Emma Thorne’s maid was dead. It was obvious based on the awkward angle of her neck, in the trail of blood drawing a vivid line down her chin and the pool of it welling from underneath her.

Emma remained at the young woman’s side, holding the still-warm body. Shock had kept her scream silent thus far, but the pressure of its insistence blossomed in the back of her throat. A hand clapped over her mouth and her scream fled on a gasp.

Emma's uncle had asked her to replace a book on the shelf in the library as she'd left the room. Jenny, her lady's maid, had offered to do it as she was off on her way to visit her parents in the village. The offer of kindness had been the young woman's demise.

“Don't make a sound, my lady.” A familiar male voice murmured in Emma's ear.

She tried to swing around, to meet the eyes of Hammonds, the butler she'd known for the whole of her life, for what could possess him to tell her to keep from screaming?

“Blink to show you understand what I'm telling you,” he said in a low voice. “It's a matter of life and death, you see.”

Emma blinked and his hand came away.

“Come to the kitchen.” He stood with a furtive glimpse into the hall. “With haste, my lady.” He softened his tone. “If you please.”

“And leave her here?” Emma whispered in horror.

Hammonds grimaced and nodded.

Emma hesitated, her fingers curled in the damp fabric of her maid's gown. It was of a pretty sprigged muslin Emma had given to her the prior year.

“Do you not notice she looks similar to you?” Hammonds asked.

True, the maid wore the frock once belonging to Emma and her brown hair had been twisted into a series of braids at the nape of her neck, the same way Emma often wore hers. A terrifying jolt of ice-cold fear shot down Emma's spine.

She drew away in horror, releasing the maid and allowing Hammonds to help her to her feet. Blood streaked brilliant red down the front of her gown. Jenny's blood.

Oh God, Jenny.

Hammonds pulled at Emma with surprisingly strong arms, hauling her to the kitchen. “Your uncle,” he said. “He's been unhappy with your decision not to wed his son. As he’s become more insistent, you’ve been more resistant.”

Emma’s brain worked to process what she'd seen, what Hammonds was saying, what it all meant. The cloying odor of gore clung in her nose, metallic with fear and death.

Hammonds thrust her into the warmth of the kitchen. The cook looked up sharply, his hands buried in a ball of dough.

“Already?” Monsieur Dubois drew his hands free and wiped the excess flour onto the front of his apron.

“Jenny is dead.” Hammonds released his hold on Emma and raced across the large room to a series of pots stacked neatly against a back wall.

Dubois uttered a curse and moved around the table. He stopped short and went wide-eyed with horror at Emma’s gown.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“She fell from the ladder in the library.” Emma twisted the delicate emerald and pearl bracelet around her wrist, the one that had belonged to her mother before her death nearly two decades prior. “She's dead.” Her voice clogged with emotion and tears burned in her eyes.

The Frenchman loosed a fresh string of curses.

“Cease your blasphemy and be useful,” Hammonds said in an uncharacteristically impatient tone. “It will not be long until they discover the body is not that of Miss Emma.”

The butler pushed a velvet bag into her hands. “Take this and leave. Go as far from here as you can and do not return for another month.”

In a month, she would be five-and-twenty, of age to no longer require the guardianship of her uncle. The wealthy life to which he'd grown accustomed when her father died not long after her twentieth birthday would cease. She’d refused to marry her cousin, his son. Apparently, he had devised other means to secure her wealth.

The bright streak of crimson on her gown called her attention once more. He had meant to kill her, only he'd taken Jenny’s life by accident instead.

“Take this as well.” Dubois thrust a misshapen sack into her free hand. A knot at the top secured the contents within. “In case you need food. It will last a few days if you use it sparingly.”

“And this?” she asked, regarding the velvet bag.

“It is the money we have been able to save for you.” Hammonds lowered his head reverently. “And includes our own personal savings.”

She shook her head, not understanding and certainly not willing to accept. Before she could refuse, Hammonds set a hand over hers, securing the bag in her palm.

“Miss Emma, we would pay that amount a thousand times over to ensure your safety.” Hammonds cast her a beseeching expression. “Please take it. Stay safe for the next month and—”

“Hammonds,” a voice from somewhere in the home bellowed with rage.

Emma started at the sound, her nerves on high alert as much as they were raw with emotion - with loss, with love, with fear.

“Get you gone and Godspeed, Miss.” Hammonds bowed low and left, taking time to carefully close the door.

“You must go.” Dubois gently pushed her in the direction of the servants’ entrance at the rear of the kitchen. “To the stables, away from here.”

The heavy fall of boots on the carpeted ground came from outside the kitchen within the house.

