Page 30 of Love Beyond Time (Morna’s Legacy #1)

He needed to find the ring. It was his only chance at getting Blaire back, and he wasn’t going to let the time window close before they tried the spell.

Arran knew Bri had been searching for the ring since they’d learned it was needed for the spell. And while Eoin claimed to be helping in the search, Arran knew a part of his brother hoped they would never find it.

If the spell did work and Blaire returned to him, he wasn’t going to give her up again. She wasn’t actually married to Eoin. It was Bri who’d said the vows, and he’d be damned before he let her go again.

If he located the ring before Eoin and Bri returned from their trip, perhaps she would have no reason to stay any longer.

He’d searched everywhere: each bedchamber, each study, even Morna’s spell room he’d turned upside down in his desperate search for the ring.

The ring was buried with his father. He’d known it all along but had wished ardently that he was wrong, that perhaps his father had removed the ring from his finger before death.

He couldn’t do this himself. He knew he wasn’t that strong. Even going to the gravesite seemed impossible to him, but the ring had to be found.

His stomach rolling uncomfortably, he made his way down to the stables to enlist help from the runaway, now under Kip’s command. He hadn’t bothered to learn the lad’s name. He didn’t trust something about the fellow and didn’t expect him to stay long enough for it to be worth learning.

When Arran entered the stables, Kip was leaning back against the doorway, looking pleased as he watched his new worker shovel out manure.

“Kip, may I speak with ye a moment?” Arran didn’t approach the stable. He wasn’t ready to enter after the gruesome mess he’d been forced to clean.

“Aye, o’course ye can.” The old man pushed himself off of the doorway and made his way to Arran.

“Kip, do ye mind if I borrow the stable lad for the rest of the day? I have an unpleasant task that I’d rather no do meself if I can have someone do it for me.”

“Aye, there’s no much for the lad to do here anyway. We’ve fewer horses now, and I managed just fine on me own. Ye are welcome to use him as long as ye wish.”

“Thank ye, Kip. Send him to the graveyard.”

Arran turned before he could see the questioning look on Kip’s face as he solemnly marched toward his father’s grave.

They dug for hours, each shovel of dirt opening the poorly sealed wound of grief that crossed right through the center of Arran’s heart. When they finally hit the wooden box set low beneath the ground, Arran dropped his shovel and faced the man beside him.

“Ye are to get inside the box and get the ring on his right hand. Doona disturb anything else that ye find inside the coffin. Once ye have it, make sure that the box is closed before ye ask me to come help ye fill in the hole. I doona want to see anything inside it.”

“What makes ye think I do? I doona want to upset a man’s resting place.”

Arran grabbed the man roughly, shoving him against the side of the deep hole. “I doona care what ye want to be doing. Ye can either do as I’ve asked ye, or we can send ye back where ye came from.”

Arran didn’t wait for the man’s response as he crawled out of the hole and sat on the grassy patch next to his mother’s grave, covering his eyes to push away the memories each thrust of his shovel had dug up.

* * *

Even Laird Kinnaird wouldn’t have asked him to dig up a man once he’d been buried. It was mighty bad luck.

But as he pushed away the heavy lid on top of the box, he saw an opportunity that pushed all of his guilt away. For upon the decaying remnants of Alasdair Conall’s right hand were two rings.

The first was a thin band topped with a wide oval.

Noting the feminine look to its setting, he determined that this was most assuredly the ring that Arran sought.

The second was larger and held the seal of the Conall clan, a signet which Alasdair most likely used to seal and sign letters.

It was this ring that caught the man’s interest. Such an item would be of great use to Laird Kinnaird, a way to swing the odds of the upcoming battle even further into his master’s favor.

Turning his head, he reached and removed the rings as quickly as possible, holding the first in the palm of his hand and silently slipping the second away, out of sight.