Page 35 of Highland Spy

She slid him a look from the corners of her eyes. “Just go.”

Then she turned her back and walked away.

He waited until she had sunk to her knees in the dirt and begun working before he turned away. Why he waited, he had no idea.

Perhaps for her to turn to him, to be grateful for the dismal position he was leaving her in.

Perhaps for her to tell him she loved him with the same exuberance she had when they were children.

But they weren’t children anymore, and the life they knew then, all the safety and happiness and wealth, had been shattered. He’d clearly done a shoddy job of repairing it.

The abbess approached him as he emerged into the courtyard.

“Good day, laird.” She nodded respectfully.

He hardened his heart against the title, the one that had once been his. The woman insisted on calling him laird out of respect for his father.

“How did MacAlister find her?” he asked.

The nun straightened, clearly affronted by his curt tone.

“She’s supposed to be safe here,” he said, more softly. “Yet I see a man leaving. How did this come to be?”

“By accident.” Her thin mouth turned downward in a slight frown. “She was in the garden when he came to see about a place for a cousin of his. He has come to visit several times and…” The old woman tapered off.

“And?” Connor said with measured patience.

The lines of her face crumpled deeper in a heartfelt look of sympathy. “And I hate seeing her youth and vibrancy fade here. She’s happy after she sees him, aye? He’s an ally to my clan, and a good man.”

Connor drew in a slow, deep breath. “Ye’re to keep her safe.”

“I would no’ ever do otherwise.” She pushed her gnarled hand against his and something warm and heavy settled against his palm. “I have this for ye too.”

He looked down to find a gold signet ring shining in his palm, the etched burning hill more deeply grooved than he remembered. It’d been three years since last he saw this ring.

It had been collateral for the coin he sent every month to see Cora safe. He’d been saving to buy it back and had almost accumulated enough to do so.

“I kept it for ye, like ye asked.” The nun said. “MacAlister has been sending coin for her. I think he intends to marry her.”

She smiled then, so widely it bared her fragile teeth and all the hope for goodwill only a nun could possess.

But Connor was not smiling. The insult was a slap in the face. “Had I no’ been sending enough?”

“Nay, it’s been fine. But he wants to see her in fine gowns.”

Fine gowns garnered attention. And attention did not always come from good places. And sure as hell not from MacAlister.

The nun’s face fell. “Forgive me, I’d sent a message and dinna hear back. I assumed ye were fine with it.”

“There was no message,” Connor said. “She’s to see no one but me.”

The nun nodded, but he did not miss how her shoulders slumped.

The time had come to move Cora from the small abbey.

And the time had come to kill MacAlister.

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