“Now,” he hissed and shoved her outside.

Emma stood, dazed by the radiant sunlight and by the whirl of what had transpired. She gritted her teeth. They had sacrificed everything for her.

It was that thought which spurred her and made her run to the stables, as Dubois had suggested.

She ran on legs she could not feel, legs which did not seem strong enough to support her. And yet they carried her to the elegant row of stables along the rear of the property.

While chaos reigned in the house, the stable was impossibly silent and still. Emma's ragged breath rasped from her throat, loud in the quiet.

The stable boy was not about, and for that she was glad. She would not want more of her servants implicated. Not after what they'd already done to aid her. Surely what they had done put them in considerable danger. The very notion gave her pause. She slipped the purse into her pocket.

“Let's see if her horse is in the stall.” Conrad's deep voice came from outside, indicating her cousin was merely several feet away. “If she was on her horse, she'll be much farther.”

Her heart plunged into her stomach. Fear dictated her actions, propelling her into Honey's stall, forcing her to climb upon the horse's blonde bare back. She pressed the bag of food between her stomach and the horse's large body as she leaned forward and hissed her command in Honey's ear.

They burst from the stable at a powerful speed, practically knocking over the lanky form of Conrad and her uncle.

Conrad pointed dumbly at her. “There she is.”

If they said more, their words were lost in the pounding of Honey's hooves upon the dirt-packed earth and the slamming of Emma's heartbeat. They would chase her though - of that she was certain. And their horses were significantly faster.

Blast.

She bounced about Honey's back, her hands lost in the grip of her horse’s white mane as she held on for dear life. The bag of food jostled free and disappeared from Honey's back. Were Emma not about to suffer to the same fate, she might have tried to grab for rough sack as it fell away. As it was, she could scarcely maintain her desperate hold. Even still, she knew without a shadow of a doubt, she would not be able to ride in this manner for long.

Rather than direct Honey to the village nearly two miles away, she steered her horse in the direction of a nearby manor, one often rented out for house parties. If it were empty, as she hoped it might be, she could use it as a place to hide, to decide her next move before her uncle and Conrad could find her.

She neared the large yellow house with its dark green shutters, and her heart fell. Several people milled about with their horses. Clearly, the manor had been rented out.

She slowed her horse, weighing her options. If only her pulse could slow as readily as her steed. As it was, her heart galloped with such power, it threatened to choke her.

She did a quick survey behind her and gave a cry of despair. There in the distance were two riders racing toward her.

She jerked Honey to a stop and leapt from the horse, running with blind speed in the direction of the massive house. The sack of coins in her pocket thwacked and bounced brutally against her thigh, but she paid it no mind. It was of slight consequence considering the threat of danger.

Those renting the property would most surely find Honey and see her well cared for. If Emma was lucky, her uncle would assume she'd fallen off the horse's glossy back and had become lost in the foliage between the two massive manors.

Emma peered about, confirming no one had seen her, and reached for a window. It clicked under her hand, locked. In fact, all the windows and doors had been bolted tight. She gave a dejected cry and darted off to the one place she might find refuge - the stable.

* * *

The house party be damned. If Alistair did not go to Scotland to aid Madge in her botched whisky smuggling venture, they both might end up dead. Her, skewered through by some brigand's sword and him dangling from a rope.

It was a recklessly precarious situation requiring immediate action on his part, especially considering the time it had taken the missive to reach him. Cold fear fissured through him. He could only rush as quickly as he could and hope he was not too late.

He strolled from the manor the Wicked Earls had rented and made his way to the stables to tell the lad there to ready the horses and a carriage. Surely there was some servant to do the task for Alistair, but he wasn't much in the mood to wait when he could bloody well do it himself.

Beast trotted along beside him, ignorant to the irritation plaguing his master if the happy loll of his pink tongue were any indication. In truth, the dog was anything but a beast. A fluffy blond bit of a thing that came to Alistair's shins no matter how much he fed him. And the creature was perpetually happy with his large brown eyes and panting smiles.

“Do you presume the old witch did it on purpose?” Alistair asked the dog.

Beast's ears perked up and he cocked his head to the side, as if in ponderous contemplation before his mouth hung open in a grin and the tongue unfurled out once more.

“That's what I thought,” Alistair muttered and resumed his trek through the neatly trimmed grass to where the stables awaited. The dog loved everyone. Even Madge.

Alistair was more cynical. He wouldn't put it past his mother to intentionally do it in order to see him home once more. Before he got too “English,” no doubt.

