Erica watched him go. The way he held the hilt. The way the blade stayed where he wanted it. The sun cast a dull sheen along his shoulder before a cloud passed thin across it.
The sun was beginning to warm the yard.That was the only reason she felt heat spread across her skin.
Without wasting another minute, she turned toward the bench where her mother waited.
CHAPTER 12
After spendingthe better half of an hour under the sun, they left the garden path for the paving by the low gate.
Erica walked with her mother toward the arch that opened back into the keep. A maid hurried across the courtyard, skirt hiked up. She stopped with a curtsy.
“Uh…” Erica trailed off, her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember the maid’s name.
“Leah, me Lady.”
“Aye! Ye must forgive me, me brain has yet to wake up.”
Leah laughed. “I have something for ye, me Lady.”
Erica frowned and watched as Leah held out a folded letter sealed with dark wax.
“For ye, me Lady,” she said.
Erica took the letter, her eyes settling on the sigil at the center of the note. Recognition set in, and she felt her heart sink.
MacGee Castle.
The press on the wax showed clearly, and her chest felt heavier by a thumb’s weight. She looked at her mother. The change in her mother’s expression was small and sharp.
“‘Tis MacGee,” Erica said and regretted it immediately. Saying it made the fear grow.
“Why would he send a letter here and nae to Bryden?” her mother asked quietly. “What game is he playing?”
Erica did not answer at once. She broke the seal with her thumb and unfolded the page. The hand was neat, and the words were polite and cool. He wrote that his men were still searching for her father and brother. No new sign. There were new tracks, but they were lost past the ridge. He would send word the moment he learned more. He hoped she found rest, and he wished her mother good health.Nothing else.
She read it twice, but it told her little. She had a feeling Laird MacGee wanted to deliver a message that wasn’t in the letter.He knew where she was.
Her mother waited.
“Do ye think he is honest?” she asked. “Or do ye think he is using us?”
Erica kept her eyes on the page. “I daenae ken what to think, Maither,” she said slowly. “Maybe he is scared? Maybe he wants to sit close to whatever will keep him from looking weak? After what happened in front of his men at the festival, maybe he wants to stand near MacMillan without asking outright.”
Her mother’s mouth tightened. “He is a man of ambition,” she said. “There is always something else.”
The letter felt dry under Erica’s fingers.
“He says they are still searching,” she said. “He says he will write when he has more.”
“Aye,” her mother said. “He also says he kens where to find ye.”
They crossed the threshold into the cool passageway. The change from sun to shade made her skin pull tight. A guard at the inner door shifted his weight and stood straighter, and a scullery girl slid by with a covered bowl, eyes on the floor.
Erica folded the letter again and held it flat against her palm because her hand wanted to curl around it.
“He could have sent it to Bryden,” her mother said again, the doubt in her voice clear. “But he didnae. He put it on our floor.”
Erica lifted her eyes to the wall ahead. “He is saying he sees us,” she said. “Maybe he thinks that keeps him safe.”
