Chapter Fourteen #2
When she stepped back, he followed her inside the stone broch. She wore the simple gown she’d worn when she fled Tuath Tower. “Someone barred the door at the bottom of your stairs shortly after ye left,” he said. “From the outside.”
“Iain.” She stopped in the outer ring of the broch near the staircase that curved upward along the wall. Part of her heavy hair had fallen loose and lay in waves down her straight back. All he wanted to do was hold her close and bury his face in it.
“Perhaps Jasper Whitt,” he countered, trying to keep his focus out of her softness and on the desperate matters at hand.
Laria turned, studying him. “Jasper might have lifted the hammer, but Iain gave him the nails. His old nursemaid used to whisper to him about how to avoid punishment from his mischief. She did that up until the day Aunt Jane sent her away when Iain was sixteen years old.”
“He orders someone else to do the deed.”
She nodded. “He convinces people to support his actions. You heard him try to imprison me on flimsy charges, something public to make a spectacle of my sins. When you wouldn’t let him, he tried to trap me in a marriage by using you.”
Marriage to him would be a trap?
The strain in her voice was tinged with barely controlled anger and something else: defiance, like the subdued snarl of a dog that has decided to fight rather than be kicked again.
He caught her arm, not wanting to lose her to the group inside yet.
“Laria, I want to help ye. I’m trying to help ye and yer people. I’m not the enemy.”
“Your family is married to him, though.”
He dropped his hand, knowing that she’d fight against him if he tried to draw her near.
That yanking away, along with her immediate refusal to marry him, would haunt him.
Instead he leaned closer to her ear. “Yer only real choice is to seek sanctuary at Scorrybreac Tower, Dunvegan Castle, and Dun Haakon with me.” Worry, tinged with irritation at himself for wanting so badly to touch her, made his voice terse.
“You think I don’t realize the danger we are all in if Iain’s henchmen find us,” she whispered. Her arm flew out toward the people gathered inside around a small fire, Erskine laid out on a pallet. “The danger of illness, starvation, freezing, and now infection from being brutally whipped.”
Cyrus grabbed the back of his neck. He was being pulled by his duty to his family and the brotherhood formed after Solway Moss.
His sister could be in dire jeopardy. His mother was reminding him at every turn that he must be like Patrick.
Kenan had a bloody list of important brides for Cyrus to consider, and Rory agreed that he should think about wedding a lass from it.
The peace that had just been agreed upon, sealed with Grace’s marriage, might break apart as if blasted by cannon fire.
And on top of it all, his foking feet were wrinkly and frozen.
“Will Papa be well?” Leah’s small voice came from the inner room of the broch.
Kate answered, but Cyrus couldn’t hear her words.
His conscience, honed by that small voice and Laria’s appraising stare, cut through his Mackinnon responsibilities.
He must find a way to help Laria and her people.
They needed a champion with power behind him, but so did the Isle of Skye and all its people.
Continued war among the clans just weakened them all.
He wanted the same outcome for Laria as he did for all of Skye: peace, security, and a thriving life.
But they were at odds. Because she thinks her cousin is a mother-murdering fiend.
Laria inhaled through her nose. “It’s been a difficult day.” The heaviness in her tone made him itch to draw her to him. But he’d offered her that with the idea of marriage, an idea she’d sliced through before he could even ask.
Laria turned back to the room. Cyrus followed, ducking his head so as not to brain himself on the stone lintel over the open doorway into the center of the broch.
“Lord Cy!” Leah ran across the stone floor to him. She raised her arms to him, and he lifted her while watching Laria feel Erskine’s forehead. The touch was so tender and clearly held love. Could that be why Laria wouldn’t marry him? She loved another?
Leah’s mother, Kate, followed her daughter and stood before Cyrus, her hands clenched as if in prayer. “Thank you for distracting that devil Jasper,” she said. “For opening a way out for Erskine.”
Erskine loved Kate, though; that was obvious. Cyrus nodded. “I had hoped to also free Laria.”
Leah twisted in his hold and pointed at Laria. “You did.” The little girl wiggled to get down. He set her on the floor, where she crouched to open the clasps holding his boots closed. She tsked. “Cold feet make cold bones,” she said, sounding much older than her seven years.
The people in the room wore tentative smiles. Oscar pointed a knobby finger at him. “Ye did a fine thing, distracting everyone.”
Bonnie chuckled. “I was standing behind one of the cottages, and I heard some ladies saying they were changing their names to Mary.” She nodded at Cyrus. “Right clever of ye.”
Errol grunted approval. “Maybe some of them will offer us food if ye ask. Blankets and dried peat.”
“Uhhh…I can ask.” Which would not go over well with Grace or Iain.
Cyrus’s gaze turned to Erskine. “How fares the chief?”
“He will live,” Sophie said, slowly straightening. “But he probably can’t come on progress with us to the other clans.”
“Progress?” Cyrus looked at Laria.
“Grandmama has agreed to visit the holdings of the other clans who signed the peace accord,” Laria said. “As a Macqueen emissary.”
Sophie smiled at him. “When I return to Staffin Village, I will be able to return to my soft bed in the tower.”
Laria’s head dipped so that Cyrus couldn’t see her expression. He suspected that guilt had tightened it. He wanted to replace that guilt with hope.
He walked over to Sophie. “That is our goal, Lady Sophie. Ye deserve comfort after a life well lived.”
She looked over at her patient. “If Erskine takes his rightful place as the chief of Tuath Tower, then I will always be welcome there.”
Cyrus’s gaze moved from Sophie to the man on the floor to Laria.
His eyes narrowed as he studied Laria. “Erskine is the rightful chief of Tuath Tower and Clan Macqueen?” He’d known the man was regarded by the troop as their chief, but Clan Macqueen was vast, and leadership had come down through Sandris Macqueen’s bloodline. “Rightful chief?” Cyrus repeated.
“Of course,” Sophie said.
Cyrus kept his gaze on Laria. She crouched down next to the sleeping man but turned her face to Cyrus as she spoke. “Erskine is Sandris Macqueen’s son and my older brother.”