No one answered.
Hargrave’s face was darkening. “Do you think this some sort of commemoration where you are master of ceremonies?” He brought both his hands to his chest with a loud thump. “I am the master. Of ceremonies. Of this night.Of it all. And you are running out of time, Lachlan Blair.”
Lachlan stared into the man’s flat, gray gaze for a long moment, considering his options. If he turned and walked away, it was possible an arrow would find its way into his back. But if one of the bodies on the green was Finley’s, if they’d killed his wife and no one here had tried to stop it, did it really matter what happened to him then?
But Lachlan didn’t think Hargrave would kill him just yet. The man wanted to talk, wanted to find out any information about Thomas Annesley that Lachlan could provide. And so Lachlan turned his back on Vaughn Hargrave and began crossing the green toward the closest of the wrapped forms.
No one stopped him. No one spoke.
He knelt at the side of the body. Already he knew it was too large to be Finley or Kirsten. But blood had soaked through the wrapping. He had to know who it was. Lachlan lifted the top edge of the sheet and pulled it down, and his teeth clacked together as his jaw involuntarily clenched.
Cordon Blair.
We will raise a cup together, you and I, when you are chief, Lach.
Lachlan replaced the cover and took a moment, still kneeling, before he rose. He went directly to the other body. Smaller, this one, but he didn’t think by its shape it could be Finley’s. And yet his mind was so twisted with fear and anger, he couldn’t be sure. He knelt again, pulled back the cover.
Another townsman, a husband, a father. He’d never come out against Lachlan, but neither had he spoken for him. It didn’t matter now; he was just as dead.
Lachlan returned the man to the privacy of his shroud and stood once more, turning to face Hargrave across the green.
The man held his arms away from his sides. “Satisfied?”
“Nay.” Lachlan looked around at the frightened townsfolk gathered on the green, and it was toward them he directed his words. “How could you allow this to happen? Again?” He swung his gaze to Marcas, and his heart clenched with pain and bitterness. “Where is your chief? Who was it that allowed you to be stripped of not only your weapons, but your pride? Again,” he added with a wince.
Hargrave gave a chuckle. “Methinks you are investing these simple folk with too high ambition. All they ever wanted was a little trinket. To be told they were mighty Highland Scots!” He shook his fists in the air and laughed again, as if it was a great, pathetic joke. “So common. So small-minded. They could have asked for anything. Instead, they wanted a few baskets of fish. Some trees. A chance to trade Lowland. And several of them even begged me to take them with me to be my servants.”
“They didn’t beg you to take them,” Lachlan clarified, and then he looked to Harrell Blair. “They were sold. By that man right there.”
Harrell glared at him. “That’s a lie.”
“You convinced your own people to leave their town as this Englishman’s slaves. But it wasyouhe paid for each of their heads, and then you split the money with the chief. With my grandfather, Archibald Blair.”
A murmur slithered through the crowd like an invisible snake.
Lachlan addressed the green again. “Thomas Annesley was trying to reach Carson Town when he was captured by Harrell and taken as prisoner by the Blair fine. He was kept against his will with the intention of ransoming him to the Carsons. Because Thomas Annesley was the son of Myra, daughter of the old Carson chief.” He looked to Harrell, then to Marcas. “And the Blair fine knew it.”
Again shock rippled over the captive audience.
“But when Hargrave attacked Carson Town, besieged it for days and found no Thomas Annesley, he ordered his men to move up the ben toward Town Blair. Archibald freed Thomas and charged him with the task of protecting my mother from the invading horde, because he knew in his coward’s heart that, despite what he’d told you all, it wasn’t Carsons attacking Town Blair. It was Hargrave’s hired men, looking for Thomas Annesley.” Lachlan made sure his gaze bored into Marcas’s. “Looking for my father.”
“You are surprisingly well-informed for one who has never laid eyes on Thomas Annesley,” Hargrave accused with a sly smile. “I wonder, though, how Archibald learned of my intention that night? Hmm. It’s as though…I don’t know…perhaps someone from Carson Town was complicit in the events of that time. And perhaps this person had an attack of conscience when it was discovered you were not only the grandson of Archibald Blair, but also descended from the Carson chief. Perhaps blood really is thicker than water.”
Lachlan froze, confusion tangling his thoughts. It had been Geordie who’d told Lachlan of Harrell’s evil deeds, of course, but everyone here thought Geordie Blair was dead. Who could Hargrave be speaking of?
Who was the only other Carson who had known Geordie Blair had been alive all these years, hiding in the old cliff house?
’Twas Andrew who would have been chief. Andrew what was Da’s pet, the one he confided in. The man barely looked at me.
Our wealth gained our clan powerful friends in Edinburgh.
I have no heir, Lachlan.
“Murdoch,” Lachlan said aloud.
“Murdoch,” Hargrave repeated with a satisfied smile as he beckoned to a soldier to approach. “He was to travel back to England with me; did you know that as well? He and his woman and their brat. He didn’t give a damn what happened in this hellish little shit stain on the upturned arse of Scotland. He hated them all. Not just the Blairs.”
The summoned soldier approached Hargrave with a chalice and placed it in his hand, and Hargrave took a deep drink and then turned and raised his cup toward the people behind him. “Ah! This mead is quite good. Really. It simply dances on the tongue. Well done.”
