Page 65 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

No. She wasn’t all right. Curse this heartsickness! She’d waited in hopes that Tormund would come for her last night, after whatever had pulled him away was resolved. Had searched for a lavender stem in the trees and on her writing table, listened for footsteps late at night, scoured the game tables for a man in the shadows with a glint in his midnight eyes. He’d not come. Today was the final day of the faire. To be so shut out after all he’d told her… There was what in Inverness? He’d been about to tell her. Curses…

A MacDonald lass is our salvation and our curse. A peace we vie to achieve.

Peace. Tormund had sprinkled clues into his confessions. And at some point, her sister’s documents had struck her hard. The Great Peace. Their issue. An earldom she’d never heard of. Had Tormund been feeding her clues? As if wishing to tell her a secret he was nay allowed to divulge? Each time she brought up Inverness, she saw that characteristic tell: that tick in his jaw. Followed by a diversion.

So much seemed hinged on why Marjorie had been nabbed. When Owen had died, all had been forfeit. But why? Everything was right here, in front of her. Whatever Tormund was holding back, she couldn’t make sense of it. She needed resources. And Tormund had spoken of the Blackfriars in Inverness and their immense library.

“I’m well. My trunk is packed for departing on the morrow.” She bit her lip. “I just want one last jaunt with Sunshine before we return home.”

Where she might never see Tormund again, for even though in the throes of passion he’d begged to keep her, once the barrier of Tioram’s portcullis fell between them, they would have James forever standing in their way.

James nodded. That same hard expression, as if he wished to crack stones with his teeth. It was obvious he didn’t want to give her permission. His eyes settled to the blade at her hip. Bounced to her neck. She looked down. Tormund’s talon lay on display.

“Is there something ye need to tell me, lass?” he bit out.

“Brother.” What to say? She knew not where she and Tormund stood. Could cling to hope for only so long, but precious time for him to come around was trickling through the hourglass rapidly. She chewed her lip, then remembered how Tormund had claimed it as his own to bite, and her heart twisted all over again. “What if ye knew that ye were wrong?”

His furrow intensified. “Wrong about what?”

“Something important. Something so important that it would change the entire way ye view an adversary and the things ye’ve done to him?”

He scowled. “What adversary?” Though it sounded as if he knew.

“MacLeod.”

He fell silent. Worked his jaw as if chewing a retort into submission. Scoured his neck and chin. “I ken ye’ve been liaising with MacLeod, lass.”

Her stomach nearly fell to her toes. “How?”

“Since he rescued ye during the corn cutting. I suspected something before when Angus mentioned something about rain, but couldna’ put my finger on it. I watched ye ride out with him yesterday, after ye quit dancing.”

“Ye spied on me?” she gasped. Had it been him in the woods, lurking?

At this, he gave his emotions an inch of freedom. Anger twisted his brow with pain. “It is my duty to protect ye. I promised Da on his deathbed that I would. What the hell kind of brother and laird would I be if I didna ensure yer safety?”

And yet…he hadn’t come blazing after Tormund with knives drawn? “Ye nay stopped me.”

He pumped his jaw. “Because I saw ye together. Saw how he doted on ye with gifts and jesting, how he looked at ye, and ye at him—” Which meant he’d seen them wrapped around each other, kissing, too. “I knew he’d keep ye safe.” He cupped her cheek. “And Aileana reminded me how two folk can be bitter enemies and yet still forge a bond,” he bit out. He hinted at his own love for his enemy bride. “But it nay changes the facts that Tormund is dangerous and attracts danger wherever he goes. He attacked Tioram, with ye in it—”

“He was coming after ye.”

James raised a brow. Pulled open his doublet and peeled up his tunic to reveal one of many welts. “Ye prove my point. That achlais at yer hip is the verra blade that sank betwixt my ribs here.”

“He’s never once burned our crops. And the only reason he’s come after ye is because ye killed his brother and have gotten away with murder.”

“I wish I was the one, though the honor goes to Da who beat me to it by only a moment, because of what Owen did—”

“He nay did.”

“And MacLeod has made ye his next scheme. To gain yer sympathy, make us believe Owen is somehow innocent when—”

“Owen loved our sister.”

“He did nay, she—”

“She spoke to me, James.” James froze as she gripped his arm to shake it. “As she lay in bed, she spoke to me. I could nay make sense of it until now. But yer grief was too great, ye’d never hear her name mentioned. And I have reason to believe that what she spoke of is something far greater than any of us can understand. That it exonerates Owen. And that Tormund protects whatever it is with his life.”

“Their kin has done nothing but feud with us.”