Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels #7) by Lisa Kleypas

Another minute passed, and another, as they continued to watch.

A growl came from the dog’s throat, so quietly menacing that every hair on Merritt’s body stood on end. In a moment, she saw movement near the archway … a man following Keir into the distillery. He appeared to be heavier, broader than Duffy.

“Oh, no you bloody don’t,” Merritt whispered, electrified with fear and urgency. Wallace remained at the window, staring outside. She couldn’t risk taking him with her.

Quietly she left the bedroom and closed the door, keeping him safely inside. With the revolver in hand, she went outside and made her way past the distillery walls. After hesitating at the main building, she followed an instinct and skirted around to the gigantic racking-house. The main door was ajar. She nudged past it and eased inside.

The maze of racks and casks was only faintly illuminated by fingers of blue light that crept in through a few high, small windows. After sidling against a wall, Merritt held very still, hearing the sounds of quiet footsteps. Another, slightly different set. Walking, stopping, walking … stopping. It was difficult to tell where any of them were coming from. She ventured farther into the rackhouse, keeping to the shadows and straining to see through the darkness.

A man was walking several rows away from her. Suddenly, she was startled by the feel of a gentle hand covering her mouth, and she inhaled sharply. Her heartbeat went out of control, cluttering her chest with its wild pounding until she could hardly breathe. But the strong, warm fingers were familiar. She relaxed at the scent and feel of her husband. His hand slid down her arm, closed over the gun, and gently removed it from her grip. After sliding it into her skirt pocket, he took her hand and pulled her along with him.

She could hear the other man’s footsteps again, this time much closer. Keir drew her with him to the end of a row. He ducked his head around one side of the rack and then the other, but both corridors were empty.

Merritt felt him lift one of her wrists up to his mouth. There was a slight tug as he bit through the threads affixing a tiny decorative button to the cuff. He took the little button between a thumb and finger, and tossed it into one of the corridors between the racks.

In response to the sound, the footsteps came closer, until Merritt could tell the man was heading toward them. Her hand inched toward her skirt pocket, but Keir caught it gently and guided it to a wooden lever attached to the rack.

“Push it down on three,” he whispered, almost inaudibly, and he reached for a higher lever on the rack.

She waited, sweat breaking out as the footsteps came closer. Keir’s fingers tapped on her arm. One … two … three. She shoved the lever down with all her strength.

The entire rack shuddered, and casks began to roll with the sound of thunder. Seeing Keir pull another lever, and another, Merritt reached to help him. She glanced into the corridor, and saw the stranger staggering between the heavy plummeting casks.

Then the man was quiet, groaning as he was pinned beneath the weight of a barrel.

Keir went into the corridor and looked at the man incredulously. “He’s no’ the one from the alley,” he said.

A FEW MINUTES later, Merritt sat in the kitchen with Agent Duffy, dabbing gently at his bruised and lacerated temple with a cold, wet cloth. She and Keir had found him outside one of the distillery walls, where he’d been knocked unconscious by the intruder. After they’d helped him into the house, Keir had gone to fetch the sheriff.

“I’m so sorry,” Merritt murmured, as the young man flinched and drew in a hissing breath. “I do wish you’d take that dram of whisky Keir poured for you.”

“Ransom wouldn’t like it,” Duffy said. “I’m still on the job.”

Merritt nudged the glass toward him. “I won’t tell.”

Duffy reached for it gratefully. After a bracing swallow, he let Merritt press a cold compress to his forehead. “I should be handling the situation,” he said. “Where’s Mr. MacRae?”

“He’s gone to fetch MacTaggart,” she said.

“The suspect—where is he?”

“We left him in the rackhouse, after we bound him up with baler twine.”

The stranger had been dazed and battered, putting up only a feeble struggle before Keir had subdued him. After the man’s hands had been fastened behind his back and his legs tied together, Keir had searched his pockets and found a revolver and a set of brass knuckle dusters. Merritt had pulled out a knife from a sewn-in sheath in the shaft of his boot.

She’d been perplexed by how ordinary the hired assassin’s appearance was. There was nothing of the stage villain about him, nor did he seem mad, desperate, impoverished, or any of the things that might drive a man to crime. He was a well-dressed man in his twenties, with a face that could have belonged to a shopkeeper or a business clerk.

As the man sat propped up against a wine cask, his hard, empty eyes had unnerved Merritt. He’d refused to speak, only stared at them with that emotionless gaze, as if he were turning to stone in front of them.

“Whether you tell us or no’,” Keir had said wryly, “’tis no great mystery about who sent you, and what you were after doing.” As the stranger maintained his cold silence, Keir had stared at him with curiosity and a hint of pity. “I dinna know what made you so broken, but life must have gone hard for you. Why kill a man you have no quarrel with? Only for money? Had you come to me as a stranger needful of work, I’d have offered you a good honest job.”