Graeme chuckled at that. “Mayhap had ye tumbled the Hay’s daughter before the wedding she would have shown up.”
One dark brow shot up. Euan shook his head slightly and looked away, his gaze flickering back down below the battlements. His hands fisted at his hips, the thick muscles in his arms bulged further in response. “I’m glad she dinna,” he said honestly. “Truth be told I think a troll would be better bedsport than Moira.”
Graeme grinned. “Ye have seen her before then?”
Euan shook his head. “Nay. But on Michaelmas three years past ’twas said by her own clansmen that she is possessed of an awkward appearance.”
“I was no’ there. That must have been whilst I still fostered under the MacPherson.”
“Aye.”
The brothers stood in silence for a long moment, breathing in the crisp night air. ’Twas May so the days were longer now, darkness still not having descended though it was well past the time of the evening meal.
Graeme’s chuckle at last broke the silence. “I was thinking…”
“Hm?”
“Aboot the Hay.”
Euan craned his neck to glance toward his brother. “Aye?”
“He owes ye a bride.”
Euan waved that away. “I did no’ kill the mon over Moira, though I know ’tis what the other lairds think. I killed him for betraying me. ’Tis a difference.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Besides, the mon is dead,” he rumbled. “His debt has been paid.”
“No’ really.”
Euan sighed. It had been a long day and he was in no mood for conversing let alone for solving riddles. His youngest brother was mayhap lucky that he was able to rein in his temper where he was concerned. “Explain yourself.”
Graeme thought to tease him a bit, but relented when he saw his brother’s lethal scowl. He sighed. Why couldn’t the man learn how to make jest? “As to that, ’tis true the Hay paid the price for helping Moira in her deceit, yet did he no’ deliver another bride tae take her place in the bedsheets.”
Euan grunted. “’Tis true.”
Graeme stood up straighter, his back rigid with determination. “Then mayhap a wee bit o’ reivin’ might be in order.”
“Reivin’? Ye want tae go steal somecattle?” Euan said the last incredulously. “’Twill no’ even the score.”
Graeme’s face flushed at the criticism for which the Donald felt an uncharacteristic pang of sympathy. He knew that the boy had only been trying to help lighten his black mood. What his sibling seemed unable to understand on his own was that his mood was always like this. After ten and eight years the boy should know that. But he didn’t.
Sighing, Euan forced a grin onto his face and ruffled Graeme’s hair affectionately. “Ye are just wanting tae prove that ye learned things from the MacPherson more useful than merely how tae bed a wench. Aye, that’s what it is I’m thinking.”
Graeme chuckled, no longer embarrassed. “Mayhap.”
Euan considered the idea more thoroughly before responding. Mayhap his brother was on to something. Not something quite like Graeme had envisioned—he hardly needed more cattle on Skye for the love of the saints—but something vastly more important. He did, after all, need a wench to take to his bed and get her with heir. Besides, as black as his mood had been as of late a bit of thrusting between a wench’s legs was an enticement unto itself.
The Donald’s black gaze flicked over the castle walls and toward the rock-strewn beach below. ’Twas not so long a boat ride to the mainland. And from there mayhap a sennight’s journey to Hay lands at best. “I think,” he murmured, “that ye might be right, brother.”
Graeme’s eyes widened in surprise. “I, uh, I…am?”
Euan couldn’t help but to grin at the boy’s astonishment. ’Twas true he wasn’t a man known for changing his mind. Set in his ways he was. “Aye.” He nodded, his demeanor growing serious. “We shall depart on the morrow when the sun falls.”
Graeme smiled broadly, unable to contain his excitement. ’Twas the first reiving the Lord of the Isles had made him a part of, brother to him or no. ’Twas past the time to prove he was now a man and no longer a boy. “’Twill be a good time, thievin’ the Hay’s cattle.”
Euan shook his head slowly as he met his brother’s eager gaze. “’Twill no’ be cattle we steal, boy.”
Graeme’s eyebrows shot up forming an inquisitive dark slash. “The Hay’s sheep are sorry I’ve heard it be told. No’ verra wooly at all. Nay, brother. I dinna think their sheep are worth the time.”
Euan shrugged. “’Twill no’ be sheep we reive either.”
