“He’s in the hall, celebrating,” Ruari said, his tone gloomy.
“My funeral, perhaps?” Dair asked.
“Aceilidh. He’s proclaimed himself chief,” Niall said.
Dair pictured the scene in his father’s—his—hall. Tormod Pyper would be reciting the lineage of the Sinclair chiefs from Sir Richard Saint-Clair all the way to Logan himself. He wondered what fine deeds they’d sing about when they got to Logan.One night, dressed asalass . . .
Wee Alex threw himself against Dair and hugged him. Dair ruffled his hair. “I have a task for you, lad. Where’s Mistress Fia? Go tell her I’m back,” he said. He looked at the men around him. “We’ll end this day with a wedding, lads, what do you say to that?”
The men studied the pebbles at their feet without replying. There were tears in Wee Alex’s eyes. Dair felt his guts contract against his spine. Surely Logan would not dare to kill the Fearsome MacLeod’s daughter . . . “Where is she?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“She’s gone, Dair,” Angus said.
“Returned to her father?” He looked at the men around him, standing with their heads bowed, their bonnets in their hands.
Angus shook his head. “Notgone,lad—dead. Logan—” He didn’t go on. A tear rolled from his eye.
The breath left Dair’s body. The chill of the morning faded as hot fury filled his breast. Red mist rose, blocked his vision, but it wasn’t madness this time.
“Give me a sword.”
“What do ye mean to do? I mean, we’re with ye, of course,” Angus said, handing over the requested weapon. Dair strapped it to his hip over his salt-caked plaid without replying. It had been a long time since he’d been armed, ready for battle.
“I mean to take back my clan,” Dair said. Revenge. He wanted revenge. The red mist thickened.
“With bloodshed, against our own?” Niall asked. “How many men do you think we’ll have to kill?”
“They’re our kin,” Ruari muttered. “I can’t imagine sticking a sword in any of them—even Iain Murray, and I hate that bastard.”
The mist retreated, and Dair looked up the cliff side. “I hope it won’t come to that,” he said. “With luck, wits will win the day.”
He began to climb the cliff path. “Would you like a lift up?” Angus asked him.
Dair shook his head. “Not this time.”
They followed him. His leg ached, but he managed. For her, for Fia, he’d have justice.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Dair arrived in the great hall that had been home to a dozen generations of Sinclairs dressed in his wet, salt-crusted plaid, his face windburned, his hair wild, and his eyes blazing.
He looked every inch a madman.
“Ye look every inch the braw, bonny chief,” Angus said approvingly.
“Save for a proper feathered bonnet,” Niall added, looking at Dair, his admiration clear.
“Take my sword,” Ruari said. “Then you’ll have one for each hand. Logan’s as daft as a pudding, but he’s dangerous, mad as—” He shut his mouth so fast his teeth snapped together. “Och, did I mention ye look like the Laird o’ the Seas we all remember?”
Dair looked at the small group of men—men who’d grown up with him, sailed with him, served his father. There was no doubt in their eyes, no fear that he was mad. There was only loyalty and determination. “What are yer orders, Chief?” Angus asked.
“Stand with me,” he said, the way his father had always done. They fell into formation and marched behind him.
His leg ached, but worse, a thirst for revenge, hot, dark, and malevolent, filled his breast. Fia was dead, and Logan was responsible. He would fight his cousin if he had to, but by the end of this day, he would be chief of the Sinclairs. There would be no vote, no doubt.
Niall opened the iron-studded door that led into the hall, and Dair stood on the threshold and surveyed the mayhem inside.
Logan lounged in his father’s chair, a bottle in one hand and one of the kitchen maids in the other. Around him, men drank and gambled. Andrew Pyper stood in the corner, playing his pipes.
