His massive shoulders stiff.
Magdalene sensing a terrible tempest brewing within him as a violent crack of thunder made her jump, the maidservants surrounding her and pulling her none-too-gently inside.
Chapter 22
“Iwant tae kill Tavish tonight. Grant me the honor, Gabriel.”
He shook his head at Cameron, who flanked him along with Alun and Conall.
All of them grim-faced as they paused outside the great hall lit with blazing torches, and surveyed the raucous scene unfolding.
As the other barons and their men had rushed inside with Seoras to get out of the pouring rain, Gabriel had held his captains back beneath an eave to tell them what Magdalene had revealed to him.
Their faces stunned at first and then hardening into thunderous expressions that matched his own. A tic worked along his jaw, clenched so tightly as he glanced into the hall at the dais where Seoras had taken his seat and shouted for the feast to commence early.
The entire room had erupted into a frenzy as servants rushed to serve ale and wine to everyone, including the MacDougall clansman called Tavish who stood at attention behind Seoras’s chair.
A burly bodyguard with dark red hair and a full beard, his heavily muscled arms crossed over his barrel chest.
A henchman.
A murderer if what Cora had told Magdalene was true…and Gabriel had no doubt of it, knowing Seoras as he did, the events of the last eight months falling together with deadly precision in his mind.
Malcolm’s untimely death…deemed a tragic accident, though clearly Seoras had known of his brother’s empty coffers, and used that knowledge to destroy him.
He could have wed Magdalene to Malcolm, a widower, but Seoras had known, too, that his older brother was weak. Not a fighter like Gabriel, a powerful baron far more useful to him…so Seoras had sent his clansman to kill him.
Tavish.
Such fury filled Gabriel that he could barely restrain himself from striding to the dais and drawing his sword to lop off the bastard’s head.
His captains, too, clenched the hilts of their swords, but one glance from Gabriel made them ease their hands away.
“We need tae get him alone first…mayhap after the feast. He’ll tell us what happened once he feels a blade at his throat and then we’ll have proof of his crime—Seoras’s crime.”
“Aye, Gabriel,” came a joint assent from his men, but they fell silent as the lady of the fortress, Cora MacDougall, drew near, accompanied by an entourage of women dressed resplendently for the feast.
Courtiers’ wives and daughters, many of them giggling into their palms as they spied Gabriel, who remembered all too well that same tittering when he’d agreed to take Magdalene as his bride.
Now he thanked God for that day…but then—och, a different matter altogether! He could only imagine their startled faces if they knew she was no lunatic, but as close to perfection as any woman under heaven.
“Laird MacLachlan,” Cora greeted him. Her expression appeared serene though her eyes, matching the dark blue sapphire of her gown, searched his as if she wondered whether Magdalene had spoken to him.
Surely she had seen him from her window, carrying his wife back to the tower—that same window where Magdalene had told him Cora gleaned that she wasn’t a madwoman at all. That alone should tell her that Gabriel knew the truth behind Malcolm’s death, though he sensed that Cora was hoping for some sign…
“Countess,” he said with a slight bow of his head, though his gaze never left hers. “You remember your cousins, Cameron and Conall…”
“Aye, it’s so good tae see you again,” she murmured, extending her hand to greet them both.
Gabriel wasn’t surprised when Conall didn’t stop there, but grabbed Cora and hugged her while the rest of the women gasped with astonishment.
“Dinna lose heart,” Conall whispered in her ear, barely loud enough for Gabriel to hear. At once he saw tears glistening in her eyes, but she swallowed them back and lifted her chin to stare not at her handsome cousin, but at him.
“We’ve many Campbells among us here…more, I’d wager, than even MacDougalls. I take comfort in having my kinsmen near. Did you travel with many?”
“Sixty warriors. They’re in the barracks dining upon bread and mutton stew.”
“Aye, my husband reserves these occasions for his courtiers and honored guests like yourself and your captains…yet I’m sure your clansmen would answer the call if you had need of them.”
