Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,82

her husband did not warn him to keep quiet, he didn’t. “I want you to—”

She held up her hand. “No more! I will not listen to anything more.”

Neill opened his mouth to speak but Tristan’s murderous glare quieted him.

“The earl has already explained that ye told him his wife meant to run away and take Rose with her. He let the maiden go along to keep his wife from being alone. Ye were to spy on his wife and her supposed lover.”

Neill stared at him for a moment and then offered him a quiet smile. “Is that what he told you?”

“Aye. ’Tis,” Tristan let him know. “Dinna speak of it again.”

Neill was clever. So was Tristan. He had a feeling the earl was not innocent, but feelings meant little. He was curious about what Governor Callanach had to add to this, and where did Captain Harper stand?

They rode on in silence for another few hours. Rose thought she saw her father lean in to speak with Neill. She was not surprised that he would speak to him. Neill had been a part of their family for so long, which is why it hurt so that he would try to speak ill of her father. But he had done terrible things to them. She could never forgive him.

When were they going to kill him? What were they waiting for? She asked the captain.

“Your father wants to keep him alive until we get to the governor’s. He says he needs a witness against his brother. If he kills de Caleone, ’tis his word against the governor’s.

Aye, she guessed her father was correct. Besides, as much as she wanted Neill dead, when she thought about it actually happening, she realized she hated wanting him dead.

She’d always admired him for the scars he wore on his face, scars he’d earned rushing into the flames to save her. But it was all a lie, a façade to veil the truth. He was the monster.

They stopped for the night on the outskirts of Hamilton. After they ate a meal of dried meat, stale bread and water, they sat around the campfire and made a plan of attack.

“The earl and I know the layout well,” the captain advised. The house was set in the center of a larger wood.

Rose thought of the adventures she had hoped to have there with Emma.

“We should take the governor by surprise,” Jones said.

“And do what with him?” her father demanded. “He is still my brother. I do not want him killed.”

Jones nodded and cast the earl a repentant look. They discussed different ways to take the manor house. Her father didn’t want to be there to hear his brother offering up his soul and everything he owned.

“I suggest no one listens to his words. He is a traitor, like this one,” he said as he pointed to Neill. “Nothing he says can be trusted.”

For some reason, the more the earl tried to explain what his brother might say, the more Tristan wanted to question him. After their discussion, Neill asked Tristan if he might allow him to speak to Rose, with Tristan there of course, when the earl fell asleep. Rose refused to go, and she made Tristan promise not to go either. He did what his wife asked and took her to his pallet instead.

They didn’t make love, though they wanted to. Rose would not do anything with her father so close—or with anyone else close for that matter.

Tristan held her close in his arms though and gazed up at the stars with her. “Do you think God lives on a star, Tristan?” she whispered into the night air.

“I think He lives everywhere,” he answered from deep in his chest.

She nodded and kissed his chest and sighed. “What do you think of my father?”

“Why d’ye sigh?”

“No reason at all,” she defended. “I’m sleepy.”

“Aye,” he said quietly. “Let us sleep.”

“Aye, sleep.” She closed her eyes and then opened them again. “Tristan? What do you think Neill wanted to tell us?”

“I dinna know, love. D’ye want to ask him when yer father is asleep?”

“Perhaps,” she allowed.

But Rose and Tristan fell asleep long before the earl.

When they woke up the next morning, Neill was gone.

Tristan and the captain, along with Mr. Jones, searched the woods but they were only able to cover a small portion, even separated.

While they searched, Rose waited with her father and Mary. The men weren’t gone long when her father left them to go relieve himself.

Alone, Mary pinched her