Chapter 18
Answers.
With Alan locked away in the dungeon, wounded and knocked out with multiple guards at his cell, Magnus was getting to the bottom of how the hell his brother had managed to sneak into the Keep and take Hannah without anyone noticing.
He would own his own negligence for leaving without assigning her a guard—but damnit to hell, this wasn’t all on him.
He wasn’t going to let the rat scurrying about his Keep roam freely when it nearly cost Hannah her life.
Even though no part of him wanted to leave Hannah’s side as the healers treated her, even though he could do nothing more than stand and watch, Magnus had to get to the bottom of it—especially with Alan currently in the Keep. If he didn’t, the rat could try and plan Alan’s escape.
Stepping out of their bedchamber with a heavy heart, his eyes immediately fell upon Elspeth, the maid he had assigned to Hannah when he had first found her. Her eyes rounded up in alarm as he approached, but he noted the puffiness of her eyes, the redness of her face. She had been crying.
“Tell me everything that happened,” he demanded, his voice low but stern.
Elspeth shuffled anxiously. “The… The Lady was upset after yer departure. She had me draw her a bath to relax… I… I swear, M’Laird, I tried to stay with her. But she and Tilly told me to leave. So I did… I’m so sorry. I should have listened to my gut.”
The maid burst into tears again and his demeanor toward her softened a bit, as it was clear the maid actually cared for Hannah. But his mind was working in rounds, one detail not adding up to him. “Why was Tilly there?” he asked.
“She… brought towels,” Elspeth muttered.
It made sense, but something just wasn’t lining up in his mind. Hannah had been upset, her maid was trying to calm her down, and suddenly, Tilly was there with towels and convincing Elspeth to leave Hannah alone? Why?
“Had ye asked her to bring the towels?” he pressed.
Elspeth looked at him with confusion. He could see the gears turning behind her eyes, and his stomach was sinking before her mouth ever opened to speak. “Nay… I dinnae ken how Tilly knew that the Lady was taking a bath. I… hadn’t given it much thought until now.”
It was too convenient for the maid who had spoken too favorably of Alan since Magnus’s return, even wishing for their reconciliation, to be placed in this moment.
It clawed at his heart to think that a woman who he had known his whole life, who had been a mother to him after his own had passed with fever when he was young, could be capable of something like this.
“Stay with yer Lady until I return. Dinnae leave her side—that’s an order,” he said to Elspeth.
She nodded and rushed into the room as though she were spring-loaded, waiting for the command the entire time.
Magnus was filled with distrust, but seeing someone so fiercely loyal to Hannah gave his mind a little sense of ease.
He turned on a heel and headed down to the main floor of the Keep, his mind focused on where he thought he was most likely to find Tilly.
Even though she was a maid, for a good deal of his childhood he could recall Tilly helping with the bread-making in the evenings.
She had said that kneading the dough helped work out the kinks and creases of her mind from the day.
Stepping into the kitchen, he took in the dark space, the large windows of the room letting in the first beams of moonlight.
The place was quiet and smelled of dinner that had been cooked but not eaten.
And there in the corner of the room was none other than Tilly, standing at a counter with a large wad of dough being worked with her floury hands.
As he walked toward her, memories flashed through his head.
The way she had always encouraged him to forgive his brother when he was cruel, to respect Alan as the future Laird.
How even after Alan’s reign of terror, she had hoped they could reconcile.
He had always thought of it as a motherly concern, but it had always been about Alan.
“M’Laird,” she said calmly, not even looking up from the dough. “What brings ye to the kitchen?”
He studied her for a moment longer, wishing that he could have stayed blissfully unaware and wouldn’t have to face how horrifically wrong he had been about a person he had trusted innately. He stopped just a couple paces away from her and let his heart accept the reality before he spoke.
“Ye’ve been the one in contact with Alan,” he said quietly. It wasn’t an accusation, it was a statement.
Tilly’s hands paused momentarily before she continued kneading the dough. “What do ye mean?” she asked. It wasn’t defensive or coy, she was asking him to lay out his suspicions.
“I have nae any proof of it. Only a feeling,” he said honestly. “Ye’ve always been protective of Alan, even when I couldn’t see it. And ye’re the only one who still will nae badmouth him even after all he’s done.”
She slowed again and then slowly lifted her warm brown eyes to meet his.
“Tradition is tradition for a reason, Magnus,” she started quietly, her hands moving still on the dough.
