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“I…I need to tell you something, Craig—”

It was as though she’d stabbed him in the abdomen. He’d been right. She was hiding something—

Approaching steps pounded outside. Then someone opened the door and entered the stables. Craig and Amy sat upright.

One of the guards strode forward.

“Lord, thank God ye’re here.”

“What is it?”

“Come quick. ’Tis Lachlan. He’s been murdered in yer bed.”

Chapter 25

Craig followed Lachlan’s sheet-covered body with his eyes as two men carried it out of the room. The air in the bedchamber was thick with the copper scent of blood. Amy laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, and he briefly closed his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Craig,” she said.

“Ye shouldna have seen him like that,” he said. “’Tis nae for a woman to see a man slaughtered like that.”

“I’ve seen dead people before. Not everyone I tried to find made it.”

“Aye, I suppose. Ye’re a different kind of woman than I’m used to.”

Craig walked towards the bed. The sheets and blankets were dark with blood, already starting to cake. Who had done this? One of the people from the village? The woman Lachlan had been with? Or the spy looking for the secret entrance?

It couldn’t have been Amy. She’d been with him, sharing the best night of his life.

Talking.

He glanced at her, standing a few feet away, watching him with concern.

As though she cared.

What they had shared with each other—things she’d told him, things he’d told her… Those were secret things. Sacred things. Their deepest, darkest thoughts. Things eating away at both of their souls.

Could she still betray him, even after that?

Could she have been pretending?

He shook his head a little. He should stop this bad habit of questioning everything and everyone. Had he not resolved to trust her?

At least to try.

She had been about to tell him something—he would ask her about that later.

“What can I do to help?” Amy said.

“Nothing.”

Craig took the torch from the wall and looked around the bed for clues. Lachlan’s throat had been slit, likely from behind. And based on his complete nakedness, he had been busy with what Craig and Amy had interrupted earlier in the stables. So the red-haired woman had likely been underneath Lachlan. Therefore, if she were the murderer, she’d likely have stabbed him in the heart rather than slit his throat.

Aye. There was her long, wavy red hair on the pillow. He picked up three strands. Two of them were half caked in blood.

Craig shook his head. “I hope Owen is full of regret for this. This wouldna have happened had he not invited the villagers.”

“Talk to him before judging him,” Amy said. “He may be able to help.”