Page 81 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Catriona had to admit, the toasted cheese didn’t turn out as well as when their cook prepared it.

It seemed there were some ingredients involved other than just toast and cheese, but what they might be, she didn’t know.

No matter; it was tasty enough. She took it upstairs to the front sitting room and got a roaring fire going in the grate.

Taking one of Duff’s lurid chapbooks, she propped her feet up and settled in with her luncheon.

Before taking her first bite, she couldn’t resist calling, “I’m eating toasted cheese and reading rubbish, and there’s nothing ye can do to stop me! ”

The book, which was entitled The Curse of the Wicked Vicar, was the tale of a fresh-faced young curate who took up a living in a distant parish.

An improbable parade of women proceeded to seduce the guileless young fellow, leading to his eventual downfall.

It was presented as a morality tale about the dangers of succumbing to vice, but Catriona rather thought that was a thinly veiled excuse, and the story’s true intention was to titillate.

It was awful, but it was an entertaining sort of awful, and all in all, it was an enjoyable way to pass an afternoon.

Her stomach was rumbling again by the time she closed the book.

She wandered down to the kitchen to see if there was anything else she could prepare.

She was rapidly running up against the limits of her culinary abilities, but she found some ham in the larder, which she ate with more bread and cheese.

She checked the clock in the entry hall after she finished her dinner. It was only seven o’clock, but it had been dark outside for hours. She didn’t feel like reading another book, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

She had just decided to poke around in Meaghan’s room when she heard it.

Voices, coming from outside the front door.

Familiar voices.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Of course, I’m sure. You saw all that gold.”

Heart in her throat, Catriona tiptoed toward the door, bringing her ear close to its seam. It certainly sounded like the two Englishmen who had come yesterday to see the cache of Viking treasure.

“It was mostly silver,” the first voice grumbled.

“And once it’s melted down, we’ll get a pound for every three ounces of that silver.”

Melted down? What did he mean, melted down? Those artifacts represented a thousand years of history! Catriona would strangle the man with her bare hands before she would let him melt them down!

“That’s less than a tenth of the rate we’d get for gold.”

“Either way, we’ll take it.”

“But you said the castle would be deserted, and it’s not. There’s light inside. See?”

That would be the solitary chamberstick that Catriona had been using to make her way through the castle in the dark, probably just visible through the arrow slits flanking the door.

“Of course, it’s not completely deserted. They’ll have left a servant or two to look after it.”

“Fourteen servants. That’s what that girl said.”

Catriona could hear the exasperation in the answering voice. “That girl was lying through her teeth. It’s Christmas! Everyone wants to go home to their families. I’ll wager there’s one or two people at most.”

His companion sounded nervous. “I don’t know, Humphrey. Maybe we should—”

“Just look at the place! It’s quiet as a tomb. I’ll wager that whatever servants are in there, they’re down in the kitchens getting drunk off their arses.”

“But what if they’re not? What if they’re—”

“When did you become such a quake-buttock? Now, give that here if you’re not going to use it.”

Catriona listened in horror to the metallic creak of something being wedged between the double doors. A crowbar, most likely.

The door jolted, which snapped her out of her trance. Why was she just standing there gaping while two men tried to break into her home?

“Angus!” she shouted. “Gather all the footmen and bring them here at once! Someone’s trying to break into the castle!”

The creaking sound abruptly stopped, which was good. “See!” a voice hissed, the one belonging to the tall, skinny man. “I told you someone was home!”

“Just a woman. And I don’t hear anyone coming,” the shorter man retorted.

Catriona’s heart was flying, because of course, he was right. There was no one to come to her aid. But she continued, “Get Callum and David and Finlay and… and Big John from the stables!”

Big John? That sounded fake, even to her own ears. But it was the best she could do in her current state of panic.

“I think she’s bluffing,” the short man whispered.

The nerve of the man, to see through her ruse so easily! Inspired, she stomped her feet in her best imitation of a footman running into the room, then dropped her voice as low as she could. “I sent Big John and four of the others ’round front. They’ll run ’em off.”

“Thank ye, Angus,” Catriona said in her own voice.

“Is she talking to herself, then?” the tall, skinny one whispered. “I mean, if she was really talking to the servants, wouldn’t she be doing it in Gaelic?”

Drat. Even the gullible one wasn’t falling for her little ruse.

“Let’s just wait and see if these ‘footmen’ actually—”

He broke off midsentence because at that moment, a new voice emerged from the other side of the door.

“Dead men tell no tales!”

Catriona heard squeals followed by the plomp-plomp-plomp of frantic footfalls in thick snow. Peering through the arrow slit, she watched as two men bearing a lantern disappeared into the darkness.

There was a light click of talons on an upper windowsill. “Oh, Morrigan!” Catriona cried as the raven fluttered down and landed on her shoulder. “Yer timing could nae have been better. Ye saved me! Truly, ye did.”

Morrigan preened as Catriona scratched her neck. “All hands on deck!”

Catriona pressed a kiss to the bird’s head. “All hands on deck, indeed. Let’s get ye down to the kitchen. Ye’re eating like a queen tonight.”

Morrigan squawked excitedly as Catriona took her downstairs.

But Catriona felt positively ill. Those men clearly meant to rob the castle, and she was here all alone! Morrigan’s timing, and the ominous phrase the bird had happened to utter, had saved her this time.

But she couldn’t count on the raven to show up at precisely the right moment. If Catriona was going to defend her castle, she was going to need a plan, and a good one at that.

And at the moment, she didn’t have one.