Kyla had no choice but to explain, though most men generally greeted her aspirations with snickering disbelief. “We study women writers,” she murmured, steeling herself for Broderick’s snort of derision.
“Elizabeth Melville, I’ll warrant,” he said.
She glanced at him sharply. She’d heard no censure in his voice. “Aye,” she replied. “Though Elizabeth’s Godlie Dreame is a mite overly religious for me.”
He smiled. “And for me. My father was the religious firebrand in this family, always plotting to reestablish the auld religion.”
Kyla heard almost nothing of what he said, except that he’d read Elizabeth Melville!
She risked another admission. “I’d like to publish something more interesting to everyday folk. Like a history of the Hebrides.”
“Or a travelogue,” he suggested. “I’d read it.”
Lily folded her arms across her chest. “Nobody wants to teach me anything.”
Rapt in Broderick’s easy acceptance of hopes and dreams she’d never shared with anyone other than her parents, Kyla realized they’d neglected the lass. “I can teach ye to write, if ye wish,” she promised.
Lily flopped back on the bolster, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Weel, if ye’re staying longer, ye can also teach me to captain a boat.”
*
Broderick felt chastened. It had never occurred to him Lily might want to learn music—from the brother she loved. It was so obvious. But she was being too forward, expecting Kyla to teach her how to captain a boat, indeed. As if a young lass…
He wisely swallowed what he’d been about to say, though he was guiltily glad his sister had suggested a task that would entail Kyla staying in Galloway longer.
Kyla shook her head. “’Twas my father taught me to handle a boat,” she explained patiently, tugging the linens up to Lily’s chin. “And in the Hebrides, if ye dinna learn to master the waves, ye barely ever go anywhere.”
Lily sighed. “I’d love to go to Skye and see Dun Scaith.”
“Maybe someday I’ll take ye,” Kyla replied, so wistfully Broderick itched to summon his gunboat crew and order them to prepare for a departure on the morrow.
He closed his eyes, imagining…he and Kyla, standing at the prow, the wind lifting her incredible hair…
But he’d a murderer to apprehend. That was as good a reason as any not to go.
Leprosy
A suspicion brewing in the back of Broderick’s brain kept him tossing and turning all night, and prompted the decision to make the journey to Darling Abbey. “’Tis fitting Cladh’s body be returned there,” he told Teak as the lad helped him pull on his boots. “He needs to be buried soon, and Abbot Septimus might be able to shed light on the matter.”
The pre-dawn tide was too low to take the galley, so he opted to use one of the rowboats stored in the boathouse on the banks of the Nith. Lark carried the shrouded body to the river, then Broderick sent his horse back to the castle with a groom. Two clansmen put the body into the rowboat, hauled it to the river, climbed aboard and took up the oars. Broderick followed and held out his hand to assist Adrian. He couldn’t fully explain why he thought the lad should come along, but there was no harm in it.
The drizzle seemed appropriate as a weak sun struggled to break through the clouds and they began the grim voyage across the Nith. The boat scraped bottom several times, but Broderick was confident they would reach the other side before the tide went out completely. He was apprehensive about leaving Kyla and Lily, but once the tidal bore flooded back into the estuary, they’d be able to return quickly. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long to complete his investigation at the abbey.
They had almost reached their destination when Adrian spotted another, smaller rowboat, grounded on a sandbar. It wasn’t an uncommon sight in the tidal estuary.
“Come loose from its moorings,” one oarsman remarked as Adrian climbed over the side and waded through the shallow water. The lad reached into the boat and held up a splintered oar.
He helped the youth regain his seat on the bench when he returned, holding the mooring rope. “The murder weapon, no doot,” he said.
Adrian nodded his agreement.
They towed the stranded boat behind them and dragged it up on the beach alongside their own.
Broderick left his clansmen to watch over the boats and the body. He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling of foreboding as he and Adrian followed the path through the meadows to the magnificent abbey.
