“I find myself less concerned with thewhythan thehow,” he said, flipping back to review pages he’d already read thrice over. “How does the blighted scunner keep slipping past our guards?”
“Perhaps,” Ailsa said in a measured tone that suggested she had more than a little practice being the voice of reason, “we should ask Eilidh and Ciaran what they witnessed, since it is why we summoned them here.”
Ewan’s ferocity softened as he looked in his wife’s direction, though James and Arran lost none of their frustration as their gazes remained fixed on their respective documents. From the way that their hands paused attentively, however, Eilidh could tell that they were listening—they were merely poised to put this new information into the larger context of the war.
Eilidh explained, though every detail she offered felt meaningless,
“We were riding along the forest path, the one away from the distillery,” she offered.
Arran seemed impressed when she was able to offer concrete landmarks that precisely pinpointed their location along the path, which stretched for miles.
“Ye ken the terrain well,” he praised.
“Aye,” Vaila muttered acidly from where she stood at her husband’s side. “It’s almost as though ye have been sneaking out all this time.”
Eilidh did not confirm or deny this, though she did smile when Vaila twitched in frustration.
“Nobody should have been able to slip through there,” James said, almost to himself, rifling through the logs again. “I’ve doubled the bloody patrols. I’ve walked the thrice-damned patrol lines myself!”
He raked a hand through his fair hair, leaving it in disarray. When Vaila laid a soothing hand on his arm, he settled visibly, like a bird finally letting its feathers un-puff.
Ciaran cleared his throat. Half a dozen faces turned sharply in his direction.
“They came from the northwest,” he said.
The words were simple enough, but there was a resignation to him.
And, indeed, Ewan’s suspicion was immediate and palpable.
“How do ye ken that?” he demanded.
Ciaran remained placid. “I was attacked from the same direction—the first time, that is.”
“Ye said those were bandits,” Arran pointed out.
“I thought they were,” Ciaran returned. “They didnae wear identifying marks, and it wasnae until the encounter last night that they aligned themselves with Gordon.”
Eilidh couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but this didn’t sit right with her. He hadn’t seem surprised the evening prior when the men had revealed their allegiance to Gordon, but that didn’t mean anything, did it? Besides, it had all happened so quickly…
The conversation was moving onward, though, with Arran sketching a finger along the northwestern routes that the band of mercenaries might have used to approach Buchanan Keep.
“That’s between McLeod and Finnegan lands,” he said, moving one of the carved figures representing Gordon’s men accordingly. “They have professed themselves against Gordon, but so did my father when he was secretly conspiring with the bastard.”
“Or there could be a traitor among either one of those clans,” Ewan added wearily. “We ken that Gordon isnae afraid to send spies and poisoners to commit misdeeds in his name.”
Ewan’s hand reached out to clasp Ailsa’s as though of its own accord.
“We will follow that lead,” James said determinedly, Vaila nodding with equal conviction at his side. “We will follow every lead. Eventually, we will find him.”
As the men returned to debating the minutiae of planning, Eilidh felt her attention wandering toward the man at her side.Ciaran held himself stiffly, almost as though he was braced for some kind of attack.
Mayhap it is just the pain, Eilidh told herself, hating the idea that he was suffering because of her. She reached out to squeeze his hand, needing some sort of contact between them.
The instant she did it, she feared that it was too forward—too public, when they hadn’t discussed anything of the kisses they’d shared. But something in him eased when her skin touched his, and seeing him relax, however minutely, made her own muscles unclench.
They exchanged a smile. It was brief, but she felt it stretch like a thread between them, holding them together.
“Eilidh.” She jerked up her head at Ewan’s voice. “For now,” the Laird said, giving her a meaningful look, “ye need to stay close to the Keep. Ye will have guards with ye at all times; ye are to go nowhere alone.”