“A clan is just like making bread. At first, long ago, it was all just a means of survival. Ingredients mashed and mixed together to make something plentiful for people to eat. And over time, the process is honed, studied, and perfected. It’s best to let dough rise overnight because humidity is lower and the dough is less likely to sour.
If the day is too warm, it’s better to start the dough later in the night to avoid it rising so much that it collapses in on itself. ”
Her fist collided with the dough, a cloud of flour moving into the air.
Tilly took a deep breath, her eyes on her fist in the dough.
“Clans survive because tradition has been honed for the greatest success. The eldest son is raised to lead, those expectations that have long upheld the clan instilled into him. Without that pressure, one can never truly carry on the legacy for the next generation. A second son can never lead as well as the eldest.”
The words stung him, for more reasons than one.
Of course it had been the same things he had felt himself growing up, that he could never be Laird because he wasn’t the first son of his father, just being born second put him at a deficit in his ability to lead.
But it was also the fact that Tilly was finally speaking freely to him and that she had never believed in him as Laird.
A woman that had innately had his trust, one that had been family to him.
“Ye still think this way, even after Alan’s cruelty?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. His cruelty hadn’t stopped at Hannah, everything Alan touched had been tainted with his abuse of power.
Tilly finally moved her hands from the dough, dusting the flour off of her hands.
“Everyone has their own path. Alan has made mistakes, but I believe that he can learn from this. He was usurped by his brother and saw what all he would lose firsthand. He’s a boy that only learns lessons the hard way, ye ken that. ”
Magnus actually flinched at the words as though she had struck him.
Was this really all it was to her? Alan learning a lesson the hard way at the cost of countless lives?
Tilly looked at him so casually, as though it was nothing more than scraped knees and hurt feelings like it had been in childhood.
His eyes narrowed at her. “Ye risked my wife’s life to help Alan and me learn a lesson?” he said, his tone growing venomous.
Tilly looked unfazed by the mention of Hannah. “That Sassenach is promised to the Laird of the Black clan to bring the McTavish clan under our power. She was always meant for Alan.”
“Alan tortured her,” he spat, stepping forward. All of the warmth from his childhood was fading by the second, and he was seeing Tilly for who she was. A woman so blinded by her loyalty to tradition that she could forgive torture of an innocent woman.
“She’s a Sassenach. She had to be broken in to ever make it as a Scottish bride.”
The words were so plain, so matter-of-fact, that Magnus could feel nothing but disgust. If he hadn’t been raised to never strike a woman, he would be beating her senseless in that moment.
All of the cruelty that Hannah and his people had faced in the care of his brother, all of it was so neatly dismissed in Tilly’s mind as lessons.
He lurched forward and seized her wrist in his hold, dragging her forward with a sneer on his lips. “Ye will pay for this,” he snarled. “Ye ken of it all and excused it instead of doing right by others. And for what? Tradition?”
“For the good of the clan,” she spat back, her brown eyes dark and focused. “Tradition is what holds us together, Magnus. Ye should ken that by now.”
His lip snarled and his hold on her wrist grew painfully tight. “All I ken of tradition right now is that it was an excuse to let my brother run wild and hurt countless people. Including my wife. Which ye let him in to take her from me.”
Tilly’s face finally paled, the cold detachment from the situation finally slipping from her as she was faced with her involvement beyond her passive actions. “He’s… he’s meant to be the Laird, Magnus… I was… helping him get his betrothed back…”
He was in her face then, his words biting. “My wife is fighting for her life right now because of ye. Ye’ll be lucky if ye see the light of day again.”
With fright finally taking shape on Tilly’s face, Magnus moved to grab her.
And that’s when he saw it, a flash of steel caught in the moonlight.
The old maid had gone from terrified to murderous in an instant, a kitchen knife raised over her head.
“It’s ye that shouldn’t see tomorrow’s light,” she hissed as she swung the blade down at him.
“Each dawn should be in Alan’s control, nae yers! ”
Magnus caught her wrist before the tip of the knife could so much as near his throat. He held back the attack with ease, though his eyes were hard as he held her frantic gaze.
“Alan is nae perfect, but he is our rightful laird!” she screeched. “Stop. Standing. In. His. Way.” Each word was broken with effort to regain control of the knife, to wriggle free of his hold.
But Tilly was no match for Magnus’s strength. With a rough flick, Magnus managed to force her to toss the knife to the floor. The maid writhed in his hold, screeching more, curses flying from her lips as she continued to spout nonsense about how Alan was her Laird.
“Enough of this,” Magnus snapped. He took hold of her arms and pulled hard, dragging her toward the kitchen door. “Alan can be yer Laird in the dungeon.”