Page 39 of Highland Storm

“Two brothers?”

“I’m nae talkin’ ’bout faeries, lass.”

The men all snickered yet again.

“And what be their names?”

For a moment, Lianae’s throat felt too thick to speak. She searched all their faces, reassuring herself that she did not know these men and neither could they possibly know her. And how many men shared the same name? “Graeme and Ewen,” she replied at last.

The eldest of the three messengers nodded slowly. “And so Keane here…” He slid a chin in Keane’s direction. “He agreed to help ye find your brothers?”

Nodding uncertainly, Lianae looked belatedly to Keane. He lifted a brow, although he did not refute her, and his friend Cameron cast them both a narrow-eyed glance.

“I see,” the man said, and after a painfully long moment, he nodded and then went back to mauling his piece of bread.

Lianae had little more to say, so she sat, picking at the imagined grime beneath her nails. After the hunt, she’d washed her hands thoroughly down by the burn, and they were perfectly clean, but she didn’t know what else to do with them whilst so many pairs of eyes were trained upon her now.

The camp went silent after that, bored, it seemed, with Lianae’s thin, unimaginative tale. Admittedly, it wasn’t nearly as intriguing as the death of a king and the politiks therein.

After a while, the fire began to wane, and Cameron was the first to rise, excusing himself, he claimed, to go searching for more wood to keep the fire going through the night.

Murdoch rose as well. “I’ll go wi’ ye,” he said, and grumbled again about his belly. The two of them whispered together as they went, and then Murdoch suddenly sprinted ahead, into a thicket.

“Well, now, that was a welcome feast,” the elder messenger said, as he watched the two men disappear. “We had nae idea ye’d be so near. We thought for sure ye’d be at Dunràth by now.”

“Tis good fortune,” Keane said, leaving it at that. He continued to trim his fletching. After another considerable moment, the man hoisted himself up, brushing himself off. The rest of the men took it as their cue to go make their pallets for evening and maybe see to their mounts. Only Lianae and Keane remained seated before the fire.

Already, Keane had beside him a small pile of grouse feathers that he planned to use, or so he’d claimed. Lianae searched for something to say. She might tell him more now—about her brothers and the Earl—if only he would ask. She sorely needed an ally, she realized, but she still was afraid. He was, after all, King David’s man…

He watched her out of the corner of one eye.

“My brothers always used hawk feathers,” she remarked, uncomfortable with silence.

“That works well enough if ye plan to put your arrows on a shelf.”

Lianae heard a note of something in his tone—scorn perhaps—and took offense. “My brother said most feathers are too easily frazzled.”

“And which brother was that?”

“Graeme.”

Keane smiled tightly and nodded. He said, “An archer must use what he must, else he’s an archer only for sport.”

Lianae narrowed her eyes, prepared to take offense in her brother’s behalf. He could not know her brothers and had no idea of what he was speaking about. Neither of her brothers were fat rich men, who’d used their bows only for sport. Nay, they were brave men of Moray, who’d lived to serve their people.

“My father never used grouse,” Lianae assured him, even despite that she didn’t know it to be true. But her father would have known best, for he was a great man. Too bad she couldn’t say so, and so she held her tongue, wanting desperately to say that her menfolk were not milk toast—unlike a king who licked English boots.

“Ach, lass… but ye dinna even ken what grouse was until yesterday.”

Lianae grit her teeth and clenched her fists within her lap. That was neither here nor there, and his questioning tone annoyed her. Still, she sensed there was something more behind his needling and he wanted her to say something more.

Well, let him pry all he wished! She wasn’t about to tell him aught more than she already had. Clearly, she was wrong to want to confide in him.

Whatever warmth she had felt for him fled now, Lianae rose from her place beside him, and eyed his waiting pallet. He’d made it beneath the low-lying branch of an ash tree, just in case it should begin to snow again. Alas, despite the fact that he had angered her, she realized his bed was still the safest place to sleep. “Well… g’nite,” she said.

He smiled up at her, an enigmatic smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll be along behind ye soon,” he said. “Sleep well, maid of Moray.”

Sleep well yourself! Lianae longed to say, but in truth, she suspected none of them would sleep a wink tonight after drinking all that tea. Without bothering to tell him where she was going, Lianae headed down to the burn, rebuking herself for warming to any man under David’s rule. Keane was her enemy—had always been her enemy—and simply because he didn’t realize it yet, didn’t make it not true.