Chapter Four

"Where does the lass Sorcha MacGregor live?" Alasdair asked Benedict.

"Ye need nae worry she'll go unpunished. I'll be visiting her da momentarily, and I vow to ye, he'll give her as sound a lashing as I would. He's a heavy hand."

Despite not being overly surprised after what the lass had mentioned about her father, disgust still balled in Alasdair's belly, though he could not show it. "'Tis good to hear," he lied as he glanced at Calan, who looked as revolted as Alasdair was, though if she did turn out to be Margaret Stewart by some gift of the gods, then there would be much less guilt associated with taking her from a home where she had been abused rather than a loving home.

"Did ye hear me?" Benedict asked, interrupting Alasdair's musings.

"Aye. I still wish to talk to her da."

"That red hair of hers caught yer eye, did it nae?" Benedict asked with a lecherous grin that Alasdair didn't care for.

"Aye," Alasdair lied to allay any suspicions.

"He'll nae part with her," Benedict added. "Unless ye have a king's ransom, and we both ken ye dunnae have that."

"We'll see," Alasdair simply said.

"I'm telling ye, the man will nae let Sorcha go. There have been at least a half dozen men in this village that have asked for her hand, and her da has refused every one of them."

"The lass falls in love quite a lot, does she?" Alasdair commented, hearing a thread of sarcasm in his tone. He cleared his throat to rid himself of the unwelcome feelings.

Benedict snorted at that. "Nay. She turned them all down, verra rudely if ye ask me, afore they ever approached her da, but they persisted. Do ye ken why they did?"

"Because she's just about the bonniest lass any of them have ever seen," Calan supplied. Alasdair found himself turning a narrow-eyed warning gaze upon his friend. The look was meant to keep Calan from entangling himself with the lass, though Calan could not know the ridiculous idea of Alasdair's—that Sorcha was Margaret Stewart, betrothed of Laird Campbell, who would by that union be head of one of the most powerful clans in the Highlands.

Alasdair rubbed his tense neck. He'd not ever heard a sour word regarding Laird Campbell, and usually when a man was rotten at his core, word got around. And besides that, Margaret Stewart's happiness was not his responsibility. It was her brother's.

"Sorcha MacGregor is part ban-druidh, if ye ask me," Benedict announced.

No one had asked the clot-heid, but Alasdair refrained from stating the obvious.

"The lass is nae a witch," Alasdair said.

"'Tis nae natural for a lass nae to wish to wed, bonny as she is."

Alasdair had no notion why the lass may not wish to wed, nor would he allow himself to care about something that did not involve him. "Nae wishing to wed does nae make the lass ban-druidh. Now, where is her home?"

"Down this road and take a right at the church. Ye'll see the Boat of Garten Inn at the end of that road."

"Thank ye," Alasdair said as he turned on his heel and strode toward his horse, effectively cutting off the conversation.

Calan gave him a questioning look, and he discreetly shook his head at him. He'd explain why they were going to Sorcha's home when they were out of Benedict's hearing. They found their horses, mounted, and got no more than two breaths down the road when Calan demanded, "What are we doing?"

"'Tis probably unlikely, but what if the lass Sorcha is actually Margaret Stewart?"

Calan laughed at that. "I wish it were that simple to save our clan as well, Alasdair, but ye are grasping at something that is nae so."

"Aye," Alasdair agreed, "likely, but I have an unsettled feeling about the lass."

"Why? Because ye bested her in the competition?"

"Nay, 'tis nae just that." Though he did feel a measure of guilt for taking away her chance to aid herself and her sister.

"Just because the lass has red hair and blue eyes does nae make her the missing Stewart sister," Calan said to which Alasdair nodded. "Besides," Calan continued. "Ollie lives in this village. Dunnae ye think he'd ken of the lass?"

"Possibly, but mayhap nae," Alasdair replied. "Ollie is away from his home far more than he is here."

Silence fell between them for several moments, before Calan said, "It kinnae be this simple."

A tinge of hope underscored his words. "It undoubtedly is nae, so dunnae get too optimistic about it. Ye ken me. When I get something in my gut I kinnae let it go."

"Aye. I ken. So we will go and see the lass, but what will be our reason for going there?"

Alasdair held up the twine as the horses clopped along and grinned at Calan, whose eyebrows dipped together in confusion. "A piece of twine is our reason for seeking out the lass?"

"'Tis her lucky twine, given to her by her dead mama."

"Ah," Calan said, "now I understand things more clearly."

It was Alasdair's turn to frown in confusion. "What is it ye understand better?"

"I did nae ken why ye were letting yer competitor best ye in a round, but had he, I mean she, told ye about her dead mama before ye let her best ye?"

"She had, and the twine was how I kenned right away that she was the same lass we'd met earlier but was disguised as a man."

"I did nae ken it until her cap was dislodged," Calan said, sounding disgruntled.

"Dunnae fash yerself about it. I likely would nae have if it were nae for her leaving the twine on."

As the horses clopped along, Calan said, "Say this lass is the lost Stewart sister. She is nae just going to depart willingly with us."

"Mayhap she will," Alasdair said. "She told me her da did nae treat her well."

"Ye spoke more to this lass in the short time ye stood beside her than ye have to any of the lasses from our clan since Marriot passed. Mayhap ye are ready to—"

"Nay," Alasdair said, spotting a dilapidated inn at the end of the road. It was so neglected that the building actually seemed to be leaning. Any decent traveler surely didn't wish to stay there.

