Chapter 29
Gordon made himself scarce for the next few days under the excuse of giving Agnes and her father, Joseph, time alone. He had heard them from his study now and then as Agnes had shown her father around the castle and gardens, a reminder that they would soon become family.
But it was news from Braemar that gave him an excuse to leave the castle altogether.
“Should ye nae be happier, seein’ as ye’re about to become a husband?” Keith asked, riding alongside him.
Gordon shot him a look. “I have other things to think about.”
“Such as?”
“Such as findin’ out what traitors are in me midst,” Gordon replied, his mood as grim as the grey sky.
A rider had come from the seamstress who was making Agnes’s gown, something about alterations and lace embellishments, but with it had arrived a more urgent message.
Iona had come straight to him that morning, ashen and trembling. “Me Laird, the seamstress heard somethin’ at the Tap and Spile Inn last night. She heard some men gloatin’ that they’d earned themselves easy coin by sellin’ information about Miss Agnes.”
“Sellin’ information to whom?” Gordon had asked, shooting up from his seat.
“The seamstress couldnae get a name. She just heard it was an Englishman who’d been roamin’ through the villages. An Englishman who was askin’ about Miss Agnes.”
“And where are these men now?”
Iona had shaken her head. “In the village, I suppose. But I daenae ken about the Englishman.”
Gordon had not delayed, saddling his horse and fetching Keith before his cup of morning tea had even cooled.
It was the first piece of news about a potential sighting of Edwin, or at least someone Edwin might have employed, in a long while.
In truth, Gordon had begun to wonder if his own soldiers had decided to withhold their loyalty, keeping secrets about what they might have learned in the villages, but it seemed not. There just hadn’t been any news until now.
The sky began to drizzle as he and Keith finally made their way into Braemar, heading directly to the market square where Lizzy had almost been kidnapped.
The moment the village women saw him, they hurried away from their stalls and swarmed around him.
“How is the Lady?” one asked.
“How is the bairn?” another pressed.
“We’ve been watchin’ for any more wretches who might try to do her harm,” declared a third.
The baker lowered her voice and glanced around. “We think we saw an Englishman here just yesterday, but he was gone before we could corner him.”
Another woman nodded. “Me husband said the man was kicked out of the inn.”
“Aye, but I heard about a few lads who’d been seen with him. Conspirin’ with him,” said another.
“Ye cannae blame them too much,” someone else muttered. “I heard the Englishman offered a substantial sum.”
The baker glared at the woman. “Aye, and what’s coin compared to honor and loyalty? These Englishmen want to steal our future Lady’s niece from her and do goodness kens what to our future Lady herself. There is no sum that warrants betrayal of our own people.”
The last part warmed Gordon’s heart. At least Agnes would never have to worry about the clan accepting her, for it seemed they already had. These women, if no one else, had great influence on the clan, and their opinion carried tremendous weight.
“Which lads?” Gordon asked.
The women fell silent.
“I just want to speak to them,” he said, though he did not add that it would not be a pleasant conversation. For them.
The woman who had mentioned the conspiracy seemed to steel herself. “I ken Rodrick Dunbar was one of ‘em. Fat John too. Nae sure about the third, but I do ken there were only three of ‘em.”
“Where can I find them?” Gordon probed, surprised by her willingness to give up the names.
“They’ll be at the smithy at this hour,” the baker interjected, as if she too wanted to be part of the men’s downfall.
“Drinkin’ instead of workin’ or sleepin’ off whatever they drank last night.
They were supposed to repair me husband’s plough three weeks ago, but it’s still sittin’ there.
If ye daenae give ‘em a black eye, me Laird, me husband will.”
“Aye, I was supposed to have a pot fixed a month ago, and it’s still there!” another woman complained, setting off a cacophony of grievances.
Gordon thanked them and gave a nod to Keith. The two of them rode away from the marketplace and back out of the village, to the smithy that sat a short distance by a stream.
They tethered their horses and, looking around to ensure they had not been followed, approached the building. No smoke rose from the chimney, partially corroborating the women’s story.
Gordon didn’t bother to knock, shoving the door open with his shoulder. Inside the gloomy smithy, three men jumped like startled rabbits. The stench of liquor further corroborated what he had been told, as did their bleary eyes and slovenly state.
Evidently, they had been celebrating last night, most likely using the coin they had earned through their treachery.
“Good mornin’, gentlemen,” Gordon said with a cold, menacing smile.
“Ye’ll excuse the intrusion. I hear ye’ve been sellin’ information about me bride, so ye can imagine how little patience I have.
So, here’s what ye can do: ye can tell me what ye said and who ye said it to, and I willnae leave ye with any broken limbs that ye might need; or ye can pretend ye daenae ken what I’m talkin’ about, and I can spend the mornin’ seein’ how hard I can bend yer bones before they snap. ”
The men gawped at him. One paled and hurried off to the corner, where he ejected the contents of his stomach.
“Which is it to be?” Gordon asked, eerily calm.
The first man tried to run for the window—Gordon had known at least one of them would. He didn’t even get to open the window before Gordon grabbed him by the scruff of his dirty shirt and threw him to the ground.
