Highland Rake (40 page)

Dougald nodded to Kvist. Then he turned his attention to Gair. "Laird Cameron said that Ward and his wife ran off. Where did they go?"

"How would—"

Dougald poked the dirk at the man's chest. "'Twould be easy to make an example of you, and then take the next man to task."

"They were to meet a Cameron at a hovel south of here," one of the MacDonalds said, who was watching the affair.

Dougald glanced at the black-haired man. Both Dougald's men and the Cameron's had taken the MacDonalds in hand in case they thought to free Gair.

A Cameron's fist connected with the black-haired man's jaw. "Which one of us would have done such a thing? Speak, mon!"

The MacDonald spit out blood. "I dinna know!"

"How do you know the man was a Cameron then?" Dougald asked.

"A couple of us overheard someone—we didna recognize the voice—say that Connell Cameron was in the way and they knew how to get him out of the way."

"By setting him up with Ward's wife?" Dougald asked.

"Aye. 'Twould be easy to do since he was already seeing her," Gair said.

Which was what Dougald had suspected all along. "Did she take part willingly?"

"I dinna know."

Alana strode out of the keep, her cheeks flushed as Niall and Angus flanked her, the lads beside them.

"What has happened?" she asked, seeing the MacDonald men in custody and Dougald with his dirk in hand.

"These men know something about your brother's murder. They say a Cameron was involved."

"Who?" she asked.

Dougald took her aside and said for her hearing only, "He said a man was to meet them at a hovel south of here. I would need some of your men to search this place as they would most likely know of it and if Ward and his wife are holed up there, they will recognize them."

"I will go also," Alana said.

"Nay. I wish you to stay here. I only wanted you to know I would be leaving and return as soon as I can. Angus and the lads will stay with you."

"What if my brother could help when you apprehend them?" she whispered.

Dougald frowned at her. "How?"

"Connell could tell me things that occurred when he was murdered. I could share what he says with Ward and Gwyn, mayhap frighten them into telling the truth."

"I dinna want you going." Dougald rubbed her arms in a soothing, but placating way.

"But you know I can help," she insisted.

Dougald took a deep breath. "If we find them there, we can bring them back for your questioning."

"It was a verra long time ago since they ran off. Are you certain they would still be there?" she asked.

"Mayhap not." Dougald spied Turi leaving the keep, his eyes wide as he saw the Cameron and MacNeill men had seized the MacDonalds.

Dougald said to the Cameron clansmen, "Lock the MacDonalds in the dungeon. All but this man, Gair. He will ride with us." Then he turned to Alana and took her hand and kissed it. "I still would prefer you stay here."

She whispered in Dougald's ear, "What if they are dead?"

Not having considered such a thing, he frowned. She had the right of it. If she saw them, mayhap she could extract whatever information she could from them.

She took a deep breath. "'Tis possible, you know."

"Aye. All right." That decided it for Dougald. If the couple were now ghosts, they might very well still be there. And it was true that Alana was the only one who could learn anything from them.

Turi was frowning at Dougald. "Laird Cameron may no' like that you have ordered the MacDonalds to be locked in the dungeon."

"A couple know something about Connell's death," Dougald said. "We ride to the hovel."

"Wait, you canna take Lady Alana," Turi said, his brow deeply furrowed.

"She will help me to question Ward and his wife."

"They are there?"

"As far as the MacDonald men say."

Several of the men who had taken the MacDonalds to the dungeon hurried back to join Dougald.

"We will go with you," a Cameron said.

"You are no' in charge of the clan, Dougald," another Cameron said. "We do this for Connell."

Dougald dipped his head in agreement. "As do I."

Alana suddenly turned away from the gathered men, and Dougald took her arm. "Alana, are you all right?"

"Aye," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "My brother is ready to go with us." She closed her eyes briefly.

"What is wrong now?"

"Seana wants to come, and he doesna want her to because of what might be said."

Loving Alana for caring about his sister and her brother and their trials, Dougald kissed the top of her head. "They will have to sort it out between themselves."

Someone had already ordered their horses saddled and they were brought to them.

As they mounted, Dougald asked the redheaded MacDonald, "They wanted Connell out of the way so that Alana would marry a man who would take Laird Cameron's place someday, aye?"

Gair said, "We guessed as much when we learned not only had Connell been murdered, but that Laird Cameron was arranging for the marriage of Lady Alana to Hoel."

"Why tell us?"

"'Tis too late. Once you married the lass, 'twas too late to rectify the situation. Whoever is behind this will most likely attempt to murder you next. With Connell's murder, some thought it justified. With yours, the situation would look too suspicious."

"If this is what your laird wishes, why tell us? Your enemy?"

"Too many would wish to avenge your death. Your Viking bodyguard. Your brothers, cousin, clansmen. Even Lady Alana. As I said, Connell's death was expected—angered husband bent on avenging his honor. No one had considered it might be anything else. But with you? The clans could go to war over it. Many of us dinna like the idea."

As another rider drew close, Dougald glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see Turi join them. Dougald thought Turi always remained at the keep to manage duties there while Laird Cameron was away.

He nodded at Dougald, greeting him, but not saying a word.

An hour later when they arrived at the croft where half of the peat roof had caved in, the stone walls still intact, Angus hurried to help Alana down from her mare.

Gunnolf came out of the shieling, shaking his head. "No one here."

"Here!" one of Cameron called out.

When Dougald and the others went to see what the man had found, he observed a pile of freshly mounded dirt the length and width of two bodies.

