by Nicole Locke
Malcolm raised his eyebrows. ‘I agree.’
‘She goes or I do not.’ Caird knew it was risky to give the ultimatum since he knew he must search for the thief there.
‘Does she want to go?’ Camron asked. ‘I have not forgotten your behaviour on the staircase. There’s something more happening here.’
There was more, but he’d be damned if he brought the Grahams into the danger. He risked too much dragging his clan into treason.
Hamilton placed his hand on Camron’s shoulder. ‘We’ve asked the lass. She’s says she’s unharmed.’
Caird didn’t dare glance at his brother. He knew Malcolm wouldn’t willingly agree to this. He was counting on the Grahams’ natural good will to come through. He was not disappointed when Hamilton took a step back and raised his hands.
‘These games are to celebrate Gaira’s wedding. Caird is her brother, and if he wants Mairead, then we must honour his request.’
Camron relaxed his arms and nodded in defeat. ‘Aye, she goes, but you are warned, Cousin.’ Camron turned to Malcolm. ‘But will you still go?’
‘We all go,’ Caird answered as Malcolm curtly nodded. ‘But Mairead cannot ride with me.’
Camron accepted defeat and Malcolm nodded his acceptance, but that didn’t mean they would volunteer.
Hamilton grinned. ‘I’ll happily travel with her.’
Caird squashed his irritation at Hamilton’s quick agreement. This was what needed to be done.
* * *
Mairead was standing ready when the men emerged from the woods. It was the least she could do. After all, they were discussing her fate.
Quick to anger all her life, she’d never felt as uncontrolled as she did now. It was a deep, seething, swarming anger, as if a hornet’s nest was inside her.
Raised voices and a crack of something breaking had woken her. Then what was being said had kept her awake.
If her ankle hadn’t been hurting, she would have marched over and confronted them. And if she could have found a weapon along the way? Even better.
Instead, she was forced to listen while frustration built inside her since she’d missed some of the conversation, but thankfully not all of it.
They knew her to be Buchanan and they didn’t like it. Given Caird’s reaction to her, she hadn’t expected their reaction to be any different.
Still, she didn’t understand it. Their intense distrust of her was completely irrational. Their clans borrowed and stole. Annoyance or incredulity would have been normal, so Malcolm’s vehemence made no sense.
Just as confusing was Caird’s insistence on taking her to the games. Despite his family’s hatred of her. Despite him not believing the dagger was hers. He wanted answers, but the joke was on him. Only the thief was left to give him answers.
Her brother was no longer able to give him any and she had never had any in the first place.
At the instant sharpness in her chest, she exhaled.
She’d never had answers because the dagger and gem had never truly been hers, only a means to pay a debt, to avoid her family’s impending banishment. To escape the humiliation...
Mairead’s knees began to buckle and she locked them hard to keep from falling. How had she not seen the truth before now? She wrapped the blanket more tightly around her shoulders.
She had to give it up. Everything. The dagger, the gem and what she thought they represented to her family.
Because even if she was able to pay off her brother’s debts, the shame from her clan would always be with her family. She couldn’t even be certain that payment of the debt would save them from banishment.
What her brother had done went far beyond losing money; he’d actually betrayed their laird to the English. There was no getting around that. No matter how many confrontations she had with murderers, and no matter how many gems she brought back.
Mairead blinked against the thin line of light now brightening the grass and trees.
Morning had returned and so had some hard truths.
The men talked of the wedding games, but she was no longer going. The wealth of the dagger would never remedy Ailbert’s debt, and Caird would never let her have it.
However, there was one benefit left to her. Whoever had killed her brother had to know a Colquhoun possessed the dagger. As far as she was concerned, the Colquhouns and the murderer could just find their own answers together.
* * *
When the men finally emerged from the woods, Mairead kept her chin up and her eyes steady.
Malcolm wore his anger like a cloak, the Grahams looked surprised and sheepish as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Except she knew they weren’t embarrassed by the conversation, but the fact they had befriended her. She knew this, but it still hurt.
Only Caird approached her, his eyes taking in her crossed arms.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m not going.’
As usual he said nothing.
‘I’m not going,’ she repeated, welcoming the hornets inside her now. ‘It’s over.’
He would never give her the dagger. She was foolish ever thinking he would. As long as he kept it on his body, she’d never be able to take it. Never. She just needed to get home and warn the laird.
‘Decision’s made,’ he said just as she knew he would.
‘You made the decision, not me.’ She waved at the space between them. ‘I cannot continue this kidnapping.’
‘You will,’ he said, the smugness of his tone irritating.
‘Why? Because of the dagger and gem? I doona want them.’
‘Giving up?’ he said.
‘Trying to goad me?’ Another form of manipulation and despite him using it as a weapon, it worked, if only temporarily. But this was a game she and Ailbert shouldn’t have played.
She thought about telling him her brother was dead, but it conceded too much to Caird. Ailbert was her family and a Colquhoun didn’t deserve to know of her brother’s death. It wasn’t as if Caird would pity her, and worse it would cause only more questions for him to seek his precious answers from.
