Authors: Highland Princess
His response resembled something between a grunt and a sigh.
“Come, Niall,” she said as they neared the gateway to the laird’s hall forecourt. “They are guests at Finlaggan, so I shall see them again, perhaps frequently. The more I know, the better I can protect myself.”
The look he cast her told her as clearly as words that he recognized her curiosity for exactly what it was, but he said, “The brother is worse, if anything.”
“What do men call him?”
“Hector the Ferocious.”
“Mercy! Why?”
“Because he is a fierce man who carries a battle-axe everywhere save openly at his grace’s court. That fearsome weapon is said to descend from their progenitor, Gillean of the Battle-axe, and they say Hector the Ferocious wields it as if it were part of him. ’Tis Lachlan has the brains, Hector the brawn, but both are dangerous, lass. Promise me that you will keep your distance from them.”
To avoid a promise she knew she would break, she said, “I will take care, sir, but a murderer is far more dangerous. Who do you think killed Elma MacCoun?”
“Faith, lass, I don’t know. It was only Mellis and his witnesses being so certain that persuaded anyone the woman had been murdered. I’ll wager ’tis as likely she fell off a cliff and was swept ashore at Loch Gruinart with the tide.”
“I heard only that they’d thought Ian pushed her and that Ewan Beton found her. Did he find her at Loch Gruinart?”
“Aye, on the sand there, washed up by the sea. ’Tis a pity, too. She was a better wife than MacCoun deserved. But you do not fool me, lass. I know you too well, and I want your word that you’ll heed my warning about the sons of Gillean.”
Solemnly, Mairi said, “I do understand, sir, thank you. I will take care.”
He glanced at her again, but this time she met his skeptical look directly, easily maintaining her somber expression.
After a long moment, he nodded and said in the annoying paternal tone he often took with her, “Good lass. Let us go now and visit your lady mother.”
Stifling a sigh, Mairi allowed him to escort her up to her mother’s solar.
The Maclean brothers watched the pair from the great hall porch until they disappeared through the gate into the roofed forecourt of the laird’s hall, when Hector said gruffly, “I’m thinking that man’s not singing your praises t’ the lass.”
“Nor yours,” Lachlan said, revealing his amusement at last with a wry smile. “Niall MacGillebride Mackinnon does not like us or our ilk, but although he may worry about how much I know of him, I warrant he’ll not trouble us much.”
“He might if you continue to cast hungry glances in her ladyship’s direction,” Hector warned. “Aye, sure, but she’s a fine-looking wench.”
“She is,” Lachlan agreed, thinking he had never seen one finer. Her skin looked like ivory, making him yearn to touch her, to see if it was as smooth.
“Who would have thought she’d be MacDonald’s daughter, though?”
“Both of us should have known the moment we clapped eyes on her, had we thought at all,” Lachlan said, still enjoying the bubble of laughter that had filled him from the moment he had first engaged her in conversation.
“Indeed, I was fair spellbound by her beauty and failed to consider who she might be,” Hector agreed.
“I, too, but who else would wear ermine and red tiretain at his grace’s court, and a gold circlet atop her caul? That should have told us if naught else did.”
“Her lady mother, mayhap, would wear all that, or mayhap her sister.”
“But ’twould be the same then, as to identity and rank. Moreover, we know Lady Margaret and Elizabeth. The others are all bairns yet or married and gone.”
“She might have been a chief’s daughter,” Hector suggested, clearly unwilling to agree that they both should have guessed her identity.
“Few men have brought their wives, and none has brought a daughter.”
Hector nodded. He might question Lachlan’s judgment but rarely for long.
“She’s a brave lass,” Lachlan added, idly fingering the gold ring on his right little finger, “or she’s a foolhardy one.”
“Aye, a woman should not speak up as boldly as she did,” Hector said, “but by my troth, she seems canny enough. I’m thinking someone should have seen afore she did that the lad, Ian Burk, could not have committed that murder.”
Lachlan shrugged. “Men do not always see what is beneath their noses. As she said, by the time anyone realized the woman had been murdered, enough time had passed that few folks knew exactly where they were when she disappeared. I’d wager the first time anyone even considered the possibility that the lad might have been elsewhere was when her ladyship did. I own, though, I’m curious.”
“About what?”
“I’d like to know who did kill that woman, and why. ’Tis a puzzle, that is.”
