“Nay,” she scoffed. “How would a pile of English chain mail end up at the top of a ruined Highland house?”
“I have the beginning of a suspicion,” Lachlan said. “But I’ll need to talk to Murdoch about it. Perhaps your da as well.”
Finley tossed the contents in her hand back at the ledge where Lachlan had retrieved them, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of the way mourners dropped in handfuls of burial dirt over a grave. She brushed her hands together and started down the stairs, holding her words until she was once more facing Lachlan.
“He won’t talk to you about it,” she said. “Murdoch. He won’t talk about this place or that time to anyone, not even Da. What I told you was true: My da whipped me fierce when I was a child for daring to come up here. But all he would say about it was that whatever was left inside the old house was dangerous.”
Lachlan saw the dawning of realization in her eyes as Finley laid their discovery over her father’s warnings.
“Don’t you think a pile of rusting English armor could have something to do with the danger he spoke of?”
“I always assumed he meant the falling rocks.” Finley turned to look about the room again, as if seeing the whole place with new eyes. “What did you want my help with?” she asked. “I know it was not only walking up here with you.”
“I think we both want the same thing,” Lachlan said, “and that’s for me to return to Town Blair.”
Finley crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. “Aye.”
“I must prove that my chiefdom has been stolen from me. And in order to do that, I’ll need to talk to any Carson who was alive during the time Tommy Annesley lived at Town Blair. ’Twould be fair simple, save for the fact that your people don’t seem to care much for me yet.”
“Nay,” Finley scoffed.
Lachlan allowed himself a grin at her sarcasm. “If I can get them to see that I’m not their enemy, they might give me the proof I need to regain my clan. You can help me to do that by not showing everyone how much you hate me. Maybe even being outwardly on my side. If I’m right, the Carsons will be vindicated, once and for all.”
“And if you’re wrong?” she prompted with a superior air.
He shrugged. “The Blairs won’t have me back anyway.”
“What am I to do, go from door to door to tell everyone how lovely our wedding night was?”
“Just don’t thwart my efforts,” he clarified.
“Your efforts at what?”
“Now that Carson Town has the resources it needs, it’s time for the people here to rebuild properly,” he said. “I mean to help you do just that.”
Finley’s expression gave nothing away, and although she didn’t agree with him, neither did she argue.
“And,” Lachlan continued, “speaking of our wedding night, if we are to be free of each other when this is over, it would be best if we continued to sleep apart. There can be no question that our marriage was never validated.”
Her expression remained stony for a moment longer and then she shrugged and turned away. “Fine.”
Lachlan frowned; it seemed as though he’d said something to anger her, but he couldn’t imagine what it was.
“Fine. Good,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“To help Mam with supper,” she said as she exited through the doorway, leaving Lachlan standing alone amidst the rubble of the ruin.
“I’m going to find Murdoch,” he called after her. He didn’t hear a response, but perhaps the wind had stolen it.
He waited a moment longer, then quit the old house himself. Finley was already disappearing into the dilapidated cluster of houses in the center of town when Lachlan started down the path. He tried to shake the confused feeling she’d left him with, wondering how they could have come to the ruin in a jocular manner and then parted so stiff and cold, like some specter of gloom had descended upon their endeavor rather than the buoyancy of hope they each should have felt.
They might each get what they most wanted after all. What they deserved.
Lachlan shook his head and continued on in the opposite direction into town, in search of Murdoch Carson.
He didn’t see the figure watching him from the clifftop.
Chapter 8
