Chapter 20

20

“ I t’s Lewis Brown!”

Ersie burst into the armory, where Doughall had been taking inventory of the weapons in the clan’s possession, noting any cracks or rust or flaws that would require the blacksmith’s attention.

He whirled around, his eyes narrowing on her. “What?”

“It’s Lewis Brown, M’Laird. James Stewart’s man. Spotted by the loch. Two of our lads chased him, but they lost him in the woods,” she panted. “I was on me way back from scoutin’ when I passed ‘em. They were comin’ to tell ye.”

Anger flared, a black flame in Doughall’s chest. “Was he on foot or horseback?”

“Had a horse with him, but he’s on foot.” Ersie sucked in a gulp of air. “The lads have the horse, so he willnae be ridin’ anywhere.”

Keenly remembering the night he had found Freya in the woods, he wondered if he would know the horse by sight. It had been a dark-coated beast, not a dun or a silver or even a piebald, but he could not be sure if the horse was black or brown. He shook off the contemplation; it was of little use at that moment.

“Round up ten of our best soldiers,” Doughall said darkly, feeling an eerie, familiar sense of calm. “We’ll hunt him out of those woods if it’s the last thing we do.”

Ersie caught her breath. “Hunt to kill or capture?”

“Capture,” Doughall replied. “I want to ken, once and for all, if James Stewart is still breathin’. If he is, I want to ken where he is and if he had aught to do with what nearly happened to Freya.”

Ersie pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. “It’ll be dark soon. Nae the best conditions for huntin’.”

“The perfect conditions for huntin’ that imp down like the weasel he is,” Doughall growled. “I want everyone ridin’ out in ten minutes. Lanterns and lances. If that wretch thinks he’ll be safe hidin’ in the undergrowth, he’s goin’ to learn a valuable lesson tonight.”

Ersie bowed her head. “Aye, M’Laird.”

She ran out with the same haste she had entered, while Doughall turned back to the rows of spears, lances, swords, and bows that lined the walls.

By daylight—or before, hopefully—he would put an end to James Stewart’s former man-at-arms. He did not doubt that Lewis remained loyal to the despicable creature, and it would cost him his life soon enough. And if James himself was still out there somewhere, having somehow survived Adam’s sword through his chest, Doughall hoped he knew that his days were numbered too.

If anyone could survive that, it’d be James. And I never did see him buried.

If they had anything to do with the attack on Freya, Doughall would not make their death quick, and he would not make it dignified. They deserved nothing but the worst of fates for attempting to dishonor and take the life of the woman he had come to… tolerate more than he was willing to admit.

Call it yer second weddin’ gift.

Running his fingertips over his longbow, unhooking it from the rack, he allowed himself a small smile. After he was done with Lewis, after he had his answers, Freya would be able to rest easy knowing that he had eliminated the danger. That was something worth smiling about.

The thick veil of night rose slowly, the glittering stars relinquishing their sparkle to the first inky tinge of dawn, the moon retreating to make way for the sun like quarreling lovers who did not want to be caught in the same room together.

The hazy, early morning light found the hunting party through the boughs of autumnal branches still clinging to their pretty leaves. Fatigue weighed the shoulders of the diligent soldiers, stretching their mouths into stifled yawns as they stabbed the sharp ends of their lances into the bushes and hollow tree trunks and tangled briars for the millionth time.

“He has to be here somewhere,” Doughall hissed, pausing to mop the sweat from his brow.

No one would argue that he had been the most determined, thrusting his lance into the smallest shrub just in case.

Ersie had her lance resting sideways on her saddle, her body bent half over as if she could sleep on her horse if she had to.

“Our success would suggest otherwise.” She pointed her thumb back over her shoulder. “If I were him, I’d have doubled back and made me way around the loch, comin’ out the northern end. Hell, if he can swim, he’ll have done that, leavin’ nay tracks.”

“Swim?” Doughall glared at her casual attitude. “He’d have frozen.”

“Better to freeze than risk bein’ flayed,” she replied with a yawn.

Annoyance bristled through him like bramble thorns pricking his patience. “Will ye sit up!”

Ersie did, blinking in surprise. “Sorry, M’Laird. I… forgot meself for a moment there.”

“Aye, ye did. Ye’ve been doin’ it since Freya arrived.” He took a deep breath. “Just remember that ye’re the example. If ye want respect, act like ye deserve it.”

Her eyes narrowed, her mouth forming a grim line. If there was one thing guaranteed to make an impact on Ersie, it was calling her position into question. Doughall had never doubted her in all the years he had known her and felt no shame whatsoever in having a woman as his second-in-command, but she had neglected her duties of late, spending more and more time in Freya’s company instead of doing her job.