"Ye dunnae even ken what I was going to say," Calan protested.

"Aye, I do," Alasdair, said, studying the inn where Sorcha lived. The walls were crumbling, and there were several holes in the stone. The closer they drew, the more he noticed—the bottom step was missing and the front door did not shut properly, so all manner of bugs could easily enter the inn as well as the cold in the wicked winter months. The door to the inn opened, and four men stumbled out, singing a raucous song. By the disheveled look of them, they'd spent their night drinking mead or wine or both, and had not seen a wash basin in many moons.

"What was I going to say?" Calan demanded.

"Ye were going to suggest I might be ready to leave my grief behind, and I'm nae."

The front door to the inn flew open with a bang, and a burly man strode out with a lass flung over his shoulder. From the long red hair that cascaded from her head and the way she bellowed, Alasdair had no doubt that she was Sorcha.

He pulled his horse to a stop, reached behind him and pulled out his bow and arrow, and he nodded to Calan to do the same. "Ye there!" he called down the short distance that still separated him from the man and Sorcha. The man stopped and looked Alasdair's way. The grin on the man's face instantly disappeared as he took in Alasdair's and Calan's arrows, which were trained on him and his friends, who had also stopped walking. "Set the lass down or I'll shoot ye."

One of the man's companions started to reach for his sword, so Alasdair released an arrow that struck the man in the arm wrapped around Sorcha's backside. He released her with a howl, and she thudded to the ground.

As Alasdair approached, Sorcha stood and set her hands to her hips and glared down at the man. She still wore her torn gown, and the ripped right sleeve exposed her upper arm near the shoulder. There on her smooth skin was a brand—no longer red as it must have been the day the hot iron was used to put it there, but it was a shock all the same to see the L3 that marked this woman as the lost sister of Laird Stewart. Behind him, Calan's muttered "God's blood," told Alasdair his friend had seen it as well.

The man made as if to grab her ankle, and Alasdair snapped out of his shock fast enough to notch another arrow and take aim. "Dunnae make me kill ye," he said.

The man slowly lowered his hand and looked to his companions, who stood frozen, as Calan still had his bow and arrow trained on them, and said, "I'm nae willing to give my life to bed the lass."

"Aye," the man's companions murmured agreement.

"'Tis a good choice," Alasdair growled. "Now get along with ye all."

As the men filed away, Alasdair met Margaret Stewart's gaze, and immediately Ollie's description of her eyes came to mind—blue. Ollie was a clot-heid. Margaret Stewart's eyes were not simply blue, and Alasdair couldn't believe he was only now fully noticing the astonishing color. Silver streaked through the bright blue of her eyes, and dark long black lashes framed her eyes as well as perfectly shaped eyebrows. She had eyes so astonishingly lovely that he stared, momentarily entranced. As he stared at her, a blush stained her fair skin, and she narrowed a suspicious gaze on him. "If ye're thinking to let a room here, it's going to cost ye a great amount of coin," she said. "I ken how much coin ye won, and dunnae ye mistake that I mind relieving ye of some of it." A smirk turned up the corners of her mouth just enough that a dimple appeared in her right cheek. He felt his lips part in further shock. How had he missed these obvious signs of her true identity?

He stared for a moment and swallowed. "Is it nae customarily good manners to thank someone when they have rescued ye?"

"Aye," she said, "but ye cheated me out of winnings, so ye'll nae get a thanks from me today."

"I won the contest fairly."

"I did nae get to finish it," she said. "Had I, I'd have won."

"Ye would nae have," Calan piped up. "Alasdair let—"

Alasdair held up a silencing hand to his friend. There were far more important things to address than whether the lass would have bested him or not. For instance, did she know anything of her history or had it been kept hidden even from her? Did she know she was Margaret Stewart? Did she know men were searching for her? Surely not, for if she did know who she was, he could not imagine why she would not have fled this life already. "I did nae come here to let a room."

"What the devil did ye come for, then?" she demanded.

"Where's yer da?" he asked, instead of immediately answering her question. Alasdair was going to take her. There was no doubt of that in his mind. By her own mouth, her father was abusive, and by Benedict's own words, her da would never let her go without a great monetary gain, and Alasdair wasn't about to offer any coin to a man who abused his daughter.

"Why do ye want to ken where my da is?" she asked, her eyes narrowing further.

"I'm just curious why yer da was nae protecting ye from the likes of the man who grabbed ye."

She laughed a deep-bellied laugh. "Protect me?" She gasped between peals of laughter. "The man offered my da a large purse of coin to bed me, so he took it."

Shock yielded quickly to fury. "Has yer da done this afore?" he asked, thinking of her pending betrothal to Laird Campbell. If she was not an innocent, then Campbell would not wed her, which perhaps was best if she really did not wish to wed. She could at least return to the bosom of a better family.

"Oh, aye," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, as if her father's neglect of her was nothing.

His nostrils flared with his scalding anger. "Is yer da inside?" he asked.

"Aye."

"Hold the lass here," he said to Calan, who nodded as Alasdair brushed past her, but when she called to him, he turned, one foot on the second stair. "Aye?"

"If ye're here to tell my da what I did, I beg ye—"

"Nay, Sorcha," he answered. "I'm nae here to bring ye trouble. I'm here for ye."