Chapter Thirty
“Why, now blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark. The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.”
“’Tis poisoned!” Laria yelled, abandoning her resolve to catch Winnie as she waved toward Kate, who had run to the door. “Who ate the stew?”
“Good Lord,” Kate said. She ran down to them and crouched before Leah. “Did you eat any? While we were making it?”
Leah shook her head, then ran for Ginny, scooping her up.
“Just me,” Erskine said. “But I feel fine.”
“It doesn’t take effect right away, but you need to vomit. Now.” Laria glanced around. “Do you have a tincture of hellebore for purging?”
Kate’s eyes moved frantically around the foliage outside the cottage as if the green plant with bell-like flowers might magically be growing there.
“I… No!” The word came out like a wail, and tears swelled out of her wide eyes.
She ran to Erskine. “There’s been no time to make any.
Oh my Lord, no.” Her hands went to her face, her cheeks going pale.
Meanwhile, Winnie Mar, the slippery woman, retreated out the door like a serpent hiding in the grass. Laria grabbed Kate by the shoulders. “Make him vomit somehow. Finger down the throat.”
Erskine was already bent over, his fists pressed against his stomach as if he was trying to tighten it enough to purge. “Help him,” Laria said. “Can you do that?”
Kate nodded. “Yes, yes.”
Laria yanked her blade out, desperate to find Winnie. A woman’s screamed curse made her turn to run around the cottage. She ducked in case Winnie was luring her falsely and had an arrow nocked and ready.
But when Laria peeked around the corner planks, she gasped. Winnie knelt as if she’d just sunk to her knees. Her mouth was open, and her eyes were wide with shock, her hands wrapped around a dagger embedded in her stomach.
Her brother, Reid, dropped to his knees so that they knelt before one another. “I’m sorry, Winn,” he said, his sister staring back at him with unbelieving eyes. “I couldn’t let ye keep…” Tears fell from his eyes unheeded, a storm of them.
“Reid?” Laria said.
He turned his face toward her. “I didn’t help her.” He shook his head. “After Hamish Mackinnon fell ill, I followed her to Dunscaith, but I was too late to stop her from killing her husband, Gilbert. She told me what she’d done, poisoning both men.”
His gaze turned back to Winnie as she fell over onto one hip.
Hands shaking, he helped her to the ground, her body bent around the protruding blade.
“Ye said ye were through killing, Winn, after Jamie MacLeod. But ye weren’t.
We came here to rejoin the group, but then I found the mushrooms in yer bag. ”
Her lips pulled back in a snarl, and bright blood shone in her teeth. “We could have…helped Iain take over Skye. I would have been the lady of a great clan.”
Reid yanked off his jacket, balling it up to pillow her head. “Not this way, Winn. ’Twas wrong.”
With effort, her face screwed up tightly, and she spit, blood splattering on her brother’s tunic. “There’s no room in my life for right and wrong,” she said, “only survive or die.”
Behind Laria, the sound of retching actually brought her a small amount of relief.
Reid’s tears washed down his cheeks, tiny rivulets running into his short, scraggly beard. He leaned over his sister, smoothing her golden hair. “Sleep now, Winnie.”
The woman closed her eyes, and Reid bowed his head over her as her body twitched with oncoming death.
In the front yard, Ginny began barking wildly.
“Laria Macqueen! Come out here now.” Iain’s voice caught Laria’s breath. She quickly dodged to the back side of the small structure, clutching her mattucashlass.
“She’s not here,” Erskine said, his voice strong despite having just thrown up poison. Ginny’s barking suddenly cut off.
“Ginny!” Leah called, desperation in her voice.
“I saw her coming here, along the creek.”
Who was that? The gruff voice sounded familiar.
“And ye led her biggest enemy right toward her?” Erskine said. “Why, Errol?”
“Don’t kill him!” Kate yelled. Was Erskine being held at swordpoint?
Holy Mary’s tears! Laria’s heart pounded, hammering at her to run, but she couldn’t abandon her friends, her brother.
“He’s promised us food and shelter for the winter,” Errol said. “He just wants to convince Laria that ’tis safe for her and Lady Sophie to return to Tuath Tower.”
Laria exhaled, slowly shaking her head against the stone wall of the cottage.
“Ye fool,” Erskine said, his voice like a growl. “How many times has he lied, sending Jasper to hunt us down like animals?”
“He says that was Jasper’s doing, and that he sent him away.”
“Tracks go off around the cottage,” another gruff voice said.
