Page 88 of Wild Wicked Scot

Lord, but the room reeked of sex. Margot was uncomfortably aware that she’d interrupted her brother in coitus.

“It looks a fright,” he conceded. “But I was not expecting company.”

“At least, notmycompany,” she said, glancing at his disheveled bed.

“All right, so you’ve caught me,” he said with a chuckle. “Will you scold me now?”

“No. I hardly care—I came because I need you, Knox. Quite desperately, as it happens.”

Knox’s smiled faded. “Why? What’s happened?”

“Everything! Pappa and Bryce have done the most extraordinary and wretched thing,” she said, and felt tears welling. She clenched her fists to keep them from falling. Tears solvednothing.

“Margot, God in heaven! What is wrong?”

She told him everything. About Scotland, and Arran, and how she had come to see that wild, wicked Scot in a different light. She told him that Arran wasn’t dealing with the French at all, and that Thomas Dunn had spread scurrilous rumors about him in England and in Scotland and had turned him into a reviled man. How the rumors, presented in a certain light—such as an estranged marriage with an English heiress—made them seem true. And how they had come to Norwood Park for help, but her father had handed him over to England.

Knox’s frown deepened as she spoke. He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense—”

A knock at the door signaling the arrival of the tea interrupted Knox. He opened the door, and when Mr. Collins had deposited the tea service and quit the room, Knox poured tea for her. “It doesn’t make sense that Thomas Dunn would say things about your husband for no reason.”

“Dunn is in debt. He wants Arran’s lands and trade,” Margot said.

“No,” Knox said. “I suspect Father knows something he’s not telling you.”

“Oh, I think he’s told me all, Knox. He certainly told me that it was either Arran or him,” she said bitterly. “He somehow took him to Fonteneau—”

“Fonteneau!” Her brother looked stricken.

“Why do you look like that?”

“That’s where they took the other Scot.”

That dull twist in Margot’s gut took another painful turn. “Dermid?Why?”

“Fonteneau is an old abbey fort. It has dungeons.” He frowned down into his tea. “Lord Putnam has fallen on desperate times and has turned the abbey into a jail of a sort. It’s where they keep men bound for trial in London. Until the proper authorities can come for them.”

Margot jerked involuntarily and sent her teacup flying. She suddenly couldn’t draw a breath—it was as if her throat had closed. She began to wheeze.

Knox calmly stepped in front of her and pushed her head down, between her knees. “Breathe.”

“I have to go,” she said hoarsely when she at last managed to catch her breath.

“Where?”

“Fonteneau!”

“Margot—how will you go?” he asked. “Think of what you’re saying.”

“I’ll ride,” she said, and pushed his hand from her head so she could sit up.

Knox snorted at that. “You can’tride—”

“Yes, I can! I have learned to ride at Balhaire.”

Knox chuckled. Margot roared with despair and frustration as she shot up from her seat and shoved against his chest with all her might. “I’m going, Knox! I am going to find a way to free him! This is all so very wrong and it’smyfault. You can help me, or you can wallow in your bed!” She tried to push past him, but Knox caught her arms.

“All right, all right, darling. Calm down—”