“Aye, and you were ever the one for puzzles.”
Lachlan nodded, then frowned and said, “Have you heard anyone say just how they know she was murdered?”
“Nay, then, only that she died. Do you want me to look into it?”
He nodded. “See if you cannot glean at least such facts as are known beyond what we heard at that trial, but take care. Many will talk about it, so opportunities to learn more should present themselves, but we’ll be here just a few more days, and no one will thank us for putting our noses into Isla business.” He paused, smiling reminiscently, and added, “I agree with you, though. She’s a clever lass.”
“Still, she should have told someone else, and quietly,” Hector said. “I’m thinking no woman should speak up so boldly in a court of law.”
“Perhaps,” Lachlan agreed, “but I like a bold lass better than a dull one.”
“You like any lass, as long as she’s pretty,” Hector said, grinning.
“I learned that from you.”
Still grinning, Hector said, “Aye, that’s true.” After a moment’s thought, he added more seriously, “I like bold lasses, too, my lad, but I’m thinking that one treads perilously near becoming insolent.”
“She does,” Lachlan agreed. But her insolence was not what kept his thoughts fixed on the lovely Mairi of Isla for the rest of that day.
Lady Margaret greeted her daughter’s arrival with visible pleasure, as did Mairi’s sister Elizabeth and the two waiting women who bore them company. The latter two had served her ladyship since her marriage, and Mairi generally thought of them as the Rose and the Weed because of tall Adela’s predilection for bright colors and shorter, plumper Clara’s habit of dressing in russet and brown. All four women set aside their embroidery, the better to express their delight, and the Rose and the Weed stood politely to make their curtsies to her.
As Mairi made hers to her mother, Lady Margaret said with a smile, “I did not anticipate your return for yet another sennight, dearling.”
“No, madam, but we had completed our duties at Dunyvaig, and so Ranald and I were able to return sooner.”
Lady Margaret raised one thin, delicately arched eyebrow, but Elizabeth laughed. “Indeed,” she said as she tucked a stray nut-brown curl back under her caul, “and here were we, suspecting that ’twas the shocking news of Ian Burk’s trial that drew you home—and that so swiftly as to risk your life in a dangerous fog.”
Suppressing irritation with her sister in order to meet her mother’s quizzical gaze, Mairi felt guilty heat surge to her cheeks. She was searching her thoughts for a persuasive way to explain her concern for Ian and her determination to prevent his hanging when Niall Mackinnon, still beside her, interrupted her thoughts.
“Her ladyship’s recklessness must concern us all, madam,” he said to Margaret. “Doubtless his grace will have much to say to Lord Ranald for allowing it, but that she cared so much about a mere servant’s fate does bear testimony to her kind heart. Moreover, you will be pleased to know that Ian Burk managed to prove himself innocent of the charge.”
“Praise be to God for that,” Lady Margaret said, adding gently, “You may leave us now, sir. I would be privy with my daughters.”
Recognizing a touch of her own annoyance with Mackinnon in her mother’s tone, Mairi nonetheless braced herself as he bowed and took his leave.
Lady Margaret Stewart rarely lost her temper or displayed strong emotion. A handsome woman handsomely garbed in gold-embroidered, sable-trimmed ivory silk, she displayed a regal manner reflective of her heritage. Her father was hereditary High Steward of Scotland as his father and ancestors for over two hundred years had been before him. He was also heir apparent to the Scottish throne, because David Bruce, despite being in his forty-third year and on his second wife, had no offspring.
When the door had shut behind Mackinnon, and the Rose and the Weed had discreetly returned their attention to their embroidery, Mairi met her mother’s gaze and said, “I hope you are not angry with me, madam.”
“No, dearling, although I confess I am glad we did not know your intent and thus endured our brief reaction to your recklessness only after your safe arrival.”
Elizabeth said, “You should have been more thoughtful, Mairi.”
“We did not know the fog would come,” Mairi pointed out.
“Neither did you have to depart in the dead of night, as you must have done to arrive so early this morning,” Lady Margaret said.
Knowing better than to insist that Ian’s peril had put the necessity for speed ahead of that for caution, Mairi held her tongue, albeit with difficulty.
That her mother understood that difficulty was evident in the half smile that touched her lips, and more so when she said, “Am I correct in believing that young Ian did not prove his innocence alone, as Niall’s words might lead one to assume?”
