The Rose Red Bride

It was a moonless night, the perfect night for a nefarious deed. The hidden man shifted his weight off his damaged leg by force of habit, ensuring it would be as rested as possible when the moment came to move, and remained still and silent. His scheme was perfectly wrought.

Despite his resolve, guilt pricked at him as he waited. It was not in his nature to deceive, or even to wreak vengeance, though circumstance had driven him to do both.

He had told Alexander the truth, though he had not confessed all of it by any means, and the truth was not all his own. And indeed, not all he had said was the truth. He had no ambitious cousin, for example, though his brother was ambitious enough for an entire family. He had no intent of wedding Vivienne before a priest and witnesses on the following morning.

He did, however, have need of a son.

The bells of the chapel in Kinfairlie village rang, then tolled the hour. Midnight. He tensed as he listened, fearful that all might not be as Alexander had pledged.

But it was. A hue and a cry was raised on the far side of the keep, and he heard the sentries race to that point.

With nary a moment to lose, he stepped out of the darkness and flung his grappling hook skyward with practiced ease. It caught and held on the parapet on the first try, and the scratch of its movement across the roof was lost in the din of Alexander’s distraction.

He took a deep breath and swung himself into the air, wincing as his left boot collided with the wall. He grit his teeth, ignored the pain, and climbed, his heart thudding with trepidation.

For truly, the most difficult part of his task lay ahead of him. He had seduced no woman but his late wife, and Beatrice had been willing.

Vivienne might not be willing. After all, the man who scaled Kinfairlie’s tower, unobserved on that moonless night, was not Nicholas Sinclair.

And the woman he meant to bed and kidnap this night was the only person in Kinfairlie who knew the truth.