Under an Enchantment: A Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

you.”
    “ Who was he? And who were the other men?”
    If James hadn’t been drunk, if he hadn’t been desperate with grief, he never would have told him. “Sir Duncan Spens,” James said finally. “His cousin Torquil. And his friend Wallace.”
    Malcolm drained the bottle of whisky, but the strong liquor only fanned the flames of his despair and fury. “You didn’t kill them,” he said flatly.
    “ I promised your mother.”
    Malcolm looked the man he’d known as his father in the eye. “I made no such promise. They’ll pay for it.”
    “ Do you think that’s what your mother would have wanted? She was gentle-hearted, forgiving. Do you think she’d want a blood vengeance?”
    Malcolm started for the door, the cold winter wind swirling around the large manor house that had housed him all his life. “It’s what I want,” he said, his voice flat and deadly. And he’d slammed the door behind him as he walked out into the bitter night air.
    And now he was here, on St. Columba, ready for the revenge that had eaten into his heart in the nine months since his mother had died. His father had watched him, with grief and regret, but none of his gentle words could turn him from his self-appointed task. He would make them pay for what they’d done to his mother. Stealing her sight, leaving her to live out her life in darkness. Had it been up to them, her life would have been forfeit. His as well.
    Things were moving at a steady pace. He’d found Collis MacDewar easily enough. The old man had once been the only servant Catriona’s parents could afford, and he’d been loyal and fond of the young mistress. His name had been one of the few his mother had mentioned when pressed to speak of her youth, and she’d done so with fondness in her voice. He would help him, Malcolm knew it full well, and instinct had taken him to the right man when he’d walked out of the sea after ditching his boat beyond the headland.
    And then he’d suffered his first crushing blow. Six weeks too late. The bastard who’d raped his mother and tried to send her to her death had died peacefully in his bed, his sins unrepented. There was no way he would ever look into his son’s eyes and see his nemesis.
    His friend was dead as well, long gone of apoplexy. But the third of that group, Torquil Spens, lived on. And one woman was at the center. Ailie Wallace Spens. Barren wife of his father. Daughter of his father’s friend. Beloved of the only remaining villain.
    He would use her, he would hurt her, if that was the only way to hurt the three who’d transgressed so grievously against his gentle mother. He would strike at Finlay
    Wallace from beyond the grave, despoiling his daughter. He would cuckold his dead father, and if he managed to give the old man’s wife the child he’d never had, so much the better. Catriona MacDugald’s blood would inherit Sir Duncan Spens’s fortune. And he would take from Torquil Spens the woman he lusted after.
    And then perhaps the dark hole of pain and rage in his heart would be filled.
    The Wallaces were among the wealthiest on the prosperous island of St. Columba. According to Collis, they’d come from the lowlands several generations back, their pockets filled with English gold. They’d built a sprawling house, one that owed more to ostentation than grace, and the family was large and greedy. The current generation boasted five sons, all hearty bullies, and the half-mad Ailie, Lady Spens.
    She hadn’t seemed half-mad, or half-witted to him, despite what Collis told him, despite what her family seemed to believe. There’d been intelligence and humor in her wide blue eyes, as if she knew exactly what she was doing when she talked of faeries and selkies and the like.
    He would have liked to see how deep those fancies went. In another life he could have, but now his need for vengeance overcame any gentler feelings. If she was half-mad, or fully mad, then perhaps that madness would protect her from the