But to make a deal with one of the most notoriously foul vendors in London, and for twenty barrels – it was unheard of. Certainly Alistair had never bothered to attempt such a feat before, let alone it being something his mother could ever successfully complete.

Alistair stepped inside the stables. It was quiet within. “Are you here, lad?”

No one answered.

Beast scampered around Alistair with an excitable curiosity to explore and disappeared into an open stall.

“I say, are you here, lad?” Alistair asked again with a rough and frustrated edge.

Again no one answered.

Where were the damn servants? None were readily nearby inside the manor, and the stable lad also appeared to be absent. Since the English had the lot of them doing every last action for them save wiping their arses, shouldn't there always be someone about?

A horse stamped its hoof and whinnied.

Damn, but it was frustrating having to stop his life in England and rush home to see to his mother's affairs. If she couldn't manage the whisky business on her own, he'd demand she stop. He could not keep on with it, constantly getting her out of these situations she seemed to find herself implicated in.

At least the others had been easily managed from London.

He shuddered to think what might happen to her if he were unable to ease her troubles, especially when her predicaments were the direct result of profligate practices. His mother needed no money. He saw to it she was well cared for and funds delivered to perpetuate the restorations at Lochslin.

“Did ye require me, m'lord?” MacKenzie, Alistair's valet and longtime friend, appeared in the stables.

“I cannot find the stable lad,” Alistair said irritably. “We must get back to Scotland posthaste.”

“Is this an urgent matter, or will we be leaving by the end of the week after the party has ended?” MacKenzie leveled his dark eyes at Alistair, efficient at understanding the situation by this point. After all, he'd been Alistair's valet for the better part of a year – the entirety of Alistair's inherited earldom.

Alistair dragged a hand through his shoulder-length hair. The length of it was a concession the ton was willing to overlook in light of his influential wealth. It was incredible the things one might get away with when they were enormously rich. Certainly several of the ladies had mentioned the appeal of his longer hair and the wildness it lent him, especially when paired with his kilt. And only his kilt.

“Madge is making trouble again.” Alistair did a surreptitious scan around the stables, confirming the stable lad was not within earshot. Nevertheless, he spoke in the code they’d used when they’d smuggled whisky together, on the off chance someone might be nearby. “She made a deal for twenty portions.”

“Twenty?” MacKenzie balked.

“My sentiments exactly.”

MacKenzie lowered his head and pursed his lips under his well-trimmed black beard. “Ye canna get caught.”

“Nor can I leave her to fend for herself.”

The wide window at the front wall revealed several riders approaching in the distance.

“Ready the trunks for departure.” Alistair did not take his eyes off the riders. “We leave within the hour.”

MacKenzie nodded and left the stables to do as he was bid, as always without complaint or protest. A good loyal Scot.

A high-pitched whine came from the open stall.

“Beast,” Alistair called. “Come.”

As this call typically resulted in the bounding form of the overly joyous creature, Beast's lack of compliance gave Alistair pause.

“Beast.” He peered into the stall and found the dog sitting beside a mound of hay, which he watched with serious intensity.

Beast barked at the pile and pawed at the loosening bits along the outer edges. A white stocking encasing a neat ankle became visible. As soon as it was seen, it snapped out of sight once more.

“What the devil?” Alistair carefully swept aside the straw to reveal a woman blinking up at him.

Stalks of hay jutted from the tousled brown hair which fell wild about her face. She stared at him with narrowed blue eyes and a stubborn set to her brows. Her mouth wore none of her defiance, however. No, it was lush and red and vulnerable.

There were women at the house to be sure, but not ladies with creamy white skin wearing gowns of fine muslin. And certainly none with a note of fear in their eyes.

Alistair startled at her appearance. “Have you been hurt?”

The riders stopped outside the front of the stables and leapt from the horses. The woman slinked deeper into the pile of hay, rounding her shoulders as if she might be able to make herself disappear.

Beast issued forth a low growl. Alistair cocked a brow at the dog who had never once made a sound of displeasure in his newly happy life.

Before he could ask either the girl for her grievances, or bother understanding the dog, the heavy footfall of boots came from the entrance to the stables. It was not the stable lad who entered, of course, but an elderly gentleman and a tall man with fair hair and an arrogant lift to his chin.

“Forgive the intrusion,” the older man said with an amiable smile. “I understand you are renting this manor, and I do not mean to intrude upon your house party. I do, however, require your assistance.”

“Do you?” Alistair asked with the bored disinterest of the cultured elite.

The man surveyed the area with an open rudeness that set Alistair on edge. “Evans is the name. You see, I'm searching for my niece. It appears she has run away and was last seen near here. I hoped you might help me in finding her.”