*
Corbin tucked his hands under his armpits, but it didn’t stop the uncontrollable shaking caused by a night spent crouched in the drafty undercroft. His body was too stiff to contemplate moving. Racking his brain as to the next step in his plan, he edged further into the shadows when he heard voices—a young lass giggling, the deeper voice of a youth. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who wanted to be out of sight of prying eyes.
He strained to hear their whispered conversation.
“Will the laird nay miss ye?” the lass asked.
“Nay. He called for me to help him dress early. He’s on his way to Darling Abbey.”
Corbin came close to crowing at his luck. The youth was Maxwell’s valet. His glee was short-lived. How was he to kill his enemy if he’d gone to the abbey?
“Why has he gone there?” she cooed.
“Taking the old sexton’s body back, I reckon. But enough talk. Are ye going to show me yer lovely tits again?”
Corbin toyed with the idea of remaining hidden while the pair rutted; watching others fornicate could be stimulating, but time was of the essence. If Broderick had left the castle, Kyla and Lily were probably alone. Gripping the kitchen knife, he shuffled his feet on the rough stone floor.
The lass squealed.
“Who’s there?” the lad demanded to know.
Corbin held the maud to his face and leaned forward. “Just a poor auld woman,” he replied in a high-pitched voice.
The valet came to his feet and sauntered over, peering into the gloom. “Why are ye down here? This is a place for trysting and the like. And what’s wrong with yer face?”
Corbin took a risk. “Leprosy is nay a pretty sight,” he said plaintively.
The lad nigh on tripped over his own feet in his haste to beat a retreat. The would-be lovers scurried away without a backward glance.
*
Kyla was disappointed Broderick did not appear to break his fast. She’d looked forward to discussing Elizabeth Melville’s writings with him. She hoped another lesson of sling throwing might be on the day’s agenda. If he brought his shawm…
She gritted her teeth. There was no point falling into the trap of allowing him to become part of her life.
“Broderick’s gone to Darling Abbey,” Lily explained as she took her seat at table. “He thinks Cladh should be buried there.”
A chill raced across Kyla’s nape. Why did the mere mention of the place fill her with dread? “Will he be back within the day?” she asked, despite a determination not to care if he returned at all.
Lily shrugged, but a commotion near the servery caught their attention. Doreen was scolding a cringing maidservant.
Kyla ate another spoonful of oatmeal. “If I stay here much longer,” she said, “I’ll have to recall how Cook makes oatmeal on Skye. This just isna the same.”
She startled when Doreen harrumphed. She hadn’t seen the woman approach the high table.
“’Tis good enough for us Lowland folks,” the maid muttered.
Lily giggled.
In an effort to change the subject and redeem herself, Kyla asked, “Is something amiss with yon serving lass?”
Doreen looked to the rafters as if to find some answer to her exasperation. “Down in the undercroft, she was. Doing what, I can only imagine. Claims she saw a woman hiding there who has leprosy. If ye want my opinion, she got caught with her ti…” She glanced at Lily and pursed her lips. “’Tis just an excuse.”
“What’s leprosy?�
� Lily asked.
Kyla had never seen a leper, but had heard of the terrible disfigurements the disease caused. However, she saw no reason to alarm the bairn. “’Tis an illness, but Our Lord was able to cure it. The Bible tells us so.”
“Aye,” Doreen confirmed. “’Tis a cursed affliction. Very contagious. They say it only strikes heretics. Their noses fall off.”
Lily immediately clamped both hands over her nose as her maid flounced away. “My nose won’t fall off, will it?” she asked, panic bright in her wide eyes.
Kyla put an arm round her shoulders. “Nay. Pay no mind. Whoever is hiding in the undercroft just didna want anyone to…”
Her throat constricted. Broderick sought a mad monk for Cladh’s murder. Such a man might seek a hiding place, might even be mistaken for a woman.
Lily’s curious mind had apparently moved on while Kyla was immersed in unsettling conjecture.
“What’s a heretic?” the bairn asked.