‘Nae trickery, Colquhoun, nae dagger, nae gem and nae Buchanan. I’m happy to leave you to finding your answers.’
He shook his head. ‘The decision was made by you, Buchanan, the moment you entered my room, the moment you fought me for that dagger and lied about its ownership. You will not leave now because I’m not returning you.’
Did he think she wanted a ride back to the inn? She’d rather crawl home before asking him for favours. ‘Just leave me.’
His eyes flashed before he could hide his response. ‘Nae.’
When he began to walk past her, she stopped him with her hand.
Despite the cool morning temperature, his arm was invitingly warm, and she just stopped herself from pulling him closer.
Caird’s frown deepened as he stared at her hand resting on his arm. This close she felt the heat not only in her touch, but radiating from his whole body. She felt the strength, his determination and it was in direct conflict with what she wanted.
‘I’ll not go any further. It ends here. Just let me go. I cannot even tell anyone of this else my reputation would be ruined.’
As usual he kept his silence. But she felt the change in him.
Could he actually be giving her this favour? Hope sprang in her chest. She could return home to Ailbert, to her mother and sisters.
Removing her hand, she swiftly hugged herself to trap the heat she’d stolen from him.
Never raising his eyes, he gave a slight incline of his head before walking to the horses.
Not knowing what else to do, she let him go. All she wanted was to forfeit this game and return home. She just wanted this nightmare, which kept getting worse, over. However, with Caird�
�s silence, she didn’t know if she’d made another mistake.
Chapter Eleven
Caird fought his frustration and lust in equal measures. Mairead had made the only request left to her and this time, he believed her. He could never physically force a woman and that’s what he’d have to do if he took her to the celebrations.
Had the conversation from the woods finally broken her?
Malcolm, feeling along his horse’s hoof, looked up expectantly as Caird approached him. The Grahams, fortunately, were tending the traps for more food.
‘How fare the horses?’ Caird asked.
‘Yours will travel, I still need to see to mine.’’
Soon, they could go.
‘Mairead will travel nae further,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Malcolm rose to his feet.
His brother’s unreasonableness fuelled his frustration, burning the last remnants of lust he felt.
Mairead’s hand on his arm had been cold, too cold. When she had touched him, he stopped not because she wanted him to, but because he fought the impulse to take her hands between his own and warm them. His lust he could understand, but not the care.
‘Not good,’ he ground out. ‘You know what we possess.’
‘But you believe she doesn’t know about the jewel?’
‘She couldn’t.’ Mairead had relinquished everything.
‘So she wanted compensation, coin instead, and a ride back to the inn.’ Malcolm’s disgust laced his words.
Mairead stood with no anger or guile, only resolve. It was he who had stood like a besotted innocent, wanting to warm her hands. ‘She wants nothing.’
‘She asked you to just leave her? It makes nae sense.’ Malcolm picked up a stick, but it stayed idle in his hands.
The Grahams should have been done with their work by now, which meant they waited for his signal, for his resolution. He was, after all, the dependable one. He would fix it, but not to his liking.
‘There is another plan.’
He looked around. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, realising he’d turned his back on Mairead. Had he been expecting obedience?
‘Into the woods,’ Malcolm said.
She had left already? He moved.
‘The other way, Brother, for privacy I’m sure.’
Not gone, then. He frowned. Lust, anger and now...worry. He had the dagger and the Jewel of Kings. Of any man in the whole of Scotland, he was at this moment the most powerful.
He felt anything but.
And just now, he had to cede even more control of this situation. He, who demanded absolute control. ‘You go with the Grahams; you look for the thief.’
Malcolm exhaled. ‘You want me to go alone?’
Caird raised his brow.
‘You want me to go, when I already have difficulty with Gaira’s wedding celebrations.’
‘You accepted our sister’s happiness when she married that English knight.’
‘Aye, but I doona fully ken. Then after Dunbar, how could I accept who she wed?’
‘You weren’t to go to Dunbar.’
‘Ah, aye, I disobeyed our laird’s orders. That still doesn’t sit well with your rule-controlled world.’
No, it didn’t. It made no rational sense for Malcolm to have gone. Bram had forbidden it.
‘One of us had to go,’ Malcolm replied. ‘You were there. You saw. Despite your strict adherence to rules, it was the honourable act.’
Caird refused to give words to what he had seen at Dunbar. Many a Scot had fled to Ettrick Forest but the battlefield was strewn with arrows and broken men. Malcolm was buried under another body, unconscious and unaware Caird was trying to save him.
Unerringly, Caird’s eyes moved across the thin scar on Malcolm’s face. He knew it cut further along his body, deeper across the chest. It would take time to heal, but would never go away.
A permanent reminder of a nightmare.
And Malcolm going to Dunbar was incomprehensible. Senseless. Malcolm had always believed in right and wrong. There was no middle ground.
For Caird, disobeying a laird’s orders was wrong. So either Malcolm had found a middle ground, or they differed in what they believed was right.
Neither option sat well with him. Colquhouns always presented a united front.
