Paulk trailed off again. Beginning to wish, and not for the first time, that he hadn’t bragged about the trout fishing on Loch Achall, Raibeart followed his friend’s gaze. On the other side of the river Graeme approached the gray-haired stranger with whom Miss Giswell had spoken so intently earlier. They talked for a minute, and then Graeme handed him a folded missive and what looked like a five-pound note.
Five quid was a damned fortune for that boy. What the devil was he doing, giving it away with a handshake? As soon as the two men parted, the older one left the meadow to head up the road toward the old bridge and Sheiling beyond.
When Raibeart turned around, Hamish had already returned his fishing pole to his saddle. “Ye can stay or go back if ye choose, but I mean to find oot what in that letter is worth five pounds.” He snorted. “Spying fer nae good reason, my damned arse.”
They reached the bridge first, and had to wait a good half hour before the old man appeared. “Well met,” Hamish said, sending his gelding in a circle around the man and his formidable mustache. “From yer tartan I make ye oot to be clan Stewart. What brings ye into Maxwell territory?”
“Work. I’m a builder. And I’ve the afternoon mail coach to catch, if it pleases ye.”
“It’ll please me more if ye let me have a look at the paper Graeme, Laird Maxton, handed ye.”
The man’s friendly, open expression closed down. “Whoever ye are, I was paid to deliver a letter. I aim to do it.”
“I’ll pay ye more fer a look at it.”
Lately low-voiced tendrils of whispers had begun to spread that Hamish might have had something to do with the disappearance of his own nephew, Fiona Blackstock’s brother, four years earlier. Raibeart had never paid the tales much attention—he knew his friend’s reluctance to dirty his own hands. But he also knew Hamish still burned from the loss of face he and Dunncraigh had shared at Lattimer Castle.
“Thank ye fer the kind offer, stranger,” the Stewart lad returned, “but I’ll have to decline.”
“That wouldnae be wise, friend.”
“Hamish,” Raibeart broke in, “let it be.”
“SirHamish,” Hamish corrected, his hard gaze still on the mustached fellow. “Sir Hamish Paulk. Chieftain of clan Maxwell. And ye’ll hand me that letter, or I’ll drag ye behind my horse to the Duke of Dunncraigh’s doorstep as a Stewart spy.”
The man blanched. “I’m nae such thing!”
Hamish held out his hand, palm up. “Prove it.”
His own hands shaking a little, the man pulled a folded missive from his inner coat pocket and handed it up to Hamish. “Take it, then. Just leave me be.”
With a flourish and a smirk that said as much about Paulk as his bombast ever could, he unfolded the letter. As his eyes scanned the missive, his mouth opened and closed like one of the fish they’d landed. At the same time, all the color left his face.
“Hamish?” Raibeart prompted, abruptly alarmed.
“By the devil,” Paulk muttered, folding the letter again. “Take it, Stewart,” he said, leaning sideways to hand it back. “Deliver it. And feel free to tell the Sassenach exactly what just happened here.”
With a frown the stranger placed the missive back in his pocket, tucked his coat closer around him, and hurried up the road toward Sheiling.
“What did it say?”
Hamish wheeled his mount. “And ye said to leave it be. Did ye know, ye bastard?”
“What are ye going on aboot?”
“That Sassenach lass. Miss Giswell. She’s nae who she claims.” The chieftain sent his gelding into a gallop, headed back for Mòriasg, Raibeart’s mansion. “She’s Lady Marjorie Forrester.”
Forrester.“Lattimer’s kin?”
“His sister. And yer nephew’s harboring her. What do ye ken Dunncraigh will have to say aboot that?”
Oh, God. Raibeart could imagine it all—and it wouldn’t be pleasant. “Hamish, he’s my nephew. And so are the other three. Connell’s but eight.”
Hamish looked over at him. “If ye want to spare them, ye’d best think of someaught fast.”
Raibeart looked in the direction of the Lion’s Den. What the devil had Graeme been thinking? The very second Dunncraigh heard about who’d been residing beneath Graeme’s roof, and that the lad had been lying about who she was, the Maxwell would see him gone from the clan. He’d become an enemy in the middle of Maxwell territory, and likely find himself burned out of his own house.
“Take her to Dunncraigh yerself,” he said aloud. “This is between the Maxwell and Lattimer, anyway. Leave the lads oot of it.”