“If we’re talkin’ about behavin’ like ye’re worthy of somethin’, ye might want to head to the loch and take a long look at yer own reflection,” Ersie replied, squaring her shoulders and tilting her head from side to side.

Doughall stared hard at his friend. “Watch yer tongue, Ersie.”

“Ye tasked me with watchin’ over Freya, and now ye’re beratin’ me for it,” Ersie replied curtly. “So, nay, I willnae watch me tongue if I feel I’m bein’ spoken to unfairly. I forgot meself for a moment here because we’ve been traipsin’ through the woods all night and I’m tired enough to need stitches to hold me eyes open. I never forget meself at the castle.”

Doughall furrowed his brow, wondering if he was mistaken. He had tasked Ersie with guarding Freya whenever he wasn’t there, but what he had seen did not look like any sort of protection to him.

Was befriending Freya Ersie’s way of ensuring that she was permitted to stay close to her? It was an interesting tactic, one he had not considered.

“Ha!” Ersie pointed a finger at him. “Ye’ve just realized ye’re wrong. I ken that face.”

Doughall turned his horse around, leading it toward the loch. Not to take a hard look at his reflection, but to see if Ersie was right about Lewis escaping around it.

“Och, ye dinnae want to talk now?” Ersie rode after him, drawing level, the horses’ hooves crunching the frosty fallen leaves and snarled underbrush. “Is it because I’m friendly with her? Is that the problem? Do ye nae want yer soon-to-be wife to have friends?”

Doughall inhaled the crisp morning air. “I dinnae want ye blurrin’ any boundaries.”

“Or is it ye who doesnae want to blur any boundaries with her?” she prodded. “I ken ye were so jealous at yer betrothal feast that ye would’ve put Laird MacMillen’s head on a pike and nae felt a bit of regret over it. I ken that’s why ye kissed her in the courtyard and got yerself roped into a marriage that, maybe, if ye were bein’ honest with yerself, ye’re nae so angry about.”

Doughall kept his gaze trained on the near distance, refusing to let even a hint of his astonishment show on his face. He was not aware that Ersie was privy to the details of what had occurred in the courtyard. He certainly had not divulged them to her, but he supposed he should not have been so surprised—women talked, even sensible ones.

Does she ken the rest of it? What happened in the study?

He let the silence between them steep, to see if she would mention it. When she did not, he reassured himself that she did not know about more than the kiss.

“Jealousy is for weak men, Ersie,” he said at last, his voice flat. “I dinnae feel it, much less feel it to the extremes of actin’ on it. Laird MacMillen disrespected me in me own castle—I did what was expected of a laird, nothin’ more.”

Ersie snickered. “Aye, ye keep lyin’ to yerself. See where it gets ye.” She cast him a sideways glance. “But I’ll tell ye where it willnae get ye—to a place of happiness with that fine lass who is goin’ to be yer wife. I like her, I think she’s good for ye, and if ye do aught to hurt her or upset her, ye might just have me to answer to.”

“Ye’re forgettin’ yerself again,” he replied coolly. “I give ye some leniency because I’ve kenned ye all me life, but dinnae start thinkin’ ye can speak to me however ye please. See where that gets ye.”

She shrugged, leaning forward again as the gelding picked his way carefully through a tangle of thick roots. She had always been at ease on horseback, the gelding like an extension of her body, and though Doughall knew he should scold her again, he did not. It was what she wanted, and he was in no mood for games.

“I think she’s good for ye…”

He let the words replay in his mind as they continued on toward the loch, wondering what that was supposed to mean.

No marriage could be good for him, could it? It went against all of the promises he had made to himself: never fail anyone the way he failed his parents, never watch his wife die in front of him, never force his children to feel all that he had to feel before he decided he wouldn’t feel anything at all.

Plus, marriage was an unwelcome distraction, diverting his attention away from his clan, his castle, his revenge, to… picking out books he thought she might like, running to her because he heard she was in distress, and instead of calling her tear-induced headache ridiculous, lingering to ask what had upset her so much.

How could that be a good thing?

She is makin’ me weak. That cannae ever be a good change.

For one thing, he had been jealous. Insanely jealous. Even now, if he were to see Freya smiling too sweetly at a guard or a soldier, he had no doubt it would flare up again. A laird who could not control himself or his emotions, or was influenced by such pitiful feelings as jealousy, was not worthy of the title.

Nae one of ye realizes what a danger she is to the peace of this clan.

