Chapter 17
True Lies
Roark walked out of his chambers flanked by
Scott and Ross, and descended the stairs where Bryce was waiting
for him at the bottom.
“Sorry, lad,” his uncle told him. “The
Rover was at full sail and heading seawards by the time we got
to the docks yesterday.”
“Thanks for trying.”
Roark’s hopes, which had been tenuous at
best, unraveled further. He should’ve expected Roger would make
sure the ship was gone and the crew unavailable for any
questioning. Lengthening his spine and squaring his shoulders, he
walked into the dining hall, where his parents sat at the high
table with Roger, Lynette, Gwyneth, Donald, and Myrna.
He took his seat at a low table set sideways
to the high table and the other low tables, where everyone could
view him, as Bryce took his seat beside Roark’s mother.
Craig, Peg, and Jenny sat at a low table with
the other house servants, and he noticed while everyone else was
looking at him and whispering among themselves, those three were
silent and studiously avoiding his gaze.
Roger stood and the hall went quiet. He
glared at Roark before he spoke, his voice thick with rage. “Roark
MacInnes, second son of Ronan MacInnes and Brianna MacKay, ward of
Roger MacKinnon, friend to Leif MacKinnon and betrothed of Gwyneth
MacKinnon, you are hereby charged with the murder of Leif
MacKinnon. How do you plead?”
“Not guilty,” Roark said. “I did not kill
Leif.”
Roger stared down his beak of a nose at him.
“We have witnesses who will prove otherwise.”
Roark raised a brow. “Do you?”
“Craig Maxwell,” Roger said. “If you would
take the witness stand.”
Jenny’s father stood and walked over to the
table directly across from Roark’s and took a seat, facing the
assemblage and Roark.
“Tell us, Craig, what you witnessed the day
my son was murdered.”
“I, ah, the missus and me was in the kitchen,
having a bite to eat, when we heard a ruckus going on outside. We
went out to see what was what, when we seen Roark and the pri… the
servant girl, Alina, come running out of the stables, Roark’s blade
dripping blood. They, ah, they jumped onto their horses, what were
already saddled up and their packs bulging, and they hightailed it
outta here, riding north like a pack of banshees was after them. I
went to the stables, and it was there I come upon Leif, tied,
gagged, and dead, a scythe sticking out of his chest.”
“Thank you, Craig,” Roger said, his voice
strained, Lynette visibly weeping beside him.
“My laird.” Craig stood.
“Not so fast, Craig.” Roark held his hand up.
“First you must answer my questions.”
Craig nodded and remained standing, wringing
the cap in his hands and licking his lips.
Roark stood. “Did you actually see me kill
Leif?” he asked.
Carig shook his head. “But I seen you and the
girl leaving the stables and no one else right before I went in and
found him dead.”
“So, the answer is no,” Roark said. “You
didn’t actually see me or Alina stab Leif with the scythe, was
it?”
“No. I mean, aye.” Craig swiped at the sweat
beading on his forehead. “I mean, I didna see you or Alina stick
the scythe into Leif, but you and she was the only ones come
running out of the stables.”
“With my blade dripping blood?”
“Aye.”
“Why would my blade be dripping blood if Leif
was killed by a scythe to the chest?”
“I dunna know,” Craig said, shifting from one
foot to the other. “Maybe it’s what you cut the tip of his ear off
with.”
“First,” Roark said, “cutting off the tip of
a person’s ear wouldn’t leave a blade dripping with enough blood to
see from the kitchens to the stables. And second, the tip of Leif’s
ear was bitten off by Princess Alina when Leif tried to rape
her.”
“That’s a lie,” Roger thundered, pushing up
to his feet as a low buzzing filled the hall. “Why would my son
need to rape a woman he despised when he had his choice of women
willing to warm his bed?”
“I would say the answer to your question is
one of character, Laird,” Roark answered. “Not one of need.”
“It’s not enough your son killed mine?”
Lynette shrieked at Brianna. “Now he slanders him as well?”
To her credit, Roark’s mother simply pressed
her lips tight and said nothing, while Roger wrapped his arm around
Lynette’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. The most outwardly
attentive Roark had ever seen him with his wife.
Roark turned his attention back to Craig.
“What were you, Peg, and Jenny arguing about in the kitchen before
Alina came in that day?”
“Wha… what?”
“What were you, your wife, and daughter
arguing about when Princess Alina came into the kitchen and
interrupted you?”
“Nu… nothing of import.”
Roark was sorry to out Jenny’s secret in such
a crude manner, but the fact of her pregnancy would be known soon
enough, as would the child’s sire if it was blond and blue-eyed.
“Your daughter being pregnant with Leif’s babe was of no
import?”
“Leif’s babe?” Munroe erupted as the hall
filled with gasps and whispers. He glared at Jenny, who quailed
beside her mother. “You told me the babe was mine, you cuckolding
bitch.”
