Rory looked at her and then around, his expression grim. “The Blair?”
Finley shook her head, the fear catching in her chest with a sharp pain. “Da, where’s Murdoch?”
* * * *
Geordie heard the unmasked crunching of the underbrush, someone approaching who cared not that their arrival was heard. But Geordie was not afraid. He was familiar with the sounds of those footsteps coming closer in the night, when guilt and drink and lonely memories demanded company.
“Murdoch,” Geordie said as the big man sat at his side. “Why’d ye come?”
“Same reason you came, I reckon.” There was a softpop, and Geordie felt a nudge on his arm.
He looked down at the flask of fiery water Murdoch was offering him, then turned back to the view of Town Blair.
“You know I doona drink that stuff. Would have fallen to me death years ago, had I started.”
Murdoch took a noisy swig and then sighed. “You had to think on it, though. At times. Would have been easy, from the top of the shaft. Never feel a thing.”
“Aye. I thought on it, time to time.”
“Me too.” Murdoch was quiet for several moments. “You brought the Blair, didn’t ye?”
“Aye.”
“Godammit, Geordie. I told ye what I did for your own good. To stay away.”
Geordie stiffened. “He’s got family there, Murdoch. Friends. He had a right to know.”
“Aye, family maybe. But doona no one got a friend in Town Blair, eh? And you’ve got family down there, too.”
“Nae only Blairs he come for,” Geordie clarified. “His lass, as well.”
“Rory’s gel?”
Geordie only stared at the town.
“Jesus,” Murdoch whispered. “Jesus, why the—”he broke off, and the Irish in the flask sloshed again.
Geordie heard a sniffle, then a gasp, and a moment later Murdoch Carson was sobbing into his elbow. Loud, pain-filled bawling, choking.
“I just…I just want it to be over,” he cried hoarsely. “I just want it to be over, Geordie.”
Geordie continued to stare at the town, although from the west through the woods—along the falls path—he could hear the faint, ghostly sounds of many feet approaching, the slithering, sliding noises of metal and leather, the jingle of chained weaponry.
“I reckon it will be, soon,” Geordie said.
Murdoch quieted suddenly and raised his tear-streaked face from his arms to listen. “Oh God,” he breathed. “What have I done? What have I done?”
Chapter 16
Lachlan ignored the Englishman’s threat, the identities of the two wrapped bodies lying on the green behind making everything else unimportant.
“Finley Carson,” he said again.
“She’s nae here, Lachlan,” his brother answered with a worried frown. “Nor Kirsten. Why would they be?”
“Are you certain, Dand?” Lachlan pressed. “You must be certain.”
Dand looked over the crowded, nervous green. “Has anyone had sign o’ Lachlan’s bride?”
