Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn

Chapter One

Southern Scotland

Autumn

The Year of Our Lord 1349

Moonlight and cool, fresh air spilled into the room through the open window of the bedchamber. The sound of giggling seeped through the wooden walls. The door opened, letting in more light from the lantern in a man’s hand. He entered first followed by a woman attached to his other hand.

He had plans with her for the evening.

“Send yer prostitute away, Governor Allan,” came a voice from the shadowy corner.

The man startled so hard he dropped the lantern he carried. “Who is there?” he demanded of the darkness.

“Tristan MacPherson,” came the deep voice, closer than it had been a moment ago. He was close enough to pick up the lantern. His face could be seen for a moment beneath a spray of black curls he kept off his face by raking his fingers through it. He had a strong, rugged jaw, a sulky, cynical mouth, and eyes as green as summer blades of grass. “Now send her away.”

“Kate, go,” the governor commanded.

She took off without looking back.

“I have heard of you, MacPherson.”

Tristan set the lantern down on a small table by the bed. “Aye? Nothin’ good, I hope.”

“Nothing good,” the governor confirmed. “You are a coldhearted killer.”

A sinuous smirk curled the killer’s full mouth. “Then ye know why I’m here.”

“I will pay you double whatever you were paid to kill me.”

Tristan moved closer and drew a small blade from his belt. “What kind of reputation would I gain if I was so easily bought?”

“Please,” the governor begged. “Please do not kill me.”

“I wonder,” Tristan said thoughtfully, “did Miss Allison D’Avar or Miss Elizabeth Sutter beg ye not to kill them when ye took them from their outin’? Ye didna show them mercy, did ye?”

“The king’s court found me innocent!” Allan cried.

“Their fathers disagreed and sent me,” Tristan told him coolly.

“No! Please! I…I am a father—”

The blade flashed in the lantern light and blood splattered across the wall of the governor’s bedchamber from the gaping wound at his throat.

Tristan looked into his eyes and wiped the blood from his blade on the governor’s coat then shoved it back under his belt. He went to the door and looked out. The lass was gone. He was glad. He didn’t like witnesses but he wouldn’t have killed her. He didn’t kill women or children. Not for any price.

He shut the door and stepped over the governor’s body to get closer to the lantern and the basin of water beside it. He washed his hands and dried them on his sleeves.

He pulled a folded parchment from a small poke, or pouch at his waist and looked at it in the light. There were four names on it written in his hand. One was one of Glasgow’s influential lords, now deceased. The second was Governor Allan, also newly deceased, accused of killing two young women. The third was James Walters, governor of Thornhill. The bastard killed a man and took his wife. He’d had her for three months now. The woman’s captivity would end soon. Tristan would see to it.

The fourth name on the list was Thomas Callanach, Earl of Dumfries. Callanach’s death was most important for he had committed a crime so grievous his death was ordered and paid for by a governor who preferred to keep himself anonymous.

Callanach killed his wife and his child. He deserved to die. They all did, and Tristan would see to it, for he was their executioner.

He folded up the parchment, returned it to his poke and left the room through the window.

“My heart quickens its pace at the thought of arriving in Hamilton,” Lady Rose Callanach told her cousin as she leaned forward in her saddle. She swiped a defiant lock of dark hair out of her eyes, but it returned an instant later from beneath her hooded mantel. “We will have many adventures.”

“Aye,” her cousin, Emma Callanach, agreed with mischief dancing across her blue eyes. “Many adventures with many handsome, young men.”

Rose’s belly did a little flip with excitement. She was twenty years, considered too old for marriage by many. She didn’t care what others thought. She didn’t think she would ever marry anyway, so why should it concern her?

Her house had been burned down with her in it when she was eight. Six years later, her mother and Jonetta, Rose’s friend and kitchen servant, were murdered in the family carriage on their way to Lockerbie, their bodies burned beyond recognition.

Afraid that someone was out to kill his family, Rose’s