Roark glanced at the high table, the shock
still evident on Roger’s and Lynette’s faces. They hadn’t
known.
“The babe is Leif’s,” Roark said loudly.
“Jenny had told Leif, and he’d told her he’d only claim a boy
bairn. If it was a girl, she was on her own.” He turned back to
Craig, who’d sagged onto his chair. “To which you cursed Leif for
being just like his Uncle Donald, who’d only ever claimed his male
by-blows.”
“How’d you… that’s a lie,” Craig said,
rallying.
“No,” Roark said. “It’s not, is it?” he asked
Jenny, who went white-faced and said nothing. Roark looked over at
the high table, at a furious Roger and a tight-lipped Lynette. At
Gwyneth, who was glaring daggers at Jenny, and at Donald, whose
usual smug expression had turned dour. He didn’t even bother
glancing at Myrna’s perpetually sour face. “My point is,” he said
to the assembly at large, “I wasn’t the only person with a reason
to kill Leif.”
“Yet you admit you had a reason to,” Roger
said.
“I did,” Roark said. “I likely would have if
not for Alina. I admit I pulled him off her where he had her pinned
to the floor, clothes torn and struggling against him. I admit I
beat him senseless, and I would’ve continued beating him until he
was dead if she hadn’t stopped me to keep me from being in the
exact position I’m in now. Accused of his murder.
“I admit I beat him, bound him, and gagged
him. I left him alive and breathing in the stables with his useless
cock hanging out of his breeches so whoever found him would know
what kind of man he was.
“I admit I helped Princess Alina ride away
from here, from you,” he told Roger. “A man so full of his own
poison he lied to all of us so we’d kidnap an innocent woman from
her home in order to exact his revenge on her parents over a
twenty-year-old grudge.” He turned to face the assemblage. “Roger
was never going to ransom Princess Alina,” he told them. “He was
going to have her sold to some desert king as a slave in some
twisted reenactment of what happened to her great-grandmother, Oona
the Swan, of the clan MacLeod. All because he and his family were
exiled from Sea Ridge for helping try to murder the new king and
queen twenty years ago.”
Still standing, Roger clapped slowly. “That
was quite a story.”
“It’s true,” Roark, who’d never made a speech
that long or impassioned in his life, said. “Every word of it.”
“Yet you have no proof.”
“Nor do you,” Roark countered. He glanced
over at Craig, who was looking at Jenny with pure fear on his face.
“All you have is hearsay.”
Roger smiled, cold and deadly. “I am laird,”
he said. “Your laird. I don’t need proof to hang you.” He looked to
Roark’s father, who sat stone faced and silent. “Unless your father
wishes to stand for you, which would rend asunder our alliance.” He
smirked as Roark’s father maintained his stony silence, despite his
mother’s whispered pleas. “Does anyone here wish to stand for this
murdering cur, Roark MacInnes?” Roger said, his gaze threatening
anyone who dared.
Bryce started to stand, and Roark shook his
head and motioned for him to stay seated. The last thing he wanted
to do was start a feud between his uncle’s and Roger’s clans.
“Anyone?” Roger asked again.
Roark looked to Craig, who refused to meet
his eyes. He looked to Peg, who was rocking a sobbing Jenny in her
arms, her gaze meeting Roark’s over Jenny’s head, pleading with
him. He glanced at Roger, who was determined to see him hang for
Leif’s death. No matter the cause. Roark took a deep breath in and
blew it out. There was no reason to drag Jenny and her family
further into this mess. If Craig did kill Leif, Roark couldn’t
really blame him. He understood protecting your family, no matter
the cost.
With a thin smile as cold and deadly as an
adder’s, Roger raised his hand and the hall went silent.
“Roark Bruce MacInnes,” he said loudly. “I
declare you guilty of the murder of Leif Andrew MacKinnon, my only
son and heir to North Shore Keep, for which you shall hang by the
neck until you are dead, tomorrow at high noon in the town square
for all to witness what a dishonorable and murderous traitor you
are.”
***
Roark stood on the gallows with his hands
tied behind his back and looked up into a spring sky filled with
grey clouds scudding from south to north. He would’ve liked to feel
the sun on his face one last time, but had learned a long time ago
a person didn’t always get what they wanted.
He dropped his gaze from the sky and found
his mother standing between his father and Logan, front and center
in the crowd of family and friends and onlookers, her eyes bright
with welling tears. He’d told her she didn’t have to be here today
when she’d visited him in his cell last night. He couldn’t blame
her for not wanting to watch him die in such an undignified manner.
She’d tsked and told him she’d been there when he took his first
breath and she’d be there when he took his last. He lifted his lips
in a toothless smile and dipped his head to her and she lifted
trembling lips to him in return.