Enticing Eve: Scandalous Secrets, Book 2

by Tracy Goodwin

  “Mister MacAlistair was searching for you,” Norris’s voice, low and rough, sounded far away. “He and Mister Ambrose were both in the house as the servants evacuated.”

  Eve turned towards him, surprised that he stood just a foot away from her. He wore his grief, his shoulders slumped with his head low.

  “We haven’t seen him since he gave the order to evacuate,” he added.

  Mary stifled a sob beneath her hands and Norris reached for her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

  Eve’s own eyes stung with tears.

  Colin hadn’t come out? No! This couldn’t be correct. Eve walked away from them, away from all signs of life, and rounded the corner of the house.

  He can’t …

  She couldn’t even consider the possibility. Instead, Eve walked further, the sounds of crackling embers and falling debris snapping her last nerves.

  The horizon glowed with shades of violet and orange.

  Sunrise.

  Could life be so cruel to proceed without Colin? No, time should stop! She couldn’t fathom a morning without him, or an evening, let alone a lifetime.

  She wanted to scream, throw something. Instead she ran. Where to she knew not, but she wound up at the back of the house where her eyes caught sight of him.

  Colin knelt in the grass, his shoulders slumped.

  Thank you, dear God in heaven!

  He wasn’t moving, Eve noticed, as she walked towards him, her feet now dragging like lead. His shirt was bloodstained.

  Something was wrong with him.

  “Colin?” she muttered.

  He didn’t move. It was as if he hadn’t heard her. Eve ran towards him. “Colin, answer me.”

  Though he inhaled a deep audible breath, Colin refused to open his eyes, certain he was imagining

  Eve’s voice and wishing with all his might that he could keep her with him always.

  Having gone to the barn, he found nothing but destruction and a hairclip he’d given Eve, lying on the ground. Hot to the touch, it had begun to melt from the heat.

  He called for her to no avail.

  That’s when he realized that she was dead, that she had burned to death and he had been unable to protect he when she needed him most.

  “Colin!” there it was again – his name, her voice laced with desperation.

  Squeezing his eyes shut harder, he answered. “If you’re not real, I don’t want to know.”

  He heard a leaf crunch on the grass beside him and snapped his eyes open. Turning towards the sound, Colin caught sight of her. Her shirt and breeches were blackened from soil and soot, her wrists red with blood.

  Eve tore her gaze from him to survey the ground beside him, her feet rooted firmly in place. “Colin, come to me.” She reached for him.

  Alive or dead, he’d follow her anywhere, even to the bowels of hell if she asked him. So he obeyed, pushing himself to his feet and staggering over to her.

  Colin reached for her face expecting her to vanish like vapor. Instead, his palm felt the smooth flesh of her cheek. That’s when he knew that she was real.

  Gasping for air at the realization, tears again blurred his vision. Through the mist, Colin reached for his wife, squeezing her tight against his chest. “He told me you died in the barn,” he croaked, his usual baritone barely audible. “Dear God, I thought you were dead.”

  “I managed to escape,” she whispered, her voice trailing into the distance as she studied Keir’s lifeless form lying in the grass.

  Colin clutched her closer to his chest.

  Relief that her husband was safe washed over Eve in a rush. Colin was alive, and Keir appeared to be dead. Fear seized her heart in a vise grip, squeezing it so hard that she could barely breathe.

  Colin had murdered him.

  Eve buried her face in his chest her mind already in preservation mode. They must find a way to ensure Colin wouldn’t be punished for Keir’s death. Keir kidnapped her, Keir burnt their house down, attempted to murder them and their servants. No, her husband would not be punished for doing something that she herself would’ve done if given the opportunity.

  A loud pop echoed through the chilled night air. Eve jumped, aware that Colin was clutching her even tighter now.

  Was it a gunshot?

  She snapped to attention, looking up at Colin, her eyes searching his. Then he dropped to his knees.

  “No!” she screamed, clutching his shoulders, cushioning him as he dropped to the ground. In the faint light dawn, she watched as crimson blood stained his shoulder, quickly traveling across his shirt front.