Mairi returned the smile. “I was able to show that he could not have killed Elma,” she said. “I do beg pardon if my actions distressed you even briefly, madam, but having known him most of my life, I was certain he could not have done it.”
“If anyone did murder her, I’d guess it was Mellis MacCoun,” Lady Margaret said with more tartness than she was accustomed to display.
“I own, I should like to know how she died,” Mairi said.
“Do you think Mellis did it, madam?” Elizabeth asked, her blue eyes wide.
“I do not encourage anyone to gossip, as you know, but I have heard him described as a hard man, and she was much younger than he, and beautiful,” Lady Margaret said. “I know the difficulties that can arise when a woman marries a man twenty years her senior, and few men are as fair-minded as your father.”
“Mellis MacCoun is not,” Mairi said.
“Aye, but even so, I should think it more likely that Elma had some sort of accident, for as you doubtless know yourself, she liked to wander along the shore when she was distressed or angry with Mellis. There are places along the Sound, certainly, where one might slip and fall into the sea.”
“Niall thinks she fell, too, but at Loch Gruinart, not along the Sound.”
“Is that where Ewan Beton found her?” Elizabeth asked.
“Aye, for so Niall told me.”
Lady Margaret said, “Gruinart is five miles from here, but a woman in a temper can cover a good distance, walking or riding, and I’d warrant Elma could reach the sea cliffs north of here even more easily and be swept west on the tide.”
That was true, and few women on Isla could swim. With the long skirts and underskirts most wore, even fewer would survive falling fully clothed into any but shallow, calm water, and none would survive falling off a cliff into surf crashing against the rocks below. At least they had found Elma. Often, inexplicably, victims simply sank in the cold seawater, never to be seen again. Just imagining such a fate sent a shiver up Mairi’s spine as a new thought stirred.
“Does anyone even know when Elma left Finlaggan?”
“Aye,” Elizabeth said. “Someone asked the guardsmen at the causeway, and they agreed that she left sometime that afternoon, well before suppertime.”
“Then Mellis cannot have killed her,” Mairi said, “unless he somehow met her at Loch Gruinart before Godfrey and his party returned to Finlaggan.”
“Enough of this sordid talk,” Lady Margaret said. “Tell us the news of Dunyvaig; and then, whilst I change my attire to dine with our guests, you can visit the children and amuse them until it is time for us to walk to the great hall to dine.”
“They will be glad to see you,” Elizabeth said. “They have been plaguing us for days to know when you would return. But first, do tell us all about Dunyvaig.”
As they discussed the cleaning and new stores at Dunyvaig, and such news as Ranald had gleaned in his travels to Annandale and Loch Tarbert, temptation stirred more than once to ask if either Margaret or Elizabeth had taken notice of the sons of Gillean, but Mairi stifled each impulse. Knowing that her mother strongly approved of MacDonald’s plan to marry her into the royal family, she decided she would be wiser to satisfy her curiosity on her own. Niall had said the two men were popular, which assured her that they had drawn Elizabeth’s attention, but she thought it unlikely that her well-guarded younger sister would know much about them.
The chapel bells rang the midday hour of Sext a short time later, and less than a quarter hour after that, Mairi entered the great hall again with Lady Margaret, Elizabeth, and the two ladies in waiting.
A transformation had taken place in the meantime. Rows of white-draped trestle tables stood where crowded benches had been before, and the high table on the dais at which her father had presided over his grievance court had been extended to accommodate his noble guests. It was likewise draped in elegant white linen, but embroidered round the hem with his ubiquitous little black ships.
Frequently, the Lord of the Isles, like other wealthy, powerful men, dined separately in the laird’s hall with his family, but MacDonald made it a habit to dine in the great hall regularly, wanting to maintain a close connection to his dependents. He had not come in yet, but Ranald and Godfrey stood on the dais and Mairi joined them with her mother and Elizabeth. Her eldest brother, John Og, had not come to Finlaggan because his wife, Freya, expected to deliver their second child soon, and John Og hoped his presence at home would produce the son he so fervently desired.
As Mairi greeted Ranald and Godfrey, Ranald clapped her on the shoulder and said, “You slipped out too quickly, lass. Ian Burk was looking to thank you.”