Chapter Seven
“The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.”
Crack. The sound filtered through the trees.
Everyone froze, but their hearts must be galloping like Laria’s.
Even Ginny, Aunt Jane’s dog, lowered herself to the ground, as if ready to leap forward in attack.
A small growl rose from her, but Leah dropped next to the spaniel to stop the sound, her hand clutching the dog’s muzzle softly. Silence was their best defense.
Had Iain or Jasper followed them? Had she led the devil back to her exiled group? Had they followed Cyrus?
Cyrus and the MacLeod chief turned toward the sound, hands on the hilts of their swords. But Iain favored pistols because they didn’t require muscle to be deadly. If he’d ordered her to kill Cyrus Mackinnon, the man would be the first target.
“Get down, Cyrus,” she whispered, but the Highland warrior just walked forward. She wanted to leap at him, stop him.
With two steps into the undergrowth, he flushed out a red squirrel.
Ginny whined, and they all stared at it.
The squirrel stopped in the middle of the path, its eyes wide, staring back at the dog before its gaze skittered over all of them.
In a rapid motion, it leaped on a nut that must have fallen to the ground, tucked it in a cheek while its wary eyes watched them, and tore off back into the forest.
“’Twas the damn squirrel,” Bonnie said, lowering her bow. “Loud beastie.”
“It seems so,” Cyrus called back, although he moved about the trees a bit longer.
Laria released her breath. Everyone was on edge, even more so since she’d failed to win them sanctuary. “Let’s eat before the chickens go rancid.”
Cyrus turned around. Instead of going to Laria, he walked past her and held out his arm to her grandmother. “I can escort ye back to yer…camp.”
Laria frowned when Cyrus ignored her, but what did she expect from the man she’d almost killed? Certainly not kindness. But he was so kind during our night.
Sophie took Cyrus’s arm and smiled up at him. He led her to the cave Laria had claimed for her grandmother. It was the largest, so they could gather there.
Laria followed them in, ducking her head, and clenched her teeth as she watched her beloved grandmama lower herself to her knees to scoot back onto the blankets. She should be living in comfort at Tuath Tower, not in caves. Laria hated Iain with every inch of her being.
“The cave is damp,” Cyrus said. Rory had remained outside, and Laria could hear him talking in low tones to Erskine.
Laria’s mouth hardened, and she tipped her head to the side in a look of disdain. “You think I don’t know that? That I prefer to roll around in dirt rather than sleep in my own room at the tower, the room you are now enjoying?”
His brows rose the slightest bit, and she remembered that look of surprise when she’d slowly knelt before him to take him into her mouth. He was just as ruggedly handsome now, even without his easy smile. Maybe even more so.
“I was given yer room? That’s how ye knew about the secret exit.”
She swallowed, pushing down the carnal memories that kept resurfacing like yeast bubbles rising in warm dough—the way they’d come together with explosive heat and wild trust. “You were given it for that exact reason,” she said.
She’d hidden clothes, boots, and the razor-sharp dagger inside the secret staircase earlier.
Several beats of silence followed as Cyrus seemed to judge her words.
“If ye come back to the tower,” Cyrus said, “my sister, Grace, will make certain ye are safe.”
Sophie pulled a blanket around her shoulders. “Laria dear, we will need to have Cook make tarts for Samhain. I know she’s busy with the birth of her nephew, but Reid agrees with me that we must have tarts. Jane loves tarts.”
Her grandmother’s words threw ice on the heat that had ignited in Laria under Cyrus’s gaze.
She strode over to her grandmother and helped pull the blanket around her shoulders.
Just when she thought her mind might be clearing, Sophie would say something that showed it wasn’t, reinforcing Laria’s reasoning for keeping her grandmother away from Iain.
“I’ll be sure there are tarts for Samhain, Grandmama. But right now, there’s some very good chicken.” She fetched the crude platter with the shredded roast chicken upon it. “Eat it while ’tis still fresh.”
Laria stood, her gaze going to Cyrus, although her tone was the conversational one she’d been using with her grandmother. “We don’t know when we will find meat again.”
Sophie began to pick at the chicken.
“I’ll be back,” Laria said, grabbing Cyrus’s thickly muscled arm as she passed him.
“Yes, find the handsome knight a room in the west wing. Bonnie always keeps the dust free from the extra rooms,” Sophie called to their backs as Laria led him away.
Only Rory and Erskine remained in the clearing, both of them frowning and silent.