At the same moment, the second man tried to make a dart for the now-empty doorway, only to come face to face, and stomach to fist, with Keith. A grunt and a thud told Gordon that the man was down, leaving the sickly man to make a decision.
With a toad-like gulp, the third man put up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“At least one of ye has some sense, though it willnae help ye much.” Gordon gave an icy smile and dragged his quarry to the nearest chair.
Ten minutes later, the three traitors were sat and bound while Gordon paced back and forth with a heavy iron poker in his hand.
“Which one of ye is goin’ to tell me what ye said and who ye said it to? What does this Englishman ye’ve been talkin’ to ken?” he asked, pausing in front of the first man, Rodrick. “Since ye’re blacksmiths, I doubt ye have to use yer knees much. Ye could do without them.”
Rodrick blanched. “I daenae ken what ye’re talkin’ about, me Laird. I havenae spoken to any Englishman.”
Without hesitation, Gordon brought the poker down in a vicious swing, the iron bar hitting Rodrick square in the kneecap. Not enough to shatter it, not yet, but another swing or two would see that he never used his leg properly again.
Rodrick roared in pain.
The youngest of the three, a man of perhaps Gordon’s age, turned his head and threw up again.
“Perhaps ye might be more forthcoming,” Gordon grunted, stopping in front of the man they called Fat John for reasons that were not that obvious. The man was as thin as a rake.
Fat John tried to look defiant, his beady eyes glinting. “I daenae ken what—”
Gordon raised the poker, and the man’s courage abandoned him as he squeaked, “He just wanted to ken about the men ye killed!”
“Who did?” Gordon lowered the poker.
“He didnae give his name. He spoke all fancy. We just wanted the money, me Laird. We didnae bother to ask too many questions,” Fat John whimpered, liquid running down his leg.
The sickly man nodded. “He was lookin’ for his men.”
“And what did ye tell him?” Gordon asked, prodding the sharper point of the poker against Fat John’s thigh.
“We said… ye’d killed them,” Fat John replied, breathing raggedly.
“Was that all ye said?”
Fat John hesitated, and Gordon dug the end of the poker deeper into the man’s thigh.
“Nay!” the man yelped, grimacing. “Nay, that’s nae all.”
“After we told him… what ye did to his… men,” Rodrick jumped in, as if he thought that spilling his guts might aid his chances of survival, “he started… asking questions about that English lass of yers.”
“Wanted to ken where she was, and if it was true that ye were betrothed,” Fat John elaborated. “He wanted to ken if she came to the village often and if we’d seen the baby.”
Gordon narrowed his eyes. “What did ye tell him?”
“That she was at yer castle, that ye were betrothed, and… that we’d seen the bairn,” Rodrick replied.
Gordon should have struck them all for betraying the clan like that, but he held back for a moment. “Did ye tell him about the cèilidh?”
The three men glanced at each other, an answer all its own.
With a burst of anger, Gordon slammed the poker down hard on Fat John’s hand.
“Aye!” the man cried out. “Aye, we told him!”
Gordon adjusted his grip. “Did ye tell him about the weddin’?”
“Weddin’?” Rodrick wheezed, shaking his head. “We didnae ken of any weddin’, me Laird.”
Raising the poker again, leaving it uncertain as to who might be struck, the three men cried out at once.
“We didnae ken of a weddin’, truly!” the sickly man insisted.
“We had no notion of it,” Fat John whimpered.
“We didnae ken, we swear!” Rodrick said through clenched teeth, rocking in pain.
Gordon lowered the poker again. “I should probably kill the three of ye for even speakin’ yer Lady’s name… and to make sure ye daenae go tellin’ things to anyone else who might offer coin to ye weak little rats.”
“We willnae say a word,” Rodrick promised. “We’ve learned our lesson, me Laird. We were weak and greedy. We willnae do it again.”
It never failed to fascinate Gordon how quickly men transformed back into boys when they had been caught doing something wrong.
He wanted to kill them for putting Agnes in danger, wanted to break their bones for giving her pursuers information about her, wanted to make them pay for their treachery, wanted to hurt them in a thousand ways for daring to betray her.
But as he considered how he might end their worthless lives, it was thoughts of her that stopped him.
Her trust in him, that he was not a monster or a beast; her belief that he was a good man, most of the time.
If he harmed these three men, he would be proving her wrong.
And he did not think he could bear to disappoint her or scare her again.
I’ve already trapped her in our upcomin’ marriage. The least I can do is be half of what she believes me to be.
“Keith, fetch that wagon from the back of the smithy,” he instructed, turning to his man-at-arms. “These men are goin’ to spend some time in me dungeons until they’re truly remorseful for their loose lips.
They should have plenty of time to reflect on their mistakes.
If nae, I’m sure I can make ‘em remorseful enough.”
Keith looked surprised, while the trio of traitors turned pale and trembled in their chairs.
It had been a long time since Gordon had seen anyone held prisoner in Castle Buchlann’s dungeons, which meant they would be in such a dank and vile condition that these men would be pleading for forgiveness before long.
“Daenae look so grim, lads. At least ye’ll be in the company of yer own kind,” Gordon said with a cold smirk. “I hear there are thousands of rats down there.”