By the time Lachlan jogged into Town Blair, the quiet darkness of the green at night had been thrust upward by the handful of lit torches ringing the grass, the flickering light slashed by the oblong shapes of the Carsons’ mounts grazing before his grandfather’s door. It had taken him longer to return to the town; the way was uphill and the spring night had fallen quickly, like a cool, moist blanket dropped over the land, making for a slippery, steep climb through the wood.
His breath misted before his face as he slowed to a striding walk, and between the horses, he saw the lanky shape of Dand come away from the wall.
“Lach?” he called. “Where’ve you been at?”
“I followed the Englishman,” Lachlan said. “He went straight to the Carsons and brought them into our town. He’ll answer my questions now, whether Marcas and the rest of the fine like it or nae,” he said, heading straight for the door.
Dand placed his long-limbed form between his foster brother and the entry. “He’s nae here, Lach.”
“I saw him, Dand. He was—”
“He must’ve gone on, then,” Dand interrupted. “I’m telling you, the Englishman didna return.” His eyes flicked to the structure behind him. “Only Carsons inside.”
Lachlan felt his brows lower. “Move, Dand.”
“I canna.” Dand shook his head and stepped toward Lachlan, going so far as to place his hand upon Lachlan’s chest. “Da said he’ll call for you when—”
Lachlan swiped at Dand’s forearm, causing the young man to stagger. Then he pointed at the Blair’s house. “There is a room full of Carsons addressing our fine—my fine.” He said, leaning forward to place his nose close to Dand’s. “My patience for this shite has run out.” He pushed the door inward and charged through.
He came chest to chest with a stranger, a red-bearded man with deep lines radiating from the corners of his eyes as if his face was usually pressed into a smile—or a grimace. But the man was definitely not smiling as he came eye to eye with Lachlan, and neither were the handful of Carsons who backed him, including the toadish poet whose clothing appeared damp yet from his rendezvous with the river.
Lachlan knew he was blocking their exit, but he would be damned if he’d give way for a flock of Carsons in the house that would soon be his own. The red-haired man obviously recognized their disadvantages of location and number, for he nodded and stepped to the side, although he did not lower his gaze or soften his expression.
Enemies since long before Lachlan was born. Why were they here?
“Lachlan.”
He turned toward the fire in the center of the room and saw Marcas standing on the far side of the blaze, surrounded by men Lachlan had known all his life. They all stared at him, their faces blanched by flames. Lachlan sensed the Carsons filing out the door behind him, but he paid them no heed as he took notice of Archibald Blair lying near the fire.
His grandfather, too, watched him, and if the Blair elders’ complexions were ashen, the Blair himself seemed nearly without life. His skin was the color of the peeling birch bark in the wood beyond, his eyes sunken and dark. It seemed to Lachlan that he could see all his grandfather’s scalp, his white hair now thin and dark, perhaps with sweat. The sound of the door closing behind him and the presence of Dand at his side brought Lachlan’s attention back to his foster father.
“I demand to know what’s going on, Marcas. Why the Blair’s house was full of Carsons; why I was barred from my own fine.”
Marcas nodded toward the empty seat near the fire, probably only recently occupied by the red-bearded Carson who had thought himself Lachlan’s equal. “Come; sit down.”
Lachlan moved forward but said, “I’ll stand.”
“Ye’ll do…what…yer tol’!” The whispery barks came from his grandfather, and when Lachlan looked down at Archibald, he was surprised at the sudden red in his cheeks, his eyes. His grandfather had a wild look about him now, where a moment ago there seemed to lurk only quiet, white death.
“Aye, Blair,” Lachlan said in a low voice, and then eased down into the short chair, his eyes never leaving Archibald’s face. His grandfather was looking at him, had spoken to him as if he were some base stranger and not his only grandchild who would soon lead their clan. Lachlan’s skin tingled, his ears strained for any sound, his eyes catching the tiniest flicker of movement in the house.
“Lach,” Marcas said quietly. Lachlan’s foster father was sitting on the edge of his woven seat with his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “The Englishman—Montague. He brought word from London. From Tom—” He paused, seemed to collect himself. “From your father.”
Lachlan stared at Marcas for a long moment. “He’s lying. Tommy died at—”
“Thomas Annesley died in London,” Marcas interrupted, and the bitterness in his tone curled around each syllable and squeezed it like famine. “He’d been on the run for more than thirty years, evading capture for the murder of his young bride. He was to be hanged shortly after Montague left the city.”
Lachlan frowned and squinted at Marcas. “He didn’t murder my mother. I may have been but a wee thing when she died, but I still have memory of her.”
Marcas shook his head. “Nae Edna. ’Twas before he came here. He had come into Scotland to hide from the man he said accused him, but his enemy followed. He ventured into the Highlands to beg help from his kin.”
“Why would an Englishman think a Highland clan to be of any aid to him? Especially the Blairs? He was nae kin to us. Tommy was a lowland Scot without clan.” Lachlan noticed now that most of the elder men of the council were no longer looking at him. Only Harrell, Searrach’s father, whose gaze bore into Lachlan’s face with something akin to disgust. “He came here to prove himself worthy of Town Blair.”
Marcas’s wide shoulders rose and fell in silence. “He didna come seeking aid from the Blairs; Thomas Annesley’s mother was from the Carsons. ’Twas Carson Town he sought.”
“That’s shite,” Lachlan scoffed. “Are you all so gullible that—”
“It’s nae shite, lad,” Harrell said. “’Twas I who found him that night on the old bridge. He’d come upon us at the salmon run and spilled his guts; who he was, where he was goin’. Boastin’ he was a laird. We took him back with us, so he wouldna tell his kin we were poaching the salmon. ’Twas before the treaty. And besides, Carson Town was already burnin’.”
