Page 15 of Married to the Cruel Highlander (Unwanted Highland Wives #5)

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K eith sat on the edge of his chair, his arms folded, as he watched the firelight flicker low in the stone hearth. She had been sleeping not moments ago, and now it looked like she was about to launch herself at him, sword drawn.

“Found yer way to the ledgers, did ye?” he said gruffly, his sharp eyes landing on the book she had placed next to her.

Ersie’s face flushed.

“Sit, lass,” Keith said, after she didn’t respond to his initial inquiry and only clutched the hilt of her blade tighter.

It was not an order—not entirely—but he waited anyway.

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, watching as she nodded her head and rested back on the couch she had been sleeping on.

“There were only four people in the room when Mairead birthed our son. Me, Mairead, Mrs. Morrigan… the healer?—”

“Mrs. Morrigan was here?” Her gaze searched his, before dropping to the ledger lying on the cushion. He could tell that her mind was spinning rapidly, trying to comprehend what he was saying.

Keith gave a slow nod, his expression neutral.

Mrs. Morrigan was a figure woven of whispers and rumors in the MacAuley lands. She was as frail as parchment, with a spine like tempered steel, and she had served as a healer in MacAitken Keep for nearly half a century.

Keith knew that, to children, she had been a figure of both fascination and fear, but he wondered aloud who she had been to Ersie.

“She…” Ersie started, her fingers rising to her lips. “Mrs. Morrigan was there the night of the fire?—”

Of course, everyone knew about the great MacAitken fire that took the life of Lady MacAitken. The Uprising had been spoken about far and wide, as well as the untimely death of Laird MacAitken at the hands of his son, Ciaran. Ersie’s brother.

Keith figured that the night of the fire was the night Ersie disappeared from Clan MacAitken and found herself in Clan MacGordon. However, he could not understand how Mrs. Morrigan had been there that night, with her.

Knowing that Ersie had been safe under the watchful eye of the healer he knew Mrs. Morrigan to be made his chest warm slightly.

“What happened during the fire?”

“She was there with me and Grandmaither. I jumped out of the window from me maither’s chambers… She also trained me sister-in-law… Mrs. Morrigan lives in Kilbray now.”

Jumped out of the window? I dinnae recall hearin’ that part of her story.

Something in his chest tightened uncontrollably, and the sudden urge to tear through the stone wall rattled his core. The thought of Ersie as a young girl, having to jump from a window and leave her mother to die in the flames, made his blood boil. And then, as if an epiphany from the heavens struck him where he stood, he finally understood how her brother was able to kill their father just days afterward.

The thoughts flooded through him, almost making him dizzy, before he cleared his throat.

“Aye, lass, she answered our pleas when Mairead went into early labor. Me own healer, Miss MacBeath, was out with fever, and yer clan was closest. Mrs. Morrigan arrived before the weather turned bad. She delivered the bairn herself.”

“And then she vanished? Surely nae.”

“Nay,” Keith said. “She left. Said she’d seen enough blood and sorrow to last her a lifetime. Gave me her blessing, took her things, and rode away before even the afterbirth was cooled. She said something odd before she left, though.”

Ersie smiled then, as if knowingly, but he continued.

His voice hauntingly low, he murmured, “ He will dream of the garden where his blood will suffocate him .”

“Oh Saints…” Ersie said, sitting back, stunned.

“Babblin’ nonsense, but somehow it has stuck with me all these years. Could never really make heads or tails of it. Nor could Fiona.”

Ersie chewed on her cheek for a moment, going over what he had shared with her again and again. “And… what about the fourth person?”

Keith stood then, walking toward his portrait on the far wall. “The other person in the room…”

He pulled a small journal from just behind the frame and held it out to her. She stood and strode over to him, confusion and anticipation plain on her face.

“I kenned she was there in the shadows and in the night, but she didnae ken that,” Keith said as she took the journal.

* * *

The small library walls closed in on her as she turned the slim black journal over to read the name embossed on the front cover.

