‘Yes, him. He bid me good eve, told me to rest and thanked me.’
Rory couldn’t come up with further words,but something on his face must have given his shock away because Duff continued.
Shrugging, his friend said, ‘Then he...gave me a nice coin and left. I didn’t sleep, but got straight to work with what Harold wanted me to do.’
‘And that was?’ Rory said through the closing in his throat.
‘To bring more men and a trunk. It seemed your mother wanted to give the bride a token of appreciation. I didn’t know where to put it, so it’s with the men now in their quarters.’
‘That...is welcome.’ Rory said as evenly as possible. ‘You rode hard, Duff, I’ll see that you get another coin. After fast, bring the trunk to my chambers and leave it there. After that, get some rest and I won’t be bothering you for three days.’
‘Three?’
‘I saw that black-haired lass giving a pout when I sent you out the door and, if I’m not mistaken, you noticed her as well.’
‘Black hair, you say? I think I was looking at the way her—’
Rory held up his palm. ‘Spend your time well. You can regale me with the details later.’
Duff turned abruptly, if unsteadily, and was gone in an instant. Duff was built like an oaktree. If he was that off balance, he’d ridden hard and fast.
This part of the hallway was empty, with only faint distant sounds coming through. It appeared most of the keep was still asleep. And so, for the first time since he’d begun the long journey yesterday, he was alone. The halls were narrow and dark, which Rory hoped hid some of his reaction to the news he received as he slapped his hand against the stone wall to support himself.
He was exhausted. Drained. His father gave no congratulations or asked questions on how he accomplished a feat no other Lochmore had achieved in all the years before or after the Great Feud.
Centuries of living next to the clan and nothing of this had ever been thought of or attempted. Except that one time, the one time which started this endless warring.
The story was that around seventy years before, a Lochmore lass was betrothed to the McCrieff Chief. How they met no one knew, but just before the wedding, the lass returned to Lochmore where the Chief took her in. There were plenty of rumours of mistreatment and abuse leading to her escape and subsequent return, but she and the Chief fell in love and married soonafter. All seemed well until she grew fat with a baby and died in childbirth, the baby as well.
When the McCrieff Chief heard of the news he rode up with a few of his men. Drink was involved. Pride was as well. Now there were witnesses aplenty and the story didn’t waver or fail from fact or fiction. It was told the McCrieff accused Lochmore of stealing the woman he loved and wished to marry.
Lochmore would hear none of it and roared that he wanted McCrieff off his land to mourn his wife and child. McCrieff refused and Lochmore drew his sword first. In the melee, Lochmore’s nephew Rory, for whom he was named, tried to stop the two drunk men and McCrieff’s sword sliced clean through the young man’s stomach. It ended in more tears than it started with, McCrieff’s men tearing him away and Lochmore broken in grief.
And for seventy years only more falsities and slights had been done by McCrieffs to Lochmores until his father had sided with Edward and was granted some of McCrieff land.
It was a decided victory and one that the Lochmores never thought to ever achieve over the cruel McCrieffs who caused a grieving man to break after killing a young man who simplywanted to stop two drunken men from killing each other.
Now Rory meant to bring peace to their clans. To marry a McCrieff and end the feud. More than that. An easier relationship with the Tanist would help prosperity and gain wealth no other Lochmore had before.
To bring pride to his clan and to prove to his father he could rule it one day. Except...he hadn’t achieved any of it. It appeared his mother sent kind words, no doubt more polite than actual happiness for her son, and his father sent nothing.
Worse still, he had a wife whom he couldn’t trust, but who he wanted more than anything. After Ailsa found her pleasure, he’d nigh on almost lost his mind with the want and need firing through him. She was well tousled, a flush to her cheeks and her lips swollen from kisses. She was so lovely his heart ached.
Until she reminded him that Paiden lay at death’s door. She could not have said words more chilling to his ardour and adding more to his confusion than those. She was a McCrieff. She was the enemy and, to prove it, Paiden was in another room, possibly dying while he trailed his fingers along soft skin and longing to kiss parted lips.
He didn’t want this. He didn’t need this. The land, the power, yes. The confusion, never. A McCrieff, his wife, and one who might have poisoned his friend. Except the wariness, fear and confusion in those bright green eyes of hers told something else. So, too, her knocking the goblet aside. She had not been the poisoner and possibly had worries over who was.
She seemed unsettled by it as well. A different reaction than the outrage and surprise she’d given her father when he suggested they marry. By no means could Ailsa be part of a conspiracy.
Yet years of mistrust did not go away simply because he felt something for her, because he hoped she was honest. So he’d held back last night, but they’d argued all the same.
He shoved himself off the wall and brushed his hands against his breeches. No matter what he did between his family and his wife, there would always be failure. However, he wouldn’t fail his friend and he would find the culprit who poisoned him.
That meant talking with a few important people. Hamish McCrieff for one. Last night before their vows, he and Ailsa had been escorted to his room, only to see that he was asleep.
Frail, grey and waxen with a weak rattle to his breath. Here was another fact that proved true. Hamish, Chief of Clan McCrieff, was trulyill. Which meant Frederick, as Tanist, was in control.
If so, why invite him, offer his daughter and then try to kill a Lochmore? Perhaps even kill him. He did not know what was in the goblet that Ailsa had shoved away.
