It Happened One Bite by Lydia Dare

eyes, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. “I suspected as much.” He shook his head. “Are you familiar with Lord Totley?”
    Lord Totley? Hardly. Blaire had never heard the name. However, the Lindsays were far from the sort who rubbed elbows with peers.
    Aiden shook his head. “I doona believe so.”
    Kettering sighed. “Well, apparently, I should have become more familiar with the man before I agreed to visit his country home in Roxburghshire. He’s a friend of the Regent’s and always has a fine hand at cards, but…”
    “But, what?” Aiden asked, sliding to the edge of his seat.
    Kettering looked back and forth between Blaire and Brannock and cringed. “Some vices are better left unspoken, Captain. Suffice it to say, a number of the guests were a bit more unsavory than one might hope to spend time with.”
    “The five women ?” Blaire prodded, not believing one word of his Banbury tale. “Ye mentioned them initially.”
    Kettering glanced briefly at her and then turned his attention back to Aiden. “I believe one or more of them put something in my port one evening. “Those women are my last memory before waking up here.”
    Blaire didn’t even try to suppress her snort. “And why would they bring ye here? Had ye done somethin’ ta deserve imprisonment?”
    The baron’s eyes flashed back to her with a look so smoldering that she gasped for breath. “I have my whole life, Miss Lindsay, been a gentleman. No one has ever before thought I deserved to be drugged and stashed away in some castle. I’m not at all sure where I even am, to be honest.”
    “The Highlands,” Brannock piped up.
    “So five women drugged ye in Roxburghshire and drove ye inta the Highlands in the dead of winter ta dispose of ye in my brother’s castle?” Blaire shook her head. What nonsense. “Do ye truly expect me ta believe that?”
    Kettering smiled. “Oh, I intend to find the women in question and determine just why they would assault me in such a way. You can be assured, Miss Lindsay, that I will find the truth.”
    And that sentence was the first sincere thing he’d said, in Blaire’s estimation. A chill raced down her spine, though she wasn’t at all sure why.
    “Tell me, did one of these women happen ta look like me?” Blaire crossed her arms beneath her breasts with impatience. Five witches. She only knew of one coven with that number.
    “In fact, Miss Lindsay, one of them bore a striking resemblance to you.” His eyes narrowed at her. Blaire’s heart began to beat double time at the admission. It really was her mother he sought. How was that possible? Alpina Lindsay had been dead ten years. Certainly he hadn’t been locked in that cellar for a decade. Yet his clothes were from another time, longer than ten years if she had to guess.
    “Would you happen to know where I can find her, this witch who resembles you?” Kettering’s voice broke into her thoughts.
    Brannock sat forward and opened his mouth. Blaire snapped her fingers, and her brother sat back with a huff. She couldn’t allow the lad to tell Kettering that the witch he sought didn’t exist anymore or she’d never discover the true reason why he was locked in the cellar. And until she knew that reason, she couldn’t let him leave. He was too much of a threat.
    “I’m no’ aware of any witches who look like me. I was simply curious. But I will do what I can ta help ye find what ye’re seekin’.”
    “I would be thankful for your assistance,” he said as he bowed his head in her direction.
    “Is your dinner no’ appealin’ ta ye?” Ever since he’d sat at the table, he’d simply dipped his spoon into his stew over and over, though he’d yet to take a single bite of the stew. Shouldn’t he be starving? Even Aiden’s cooking had to be better than nothing.
    “I find myself a bit distracted, I admit,” he said quietly, and then he immediately turned to Aiden to speak, still without taking a bite. The man had been locked in the