Page 17 of Sins of the Highlander

“Other than this one, ye mean?” Stewart said, his tone low and graveled with anger.

“’Twas nothing like this. I never unsheathed a blade. Never desecrated a kirk. ’Twas all in good fun,” Drummond said, striding with nervous energy from one end of the solar to the other. “We caught the lady outside the walls of Caisteal Dubh and thought only to make some sport of her husband. That’s all. I swear it.”

Normina remembered Lady MacLaren. A kind young woman. Terrified, of course. Who wouldn’t be if they were being held against their will? But well spoken, all the same. And clean. She was no trouble to look after at all.

Pity she was here for such a short time.

“God’s feet! I was a friend to Rob MacLaren’s father all his life. And he knows it,” Lord Drummond said. “I’d broken bread in that castle hundreds of times before the old laird passed.”

“And yet he bears ye ill will.”

“We’d have returned her unharmed. She was in the tower for her own safety.” Lord Drummond’s black eyes snapped. “If I’d had any notion that fool of a woman would leap from the window, I’d never have locked her away in there. Believe me, Stewart, it was a tragic misunderstanding, the kind of thing they sing about in ballads.”

Normina jerked her gaze away from her master lest he meet her eyes and know her secret thoughts. She had no misunderstanding about what happened to Lady MacLaren. Anybody with ears could’ve heard her piteous cries while Lord Drummond was with her in that locked chamber.

There was only one reason a woman might leap from a tower window. Her spirit had already taken flight, and her body needed to catch up with it.

“I’d not be surprised if some bard hasn’t already composed an outlandish version of the tale,” Drummond said.

Normina kept her eyes carefully downcast. It wasn’t her place to question her laird or to judge her betters, no matter how awful his sins.

It was God’s place to do that. It seemed the Almighty took His time when it came to the nobility, but He always got round to such things eventually.

Normina hopped up to refill her laird’s drinking horn and hoped she’d be there to see it when God finally demanded a reckoning from Lachlan Drummond.

From a safe distance, of course.

***

Falin whickered and tossed his head as they plodded through the forest. Elspeth didn’t blame him for skittishness. She loved to ride in the woods by day near her home. But by night, in this wood, every stump grew a boggle’s face, and the trees’ naked branches stabbed the sky like bony witches’ fingers.

Movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see several dark shapes keeping pace with them. Her breath hissed over her teeth.

“Aye, we’ve attracted the notice of a wolf pack,” Rob said softly. “Pay them no mind.”

Several pairs of feral eyes flashed at her from the deeper darkness.

She jerked her gaze away and fastened it on Falin’s bobbing head. The stallion’s ears pricked forward. His nostrils quivered. Then he whinnied and picked up his pace without Rob’s direction.

“No, my brave heart, we’ll not show them your heels,” Rob crooned to the stallion as he reined him back. “There’s a good lad. There’ll be no running.”

If the horse panicked and bolted, Elspeth and Rob would likely be sheared off his back by a low-hanging branch. And a man or woman afoot before a wolf pack had very little hope.

The wolves began calling to each other in short yips and howls.

Rob unwrapped the plaid that snugged Elspeth against him. “Can ye reach my boot knife? ’Tis on the right side.”

Elspeth leaned down to fetch it and saw a big gray fellow dart closer, matching their speed.

He slipped through the trees like a wraith on silent paws, his long tongue lolling. His teeth flashed in the stippled moonlight. Even in this dimness, Elspeth could see the wolf’s ribs protruding from his shaggy coat.

“They’re starving,” she said.

“Aye, most all the cattle and sheep in the Highlands have been sold off to the Lowlands for the winter,” he said woodenly. “Like as not, this pack’s not seen a meal for some time.”

She felt for the knife in Rob’s boot and drew it out, careful not to let the haft slip from her fingers.

“I’ve got it,” she whispered.