  “Colin?” Eve placed her palm against his cheek, her eyes still locked with his. “Colin!”

  Keir’s frail frame stood over them, pistol in hand. “This is splendid,” he jeered. “You can watch me kill her.”

  There was another gunshot and Eve flinched, almost certain it was meant for her, though she was alive, whole, no pain. She searched Colin for a sign that Keir had shot him again when Keir staggered backwards. Eve watched him fall to the ground, when Colin reached for her, pulling her towards him.

  “Don’t look,” he muttered, holding her face with his palms.

  “I get knocked out, and all hell breaks loose,” Logan drawled, walking past them towards Keir. “He’s not a threat any longer, mate.”

  “Thank you,” Colin managed.

  Logan walked over to Colin. “Christ, he shot you.”

  Colin gave him a tell me something I don’t know glance before adding, “I’ve been through worse.”

  “When I said I’ve got your back, mate, I never expected that I’d be tested like this,” Logan said, his words dripping with sarcasm.

  “Mister MacAlistair!” Norris shouted, his voice strained with panic.

  “I’m fine,” Colin asserted, taking the hand Logan had offered him. “Don’t run, Norris. Mary, his heart—”

  “You weren’t worried about my heart when you got yourself shot, were you?” Norris chided.

  “I didn’t ask for it,” Colin rebounded.

  Mary ran to him. “Someone fetch a doctor!” she shouted to another servant.

  “Fetch a doctor to come where?” another servant asked. “The bloody place has burned to the ground.”

  “Let’s bring him to the guest cottage. If it’s still standing, that is,” Logan chimed in.

  Colin released an exasperated sigh. “I’m still here. I can hear you.”

  “Of course you can, mate,” Logan said, offering his shoulder for Colin to lean on. “Thanks to me, that is.”

  “You’ll never let me forget it, will you?”

  A smug smile swept across Logan’s face. “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”

  Colin glanced again at Eve, lines of concern etched in her forehead. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her, smoothing out the creases with his free hand.

  As they walked towards the cottage, Colin saw Keir. Not his face, mind you. Someone had draped a coat over his face and most of his body, though Colin knew he was dead and that he hadn’t killed him.

  Relief, warm and calming, filled his very being. Keir had joined Lachlan MacAlistair in hell, and there was a glimmer of hope that Colin may not be joining them there, as he previously thought.

  He glanced again at Eve … his very own Athena, kissing the top of her forehead.

  Thank you, God, for keeping Eve safe.

  Thank you, for saving me from myself.

  Chapter 20

  Colin scanned Tristan’s office noting its masculine brown leather and mahogany furnishings, wide bank of windows, and fire alight in the impressive grate. His brother’s London townhouse dripped with accomplishment, and it was evident that the younger son had done well for himself, successfully turning around his grandfather’s once financially defunct estates.

  Tristan was intelligent and strong-willed, cunning, in fact. So much so, that it came as no surprise to Colin when Eve revealed that Keir had accused him of destroying Lachlan MacAlistair’s final will a
nd testament.

  Colin was certain that Keir had been correct in assuming that a MacAlistair male had destroyed Lachlan MacAlistair’s will. Keir had quite simply accused the wrong MacAlistair male.

  Even Colin had underestimated his brother.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Colin asked, more a remark than a question.

  “How cryptic,” Tristan stared at him for several seconds before nodding in jest. “Yes, it is always me, is it not?” He then turned, crossing behind his large mahogany desk.

  “All joking aside, might I inquire as to what precisely I am taking credit for?” he asked, plopping into the leather chair behind his desk.

  Colin studied his younger brother, seeing him in a different light. For the first time, Tristan was no longer a young man. No, he was far too serious, far too brooding, his jovial façade all but crumbling before Colin’s eyes. Colin wondered what brought about this change.

  It had to have happened before Eve. How long did it date back? Did Tristan endure his own private hell, one he kept from his family?

