Gabby picked up another painting, and Finn nearly shit himself.
“Mo ghràdh, you’re with child. Don’t pick shit up,” he stated.
She smiled at him.
“I love you, nut, but the painting is only ten pounds. I’m not toiling in the mines to heat our home as I cart back coal.”
He snorted.
“Sassy.”
Yes, yes, she was.
Only, there was no one more careful than her. She knew what was on the line.
As he picked up the painting, for her, there were the two men, the boy was no longer a boy. He was about ten in the painting with his‘dads’.
Still, there was no Catherine.
“Well, they liked that location,” Finn admitted. “I can’t say I blame them. It’s pretty there, and I have nothing but good memories of the place,” he said, slapping his fiancée on the ass.
It made her giggle outrageously.
From where he stood, Michael was curious.
“What does this random mish-mash of items mean? There are no bones, so…”
Ian was putting the pieces together.
“Everything in here seems to be tied to Duncan’s lover. Do you think he put all of the paintings in here to hide it out, so it couldn’t be destroyed after his death? Did he maybe fear the church ruining what was left of his memory of Ciarán?”
That was a good question.
It was possible.
But they’d have to work on figuring that out. What they knew was someone had betrayed Duncan by letting the enemy into the place, and Ciarán Begbie paid with his life.
Gabby was to the point.
“The church was probably behind it. You know how organized religion was back in the sixteen hundreds. People died—often.”
That was the truth.
If death didn’t take you out from diseases, the church did with mass executions of people who disagreed with their teaching.
Crusaders had to crusade.
Apparently.
“We should bring all of this out to where we can see it better, and where it can be safer. I’m sure these meant something to Duncan, or he wouldn’t have protected them behind a wall,” Gabby admitted.
No one argued that.
“Or he walled both ends off so that no one else could sneak into the castle and kill him next,” Michael admitted. “You said someone let the killers in, and showing them the escape tunnel would be a good way to do that.”
He was right.
“I’m with Michael on this,” Gryphen stated.
