"Yes. Jinny, I saw him upstairs only a few minutes ago. He was probably on his way to the library."
"Stay where you are," Margaret threatened.
Jinny's wary glance darted from Margaret to Elise.
"It's all right," Elise urged.
Jinny shot a sidelong look at Margaret, then eased a foot to the side. Lady Margaret took a step toward the girl. Elise slid between them.
"Don't take your petty jealousy out on her." Elise stepped so close Margaret was forced to look up in order to maintain eye contact. "Are you such a coward you will only fight those who don't have the power to fight back?"
Margaret raised her hand and swung, palm open, for a hard slap. Her gaze flicked past Elise and her eyes widened as a much larger hand intercepted her palm before it hit its intended mark.
"Enough, lass," Cameron commanded softly.
"I—" she began.
"Never mind," he said. "Marcus isna' here. 'Tis best if you go."
Margaret looked as if she would say more but lifted her skirts and headed for the door.
Cameron looked at Elise. "Are you all right, lass?"
She kept her gaze on Margaret's retreating form then, as Margaret stepped from the kitchen to the great hall, Elise started forward. Cameron stayed her with a firm grip on her arm.
"Whoa, lass. Where are you going?"
She shook his hand from her arm. "Why did you interrupt?"
"I heard you tell Jinny to fetch me. I would think you were glad for my timely arrival."
"A timely arrival would have been three seconds later."
"But she would have struck you by then."
Elise saw Margaret open the postern door. "Correct."
"You wanted her to hit you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Elise looked at him. "Because then I could have hit her back."
Elise stopped before Winnie's cottage. Her sharp rap on the door quieted the evening crickets and she entered without waiting for an invitation.
Winnie looked up from where she sat at the table. "What's wrong?"
"Something must be wrong?" Elise asked.
Winnie rose and bustled to the door. "Supper is finished and you are visiting me. If you had good news, you would have told me then." Winnie prodded her into a chair at the table, then turned to the hearth and grabbed the kettle from the fire. "Have some tea."
She set a cup in front of Elise, picked up a tea strainer from the basket sitting on the table, and plopped it into the cup. Winnie filled the cup with hot water, then did the same for herself. She replaced the kettle over the fire, seated herself across from Elise, and stared, an expectant look on her face.
Elise dipped a finger inside her cup and fiddled with the tea strainer so that it bobbed in the water. "I haven't spoken about my life before Brahan Seer."
"Nay."
"Perhaps that was unfair."
A silence drew out between them before Elise said, "The details no longer matter, only that I lost everything. I began again here," a tremor rippled through her at the lie, "but now I see myself entangled in a mess no better than the one I came from."
"A mess?" Winnie repeated.
Elise smiled gently. "By now, all of Brahan Seer knows what happened today between me and Lady Margaret."
"Aye, though no one was surprised by such mischief from Lady Margaret."
Elise lifted a brow. "Indeed?"
"Aye," Winnie said. "She's a bitch."
Elise blinked, then couldn't help laughing.
Winnie frowned. "Well, she is."
Elise released a breath. "That doesn't change the truth… or the fact I must leave."
"Leave?" Winnie snorted. "Surely not because of Lady Margaret?"
Elise leaned forward on the table. "Winnie, he is to marry her."
The older woman's shocked expression said she knew nothing of the betrothal. Elise experienced a sense of relief she hadn't hoped for. Winnie hadn't been a part of the deception.
"I don't believe it," Winnie said.
"No?" Elise asked. "Because you don't like her?"
"Nay." But this time, the denial held less conviction.
"I am going. Tomorrow."
Winnie's brows snapped together. "So soon? Mayhap you should wait just a little while, give Marcus a chance—"
"A chance for what?" To win me over? The very thing she couldn't allow. For she would submit, then the leaving would only break her heart all the more. And she would leave. For Amelia. For Steven. And because he had lied to her.
"Marcus is away," she said. "It's better I go now."
"You plan on returning to America?"
Elise nodded.
"I suppose you can manage there as well as here."
"I need your help."
Winnie gave her a wary look. "I dinna' like the look in your eye."
"I must leave early if I am to reach Glasgow before nightfall. Leaving so early is sure to raise suspicion. If you and I go together to the village—"
"Lord save us." Winnie rolled her eyes heavenward.
"You know it will take trickery."
"Oh, it will take trickery."
"If you know another way?"
"There is a secret passage leading outside the gates."
"A secret passage? Where does it emerge?"
"Near the gate."
"That might work," Elise murmured.
Winnie unexpectedly shook her head. "Nay. 'Tis a bad idea."