“Rona Craithe?”

“She disappeared shortly after the bairn was born…”

“Have ye read the entries here?” she asked, holding up the journal.

“I have, aye.”

“And what did ye find?”

“Only more questions, lass,” Keith said, shaking his head.

She sighed, her shoulders dropping. “Well, what do ye expect me to find in it?”

“That’s why ye are here for two weeks—to figure it out, since I couldnae,” Keith reminded her. His correction was sharp, but his tone was quite soft.

Her eyes dropped to his lips before meeting his gaze again, and she could have sworn that she heard his chest vibrate with a primal groan.

Ersie flipped open the journal, walking away from him but acutely aware that his eyes were tracking her movements. She started to read.

“ Finally, some privacy. Lady MacAuley arranged for me own space, and I am so grateful to her. She is due soon, and soon these halls will be alive with the sounds of new life. What a blessing… ”

She looked over her shoulder at Keith, who was still standing by the portrait.

“Was she seriously like this?”

“She was,” he said gruffly.

Ersie turned a few of the pages, skimming over the words until something jumped out at her.

Suddenly, she noticed that the neat, small, controlled handwriting edged its way to darker and more rushed script.

“ I couldnae see the bairn ,” she continued reading aloud. “ The room was much too quiet as the healer gathered her tools. He was there, and I needed to see him… ” she trailed off. “Who was she speaking of?” she asked, her eyes still skimming over the words.

The description was so vivid that it could only be of Keith.

Her back turned stiff as ice. “Is this about ye?”

“I dinnae ken.”

“Why would this maid be writin’ about ye?” she asked, almost as loud as a church mouse, a tinge of judgment lacing her words—or perhaps something else that she most certainly did not want to name.

Only four people were in the room, he said.

“… she told me to fetch water, but I didnae… bairn stopped cryin’. ” Her breath hitched, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

Her throat bobbed, and she flipped the page to continue reading to herself this time.

The bairn is gone… They say he drowned. Constantly crying for his dead mother, now eerily silent.

“Stay quiet, or the garden will rot,” the healer said. But I have no idea what that means.

Ersie slammed the journal shut. Her heart was hammering in her chest. “Is she implying that Mrs. Morrigan…?”

“Nay.”

Relief instantly flooded through her.

Had he gone to question her?

“I dinnae need to question her,” Keith said, obviously reading her mind, “and neither do ye.”

Ersie sat still for a long moment, staring into the flickering fire, the weight of the situation all of a sudden burdensome.

“So, ye are tellin’ me that Rona was in the room?”

Keith nodded, and his jaw clenched. “Aye. She was there. Mrs. Morrigan confirmed it.”

Ersie frowned, her gaze dropping to the worn spine of the journal. “And ye didnae think that strange?”

His eyes snapped to hers. “Strange, aye. But ye are askin’ the wrong questions.”

“Am I?”

He pushed off the mantelpiece and stepped toward her. “If ye are thinkin’ to place any degree of blame on Mrs. Morrigan, then ye’re as daft as a?—”

“I am nae!” she interrupted, her voice low and level. “I wouldnae dare. That woman could curse the heavens or the great Lord himself, and I’d still offer her me hand.”

“Good. Keep her out of this.”

She nodded once. “What about Rona? Did she say anything odd before she left?”

He shook his head. “Nay, she just vanished in the wee hours of the morning. Nay warning, just gone—the day after we found the bairn.”

“But the night yer son went missing… Rona is sayin’ here that she was also in the room. She told me to fetch water, but I didnae… ”

“Aye.”

“ All of a sudden, the bairn stopped cryin’… ”

“Aye.”

“She doesnae name the man, only that he was tall with dark hair…” Ersie’s eyes traveled up the length of his body.

He paced, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Could have been anyone. A guard. A stablehand. I dinnae ken who her lover was, but these things do happen in the castle.”

