Maggie, sound asleep only a moment before, bolted upright on the bed she’d shared with Jamie McKenna. She felt him roll off the mattress, but it was the darkest hour of the night and she could see nothing save the outline of several hulking men filling the open doorway.

Too frightened to scream, Maggie simply tugged at her bodice to make sure it hadn’t slipped while she was sleeping, and peered into the darkness.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a match striking, and then the lamp Jamie had extinguished earlier was relit and she could see all too clearly.

Jamie was crouched on the floor beside the bed, a huge, savage-looking knife glinting in one hand. Duncan stood beside the lamp, and there were four enormous men with him, crowding the doorway, leering at Maggie and smiling toothless smiles.

“Take the girl outside,” Duncan ordered.

Jamie rose slowly to his feet, the lethal knife still clutched in his right hand. “I wouldn’t advise you to try it, mates,” he said in a low voice that rumbled like lava forcing its way upward through solid rock.

One of Duncan’s hooligans drew a gun from the inside pocket of his ragged coat and brandished it. “That blade ain’t much use against one of these, now, is it?”

Maggie was inching toward the foot of the bed. She was ready to plead with Jamie. “Don’t. They’ll kill you!”

“Maggie!” Jamie warned, but she was out of his reach, awkwardly climbing over the brass bedstead to stand upright on the floor.

One of the thugs immediately grasped her already-bruised arm in a filthy hand, and she flinched. That tiny motion distracted Duncan from Jamie for the first time since the lantern had been lit.

“Take your hands off her,” he said in a lethal tone, and the foul-smelling man let go of Maggie with a scowl. Duncan reached out and caught her around the waist with one arm, slamming her against his side.

“Leave this room with the woman, mate,” Jamie warned Duncan in a calm voice, waggling the knife slightly, “and you’ll go out wearin’ this.”

Maggie’s heart stopped beating and then started again. “Duncan,” she pleaded, knowing that Jamie meant what he said.

Duncan favored her with an icy smile that sent chills skittering up and down her back. “So at last you use my given name.” He sighed. “Too late, alas—you’ve definitely fallen from grace.”

In the next second Maggie was flung toward the door. She was still trying to recover her balance on the landing outside when she heard the hissing sound of a knife slicing through the air, followed by a sickening thud as it punctured flesh.