MacRuairi’s taunt might have had some effect if Alex weren’t so furious. How could Joan have done this? How could they have let her do this? Heedless of the knife digging slowly deeper into his back, Alex snapped back, “I don’t think Joan would like it too much if you killed the man she’s going to marry in a few weeks.” He paused and added sarcastically, “Shall I call you Father?”

MacRuairi cursed, and the press of the knife slackened for one instant. Having anticipated it, Alex was able to use his former guardsman’s moment of shock to twist away.

The two men faced off in the darkness, MacRuairi still wielding his blade and Alex retrieving his own.

“You hadn’t heard about our impending nuptials?” Alex taunted. “You must be slipping, Viper.”

“You are a liar as well as a traitor.” MacRuairi’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his blade as if he couldn’t wait to attack. “Joan would never—”

He slammed his mouth closed and gave Alex a deadly glare that might have intimidated him once. It didn’t any longer.

“What?” Alex seethed. “Marry me knowing what she knows about me? Is that what you were about to say? Don’t stop now, there is no need for secrets between old friends,” he said with the kind of biting sarcasm that could have come from the man opposite him. “I know everything.” MacRuairi’s weren’t the only fingers tightening around his blade. Alex was practically shaking with the need to vent his anger on the man he held responsible. “I know Joan is the Ghost, damn it. I know you’ve been using her since she was barely more than a girl to spy on the English and send information back to Bruce. I knew you were a coldhearted bastard, Viper, but I never thought even you would let your wife’s daughter play a whore for your own ends. Do you have any idea the kind of danger she’s been in? Does Bella know what her daughter is doing?”

It could have been a trick of the moonlight, but he thought MacRuairi might have paled. “Leave my wife out of this. You don’t know shite, you fucking English bastard. And we were never friends.”

Alex’s fingers were white, the intricate metalwork of the hilt biting into his skin. “Maybe you’re right. But you know what? I don’t care anymore. This isn’t about me, it’s about Joan. You can pretend ignorance, but you had to know what she was doing. Did you not question how she got close enough to Fitzgerald to get all those shipping routes?”

MacRuairi cursed again, but this time it didn’t seem to be directed at Alex but at himself. His blade came down just a little. “You are wrong. I didn’t know.”