“Nay. Why do you ask about him?”
“He’s all anyone talks about. They say there’s no man braver.”
“He will be glad to hear it.”
“Is he as terribly mean as they say?”
“Who says he’s mean?” Jamie grunted.
“My sister.”
“Your sister doesna know him.”
“But she’s heard more stories of him than I have,” Niall replied.
“And no doubt told you all.”
“Nay. She didna want to frighten me.”
“Ha! I can see she has a low opinion of me. And which sister is this?”
But Niall didn’t answer. He was staring at the man wide-eyed, for he had caught the slip of the tongue, even though the prisoner didn’t yet realize it.
“’Tis you!” he gasped. “You’re him!TheMacKinnion. And my father doesna even know!”
Jamie cursed himself silently. “You’re daft, lad.”
“Nay. I heard you!” he cried excitedly. “You said, ‘She has a low opinion of me.’ Nothim, you said ‘me.’ You’re James MacKinnion!”
“Tell me this, lad,” Jamie demanded. “What has your father planned for me?”
“To ransom you back.”
“And what would he be doing then if he thought I was The MacKinnion?”
“I dinna know,” Niall said thoughtfully. “He’d probably let you go free without any demands at all. Would you no’ prefer that?”
“Nay,” Jamie replied, surprisingly. “’Tis no’ something I’m proud of, being caught unawares, and I dinna care to hear your father gloat over it. ’Tis bad enough I’ll get all the ribbing when I’m home.”
“There’s no shame in it,” Niall insisted. “There were five against you.”
“Five I could’ve taken if I’d been mounted and seen them coming.”
“How could you no’ see them on the moor?”
“I wasna on the moor. I was in a wooded glen.”
Niall gasped. There was only one wooded glen on Fergusson land, the glen where Sheena went to swim.
“Why were you there?”
Jamie did not notice the change in the boy’s tone. “I’ll no’ be saying, for it only adds to my shame.”
“You’ll tell me if…if you want me to forget you’reTheMacKinnion.”
Jamie wasted no time. “I’ve your word on it?”
“Aye.”
