, struggling to be released. Was all this some kind of elaborate prank? Or something entirely more sinister?
“Miss Lockhart, doona open—”
Ready to be done with this mystery once and for all, Mena hurried for the wardrobe and flung the doors open. She gave a startled cry as a familiar form lunged for her.
And began to enthusiastically lick her face.
Utterly relieved, she stroked and cuddled the wriggling puppy in her arms as everything suddenly began to make sense. “So lovely to see you again, darling!” She laughed, enjoying the silky black and brown fur against her cheek, much as she had the day she’d pulled the poor thing off the rocks. “You wicked thing,” she scolded. “Look at that face, not one bit of guilt over the absolute chaos you’ve wrought.” Tucking the cheerful puppy into her bosom, she turned. “You never told me that—”
The tears streaming down Andrew’s crumpled face astonished her into stillness.
“Everything’s a disaster,” he sobbed, the scrub brush clattering to the floor. “It’s all ruined. He’ll take Rune from me. The only thing I love. The only one that loves me back. And then he’ll leave again, and ye’ll go, too, because I’ve been beastly to ye. Rhianna will be off getting a husband. I’ll be alone!”
Recovering from her initial speechless incredulity, Mena rushed to Andrew and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, handing him little Rune, who instantly went to work on lapping up his tears.
“I don’t see why your father should take her,” she cajoled. “What’s a few ruined pillows? We can clean up the mess in no time. Don’t worry if she wee’d on the stones, at least it wasn’t the carpets. I can’t even smell it.”
“You doona understand!” he wailed, his newly deepening voice cracking with emotion. “He will take her from me. He told me nay when I asked if I could have her. But I told Uncle Thorne that Father said I could.”
“I see.” Troubled, Mena led Andrew to the bed, clearing away some unruly down feathers so they could sit, though she kept her arm around his slim shoulders. He collapsed against her side, his cheek buried into her shoulder, as he cried and clutched the squirming pup.
Fighting against a quiver in her own chin, Mena stroked his thick dark hair, so much like his father’s. “Darling, first of all, let me promise you that I’m going nowhere, and neither is your father. He retired his commission to stay here with you because he loves you. Very much. You should have seen him today when a barrel fell and he thought you were in danger. He couldn’t find you and he was so worried. Frantic.”
“Worried my work wouldna get done.” The bitterness in his tone was at once too adult for one so young, and yet completely adolescent.
“That’s not fair,” Mena said gently. “The things he is trying to impart to you are so important. In fact, your father and I might be teaching you very different things, but it’s all for an identical reason. Do you know what that is?”
Andrew shook his head, though he didn’t lift his eyes from where he stroked Rune, who kept trying to gnaw on his hand.