“If anyone will believe us, it’s Jeremy,” Reikart replied. Jeremy had died twice on the operating table as a teenager after a car crash, and he’d sworn he’d been seeing ghosts ever since. He was inclined to believe in impossible things. Jeremey had also been the one person on the board of McCaim Shipping who had not demanded they remove their dad as CEO. He’d even suggested, without coming right out and saying it, that maybe they should explore what their dad had been claiming. They had all ignored Jeremy, though. Beyond all that, he was a damn good businessman, and Reikart trusted him to look after the company and their dad.
“Reik,” Ian said, “I’m scared. What if we do go through, but we can’t find each other? What if we can’t find Mom, Rhys, and Greyson? What if time-traveling kills us?”
Reikart’s brain froze with the same fears his brother had just shared, but then he heard his dad’s voice in his head. “‘What you are afraid to do,’” he said, slowing, trying to recall the exact words of their dad’s favorite quote, “‘is a clear indication—’”
“‘Of the next thing you need to do,’” Ian finished. “Dad drove us all crazy growing up spouting that Emerson quote, didn’t he?”
“Yep,” Reikart replied, his throat tightening with emotion. “And that’s why we have to ignore the fear. For Dad. And Mom. And Rhys. And Grey. The doctor said hearing Mom’s voice could bring Dad out of the coma, so we have to ensure that happens. I’d rather be dead than scared to try.”
“Glad to have you back, bro,” Ian said.
Reikart frowned. “Where was I?”
“Gone, you dipshit. Since the day Amanda died, you’ve been gone. I wasn’t even sure you really wanted to live still. But you sounded like the old you just now. The fearless you,” Ian said with a laugh.
Shit. Reikart went perfectly still. He felt more like himself than he had in years, and that made the guilt come hard and fast. He’d vowed never to forget her or forgive himself, and that was a heavy burden to bear. He knew what happened had changed him, but he had not realized his younger brother—maybe all his brothers—saw the change, too.
“Well, don’t get used to it,” he finally said, suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation, not to mention with his old self, the one that had been close to all his family and had shown how deeply he cared, trying to slip back into his head. Not gonna happen. The burden of guilt was heavy but one he fully deserved. “Tell Jeremy to meet us at Dad’s at five.”
Before Ian could say anything else, Reikart did what the person he’d become since Amanda’s death would do: he hung up.
Because that’s what coldhearted bastards did.
Chapter Three
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
~ William Shakespeare,Macbeth
The Past
1286
Trossachs Forest, Scotland
Deirdre had no notion of the hour it was when Algien finally gave the command for their party to halt, but by her body numbed from the cold, her trembling legs and aching backside, she knew they’d been riding for quite a while. It normally took three days to reach her home in Liddesdale, but it seemed Algien was determined they should arrive there in two. What drove him to this frantic pace?
As she took the hand proffered to her by one of Algien’s guards and dismounted, she focused on trying to discover what her brother had done, so then maybe she could discern if Yearger’s actions had somehow affected Maggie’s decisions and what it all might mean for Deirdre’s future.
Yearger.
Her throat tightened horribly as it struck her once again that he was dead. Whatever he had done, he had been a good brother. She would not think ill of him in death.
Not long later, she sat on a fallen log across from Algien. A fire popped and hissed between them while a short distance away, the guards were busy making camp. Algien produced a wine skin, took a sip, and then offered it to her. She hesitated, but not because she wasn’t thirsty. She was, desperately so, but the idea of drinking from the same wine skin as he had turned her stomach. Repulsion lost to practicality, though, and she took the wine skin with a murmured thanks.
Algien leaned forward with a conspiratorial look and said in a low voice, “Your brother’s man Nigel relayed to me that King Alexander destroyed the letter after he read it, so you need not fear it will ever come back to you. At this point, the only person left alive, other than Nigel, who was in the room when the king read the note is Lady Shona. And Lady Shona should meet her demise soon enough.”
Algien’s words and the implication of what they might mean made Deirdre’s stomach flip and a horrible suspicion rise within her. He looked at her for a long moment and perspiration dampened her underarms.
“Did you write the note or did your brother?” he asked.
“He did,” she croaked as the pieces fell into place like shards of glass cutting her mind. Yearger had used her. He had obviously made a bargain with Baron Bellecote and King Edward to kill King Alexander, and he had used her to pass the note, which he must have written, pretending to be the queen writing to the king. Yearger would have known she’d never do such a thing—or maybe he’d thought to spare her by not even asking her to do it. She wanted to believe it was the latter, though that did not improve matters.
He’d given her the note, lied to her and said it was from the queen, and told her to choose a lady-in-waiting to deliver it. She’d chosen Shona. All along, Yearger must have been planning to kill whomever she chose. Deirdre wanted to scream in fury and sorrow. Tears threatened to fall, but she forced them back. He had betrayed her trust and their bond as siblings in the worst sort of way.
He knew Shona would obey without question because Deirdre was the head lady-in-waiting. Queen Yolande had never mentioned the note after the king’s death because the queen had not written a note begging the king to come to her in the midst of the storm. And Bellecote…
