“Wot do ye plan tae gain out of this?” Malcolm asked. “There will be a time ye will have tae tell them the truth.’
“Aye, I know that,” Irvine frowned. “I wilnae let this farce go on for too long.”
Malcolm was still frowning himself. “I dinnae like this plan. If they find out before we tell them the truth, it could be our deaths.”
“I dinnae think that Leathen is a killer,” Irvine replied with a shake of his head. “He only wants tae protect those around him.”
Besides, Irvine was here to get the older Scot to sell his land to him and make him laird. He needed to gain the Scot’s trust first, then find out why he hated the McPearson clan so much so that he could turn the tide of anger.
That and he wished to learn more about Bridget. Irvine thought about the way her body pressed up to his a while ago, and he had to adjust his breeks to lessen the tightness around his manhood. It had been a while since he had a lass in his bed, was all.
She couldn’t possibly affect him in such a way so quickly.
“Fine,” Malcolm muttered. “But I am here tae protect ye, Irvine, and at the first hint of trouble, we are leaving.”
“Fine,” Irvine agreed. “But ye wilnae interfere until then.”
“Wot is our ruse then?” his friend asked, changing the subject. “Cousin?”
Irvine smirked. “Would ye have preferred brother?”
“Nay,” Malcolm scoffed, though there was a smile on his face. “Ye are too ugly tae be mah brother.”
They shared a smile.
“We escaped our village as it was burned to the ground by bandits,” Irvine finally said. That would be a good reason for them not to be questioned further by anyone.
Malcolm laughed. “We must be weak Scots then tae not be able tae stop the bandits.”
Irvine shot him a glare. “Perhaps we were on a hunting trip and came back tae find it burned.”
“That’s more plausible,” his friend decided. “How long will be put up with this ruse?”
Irvine sighed. “I only have seven days tae complete this mission.”
Malcolm had the grace to look chagrined. “Aye, I forgot.”
Walking over to the window, Irvine stared out at the pastures. The tenants were working even at the early morning hour. He wished to know what his clan had done to this farm, to Leathen Wright, and what he could do to repair the damage that had been caused.
For if he didn’t, Irvine would stand by and watch his great-uncle assume the laird position and hereby control their clan.
“I’m going tae get cleaned up,” he muttered, turning away from the window. “We dinnae have long tae gain their trust.”
Malcolm didn’t respond, and Irvine grabbed his additional tunic from his pack before walking outside to where a barrel had been set up against the hut to capture water. Dipping his hand in the cold water, Irvine wiped his face with it to clean the dirt off his skin. His clan was depending on him to completing this mission and come back their laird. His mother and father believed that he could do it and fulfill the plans that his great-aunt had for him all along.
Irvine couldn’t fail, for if he did, he might as well never go back home. To not see his family again or be part of the clan he had known all his life would be difficult.
Splashing the water on the back of his neck, Irvine thought about one of his interactions with his great-uncle Leeth as a young lad, who had been a great warrior in his day.
Irvine stayed alongside the fencing, keeping his body low to the ground lest his mother see him and force him back inside the castle with the women. Today there was a legend amongst the warriors, far more important than his father ever had been, and he wanted to see him wield a sword.
Finally, Irvine reached the opening to the warrior camp and slid inside, blending in with the crowd that was gathered to watch the proceedings. Today was warrior selection that his father would lead, testing each Scot’s skills to ensure that they could protect their leader and the clan before they would be sworn in by his great-aunt Edna. Irvine liked his aunt very much. She wasn’t one of the women who enjoyed weaving and the like, preferring to be strategizing on how to make their clan even stronger. In his tenth year, he was starting to understand what it meant to be a McPearson and how he should be proud of his clan’s name.
Everyone else was.
Moving through the lot of bodies that were gathered at the fence, Irvine finally found a place to which he could watch unobstructed and just in time as the aging warrior stepped into the sparring ring.
“Today, I will show this young whelp,” he started, pointing his sword at Irvine’s father, “wot it means tae truly fight.”
