“I hear it's you who's the devil. ” Adele turned a languid gaze Cormac's way, giving him a sultry wink.
Marjorie jerked against Jack's grip. His hold on her was the only reason she hadn't already clawed the witch's eyes out. “You're naught but a… a… harridan, who's lured my uncle into a web of deceit and disrepute. ” Her uncle huffed with indignation. “Relax, girl. There's nothing disreputable about it. I'm an investor. ”
“Investor?” she asked, perplexed.
“In their plantations. ” Humphrey looked away, directing his words to the smuggler. “An investor who's about to grow very angry indeed, unless I am escorted from this tub posthaste. ”
“Investor?” Jack mused, echoing Marjorie. “You're a so-called botanicals expert, who'd best start proving more obliging. The cane
crops are failing. I'm beginning to doubt your competence, old man. ”
“The gall of you!” Marjorie exclaimed. Hurt and confused she might be, but nobody insulted her family.
“You're a saucy chit. ” Jack tried to nip at her ear. She smelled him coming, and she ducked her head away.
“Saucy?” Marjorie wriggled an arm free and jammed her hand in her skirts. “I'll show you sauce. ” Cormac stiffened, his single-minded focus on her, and it felt to Ree as though they were in a pot set to boil over. She decided she'd be the one to raise the heat.
She jabbed the belaying pin hard at Jack's groin. She missed, but it caught his hip, and he grunted. But then the smuggler only laughed, snatching her weapon from her as easily as a toy from a child.
“A little she-wolf, is it?” Jack flung the pin down and scrubbed his hand up her bodice, groping her. “I enjoy a lass with backbone. Now let's see how far it can bend. ”
Marjorie thrashed like a wild thing, horrified by the unmistakable hunger on his face.
“Leave her be,” Cormac said, rage seething in his voice. “Aidan, let me go, or I swear to you, one of us dies right here, right now. ”
The bailie's wife pulled a tiny lady's pistol from her stocking and aimed it at Marjorie. “I've had enough. ”
“A woman's envy,” Aidan mused. His unconcerned tone infuriated Marjorie more than Adele's pistol. “Isn't that one of the deadly sins?”
Adele cocked her weapon. She stood stiffly, arms outstretched in front of her. “Step away, Jack. We'll take a loss on this one. ”
Tension stilled the room. Even Aidan seemed to hold his breath at Cormac's back.
Marjorie felt the smuggler hesitate, and Adele gestured with the barrel of her pistol. “I said move away. Now. ” Marjorie stared at the bailie's wife in disbelief. “You won't shoot me. ”
“But I will, chit. ”
“You cannot. You will not. ” Humphrey stepped in. Disbelief made her uncle's tone manic. “Jack, control your woman. Think of it. Think of what you lose if the girl gets shot. ” The girl. Marjorie was the girl, and she was about to get a bullet in her chest. The blood drained from her head. It couldn't be happening.
“Jack can remove the loss from my take. ” Adele edged away from Humphrey, getting a clearer line on Marjorie.
“Let go of her, Jack. I'm doing this. ”
The smuggler flung Marjorie away. As she spun to the ground, her perception of every sight, every sound, grew heightened. There was a deafening crack. Marjorie shut her eyes tight, bracing for it. She sensed Cormac tearing from his brother, leaping toward her.
She hit the ground, and her head whipped forward, hard. Warm wetness splattered on her. She waited for pain to bloom, the pistol shot reverberating in her ears with each pound of her heart. Hesitantly, she took a deep breath in, expecting the sharp stab of a bullet wound.
But nothing happened.
Footsteps stuttered before her. She looked up just as her Uncle Humphrey fell to the ground. His body hit the timber with a disturbing sound, like a rattling exhalation.
She shrieked. The wetness was Humphrey's blood, she realized. Acid rose to her throat, and she choked it back.
Thick gray-black smoke choked the cabin. She coughed, and smoke and bile burned her throat. “Humphrey?” Marjorie scampered to him. She patted at his body, knowing in her head that he was dead but still somehow unable to believe it. She pulled her hands back, and they were warm and sticky with his blood. A high keening sound filled the cabin, and she realized it was her.
Adele was shouting now, as was Jack. Marjorie thought she discerned Cormac's voice, too, but it was hollow, as though he called to her from a distance. “Ree!”
She made out his form just as the smoke began to clear, and then quickly looked back at Humphrey. She curled closer to her uncle. She needed to be right there in case he woke up, in case a decision was made and what had just happened might magically un-happen.