Laria pulled Cyrus with her behind the rock face before dropping his arm.
She turned to him, her arms crossing over her chest. “She has very clear moments now that she’s away from Iain’s scrutiny, but just when I think it might be safe for her back at the tower, she says something that would endanger her if she were to speak thus around Iain. ”
Laria rested her hands on her forehead and closed her eyes momentarily. “I fear for the day she cannot stay quiet or walk or feed herself or…” She dropped her arms and looked at Cyrus. “I love her. She raised me when my mother died. And I won’t let Iain kill her like he did his mother.”
Cyrus kept quiet for some time. He rubbed a hand down his mouth. “So that part was true? Iain Macqueen killed his own mother, Lady Sophie’s daughter?”
Laria nodded.
“He says that Lady Jane is at St. Margaret’s Convent in Edinburgh.”
“Iain lies. His mother is dead and buried on the moor without so much as a stone to mark her grave.”
His face didn’t change much, but Laria could tell he was weighing what she told him. Lord, he was handsome, even when he was judging her. “And Grandmama would have been next, even with me protecting her.”
Cyrus’s eyes narrowed. “Ye saw this killing? Of yer aunt?”
Laria exhaled and sat on a boulder. She held her gloved palms together as if in prayer, propping her chin on her pointed fingers.
“He said he was taking her to St. Margaret’s Convent in Edinburgh.
Aunt Jane told me she didn’t want to go.
Her body was failing her, and Iain suddenly couldn’t stand to look at her. ”
Laria kicked a stone near her foot, and it shot off into the bushes.
“Iain will not tolerate anything but perfection in health and appearance. It started with his twin, Tomas, and worsened after Tomas fell from the cliffs.” Her gaze met Cyrus’s, her eyes saying more than her words.
“Iain was the only one there to witness the accident.”
“Ye think he killed his brother, too?”
Laria exhaled in a huff. “I don’t know, but he hates anything that reminds him of Tomas, anything imperfect. And when Tomas was found, Aunt Jane took to her bed for nearly a year, she was so distraught, and she never looked at Iain the same way again. As if she didn’t trust her own son.
“When Iain became chief, anyone in the tower who had a visible scar or abnormality was forced out, told they were to hide their hideousness—and preferably leave the village entirely. People like Oscar and Bonnie, who had lived in Tuath Tower for decades, had nowhere to go, no other family to take them in. Even in the village, people were afraid to associate with them for fear that Iain would banish them, too. And then Aunt Jane fell. She broke her right hand and had difficulty feeding herself. Iain spoke so cruelly to her.”
“Perhaps he bundled her off to a convent in Edinburgh against her will,” Cyrus said. “’Tis not honorable, and I can speak to Iain about it, but—”
“He had Jasper Whitt take her in the middle of the night—her and her dog, Ginny.” She flapped a hand toward the camp where the spaniel was probably playing with Leah.
“Grandmama woke me, saying that Jane seemed half asleep, that something wasn’t right.
I sneaked down the escape stairs in my room and ran for the stables.
I rode my horse bareback, following the carriage from inside the forest line. ”
Cyrus leaned back against the rock face, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “Ye were able to bridle yer horse while they prepared to leave?” Disbelief deadened his tone. He was searching for proof of lies and exaggeration.
Laria kept her face level, looking up at him with hard eyes. “Lancelot is a quiet horse. ’Twas easy to slide a bit in his mouth and mount.”
“Yer horse is named Lancelot?”
“I know the Arthurian legend.” She cast him a silent rebuke with her narrowed gaze and looked outward. “Out on the moor, the wagon stopped. I left Lancelot deep inside the forest line because he’s pure white and would stand out in the dark. I crept up to the moor and watched from behind a tree.”
She swallowed and tried to focus on her words rather than her memories.
Staring into Cyrus’s eyes helped. “Aunt Jane was pulled out and carried under the arms by Jasper Whitt and another of Iain’s henchmen.
She didn’t fight, and her legs barely moved.
’Twas as if she were asleep. They laid her on the ground.
A third guard carried Ginny, setting her beside Aunt Jane.
The dog also seemed asleep. A fourth…” She wet her suddenly dry lips.
“He carried several shovels, and together the men dug a hole.”
The horror played behind her eyes, the glint of the shovels in the sliver of moon, the grunts of the men as they cleaved through the peat and into the soft earth underneath. “My aunt never moved.”
Cyrus stared hard at her, his face tight with anger. “Was she dead?”