Nor could he explain it without revealing the damage she had already done to the battlements that were built high around his inner being.

“I’m just sayin’,” Ersie piped up a short while later, “ye could be gentler with her. Ye dinnae have to be so… Laird MacGordon with her. Ye can afford to be more Doughall.”

He groaned. “Ye’re ridiculous.”

And I have been gentler with her, but ye’re beginnin’ to make me wish I hadnae, he neglected to add, his thoughts drifting to Freya’s bedchamber, curious to know if she had found the book yet.

A moment later, he chided himself for putting it there, concerned that she might think it meant more than it did.

“I might be mistaken, M’Laird, but was there nae a time, nae so long ago, when Laird MacNiall said he’d be a better laird without a lass cloudin’ his judgment and ye were the one who encouraged him to hare after his wife because ye didnae agree?” Ersie said, undeterred. “Just somethin’ to think about.”

Doughall wished he had never told his friend about that, though he could not have anticipated that it would come back to bite him quite so spectacularly.

They rode on in companionable silence, a vibration of smugness coming from Ersie that he chose to ignore. Instead, he looked out over the mirror-still loch and watched it burn with dawn colors, as if some heavenly hand was pouring autumn itself into the water, tinging the surface with streaks of orange and red and golden yellow.

He had forgotten how beautiful the loch could be, rarely visiting for fear of dredging up bad memories.

“Freya said she might like to swim here,” Ersie said as they neared the northernmost curve of the loch. “Ye ought to bring her one day.”

Doughall would have replied that there was a greater chance of raspberry fritters falling from the sky had he not spotted a sudden movement in the swaying willow trees just ahead.

Squeezing his thighs, he urged his horse into a lope, stretching into a gallop. The mare leaped up the grassy bank with ease, thundering through the curtain of willow fronds, chasing down the figure who was now sprinting for his life.

Cloak flapping, stumbling over the roots and dense patches of moss that were allied to Doughall, the man stood no chance of outrunning his pursuer.

With all the power in his arm, Doughall hurled his lance. It whistled past the fleeing man’s shoulder and landed on the soft earth a short distance ahead of him, the shaft quivering. The man did not have the opportunity to slow down, running straight into the thick stick. It held, knocking the man back and giving Doughall the seconds he needed to catch up to him.

“On yer knees, ye bastard,” Doughall seethed, bringing his horse to a halt in front of the man.

The trembling figure pulled back his hood and sank to his knees, holding his hands up. “I didnae take nothin’. I didnae poach nothin’. I was just… gatherin’ mussels. Me bairns need to eat. I swear, I didnae take aught.” He flinched. “Maybe I snared a couple of rabbits, but only so that me bairns wouldnae starve.”

Doughall was barely listening to the man’s pleas, disappointment simmering in his chest. The man in front of him was not James Stewart’s man-at-arms. Lewis Brown was a burly bear of a man with a grizzled face, not a wiry heron of a man like this one.

“Hold yer tongue,” he barked. “Take the rabbits and take this.”

He took out his coin pouch and threw a couple to the needy man, who lunged for the money with dirty, bloody hands. The sharp edges of the mussels had obviously given the man some trouble, cutting his fingers.

“Thank ye!” the man gasped, clutching the coins to his chest. “Och, thank ye!”

Doughall eyed him. “It’s nae for nothin’, and I’ll give ye more on this day next week if ye put yerself to good use.”

“Anythin’, M’Laird,” the man replied, evidently familiar with who Doughall was. “Anythin’. Ye name it, I’ll do it, if it means I can feed me family.”

Doughall nodded toward the water at his back. “Watch this loch and the forests around it for any sign of Lewis Brown. Do ye ken the man?”

“I dinnae, M’Laird.”

“Aye, well, ye’ll ken him if ye see him. Tall, robust, looks like he could toss ye bodily with one hand, dark red hair, might have a beard to match. Cruel eyes. Ye’ll nae mistake him,” Doughall replied. “Dinnae approach him, but if ye see him, come to MacGordon Castle and ask for me.”

The man nodded eagerly. “I will, M’Laird. I swear it, I’ll watch out for him like a hawk.”

“See that ye do. And ye have me permission to hunt the rabbits.”

Doughall nudged his horse back into a walk, stepping past the man and back the way he had come, to where Ersie awaited him.

“Nae Lewis?”

Doughall shook his head. “Nay, but he’s out there.” He cast his sharp gaze over the molten surface of the loch to the armies of trees beyond, the light not yet bright enough to see any hidden lurkers. A shiver beetled down his spine. “I can feel him.”