Fok. How many men were with Iain and Errol? Would Errol help them trap her? Would the scarred blacksmith kill Erskine to bargain with the devil?
The handle of the mattucashlass felt damp in her palm. “Reid,” she whispered, beckoning him. “They might kill you.”
Reid lifted his head, but his wet face was slack, as if he didn’t care to live.
“Back here,” a guard called, spotting her as he rounded the corner.
Laria leaped the other way, her feet churning on the fallen leaves. She was a fast runner and knew these woods inside and out after hunting and living in them for months.
“I will kill the cursed child.” Iain’s words stopped her as if she’d run into the granite face of a mountain.
“Let her go!” Erskine demanded.
Iain must have Leah. A small sob came from the front yard, followed by snarling barks.
“Now, now, beastie,” one of the men said. “Don’t make me kill ye.” The dog whimpered.
“The girl’s innocent,” Errol yelled.
“So are Erskine and Laria,” Kate called back, hatred thick in her voice. “And you betrayed them.”
Prickles spiked along Laria’s skin. Her body wanted to flee while her mind wanted to fight. ’Twas a war that would make her weak, so she chose—and turned back to the bothy. She would fight. “Let her go. Let them all go, and I will go with you.” She could lie as well as her cousin.
“Come to the front of the cottage, Laria,” Iain commanded, without bothering to keep the venom from his voice.
The guard who’d followed her into the woods yanked her blade from her hand and gave her a shove. “To the front.”
She marched around the mossy side of the structure.
Iain was still holding Leah before him while a guard held Ginny under one thick arm.
Erskine tried to keep Kate behind him. The mother wasn’t crying or wailing.
In fact, she looked like a lioness about to pounce to protect her cub.
If Leah died today, so would Kate, trying to avenge her.
“Let the child go,” Laria said as the guard led her closer, a bruising hand clamped around her upper arm.
“And Ginny,” Leah said in a quiet voice, tears running down her cheeks.
Iain’s mouth twisted into a triumphant grin, and he let Leah run to Kate. Her mother drew her toward the cottage, but Leah turned back toward the struggling dog.
Iain flipped his hand at the guard. “Let it go.”
Ginny tore across the clearing to Leah, who picked her up to run inside. The sound of Kate barring the door was clear.
Iain looked at Erskine and shrugged. “I could always set fire to the thatch.”
“Be gone from here,” Erskine demanded, his fists tight by his sides. Did he have any weapons on him? With one of Iain’s loyal guards holding a nocked arrow and another training a wheellock pistol on him, it didn’t really matter. He’d be shot through before the other could draw.
Iain’s gaze fastened on Laria. “Ye’ve meddled long enough, Cousin. First with stealing Grandmother away from Tuath—”
“To save her from you sending her away—or pretending to send her away while you ordered her slaughtered—”
“I wouldn’t have ordered her killed,” he said. “Not Grandmother. She was kind to me.”
“Aunt Jane, your mother, wasn’t kind to you?” she asked.
Iain snorted and smiled up at the trees. “She held me responsible for Tomas’s fall.”
“Were you?”
Iain’s gaze snapped back to hers, and several heartbeats passed before he spoke. “Penny said he must go to the angels.” He blinked. “That all who did not reflect God’s perfect image must return to Him to be remade.”
A chill suffused Laria as she watched tears break from his eyes to trickle down his face. Tears?
She swallowed, her heart hammering as if she approached a slavering dog baring its teeth. “But you didn’t want to send Tomas to the angels?” she asked softly. She glanced around, but his men just stood with weapons poised, as if they weren’t witnessing Iain’s confession.
Iain’s face hardened, his tears ending abruptly. “Penny knew best, she always did. So I helped him off the cliff.” He swallowed hard and shrugged. “’Twas a kindness.”
He turned away, took a step, and swiveled back to look at her.
“But Mother hated me for it. When she discovered what Penny had told me, Mother had her beaten and thrown out of Tuath Tower. My agent found her decrepit grave on the mainland just recently. I received his report this past summer.” His face twisted into a mask of hurt and vengeance.
“My dear Penny died alone and destitute.”
“You blamed your mother,” Laria said, understanding flooding over her. “So you ordered Jasper to kill her.”
“The more he tells us, the more we are a threat to be eliminated,” Erskine said, caution in his tone.
Iain walked over to Laria, his teeth bared. “Penny loved me when my own mother refused to even look at me, and Mother killed her by sending her away.”
Laria had him talking. Could she reason with him? “So it was Penny who made you despise people who look different. She is the one who told you God would want imperfect people back with Him.”