  “Ah, silence. Would you like a moment to compose your thoughts? You could,” Tristan paused for a brief second, before adding in a hardened tone, “you could leave.”

  “Ouch! I thought you barristers were taught to be subtle?” Colin mused, aware that his brother was on the verge of downright hostility.

  “Why did you come here, Colin? To reminisce? To repent?” Tristan asked.

  “No, in lieu of another word beginning with the letter ‘r’, I came to discuss Lachlan’s last will and testament.” Colin sat at one of the leather armchairs in front of his brother’s desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “You are the one, are you not, who discarded his new will, the one that left everything to Keir?”

  Tristan exhaled a deep breath before answering the charge Colin leveled at him. “That, dear brother, would have been illegal. Why would I ever do such a thing?”

  “Ironic, is it not? I wondered that same thing,” Colin said.

  It was a contest of wills with Colin staring down his younger brother, determined not to leave before learning the truth. If not the whole truth, he planned to at least garner enough information to appease his curiosity.

  “I suppose,” Tristan said at last, lifting a glass paperweight from his desk then rolling it between his palms, “if one were to do such a thing, which of course I did not, it could be because Keir was a sick bastard who tried to hurt our sister. It could be seen as vengeance or karma, depending upon one’s point of view.”

  Colin remained silent, expecting his brother to continue.

  Tristan did not disappoint. “Then again, one could have sought revenge against dear old Lachlan, an even sicker bastard who tried to force his daughter to marry her illegitimate brother.”

  A foul taste of disgust lodged in Colin’s throat. Lachlan MacAlistair was a vile beast and Colin was grateful yet again that the man wasn’t his blood father. But, for the first time in his life, he was laden with remorse that Tristan shouldered that burden.

  Tristan cleared his throat, snapping Colin out of his silent meditation.

  “So revenge was your only motivation?” Colin asked.

  Tristan snorted. “My dear brother, need I remind you that I am a respected barrister? Our conversation is completely hypothetical.”

  “Of course,” Colin leaned forward in his chair. “Hypothetically, you wouldn’t have done so to spare your eldest brother from scandal or to keep his inheritance intact?”

  “I’m not that noble,” Tristan drawled.

  A thick silence ensued. Colin saw something familiar reflected in Tristan’s brown eyes, an expression he himself had seen reflected in the mirror for years, until his reunion with Eve and the admission of all of his secrets.

  In the depth of Tristan’s gaze mirrored sadness, resentment, and loss. Those very same traits Colin was once quite familiar with.

  Had he and Eve caused this? Colin wondered. Surely, their actions couldn’t have wounded Tristan so deeply? He gave Eve up without a fight, not the sign of a man in love. A kiss, after all, could have been forgiven as could a lie, if the woman were worth it. Not for Tristan, though, and Colin was left to assume that Tristan wasn’t ever really in love with Eve.

  “What in bloody hell are you staring at?” Tristan asked, his tone mounting with frustration.

  “You’re different now,” Colin observed. “I saw it at Gwen’s estate, the night you witnessed Eve and me. I assumed—”

  “Ah, that same night I caught you and my fiancée in a passionate encounter,” Tristan leaned forward, planting his palms on the desk in front of him as if in challenge.

  Colin interpreted his brother’s taut jaw and flashing eyes as a silent dare to refute it. He couldn’t argue because it was true.

  Tristan’s drastic change was caused by something more, something deeper.

  “It wasn’t just that night, was it?” Colin remembered Eve’s comments to him, mere months before.

  I can see it in your eyes. The sadness. Who did this to you?

  “What changed you, Tristan?” Colin asked, softening his tone. “It wasn’t just Eve and me. It began before that, didn’t it? Was it Lachlan?”

  Tristan inhaled deeply as if trying to keep his temper in check. He then lifted the paperweight again, rolling it between his palms. “What do you suspect Lachlan did to me, Colin?”

  Colin decided it was best to remain silent.

  “For God’s sake, you can’t be serious? Lachlan MacAlistair physically abused me for years, long before you deserted me and Gwen. Are you honestly asserting that you had no idea what I suffered at that man’s hand?”

