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“Three?” Morag raised a brow. “I dinna understand.”
“I was ordered to kill three men that I’m sure are not plotting to kill Richard at all.”
“Who are they?” she asked, feeling a sour taste in her mouth, somehow knowing she wasn’t going to like his answer.
“They are three men you know well,” he told her. Looking into her eyes, he spoke lowly. “Morag, I was ordered to kill the Legendary Bastards of the Crown!”
Morag couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Her body stiffened and anger as well as fear pumped through her.
“What?” she asked, hoping this was only some sort of sick jest. There was no way it could be true.
“You heard me. I don’t like it either. I’m sorry I had to tell you this, but I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”
Morag snatched her hands from his and sprang up off the bed. Bedivere jumped up as well and reached out for her.
“Dinna touch me, ye monster!” she cried, backing up against the bedpost with her hands out in front of her for protection.
“Is that how you really see me, Morag?” The look of intense sadness in his eyes was not that of someone with vengeance in his heart. Instead, it seemed as if her words had cut him to the bone. “I never said I was going to do it. If it’ll ease your mind, I’m not planning on harming them at all.”
“I dinna believe ye,” she spat, even though, in her heart, she felt he was telling the truth. “How can ye be so calloused that it doesna even seem to bother ye to take the lives of those I love?”
“Oh, it bothers me, Morag,” he answered gruffly. “More than you’ll ever know. Do you understand that by denying this order, I am putting my mother’s life at stake? If I don’t figure out what to do soon, she’ll die in Whitmore’s dungeon. He might even decide to come after the rest of my family as well.”
“Oh, I didna think of that,” she said, feeling her heart soften toward him. “Are ye sure ye are no’ goin’ to hurt my faither or uncles?” She had to ask again, just to be sure.
“I am going to try to help them, not hurt them,” he assured her. “But since I refused to kill them, Whitmore has sent two unidentified assassins to do the job instead.”
“Nay!” Morag held on to the bedpost for strength. “Bedivere, we need to tell my faither and uncles about this anon.”
“We can’t.” He paced back and forth, dragging a worried hand through his hair. “If they know about it, they will confront Whitmore and then I’ll never flush out the hired killers. I want to take out the assassins first so Whitmore won’t order them to go back and kill my mother.”
“Isna that dangerous? No’ only for my faither and uncles but also for ye?”
“It is. However, I feel it is something I have to do.”
“But if my faither and uncles ken about the assassins, they can kill them and ye willna have to.”
“Nay.” Bedivere stopped pacing and released a frustrated breath. “If Whitmore knows that your uncles and father are aware that his men are here, he’ll pull them out rather than to risk their lives. No one wants to go up against the Legendary Bastards of the Crown. I want to do away with the threat of the assassins and then we can all sleep a little easier. Morag, tell me that you’re certain your father and uncles would never conspire against the king.”
“They wouldna do that! Richard is family.”
“So was Edward,” he reminded her with a raised brow. “Yet everyone knows your father and uncles fought against him.”
“True. At one time, they held vengeance in their hearts against their faither, but that was a long time ago. They have changed. They now support the English crown.”
“Even your father? After all, it is no secret he has never accepted the English or paid homage to Edward in any way in the past.”
Morag was sure her father wouldn’t conspire against Richard. Then again, he did have a temper and that could work against him. Still, she wouldn’t tell Bedivere how much Reed despised the English because she didn’t want to put doubt in his mind. “Nay, my faither would never do that. Plus, he is no’ even in England so that should prove his innocence.”
Now Morag regretted sending Branton with a missive calling her father to England to compete for the late earl’s holdings. She never should have added his name to the list. He would be walking right into a lion’s den and it was all her fault.
“Morag, there is something else I haven’t told you.”
She felt the lump in her throat, not wanting to hear more. “What is it?” she asked, not wanting any more secrets between them.
“Whitmore thinks I am still taking out one last man in exchange for the release of my mother.”
“Who does he think ye are goin’ to kill?” She held her breath, waiting for the answer.