The men began digging and found the remains of a man and a woman in the shallow graves.

Alana stifled a cry of distress and quickly moved away from the site. Angus and Niall and the lads hurried after her.

Dougald examined the decomposing bodies. "Stabbed."

"Aye," Turi said, shaking his head.

"Are they…?"

"Aye," Turi said, frowning. "That is Ward and his wife, Gwyn. Laird Cameron isna going to like this."

***

"You whore!" Seana shouted, making Alana turn quickly to see Seana screaming at Ward's dead wife.

Alana's stomach was still reeling with upset after seeing the decomposing bodies. But now that she could observe Gwyn—alive and well—in ghostly form, but to Alana she looked just like the last time she had seen the woman, she actually felt a little better. The woman was wearing a green
léine
, no brat, her red hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her green eyes flashing with anger. Seana was so outraged over the woman, her fists were planted on her hips and her cheeks rosy, her dark brown eyes nearly black.

"Who are you? Another one of his conquests?" Gwyn shrieked.

"I am his
friend
!"

Alana stared at Seana, shocked to hear her say it as much as she and Connell always argued. Though Alana knew her brother well enough to realize he teased Seana to get a rise out of her in a playful manner just as he'd always done with Alana.

Swords began clanking, signaling a fight, and Alana swung around, worried that Dougald was fighting the MacDonald, when she saw Connell battling Ward. "You were incensed I had been seeing Gwyn, but you had neglected her for years. And then? You got her killed! For what? Money? Power? Position? For what, you greedy bastard?"

"You didna deserve to live," Ward said, thrusting his sword at Connell.

"Neither did you!" Connell parried and then took a vicious swing at Ward, slicing through his torso, but not doing any damage. "
You
murdered me, but who killed
you
?"

"That bastard Duff," Ward said. "If I could, I would murder him."

"Duff," Alana said. "'Twas Duff who convinced Ward to kill Connell?"

"Duff?" Turi said, his eyes widening.

"Aye," Alana said.

"Why?" Turi asked, sounding as shocked as she felt.

Connell thrust his sword again at Ward. "Why would Duff want me dead?"

"Your da kept throwing his sons in the dungeon and after your da was murdered, your uncle kept putting them there. No' that they didna deserve it. Hoel promised he would release Duff's sons and they would never be imprisoned when he was in charge."

"Then Duff meant to have my uncle killed also?" Connell asked.

"Aye, Duff did," Ward said.

"Why would Duff want
you
dead, if you worked for him and did what he wished of you?" Alana asked Ward.

"To get rid of us so we couldna tell who was behind all this," Ward said, pausing in his fight with Connell, that earned him another stab, which didn't affect him either.

"What about my da's death? Who was at the site looking for me and wanted to turn me over to someone else? And who was the person who wanted me?" She frowned as Ward lowered his eyes, bowed his head, then looked back at her, appearing guilty as sin, and she knew then…she knew
he
had been there. "'Twas you!" She could barely get the words out, she was so shocked. He was the one who had been standing so close to her, his boot brushing against her arm. She had looked up at him and the shock at seeing one of her own kin searching for her to turn her over to someone else had stolen the breath from her.

"I told you that you would remember, Alana. You had seen him all along when he was so close. You couldna have avoided looking," Connell said. "I knew it!"

"You were in on the murder of my da," Alana said to Ward, stricken.

"Nay. MacIverson wanted to talk to your da to stop the marriage contract."

"Why?" She had to know if her aunt was at the root of it.

Ward didn't say.

"My aunt? Was she the reason?"

Ward actually turned a little red. "Aye, Lady Alana." Ward frowned at her. "Ye saw me in the forest that day and said naught to yer uncle?"

"I dinna…I dinna remember. 'Twas your voice, though." She tilted her head and tried to recall the words. "Whispered. I didna recognize them. You didna see me?"

"Och, the devil take ye. Where were ye?"

"Hiding in the leaves at your feet."

He shook his head. "We thought ye would be running away. And then ye were too greatly guarded for anyone to make a move after that."

"Who were you supposed to turn me over to?"

"MacDonald. He intended to have rescued you, and then he would have offered to have his son wed you."

"Nay," she said, frowning. "Connell was still alive. My uncle would have wanted me to be a laird's wife. It wouldna have worked if MacDonald had wanted Hoel to wed me with the intent of having him take over the clan as my brother was only five and ten and still very much alive."

"Aye, my lady. He intended for ye to wed his eldest."

"But an arrangement to marry me to Evnissyen was never initiated," Alana said, glancing at Turi to see his response.

"Nay, Lady Alana, you were never betrothed to his eldest son," Turi said.

Ward sheathed his sword. "Evnissyen didna like that ye were different. Hoel wanted ye. MacDonald only wanted ye wed to his son Evnissyen to tie the clans together. After yer da was murdered, Laird Cameron wouldna agree to another marriage arrangement. He canceled the one with MacIverson because of his dallying with Cameron's own wife, and mayhap he believed MacIverson arranged to have yer da murdered. Then when yer brother died so fortuitously, Laird MacDonald pushed to have ye married to his younger son."

"Did Laird MacDonald also push to have my brother murdered so that Hoel would rule the clan should my uncle die prematurely as well?" she asked.

"Nay," Gair said.

"Be quiet," Gunnolf told the MacDonald clansman.

"I dinna know for certain who planned yer brother's murder. Just that Duff paid me, but 'twas more than that. I would have killed Connell anyway when I learned what he was doing with my unfaithful wife," Ward said, giving Gwyn a scornful look.