“Perhaps she kenned the man because he was her lover, but she didnae wish to fully name him in her journal. She doesnae name him in any of the pages, in fact,” Ersie said, patting the front cover of the book lightly and setting it to the side. “What if she was there for someone? Nae just helpin’. What if that stranger she wrote about was the reason she was in the room?”

“Aye,” Keith said slowly, his eyes darkening in such a delicious way.

Ersie found it almost painful to try to tear her gaze from his.

“I think she was watchin’. Mayhap nae for the reasons we assume.”

Keith stepped closer to her. “She was there for someone, and she vanished right after the bairn was found in the loch…”

Ersie met his gaze, the firelight casting shadows across his face. “Then she kens somethin’, and she’s been hidin’ it for five years.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Mrs. Morrigan once told me that some folk were born to walk in shadow—made for secrecy, nae evil. She told me that Rona had eyes like that.”

“And ye still trusted her?”

“I never did,” Keith said flatly. “She came with Mairead.”

“She could be hiding in Kitarne.”

“Ye cannae go there,” Keith said plainly, resuming his pacing.

Ersie watched him for a moment, fire instantly building in her gut. “And why nae?”

“Rona isnae a lead suspect. I already told ye that it was a man. I did this before. I went through all of it… I cannae let ye make the same mistakes. We dinnae have time, Ersie.”

“But what if ye missed something? Ye dinnae have her testimony,” she said loudly, grabbing the journal and wielding it like a weapon.

“Nor will I.”

“I could sneak in, go find her, and sneak out?—”

“Ye are forbidden from enterin’ those lands where I cannae protect ye!” Keith’s voice grew louder with each word, anger lacing his tone.

She met his tone and fervor.

How dare he dictate what I can and cannae do, especially in this case! Does he want me to solve the case or nae?

“Tell me the real reason why!”

“I just did! I cannae protect ye there! I forbid it!”

Ersie’s hands balled into tight fists. “Forbid! Forbid! How dare ye tell me what to do. Saints above keep ye if it means finding yer son’s murderer. I’m goin’, and there’s nothin’ ye can do to stop me!”

He stopped then and turned to face her. “I’ll lock ye up to prevent ye from leavin’ these lands. Ye shall nae go. That’s final.”

“Final, me arse!” Ersie turned on her heel, gripping the journal in her hand, and stormed away from him.

Merely a second—or perhaps half a second—passed before she was swept off her feet and thrown over his shoulder. Again.

“Put! Me! Down! Ye! Daft! Brute!” she snapped, using her free hand to pound against his broad back and then resorting to smacking him with the book. Neither of which had any effect on the man whatsoever.

“If ye wish to act like a child and nae listen to me or reason, then I have nay other choice but to lock ye up so ye dinnae cause harm to yerself or others,” Keith gritted out.

But he didn’t take the route to the dungeons as she had anticipated. He was taking them down an entirely different route.

“Where are ye takin’ me?”

Keith remained silent.

“I demand that ye tell me at once!”

He didn’t even huff a response; he just kept walking. His grip tightened on her thighs, and her treacherous heart throbbed wildly.

“Keith… where?—”

But she didn’t have to finish her inquiry, as a large wooden door slammed open and the familiar scent of lavender invaded her nostrils.

He set her down slowly, facing him, and she didn’t even have to turn around. She was in her room. He had carried her to her room like a child, and her entire body was vibrating with anger.

“Why will ye nae just tell me why I cannae go to Kitarne? The real reason.”

Unease flashed across his brow before his eyes met hers again. “It would be an act of war for me to cross over into their lands.”

With that, he turned on his heel, gripped the large door with one hand, and slammed it shut behind him as he left her standing there. The infuriating sound of a lock clicking moments later set her teeth on edge.

“Oh, and ye will wear what I send up tomorrow for the festival.”

Ersie flung her dagger at the door, thinking that it was precisely where his head was, and it landed with a loud thud. However, the sound was not loud enough to mask his low, rough laugh.