Page 157 of Highland Spy

His lack of a reply scraped over her ragged nerves. “What does it matter?” she demanded. “If I’m going to die anyway, why not tell me?”

“Because they were always better than everyone else.” Murdoch practically shouted the words, as if they’d been so long repressed, he had no choice but to let them explode from him. He turned his head and spit onto the ground. “Because that sister of his dinna even know I existed. But she thought the sun shone outta that Gordon lad’s arse.”

He pulled out the key and undid one of her manacles. Before she could let a fist fly toward his face, he trapped her wrist in his large hand.

“So when I was offered a chance to get a higher lot in life than a constable’s son could ever hope for, I took it.” He threaded the manacle and chain through an iron loop bolted to the wall and clasped the cold cuff around her wrist once more.

“What chance?” she pressed. “Murdoch, what did you do?”

He grinned a broken-toothed, bloody smile at her. “What do ye think?”

Her world spun as if she’d been slapped. “It was you?” she asked, incredulous. “It was you who let Gordon in?”

“Aye. Killed my own da, who was trying to keep me from getting to the portcullis lever.” His admission came with a sick sense of pride. “But before I could get my due, Connor swept in and killed Laird Gordon. When Connor found me, I had no choice but to go with him.” His lips curled in disgust. “He had nothing to offer me, nothing but living in this shite place and being his hunting dog.”

Her shoulder throbbed where she’d broken her fall, and she let her body relax slightly, not bothering to fight the metal bonds.

Contempt twisted his features, his appearance made all the more vicious by the glistening blood. “I even approached the king in London once for recompense for my part, to get the due owed to me from Laird Gordon. After all, it was the king who’d suggested the attack to Laird Gordon in the first place. And all he gave me was another shite position, this time playing watchdog.”

Murdoch spit again and grimaced in pain at the obvious discomfort caused by his broken nose.

She was glad it hurt him, and that he suffered.

He’d made Connor grieve all these years.

“I knew somehow I’d get him then, when I had the ear of the king. I just dinna know it’d be through ye.” Murdoch turned with a smirk. He locked her cell and jerked open the prison door.

The fading light of day flooded the room with such brilliance she was momentarily blinded before the door slammed shut and she was plunged in darkness once more.

Alone.

Fated to die.

With Murdoch’s confession, which she would never be able to share with Connor.

• • •

The large area of Percy’s workspace was beginning to feel like a cage. Connor paced its length again and again and again.

“If we all try to save her, we’ll die.” He kept his words quiet enough that the guards wouldn’t hear, but firm enough that the women knew the severity of what he said.

Cora looked between him and the other girls with large eyes.

“Is it possible you underestimate us?” Sylvi tilted her head in challenging defiance and lifted a pale eyebrow.

He sighed. “Ye know I dinna underestimate ye.”

Sylvi shrugged and walked off to examine a bottle on Percy’s workspace. “We’d risk it for her, the same as she’d risk it for us.”

Isabel left the entrance to the false wall and approached their clustered group. “What if we convince them she’s a witch?” she offered. She wore full black clothing now and had covered the brilliant red of her hair with spare black cloth.

Liv folded her arms over her chest. “I think they’re already pretty convinced.”

“No, I mean we really convince them.” Isabel grinned and the light of the room glinted off her sharp white teeth. “If they already think she’s a witch, we can use her as a weapon. All we have to do is rescue her from the prison, then when she’s in the courtyard, we’ll make it appear as if she has incredible powers.”

Isabel laughed, a stark sound in the otherwise quiet atmosphere. “They’ll be so frightened of her, they won’t even try to stop her.”

After having seen how readily the king had fallen for Ariana’s ruse, Connor had no doubt King James could be further tricked into believing her to have otherworldly powers.