Seeking more clues, Lochlan unfolded the material and cursed as a disembodied hand fell to the floor.
Alexander’s own curse rang out as he saw it and the strange brand that was on the back of the hand. “So help me, I’ll kill every one of those bastards for this.”
Lochlan found it hard to breathe. Hard to focus. He ran through his mind the man whom he had met briefly. A man he had paid all too little attention to.
“Who was Lysander?” he asked Alexander.
“I don’t know to be honest. I found him in France about five years ago when I went to visit a friend. He had just come back from Outremer and refused to speak of it.”
“And this plaid?”
Alexander shrugged. “It was wrapped around him when he asked for work. Does it mean something to you?”
It meant more to him than his own life. “Did he say how he came by it?”
He shook his head. “I only know it was very dear to him. My wife’s maid tried to take it from him once to clean it and he almost tore her arm for the trouble. He was rather feral in the early days of his employment.”
Alexander retrieved the hand and went to find the priest to dispose of it.
Lochlan ran a corner of the plaid through his fingers.
How had a Frenchman found Kieran’s plaid?
None of the brothers had ever journeyed further than England except for Sin, and Sin had never taken a plaid with him.
If not for the initials, he might think that perhaps the weaver had created more of the design and sold it.
But those initials matched the one for his plaid, Braden and Ewan’s.
Nay, this was Kieran’s. There was no doubt it was his brother’s and by the looks of it, it was quite old.
Which meant that Kieran hadn’t died that day when he’d gone out to the loch on his own.
For some unknown reason, his brother had faked his own death.
But why?
Lochlan sat down as the news sank in.
No doubt the MacKaids had found the plaid after they killed Lysander and had sent it back to them.
They would have known exactly who this belonged to and what it meant.
Lochlan drained his ale in one gulp.
Somewhere out there, Kieran MacAllister might still be alive.
Epilogue
A month later
Ewan held Nora’s hand as they walked through the framework that would one day soon be their new home. It would be a fine manor home fit for his lady wife and their new babe whose arrival was now confirmed.
He watched Nora tell the steward exactly what she wanted while his mind drifted.
He still couldn’t believe what Lochlan had told him.
None of them could.
