Page 96 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

He picked up the ribbon and put it in his pocket beside the other one.

“Magnus,” Duncan called from the northern edge.

Magnus walked to where Duncan was crouched at the grass line outside the stones, looking at the ground. Two horses, unshod. Same as in the western glen. They’d stood here for a long while, the ground worked soft beneath them, and then they’d moved out, heading west at a pace that tore the turf.

Magnus crouched beside the nearest print and pressed two fingers in.

Fresh. Six hours at most.

He stood up and looked west, where the hills rolled down toward the old drove roads, the abandoned steadings, the long empty ground between here and the coast that a man who knew these hills could move through without being seen.

He found the tree on the way back to the horses. It was a rowan at the edge of the circle, old and crooked. Into the bark at chest height, someone had taken a knife and cut a shape. Rough, quick work, not carved with any care, the lines bright and raw in the grey wood.

A crest.

Three interlocked rings beneath a broken cross. He’d last seen it on a letter his father had kept, years before the fire, a letter from a man claiming old friendship and asking after the clan’s affairs.

He stood looking at it with his hand flat against the bark and his thumb beside the cuts without touching them.

O’Brien.

Duncan stopped at his shoulder. Then Liam. Neither spoke.

Magnus stepped back.

“He wants me to find him,” he said. “He’s laid a road.”

Duncan’s jaw set. “Then we daenae follow it.”

“We follow it.” Magnus turned. “He has Elspeth.”

“Aye, and he kens ye’ll come. That’s the point.” Duncan stepped around to face him, not blocking his path, not quite, but close enough. “Magnus, think.”

“I have thought.” Magnus was already walking back to the horses. “He picked ground west of the drove roads. He’s heading for the old hunting lodges; there are three within a half day’s ride that have been empty since before the first fire. He’ll want high ground, a clear view, somewhere he can see who’s coming.” He checked his saddle without stopping, pulling the strap tight. “He’s had her for six hours. He’s had time to reach the farthest one.”

Liam had said nothing yet. He stood with his arms folded and his eyes on the horizon, and then he looked at Magnus. “What do ye need?”

Something in Magnus’s chest shifted, a hard thing that had been lodged there since the stables, since the ribbon, since Becky’s face in the corridor. He looked at Liam and nodded once.

“Ye and Duncan go back to the castle.” He began buckling his sword on, working the buckle from the inside out, fast and certain. “I’m nae leavin’ it unguarded in case this is half a trap. He may have men at the walls while I’m riding west.” He looked at Duncan. “Take Liam’s four men and the six from the night watch. Nobody goes in or out without yer permission.”

Duncan’s lips thinned. “And ye?”

“Five men. The ones who ken the drove roads.” Magnus pulled the sword belt tight. “I’ll take the fast route through the lower pass. If he’s at the farthest lodge, I’ll have him by midmorning.”

“Magnus.” Duncan stepped forward and lowered his voice. “He killed yer family last time. He had twenty men and months of planning, and ye are just going to go there with little escort?”

“I buried me family once,” Magnus said. “I willnae bury me wife.”

The wind moved through the standing stones. Nobody answered.

Liam unfolded his arms and walked to his horse. “I’ll secure the castle,” he said over his shoulder without looking back, which was the most useful thing anyone had said in the last five minutes.

Duncan looked at Magnus. His jaw worked once. Then his mouth turned up at the corner, hard and narrow, nothing like his usual grin. “I was hoping revenge was getting near,” he said. “I’ve been patient for a long bloody time.”

“Aye.” Magnus put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. “I’ll bring her home.”

He rode.