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to be man-to-man. “She’s a rare handful. She’s safe enough here on the island—if any man were to offer her insult, half the villagers would gut him.”
    “ Is that a warning?” Malcolm murmured.
    “ Of course not, dear fellow. You can see as well as I that she’s not quite right in the head. Never has been, for that matter, though no one has ever been sure of the reason. Why, she thinks you’re a selkie! Of all the absurd fancies. I know I can count on you not to pay too much attention to the things she says. She’s a complete innocent, unaware of how her words might sound.”
    Malcolm doubted that. Mistress Ailie seemed fully aware of the havoc she was wreaking. He simply smiled, a wintry, noncommittal smile. He’d always been adept at patience, at hunting for his prey. His prey stood before him, fat and sleek and ready for the slaughter. Malcolm was going to enjoy himself immensely.
    But not yet. There’d be time to savor his revenge. To get it right. “I’d best be getting home,” he murmured to the man he’d sworn to destroy.
    “ I’ll convey your regrets to Sir Angus and Lady Wallace,” Torquil murmured, making no effort to stop him.
     
    The air was cool, crisp when he left the Wallace manor house, and Malcolm took a deep, cleansing breath. He’d met his enemy, face-to-face. The last remaining villain who’d engineered his mother’s near murder. Odd to think that the fat, smug old man was some sort of blood kin to him. A few hours on St. Columba and the truth of James MacLaren’s words came home to him. James was his father, the only one worth having. His kin lay back in Glen Corrie, not on this beautiful rocky island.
    He started up the pathway to the northern coast of the small isle, wanting to investigate the house where his mother had been born, to see if any trace of the once carefree lass remained. Not that she’d been careworn during his childhood. She’d taken her blindness in stride, doing more than most sighted women could have accomplished, and doing it with calm good humor, ordering her servants, raising her brood of children, loving her husband.
    Collis would meet him when he finished with the day’s catch. Like most highland crofters, he counted on a number of things to scratch a living out of the unfriendly soil—the sparse crops he could grow, the sheep he tended, and the fish he could draw from the sea.
    He found himself grinning, remembering Ailie Spens’s deliberately artless question. He almost wished he had the strength of purpose to swallow a live fish, just to see the reactions of the good people of St. Columba.
    The sky was fading into the dim halflight that would linger well toward midnight. He walked swiftly, trying to still the restlessness that danced in his veins. He needed to be patient. His revenge must be delicately taken for it to provide a mortal sting. He couldn’t rush into anything.
    His grandparents’ house was a small, sturdy stone cottage by the edge of the sea. Part of the roof had fallen in, some of the windows were broken, and the garden was a riot of overgrowth and color. Collis had taken him there this morning, and he’d immediately felt an affinity for the place. It was all he had left of his mother’s family—a deserted old farmhouse. It both soothed him and strengthened his determination.
    The shadows were lengthening when he opened the front door, listening to it creak noisily. He wouldn’t oil it—it would prove a warning if Torquil began to suspect he had other reasons for being here. He stepped inside, staring around him at the dust-shrouded hallway.
    His mother had grown up here. He could imagine her, a bonnie lass, racing down the steep front stairs. He could almost sense her presence, hear her breathing, smell the faint trace of flowers.
    It wasn’t his imagination, or wishful thinking. He wasn’t alone in the old house. Someone was there with him. And he had a fair idea who it might be.
    He walked into the empty drawing room.