The music slithered to a stop when Andrew looked up and saw Dair in the doorway. “Dair! Are ye a ghost?”
Dair ignored everyone but Logan. His cousin turned pale and dropped the bottle in his hand. It smashed, and wine spilled across the stone floor like blood.
“Nay, I’m not a ghost,” Dair said. “There are no ghosts at Carraig Brigh, are there, cousin?”
Logan flushed as red as the wine.
Dair walked forward, holding his cousin’s gaze. “Except perhaps my father’s shade. If ever a man had reason to haunt his kin, Padraig Sinclair is surely unable to rest.”
Fear flashed through Logan’s eyes.So like Jeannie’s.Still, he got to his feet, pointed at Dair. “Look, my mad cousin has come home again. Someone take him, lock him away in the tower where he can rant and foam unseen.”
Behind him, Angus and Niall drew their swords, the hiss loud in the debauched silence. No one else moved.
Dair looked around the room. Jeannie’s portrait hung above the fireplace. Her gentle face, so much like Logan’s, stared down at Dair. There was no malice there, no hatred.
“Forgive them,” she’d whispered at the end . . .
Then Dair caught sight of a display on the small table under the portrait. He recognized the soft blue of the MacLeod plaid—Fia’s plaid. It was blackened by smoke, stained with blood, nearly unrecognizable, but he knew it. He felt lightning strike him, pierce his heart.
He strode forward to touch the ruined wool. Beside it, a bloody pelt of white fur was pinned to the table on the point of a dirk. A Bible and a rosary lay beside it on the unholy shrine.
Dair’s hand tightened on the hilt of his borrowed sword. Rage and grief filled him, threatened to topple him, but he stood against the force of it. A bead of sweat crept between his shoulder blades, and blood thrummed in his ears. The room blurred before him, and Jeannie’s screams echoed in his brain again, only this time, they were Fia’s. He wanted to drive the blade in his hand through Logan’s chest, watch him bleed, suffer.
Logan backed away from him as Dair turned to face him. “Someone give me a sword,” he screamed. But no one moved. Logan cursed, rushed across the room, and grabbed down an axe. He turned to the men around him. “Will you let a madman take your wits? He’s insane, a murderer!” He pointed at Jeannie’s portrait. “The holy maid commands you to rid Carraig Brigh of the curse upon it. Kill him!”
Dair laughed bitterly. “Have you told them how you played Jeannie’s ghost, dressed in her clothes, wearing her scent? You came to my room in the night, in the dark,” Dair said quietly. “Whispered to me.”
“What?” Will Sinclair rose to his feet. Niall pointed his sword at his throat, but Will was staring at Logan in horror. “He—Logan—dressed uplike a lass?”
“And he wore scent?” Jock asked. “Awoman’sperfume?”
A murmur rippled through the hall.
Logan turned scarlet. “You can’t prove that! My sister’s ghost walks the halls of this castle, haunts us, begs for revenge. Will you take the word of a madman, a murderer, a stealer of ships, over me, your chief?”
“Is there proof?” Will Sinclair asked.
“Jeannie’s clothes are in the storeroom off the kitchen,” the maid said, moving to Dair’s side of the room. “Chief Padraig ordered them packed away after she left. Logan has the key.”
“She’d not haunt us,” Jock said, looking at Jeannie’s portrait. “She was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest of lasses.”
“Like Fia MacLeod,” Angus said. “Now, there’s a lass with cause to haunt us—if her da doesn’t come and cut us all down for murdering her.”
Logan flushed nearly purple. “She was a witch! The Bible says we must kill witches. I did God’s holy work by dispatching her. Send for Father Alphonse—he’ll tell you.”
No one moved. Dair saw doubt in every man’s eyes. “Fia MacLeod wasn’t a witch, She did naught but good for this clan, and how was her kindness repaid?” His clansmen hung their heads in shame.
“Didyou truly dress up like Jeannie and haunt Dair?” Jock asked Logan again.
Logan rolled his eyes. “I was trying to make a point! Dair’s the mad one, not me. I command you, as your chief, to lock him up.”
“Dair seems sharp enough to me,” Will said. “Perhaps we’d best have a look in that storeroom.”
The door opened with a bang and all eyes turned.
English John entered with his arm in a sling, his dirk in his hand, prodding a prisoner into the room. Old Moire followed.
“That’s Duncan Murray,” Niall said, looking at the captive. Duncan wore black clothes, and his face was blackened with soot. Only the bandage on his hand was white.
