“I dunna know,” Craig said, shifting from onefoot to the other.“Maybe it’s what you cut the tip of his ear offwith.”
“First,” Roark said, “cutting off the tip ofa person’s ear wouldn’t leave a blade dripping with enough blood tosee from the kitchens to the stables.And second, the tip of Leif’sear was bitten off byPrincessAlina when Leif tried to rapeher.”
“That’s a lie,” Roger thundered, pushing upto his feet as a low buzzing filled the hall.“Why would my sonneed to rape a woman he despised when he had his choice of womenwilling to warm his bed?”
“I would say the answer to your question isone of character, Laird,” Roark answered.“Not one of need.”
“It’s not enough your son killed mine?”Lynette shrieked at Brianna.“Now he slanders him as well?”
To her credit, Roark’s mother simply pressedher lips tight and said nothing, while Roger wrapped his arm aroundLynette’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.The most outwardlyattentive Roark had ever seen him with his wife.
Roark turned his attention back to Craig.“What were you, Peg, and Jenny arguing about in the kitchen beforeAlina came in that day?”
“Wha… what?”
“What were you, your wife, and daughterarguing about whenPrincessAlina came into the kitchen andinterrupted you?”
“Nu… nothing of import.”
Roark was sorry to out Jenny’s secret in sucha crude manner, but the fact of her pregnancy would be known soonenough, as would the child’s sire if it was blond and blue-eyed.“Your daughter being pregnant with Leif’s babe was of noimport?”
“Leif’s babe?”Munroe erupted as the hallfilled with gasps and whispers.He glared at Jenny, who quailedbeside her mother.“You told me the babe was mine, you cuckoldingbitch.”
Roark glanced at the high table, the shockstill evident on Roger’s and Lynette’s faces.They hadn’tknown.
“The babe is Leif’s,” Roark said loudly.“Jenny had told Leif, and he’d told her he’d only claim a boybairn.If it was a girl, she was on her own.”He turned back toCraig, who’d sagged onto his chair.“To which you cursed Leif forbeing just like his Uncle Donald, who’d only ever claimed his maleby-blows.”
“How’d you… that’s a lie,” Craig said,rallying.
“No,” Roark said.“It’s not, is it?”he askedJenny, who went white-faced and said nothing.Roark looked over atthe high table, at a furious Roger and a tight-lipped Lynette.AtGwyneth, who was glaring daggers at Jenny, and at Donald, whoseusual smug expression had turned dour.He didn’t even botherglancing at Myrna’s perpetually sour face.“My point is,” he saidto the assembly at large, “I wasn’t the only person with a reasonto kill Leif.”
“Yet you admit you had a reason to,” Rogersaid.
“I did,” Roark said.“I likely would have ifnot for Alina.I admit I pulled him off her where he had her pinnedto the floor, clothes torn and struggling against him.I admit Ibeat him senseless, and I would’ve continued beating him until hewas dead if she hadn’t stopped me to keep me from being in theexact position I’m in now.Accused of his murder.
“I admit I beat him, bound him, and gaggedhim.I left him alive and breathing in the stables with his uselesscock hanging out of his breeches so whoever found him would knowwhat kind of man he was.
“I admit I helped Princess Alina ride awayfrom here, from you,” he told Roger.“A man so full of his ownpoison he lied to all of us so we’d kidnap an innocent woman fromher home in order to exact his revenge on her parents over atwenty-year-old grudge.”He turned to face the assemblage.“Rogerwas never going to ransom Princess Alina,” he told them.“He wasgoing to have her sold to some desert king as a slave in sometwisted reenactment of what happened to her great-grandmother, Oonathe Swan, of the clan MacLeod.All because he and his family wereexiled from Sea Ridge for helping try to murder the new king andqueen twenty years ago.”
Still standing, Roger clapped slowly.“Thatwas quite a story.”
“It’s true,” Roark, who’d never made a speechthat long or impassioned in his life, said.“Every word of it.”
“Yet you have no proof.”
“Nor do you,” Roark countered.He glancedover at Craig, who was looking at Jenny with pure fear on his face.“All you have is hearsay.”
Roger smiled, cold and deadly.“I am laird,”he said.“Your laird.I don’t need proof to hang you.”He looked toRoark’s father, who sat stone faced and silent.“Unless your fatherwishes to stand for you, which would rend asunder our alliance.”Hesmirked as Roark’s father maintained his stony silence, despite hismother’s whispered pleas.“Does anyone here wish to stand for thismurdering cur, Roark MacInnes?”Roger said, his gaze threateninganyone who dared.
Bryce started to stand, and Roark shook hishead and motioned for him to stay seated.The last thing he wantedto do was start a feud between his uncle’s and Roger’s clans.
“Anyone?”Roger asked again.
Roark looked to Craig, who refused to meethis eyes.He looked to Peg, who was rocking a sobbing Jenny in herarms, her gaze meeting Roark’s over Jenny’s head, pleading withhim.He glanced at Roger, who was determined to see him hang forLeif’s death.No matter the cause.Roark took a deep breath in andblew it out.There was no reason to drag Jenny and her familyfurther into this mess.If Craig did kill Leif, Roark couldn’treally blame him.He understood protecting your family, no matterthe cost.
With a thin smile as cold and deadly as anadder’s, Roger raised his hand and the hall went silent.
“Roark Bruce MacInnes,” he said loudly.“Ideclare you guilty of the murder of Leif Andrew MacKinnon, my onlyson and heir to North Shore Keep, for which you shall hang by theneck until you are dead, tomorrow at high noon in the town squarefor all to witness what a dishonorable and murderous traitor youare.”
