AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How’s the crop going?” he asked, startling her out of her thoughts.
She took a sip of her wine to make her throat work properly. In his presence, the tension between her feelings and her head took on a straining hue.
“Not bad, I believe. The yield will not be so big as usual, but we’ll not starve.”
John offered wine to the laird, which Lachlan refused.
Lachlan turned a smile at her that nearly blinded her. When serious he was perdition, smiling he was beauty personified, and she stood no chance. She kept on looking at him like a silly debutante from one of those useless London balls.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he answered as he accepted the roast meat and potatoes Murray served him. He attacked his food with gusto and she observed mesmerised the movement of his tanned throat. If she could, she would consume him whole on this very table. The unbidden thought made her insides melt.
Murray served her and walked back to the kitchen. “And when can Caitlin and her family move back to the cottage?” She took a small bite of meat, not missing his eyes following her lips, and they tingled, yesterday’s scorching kiss so insufficient.
John loomed over Lachlan to offer wine a third time. Her hus
band viewed the lad impatiently and with a bored expression. He finally allowed the wine into his goblet. Politely, he lifted the beverage to drink it as the lad placed the decanter on the side-table.
Moira eyed the footman. The servant had a crumpled expression on his plain face. In a flash, her mind shot back to the day Malcom died. There had been something strange about the footman that day, too. The wine decanter had not been the same they used and the wine had looked a little blurry, not its usual colour. Malcom did not wake up the next morning, he had been dead. Her gaze focused on John’s decanter, which differed from the one he served her from. And its content had the exact same aspect as the one served to her brother.
Like a woman possessed, she stood up and slapped the goblet from Lachlan’s lips at the very moment he would sip from it. “Don’t drink it!” she yelled. The red liquid splashed over the table and dripped to the carpet.
As fast as her petite form allowed, she pounced on John who, taken by surprise, fell to the floor boards with a thud. She dived for him.
“Call Murray!” she demanded from Lachlan. He sat eyeing her fixedly with a strange expression on him.
Starting into action, he hollered for the butler in the same second the footman overthrew Moira and motioned to stand up with the clear intention of running.
Lachlan’s boot stepped on the lad’s chest with enough pressure to immobilise him. “Not so fast,” he said to the boy.
The butler came in with an alarmed expression at the sight of the dining room turned war-field.
“Murray, please,” Moira said. “Take this decanter to Mrs. Murray. She’ll know what’s in it. Tell her to keep the wine.” His wife was versed in herbs and remedies.
“Yes, my lady,” he acquiesced quickly recomposed.
When the older man left, Moira swivelled to the lad on the carpet. “The wine is poisoned, isn’t it?” She needed no answer, her memory was enough. But she had to confront the footman.
Utter fear distorted his features. “I-I dinna ken, my lady.”
Lachlan picked up the goblet that retained a few drops in it. “Drink it, John,” he commanded grave.
The servant’s face drenched in despair. “N-no, my laird, I canna.”
Murray returned. “Excuse me, my lady. My wife said it’s cyanide in the wine. She found crystals precipitated on the wine tumbler.”
Moira blanched to a greyish hue, her legs swayed and she feared she would pass out. Her lungs inhaled a deep breath and she strived to stay conscious.
“We’ll call the magistrate,” Lachlan’s calm voice kept her grounded.
“No!” John begged. “Please, my laird, dinna do that!” Sweat bathed his brow. “My sister is with Laird Pitcairn’s child. He said that if I dinna obey him, he will put her out.”
Unmarried and pregnant, the girl’s destiny would certainly be to walk the streets of Aberdeen.
Moira cast a hard look at the boy. “Your sister will find sanctuary here,” she assured him. “But you should have come to us rather than commit a crime.” Attempt on a Laird’s life would put him in big trouble, yet if she let this go unpunished, others would try even worse crimes.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” and started to cry.
When the magistrate arrived, Moira and Lachlan explained the case and the man took John with him.