Lingering Misgivings
A monk ushered Broderick and Adrian into the abbot’s parlor. Broderick had met Septimus before so wasn’t surprised by the initial aloof greeting. What could one expect from an Englishmon? However, a crack appeared in the cleric’s supercilious demeanor when he was informed of Cladh’s death. “We’ve looked high and low for him,” Septimus declared with a frown after making the sign of his Savior across his body. “Did he drown?”
“He was murdered, his skull cleaved open.”
Septimus gripped the arms of his chair and shifted his considerable weight. “How do you know this?”
Broderick explained the circumstances of finding the sexton’s body, ending with, “An unknown monk sought shelter in the castle gatehouse. I suspect one o’ yer brothers went berserk, and…”
Septimus bristled. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Laird Maxwell. All my brethren are accounted for. However…”
Broderick raised a brow. “What?”
Septimus rose. “Come with me.”
Broderick and Adrian followed the abbot out of the abbey, through the grounds, to a small hut on the edge of the cemetery. He supposed this was a gardener’s shed, until the cleric opened the rickety door. A pallet, piles of clothing, a food-encrusted bowl on the scarred, lopsided table that was more like a stool, the odor of aged flesh: all indicated this was Cladh’s humble abode.
Suspended on a sagging rope-line above the empty hearth were bolts of woven cloth that obviously did not belong there.
Adrian gasped.
A knot tightened in Broderick’s gut. “Do ye recognize them, lad?”
“Aye. ’Tis part of the cargo from the Hebridean birlinn.”
“Could it be from the bale ye clung to, before ye were shoved off?”
Adrian chewed his lip. “’Tis hard to say.”
Beads of sweat had broken out on the abbot’s forehead. He tucked his hands in the folds of his sleeves and tutted. “We surmise Cladh found the cloth on the beach. By rights, proceeds from the sale of salvage belong to the abbey, but you can see he intended to sell it piece by piece.”
Broderick detected hesitation, but he waited.
Septimus toed the packed earth. “The old man found something else.”
“Ye mean someone else.”
The abbot nodded. “A shipwreck survivor. An arrogant man.”
“Did he tell ye his name?”
“He claimed he couldn’t recall it. However, the Almoner might still have his clothing.”
Ten minutes later, Adrian confirmed the sand-coated garments stuffed in the Almoner’s cupboard had belonged to Corbin Lochwood.
Broderick feared his knees might buckle. He’d left Kyla and Lily in Caerlochnaven with his archrival on the loose. He’d had doubts about Lochwood’s sanity after learning it was he who insisted the birlinn not heave to at his command. The consequences of that action had been disastrous.
It seemed the man had survived the sinking and committed murder, perhaps not surprising since he’d already left Adrian to drown.
Broderick gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders to quash the panic that threatened to render him incapable of movement. Lily was the only other surviving Maxwell.
“Please send a party of monks to the beach for Cladh’s body,” he told the abbot. “Ye can also take charge of what I suspect is his rowboat. We found it on the sandbar. I must return at once to Caerlochnaven.”
*
Corbin quickly wriggled out of the skirt and dragged on Hamish’s trews, hampered by the low ceiling of the undercroft that forced him to bend double.
He was having second thoughts about the wisdom of claiming to be afflicted with leprosy. If the trysting couple told of the encounter there’d be a hue and cry. A witch-hunt would ensue. He was already being pursued, now he’d made things worse. Kyla MacKeegan had, indeed, befuddled him to the point he couldn’t think.
He ought to dispose of the maud, but it was a mite chilly to go about in only an ill-fitting shirt. He draped the shawl across his shoulder like a plaid and knotted it, hoping folk would think he was just another poorly-dressed peasant.
The rope belt would prevent the baggy trews from falling down round his ankles.
Constraining two females and getting them into the sexton’s boat could prove difficult. He still had the knife, but might be better off disappearing into the meadows and making his way home to Glenkill Tower.