‘I’ll go.’ Malcolm exhaled, then laughed, but there was no humour in his voice. ‘The jewel, and apparently you, require nothing more than my going. Silence you give me, but I’ll get nae peace from you.’
Caird knew their argument over Dunbar wasn’t over, might never be over, but for now he’d accept any cooperation and a distraction from his brother’s wounds.
‘If I find this thief?’ Malcolm turned to his horse again. ‘What am I to do with him?’
‘Get the truth from him,’ Caird replied. ‘Then go to Bram. As laird, he must know the clan’s involvement. I’ll meet you there in a fortnight.’
‘Bram has his own concerns now.’
Caird shook his head. ‘He is decisive. The occurrence on Fergusson land will not take him long to resolve. There will be time to prepare the course for the jewel.’
Malcolm stopped feeling along the horse’s neck. ‘You still mean to use the jewel? How?’
‘I’ll find her brother,’ he answered. He still didn’t believe the Buchanans had hidden the jewel, but he had to reveal all lies to gain answers. The jewel was too powerful a weapon, and he had to be certain of how to proceed.
‘Then do to her brother as I do to the thief?’ Malcolm asked, his question lingering.
Caird knew what he meant. When either of them found the thief, there would be no letting him go this time. And it wouldn’t necessarily be in the heat of the battle, but in cold blood.
He did not doubt his brother could do it. Malcolm had lost once and as a result had never been the same. Oh, he laughed and he enjoyed, but his grief was like an ice shard next to his heart forbidding it from ever thawing.
He masked it well, but it made him lethal. His brother could kill in cold blood. Could Caird do the same to Mairead’s brother?
‘I will find the truth,’ he said enigmatically. He could give no better answer.
‘From Buchanans?’ Malcolm scoffed. ‘You go to Buchanan land with the Jewel of Kings. What’s to prevent them from taking it from you?’
‘I will question the brother separate from the clan,’ he said. ‘I will keep it safe until we talk to Bram.’
‘I could take it straight to Bram now,’ Malcolm replied.
‘The jewel is too powerful; we need answers to know how to proceed before we address him.’
‘Why not separate the dagger from the jewel? You take one, I the other.’
‘I cannot know if the dagger is somehow tied to the jewel. I may need both to discover the truth.’
‘Answers. Which is why you won’t let Mairead go,’ Malcolm said, not a question but a fact. ‘It never occurred to you to give it to me, did it?’
Caird remained silent. He couldn’t give it to his brother without knowing more about the jewel. He’d never knowingly risk his brother like that again.
Malcolm grunted at Caird’s silence. ‘I won’t give my blessing with this, but I’ll do what you ask. If only to give you time to come to your senses.’ He turned back to his horse to feel along its sides. ‘I’m assuming you want this done without the Grahams’ knowledge.’
‘It is necessary.’
‘What if the thief is not at the games?’
Caird relished the thought of seeing the thief again. ‘It makes nae sense he’d be elsewhere.’ The thief had been at the inn where they’d started celebrating; he had to know where they were headed.
He heard the sound of sticks breaking as Mairead entered the campsite. He
r hair was loose, untamed, and a leaf stuck to one tendril.
Mairead was just as wild. Just as impulsive. He wondered how she’d respond when she discovered she’d only be travelling with him.
Want coiled too easily in his loins at the thought. He hoped for her sake he found the thief. There was too much responsibility, too much lust and he had nothing but a Buchanan, with hair and curves that taunted him.
He forced his eyes to return to his brother. ‘A fortnight,’ he ground out. ‘Nae more.’
Chapter Twelve
Worse and worse and more and more mistakes. The hornets buried in her body swarmed as Mairead rode with Caird. She’d given him everything he wanted, the truth or at least what he needed to know, the gem, everything. She negotiated, begged, for him to release her. Exactly want he wanted since he couldn’t stand touching her.
But that’s exactly what he did as he rode with her, alone, heading towards her clan. Touching, forever touching. A loose lock of his hair against her cheek, his breath against her neck. Even his clean scent seemed to touch her. It was so intoxicating, she wanted to lean against him and inhale it.
Still they rode over the rough terrain. The tall summer grasses hid the dips and crevices Caird tried to avoid. Hours they travelled. So when his broad legs tightened and swayed, she felt him controlling the great horse as if she was the very beast. When his hands tugged the reins, she felt his arms’ movements as if he was guiding her home as well.
Home to a clan that would ransom a Colquhoun without question. All to get answers that didn’t exist.
Because of that, she knew Caird wouldn’t leave her alone. The hornets swarming made her nauseous and she was no closer to a resolution.
It had been a mistake to believe he’d let her go.
She should have trusted her instinct when he’d left to talk to Malcolm. If she had, she’d have gone into the woods and not returned.
Yet, like a baby deer, she had skipped back to the campsite, only to be caught in Caird’s trap.
He wasn’t going to the games; he was taking her home.
She didn’t understand. He had insisted on going to the games. Of course, at that time, he had believed she would be going with him. No, that was being too generous with him. He had made plans and he had changed them. Ultimately, she had no argument against him taking her home. Nothing.