Ailsa nodded, considering. Telling the Donaghey clansfolk what they planned would be the biggest challenge of this all. It meant they would have to get inside the castle without getting themselves killed.
“Right,” she said. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We will have to be clever about it, but we know the land better than they do. We know the people better than they do. We can rally our forces and take back our home.”
Vaila was already crossing to her wardrobe and searching for a suitable riding dress inside. Davina, too, was nodding, a solemn look on her usually sweet face.
Eilidh, though, twisted her lips into a worried grimace.
“What about your husband?” she asked. “Will he allow this?”
Ailsa held her head high.
“I cannot ask him to aid me in this,” she said. “I have already cost him his father and his business. He is a good man but… I cannot ask for more. This is something that we must handle on our own. But,” she added, pinning each sister with a look. “If ye wish to remain behind, I willnae judge it. This will be a dangerous road.”
Eilidh frowned. “Of course we’re coming with ye, Ailsa,” she said.
“The four of us, together,” Davina chimed in.
Vaila just snorted. “Like hell I’m going to stay away,” she said.
Ailsa’s emotions were overwhelmed with fear, worry, and guilt. She was grieving, and she felt ashamed for bringing death to a man who had shown her nothing but kindness. And yet, even with all that, she found that she had space for a sliver of gratitude for her sisters.
“All right,” she said. “Then we shall leave at once.”
It didn’t take them much time to gather their things. They had little, after all, and most of what they needed to pack was food for the journey. Vaila stole down to the training yard to retrieve some weapons, while the other three headed to the stables to see to their mounts. After the long and heavy day, the Keep slumbered. Even the stable boy, posted in case the horses needed anything during the night, slept heavily in the hayloft, undisturbed by the sisters’ quiet assembly.
When they began the long journey back to their home, it was still hours before dawn. They walked the horses until they were out of earshot, then gradually increased their pace until they were racing away, not quite at the breakneck speed with which they had approached, but quickly enough.
They all had a score to settle, after all. They had a legacy to reclaim. They would not suffer it to wait.
Ailsa found that she couldn’t resist pausing one last time, however, as they prepared to descend a ridge that would take Buchanan Keep firmly out of sight. She prayed that she would return to this place that was all too easy to see as a home. She prayed that she would return to her husband, even if he loathed her for her role in his father’s death.
“I will come back victorious,” she whispered into the wind, hoping she could speak it into truth. “I will vanquish our enemies and bring no further trouble to you. I swear it on my life.”
She could only hope that it didn’t come to that, though she knew the possibility was all too real. But there was no sense of hesitating, or growing maudlin. She turned her back on the Keep and raised her voice to address her sisters.
“Come now,” she told them, determined as any general in battle. “Castle Dubh-Gheal awaits.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ewan woke in an instant,immediately certain something was wrong.
Da is dead, his mind supplied as he sat bolt upright in bed.He’s dead.
And thatwaswrong—unfathomably so—but that wasn’t it.
No.
Ailsa.
Where the hell was his wife?
He cringed as his words from the night before came back to him.
If you had never come here, he would still be alive.
It was words that came from grief and pain, not truth. He shouldn’t have said them either way. Ailsa had her own grief; she’d lost both parents, not just the one, and her home as well. Blaming her…
It had been horrid of him. He needed to apologize.