However, one of the women was the feisty redhead who would have gone back to Skye by the time he mustered an army and returned. The prospect of a tussle with Kyla MacKeegan fired his blood. When he made it to Glenkill, it would be with her and Lily Maxwell in tow.
Then he could implement the next stage of his new plan.
*
Lily whined when Kyla told her they wouldn’t be going out to practice with the slings.
“Why? Just because my brother isna here? Ye like him more than ye like me.”
Aye, but in a different way.
“That’s nay true,” she replied, skirting around the truth. “But I would feel safer if he were here.”
And excited about the prospect of spending time with him.
“Is it because of the leper?”
“Aye…”
And nay. She didn’t believe for a moment that a leper wandered the undercroft of Caerlochnaven.
“…but we have naught to worry about if there is a leper. We’re nay heretics.”
Hoping the nonsensical notion would make sense to a bairn, she chuckled inwardly at her own unreasonable fears. The shock of her near-drowning had caused all kinds of imaginings.
Doreen was probably right. The maidservant had made up some outlandish excuse to draw attention away from her transgression.
There was surely nothing to fear from a poor beggar woman who’d sought shelter in the undercroft. “We can go out for a short while,” she conceded.
Lily’s smile of glee banished any lingering misgivings.
Beggars Don’t Swagger
Corbin lay on his belly in the long grass, watching Kyla and the lass hurl rocks from their slings.
Lily Maxwell was a far cry from what he’d previously been led to believe. She was still a bairn, but already showing curves in all the right places—an acceptable wife for him. If he married Lily, the only impediment to legally taking control of Caerlochnaven was Broderick. He didn’t foresee getting rid of the laird as a major problem—a bribe for a greedy servant here, a vial of monkshood there—simple. Corbin planned to play the part of the grieving brother-by-marriage. King James would be grateful to rely upon his strong presence in time of need.
It was so perfect, he didn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of it before. Or had he? The chit wasn’t a bad shot with the sling, either.
Now Kyla, on the other hand, looked like a veritable Amazon as she stood with impressive thighs braced, breasts thrust out, whirling the sling above her head and striking every single target. There was something to be said for male attire hugging a female derrière
.
He’d marry Lily, but Kyla would warm his bed. No, she’d set it on fire.
The prospect was too arousing and he was getting bored just watching, not to mention chilled in the damp grass. They’d been practicing for over an hour and time was of the essence. Once the abbot told Broderick that Corbin had survived the sinking, his enemy would hie back to Caerlochnaven as fast as he could.
But it would be too late.
*
A persistent prickle across her nape warned Kyla they were being watched. She scanned the surrounding meadows several times, but saw nothing. The castle was clearly visible only half a mile behind them. She was probably imagining things again.
There was no point alarming Lily who was making good progress with the sling.
Still, she wished she’d asked one of the Maxwell clansmen to accompany them.
There was no sign of Broderick’s boat when she shaded her eyes one last time to peer out across the Nith. She resigned herself to waiting within the safety of the castle. “We should get back,” she said.
As expected, Lily balked, until Kyla started to walk away.
The lass had just caught up with her when a man appeared out of the grass a dozen yards ahead. She stopped abruptly and clenched her jaw, annoyed she’d not heeded her father’s insistence on always trusting her instincts.
This odd-looking peasant had, indeed, been watching them.
Lily gripped her arm. “Who is he?”
“Ye dinna recognize him?”
“He’s nay from Caerlochnaven.”
Kyla narrowed her eyes as the man slowly walked toward them. He was wearing a strange sort of plaid slung over his shoulder, and trews that looked far too big. “A vagrant, mayhap?” she suggested.
But he swaggered.
Peasants and beggars didn’t swagger.
“I’m afraid,” Lily murmured.
Never taking her eyes off the stranger, Kyla stooped to feel for a rock. Her hand settled on one that wasn’t round or heavy enough, but it would have to do. She nestled it in the pouch of the sling. “Stay behind me,” she told Lily.
Kilty Pleasures (Clash of the Tartans Book 3) Page 11