As they joined Roy at the table in the center of the room, a buxom, blonde serving wench sashayed over with two more mugs of the same watery ale. Reade flipped her a silver coin, and she winked at him before swaying off. Reade took a long sip of his libation and wiped his damp hair off his forehead as he set the mug down. The day had been misty and their searches had taken them on paths farther south before heading to the tavern.
While Reade doubted Sawny would head south, as escaping an unwanted marriage to the far north seemed much more likely, they did not want to leave any stone unturned.
Thus far, it was as though Sawny disappeared into the air, like he walked to his bathing loch and out of the world.
Maddock and Roy mused solemnly with their drinks. Even Maddock, who typically wore a smile on his face as casually as a man wears his plaid, was as hard-faced as his stern brother. Sawny’s cousin comparatively, appeared more distressed than angry. He pushed his half-full cup towards the middle of the table.
“I dinna know what I will tell my auntie Margaret.” His voice was ragged and his sorrow as palatable as the ale before them. “She is stricken over his disappearance and fears a dire fate has befallen him, though she will not bring herself to believe him dead. If I cannot bring word of having found him, I worry what will happen to that good woman.”
Reade and Maddock shared a knowing look. They had seen how devastated their sister was, and she had not even become his wife yet. Adaira had even met with Sawny’s mother in commiseration, according to Conall, and they both bore the weight of their sorrow on their faces and bodies. Conall had commented that Sawny’s disappearance had aged Margaret in a way time had not. What would Sorcha had done if any of her sons had gone missing? She would have set fire to every town, croft, and farm until her son was discovered, Reade knew. He could not begin to imagine the pain that Sawny’s disappearance was causing his mother.
A sour thought came at the tail end of his first one. Sawny would have much more to answer for in causing his mother this pain, if he had contributed to it intentionally. What manner of man caused such pain to his mother?
Yet as much as Reade hated to admit it, since they had not found any lick of the lad, the chance that he had befallen a deadly fate was seeming more likely than his running away from a marriage.
Poor Margaret.
Maddock cleared his throat. “If the lad is anywhere in the Highlands, we will find him.”
His reassurances rang hollow.
They were so involved in their own dour thoughts that it was only when the rumbling in the corners of the tavern grew loud enough that the noise interrupted those thoughts. Reade was unsure of what he had heard and twisted this chair towards the group of men at a corner table, dressed in plain, weather-worn clothing. They hid in the shadows, and Reade could not make out their identity. He could not even be certain that they were MacDonalds or their allies. God save them if these men were Campbells.
But Reade could smell them and wrinkled his nose. They must have spent the afternoon deep in their cups.
“Do ye have something ye wanted to say?” Reade asked in a tone immediately recognizable by Maddock, who dropped his hand to his sword at his side. It was Reade’s volatile tone, and Maddock readied himself for the fight in the bar room he knew was forthcoming.
“I said I’m no’ surprised the Keppoch lad is hiding as he is,” the most ragged of the three men replied. They had leaned forward slightly, bringing their faces and shoulders into the circle of torchlight. Reade still did not know them. “If I was busy tupping the chieftain’s daughter, I'd run for the hills, too.”
There was not even a breath between the end of the man’s words and Reade’s explosive movement. Reade was out of his chair and his brawny first landed hard on the man's face in the blink of an eye.
Within the next second, both Maddock and Roy were on their feet, leaping into the fracas to join Reade. The fight was a three-on-three that spilled from the corner into the main area of the tavern. Instead of trying to break up the fight, the patrons, many of them also well into their cups this late in the afternoon, cheered on the combatants. Some of the crowd were familiar to Reade and Maddock and shared the Glen Coe MacDonald name. Others must have favored the strangers, cheering whenever the haggard man swung.
The man’s nose was bloodied and he was unsteady on his feet. He hay-baled, swinging his arms wildly. His punch went wild as Reade ducked and spun, then came up, popping the man in the perfect spot along his jawline. The strike was hard enough to render the man unconscious, and he fell like a sack of turnips on his fat backside.
Then he spun on the ball of his foot to Maddock. The second stranger had rammed Maddock low, clasping him around the waist and keeping his head down. Maddock pounded on the man’s back and shoulders, but to no avail.
Reade reached out and grasped the man’s stringy hair and yanked. His entire body followed, driving him backward and giving Maddock the opening he needed. With a one-two set of punches, he first struck the man in the belly, and when he gasped and tried to bow over, Maddock swung his powerful left, catching the man in the temple, and he joined his friend on the floor.
Panting, they turned together to aid Roy, but it was an unnecessary effort. Sawny’s cousin lived up to the wild Keppoch reputation and was dominating the last stranger. Fighting was a way of life for the Keppochs.
The large man Roy faced off against tried to punch his smirking face, but missed again. His nose and cheek were bloody, and he leaped at Roy in a wild move. Roy easily side-stepped the man, and as the stranger tried to correct and come at him again, Roy’s long arms reached for his head.
Grasping his hair, Roy brought the stranger’s head down at the same time he brought his bare knee up. The man’s face made sickening contact with his knee and thrust the man backward into their table. He knocked their ale mugs to the ground as he crashed against the tabletop. The table skittered away under the man’s weight, dumping the man onto the floor next to the mug pieces.
Roy glared at the man, challenging him to get up for another round. The groaning man’s better sense won the day and the man remained where he was.
Then Roy lifted his face to the brothers, flipping several damp locks of dark hair off his forehead. A euphoric grin spread on his face, the first anyone had seen in weeks. He wiped his hand across the back of his lips, but it did not erase the smile.
Feck, these Keppoch kin are savage,Reade thought.
“That felt good,” Roy breathed out in a rush. “I have no’ felt this alive in a long time!”
Sometimes rumors were true, Reade mused, and the Keppoch MacDonalds were little better than uncivilized barbarians, as evidenced by Roy.
Roy scanned the room before lifting an eyebrow to Reade. “Anyone else?”
Reade’s gaze did the same, touching on each oogling man in the tavern. “Does anyone else have anything to say about my sister or her missing betrothed? Anything at all?”
