he shrugged. “Oh, well. When is the earl expected back?”
“Neill, what do you want with him?” Rose asked.
“Rose.” The captain made a move to go to her, but she held up her palm when Neill’s men positioned themselves to kill him.
“Who opened the gates to you?” Captain Harper demanded.
“Why were they locked to him?” Rose asked.
Neill set his deep blue gaze on her and his smile softened. “I have worried so often over you.”
“Neill, I do not understand why you would come here fighting.”
“He locked me out, Rose. The gates that kept you in were fortified to keep me out.”
She shook her head. Her father loved Neill. “But why? Why did he lock you out?”
“Everything will be revealed in time,” he promised. “But presently, the less you know the better. Now, I need you both to be calm while we leave.”
He pointed to the captain. “I do not want to kill you but if you breathe off beat, I will gut you where you stand before you realize I have done it. This is all about her, understand, Captain? I’m not killing you because I know you mean something to her, and you were kind to me at times.”
He snapped his fingers and two more men came forth and took hold of Captain Harper. “Bring them. The rest of you, everything else goes as planned.”
“What do you mean everything else?” the captain demanded. He struggled and almost broke free.
“Come with me and my men and all your questions will be answered—as I expect mine will be.”
“I have nothing to tell you,” Captain Harper promised.
“Do not make yourself expendable,” Neill said with a shrug then turned and left the castle.
Rose and the captain were dragged outside, where they were led to a group of horses.
When they passed Mr. Cavanaugh’s body, both the captain and Rose tried to go to him, but they were held back.
Where was Steven? Alana? Anyone? She caught a movement out of the corners of her eyes. It was one of Neill’s men moving toward Mr. Cavanaugh’s cottage with a torch in his hand.
Suddenly, Rose realized what was happening.
No! No! Not Neill! It couldn’t be! Neill couldn’t be the monster! “What are you doing?” she screamed, going pale. “What have you done?”
The captain must have also seen the man with the torch and took off running. Neill chased him. He picked up a stick on the way and smashed it over the captain’s head.
William went down. Rose screamed again, and then someone knocked her out as well.
She woke a little while later to the smell of smoke burning her nostrils. She was on her belly on a horse. Across a man’s thighs. All at once, she came completely awake. Her arms hung over her head and reached toward the ground. Her blood pumped through her veins, hard and fast. She felt lightheaded and ill. Fire. No. No. No!
They weren’t so far away. She realized that if she looked back, she could see the dark smoke of Callanach Castle and whatever else Neill and his men had burned rising to the clouds. She wanted to scream, to rant, and to rave. But it would do no good. Mary, Steven, all of them. She couldn’t keep her tears from falling to the ground as they rode away. He killed them all. Neill. Neill had to be the one who…no! Why? Oh, why would he? She remembered the captain and her heart felt as if it had no more strength to beat. If Neill had killed William…she couldn’t finish the thought without feeling like sobbing.
She wanted to push off the horse and lean up into whoever’s eyes were staring back at her and spit in his face. But if it was Neill would he set her on fire?
She had to know for certain that it had not been Neill who burned down her house when she was a child. He’d been there. He had the scars to prove it. Did he…did he kill her mother? Had she been hiding from him since she was fourteen?
Her father had used the gates to keep him out! Isn’t that what Neill had told her? She felt ill. More tears fell. What was she to do, remain tossed over someone’s lap with her arms uselessly flapping on either side of her?
Her gaze returned to the distant smoke-filled sky…and a long, sheathed dagger dangling from her host’s hip. Could she grab the hilt and—no. There were too many other horses around her.
“How long will you pretend