  Colin was certain that he wore his shock and intense sadness for his younger brother to see because Tristan didn’t wait for a response. “Did you ignore the obvious or were you simply blind? I deliberately hid it from Gwen, but you should have known. You were older and more mature. You should have noticed.”

  “Tristan, I don’t know what to say,” he was speechless.

  Squeezing the glass paperweight tighter, Tristan added, “It got worse after your disappearance. He wasn’t pleased that you foiled his plans. At the time, I had no idea what scheme you had destroyed. All I knew was that I and I alone had to protect Gwen from him, and I did. I fought back.” Tristan rolled the circular paperweight onto his blotter. “How does it feel, I wonder? Realizing that your brother took the abuse meant for you? Better yet, place yourself in my position. You leave us to fend for ourselves, leave me to be our sister’s sole protector from a madman then return to take the life that was meant for me. I dare you; place yourself in my position. How do you think I feel?”

  In spite of his brother’s words and his evident rage, there was a vulnerability to his tone and gaze.

  It all but killed Colin.

  “I know that you feel betrayed, disappointed beyond belief, angry and even a modicum of hopelessness, I suspect, though you would never admit to it.” Colin tipped his head to the side, his heart aching for his younger brother.

  Tristan nodded. “That about sums it up.”

  “Please don’t allow what I did, or what Lachlan did to you, to dictate your life or future,” Colin beseeched his brother.

  “Don’t try to fix me, damn it,” Tristan stood with such force that his chair bumped into the wall behind him.

  “That implies that you need repair,” Colin murmured.

  His brother’s eyes narrowed.

  Colin had struck a nerve. Far from being pleased with himself, his conscience knotted in tight coils within his abdomen. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Tristan.”

  In a split second emotion vanished from Tristan’s eyes, replaced by hardened resolve. Colin wondered if he would ever again see into his younger brother’s soul.

  “Go home, Colin, and live your life,” Tristan demanded, walking towards one of the mullioned windows. “You fought for it. Don’t apologize.”

  Colin sighed. His brother was broken. Colin knew he wasn
’t the one to fix him. No one but Tristan could and only when he was fully prepared to do so. Colin knew it to be true because he had just lived through it himself.

  After reaching into his jacket pocket, Colin removed a small wooden box. “This is for you,” he said, handing it to his brother.

  Confusion masked Tristan’s taut features. He then opened the box and stared at the brass keys that lay within.

  “Those are the keys to Ainsley, and—” Colin reached into his vest pocket, removing the documents that made his action official, “this is the deed.”

  “I don’t want that damned estate. Nor will I accept your bribe. I won’t assuage your conscience by allowing you to buy me with our family’s Northamptonshire estate,” Tristan shoved Colin’s hand away from him.

  Colin tossed the deed onto his brother’s intricately-carved desk. “This has nothing to do with my conscience. I know Eve and I hurt you but I’m well aware that I can’t buy your forgiveness. This is the right course of action, Tristan. You are Lachlan’s rightful heir.”

  “I’m not his first born. Give it to Keir,” Tristan countered.

  He hadn’t heard. Colin was uncertain how his brother would react to the news.

  “Tristan,” he began, his tone grave. “You are the only known living son of Lachlan MacAlistair.”

  “What?” Lines of confusion etched around Tristan’s eyes.

  “Keir died a few weeks ago. That makes no difference,” Colin asserted. “Whether he is alive or dead matters not. You are the one to whom I want to bequeath the estate.”

  Tristan stood stock-still, digesting this latest piece of information.

  “Where will you live?” he asked at last.

  A touchy subject, Colin feared. He proceeded with caution, not wanting to further alienate his brother. “We will live with Fiona as her estate is too large for her to reside there alone.”

  “She’ll want to see her great-grandchild as much as possible, I suppose,” Tristan again turned towards the window, walking towards the pane of glass and peering out onto what Colin knew was a busy London street.

  “You heard our news?” It was all Colin could muster.