Erskine looked like he wanted to slap a hand over her mouth, but Laria had wondered her whole life. If she was going to die, she wanted to understand her cousin’s madness.
Iain’s eyes shone with something close to tears, and he blinked, suddenly looking young and…
ashamed? He leaned toward her ear, whispering.
“I have a monster in me, Cousin, and when I see something that makes me remember what I did to Tomas, the monster comes back. Twisted people bring the monster back.” He straightened. “Penny loved me anyway.”
Iain’s words, said in such a small voice, chilled Laria more than any icy sea. “I can take the twisted people away, Iain, so the mon—”
Smack! Pain erupted in her cheek as Iain slapped her. Teeth bared, he lowered his face to hers. “Don’t ever mention that,” he said, the words seething from behind his teeth. He straightened. “See, Cousin? Just the word brings it out.”
“Ye said ye wouldn’t hurt her,” Errol called. “That we could all come back.”
“Kill him,” Iain said with a gesture to one of the guards. “The sight of him torments me.”
The red scars on Errol’s face darkened. “Ye’re a foking liar.”
The guard shot, and an arrow went straight through Errol’s back. Laria kept her gasp silent, though tears pricked her eyes. Erskine remained rooted to the ground, his face grim. She was dealing with a man whose madness had been honed when he was young. Left unchecked, it had grown with him.
“Iain,” she said softly, “I can take everyone away. I will leave, too, and you can stay at Tuath Tower.” Mother Mary’s tears! Let him believe her. “I won’t tell anyone anything about you or your mother.”
He wiped his nose with the back of his finger. “I tossed her bones in the sea.”
Laria glanced toward the cottage. Was Reid still there? Could he help them? “If she’s not at rest, she will haunt you, Iain.”
Paleness leaked into his cheeks. “I will figure out a way to banish her spirit. Grace’s presence has already helped.”
Iain was seeing ghosts? “Grace can’t keep Aunt Jane away forever.”
“She will!” Iain erupted. “And Winnie knows the proper spells to keep her restless spirit away.”
“Winnie Mar?” Laria glanced at the cottage that blocked her body. “I’m afraid she won’t be able to cast any spells.”
Iain followed her gaze. His eyes widened, and he jogged around the cottage. Silence fell across the clearing, and then he strode back around. His gaze snapped to the man holding Laria.
“I didn’t touch her,” the guard said.
“Fok!” Iain yelled, running back to the side of the cottage, his hands yanking the hair on his head like he’d truly gone mad. “Reid, who killed yer sister?”
“I did.” Reid’s tortured voice was followed by Iain’s yell.
“Ye foking murderer!”
“You know he’s mad,” Laria said to the Macqueens in the clearing.
“Everyone’s a bit mad,” the man holding her said and inhaled close to her ear. “And yer spicy scent is bringing it out in me.”
She stomped the heel of her boot down on his toes.
“Bloody bitch,” he yelled. “Hold still.”
“Can I just shoot him?” one guard called to Iain as he aimed his pistol at Erskine.
“Aye,” Iain called, his voice vicious.
“No,” Laria yelled. She snapped her boot back to kick the brute’s knee, making it bend backward unnaturally.
Boom!
Erskine threw himself sideways half a heartbeat before the guard shot. The ball whizzed over his head, hitting a tree hard enough to make it splinter. Erskine sprang up to barrel into the guard, throwing him backward, the pistol skittering across the hard ground.
This was her chance. Laria twisted in the man’s iron arms.
“Hold still,” he said, then cursed when she bent forward, kicking her heel backward again. At the same time, she bit down on his forearm, instantly tasting blood. “Foking bitch!”
She spat and threw her head backward into his nose. Crack!
“Fok!”
“Let’s see if you end up as dead as Jasper Whitt,” Laria said, and bent her fingers into talons. She scratched his bleeding arm and hands, digging hard, imagining her fingernails as daggers. He screamed, and his arm released. She dropped to the dirt.
Laria was scrambling up when the huge man fell upon her, holding her down with his weight. She could hardly draw breath.
“Get the fok off her,” Erskine said from across the clearing. The third guard who’d shot Errol with his bow had taken up the pistol and had Erskine at gunpoint, but he couldn’t fire while Erskine was holding the other guard.
Laria caught a glimpse of Iain dragging Reid back around the side of the house before the brute pushed her face down. She tasted dirt and leaf mold and turned her face to spit. “Get off me, you scabby dolt!”
His reply was cut off by a guttural cry of fury coming from the woods. Laria’s heart leaped. Cyrus.