Page 52 of The Valiant Knight (The Ravensmire Chronicles #2)

Thursday Afternoon

Free Time To Burn

Shopping

L eaving Gabby behind was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. Granted, it was only for a little while, but it still made him edgy and uncomfortable. Deep down, he feared going back to his place and finding her gone.

Why?

He wasn’t sure, but those abandonment issues were coming to the surface. It was crazy how one woman could break you, but another could heal you.

So, instead of dilly-dallying, he hauled ass.

The most important shopping trip was about to begin, and it was going to be in the same jewelry shop that his sister worked at.

Heading in, he found Catherine behind the counter, and she smiled at him.

“Hey! Where’s Gabby?” she asked, looking around.

He was to the point.

“I don’t have much time. I need a ring. You saw the proposal, now hook a guy up.”

She laughed.

“Okay, speedy. You know…sometimes, fast isn’t better,” she said, winking at him.

That amused him.

“Trust me, I know when to go slow. Right now, she’s at my place, and if you think Rosie is going to calm down after getting a scone shoved down her gullet, I’ve got bad news for you.”

Oh, Catherine got it now.

She unlocked the cabinets with engagement rings. When she did, Finn was staring down at the rings and checking them all out.

He needed to find the perfect one.

“What shape stone do you think she’ll like?” she asked.

He was to the point.

“I was just going to get a band.”

Catherine actually gasped.

“What?” she asked, staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “You can’t just get her a band.”

He was confused.

“Her boss said she likes simple.”

It appeared his sister wasn’t going to let him get away with just a band.

“Catty, just help me pick out a ring,” he said. “She isn’t a big jewelry wearer.”

Catherine pulled out a tray of rings, and placed them in front of him.

“You can go simple and still make a woman happy,” she said, pointing at a Luckenbooth ring. It was gold with filigree and a red garnet in the locked hearts.

Finn held it in his finger.

“That’s the traditional Scottish wedding ring for a lady. That would look stunning on Gabby’s hand. I think she’d love it.”

“You just met her.”

“And so have you. So…”

Okay, she had a point.

“Can you put it on your finger so I can see what it looks like?”

She did, and he shook his head. Despite thinking a garnet would suit her, it felt…off.

“No. I don’t like it. How about this one,” he said, finding one that looked more like something Gabby would wear. She was classy, understated, and intelligent.

And Catherine stared at it.

“People give their mothers those. What are you trying to tell her?”

He laughed.

“This is so damn difficult.”

That it was.

But…

It wasn’t supposed to be easy. This was a big moment, and it should come with some thought. Gabby would wear it for the rest of her life.

He was curious.

“What do you have that’s more of an antique?” he said. “Something old. I want to give her a story behind it.”

She leaned on the counter.

“Things with stories cost a good deal of money. What’s your budget?”

Honestly, he didn’t have one. He’d saved up a bunch of money over the last ten years, and he already owned his home. He didn’t have bills, and his vehicle was paid off.

He could splurge.

“I don’t have one. Now, just show me the rings.”

When she pulled a tray, and put it down on the counter, there was one that caught his eye. It had a London blue stone, and it was surrounded by gold filagree. It looked royal, gorgeous, and like there was a story behind it.

“This one.”

When she saw what he was pointing at, she smiled.

“That one was just sold to us. The family came in, and it had belonged to their mother. Their father gave it to her seventy years ago, and they couldn’t bear to keep it. So they sold it. He was a soldier, and he picked it up when he was in Germany.”

In that moment, Finn knew.

“That’s the ring. I want it.”

She showed him the price.

“I don’t care. Ring it up for me. That’s the ring I have to have for my wife-to-be. I want seventy years with her too.”

That was sweet.

“I’ll give you my employee discount, troll.”

He figured she would.

As Catherine’s boss rang the sale up, she leaned on the counter to talk to her brother.

“Mum has heard about her.”

Oh, boy.

“And?” he asked. “What did she say about the divorced part?”

Finn wasn’t dumb. He knew where that would go right off the bat. Fiona was VERY religious.

“She wasn’t thrilled.”

His heart sank.

“ BUT …I told her that she had withstood abuse at the hands of her husband, and she had to escape.”

He was honest.

“He hit her so hard he fractured her cheekbone. He was terrible to her,” he said, getting red.

“Calm down, Fineas. When I told Mum that, she changed her mind immediately. Then, when I told her that Rosie was back, and she hit you…”

Finn laughed.

He knew his mother.

“She tried to go after her, didn’t she?” he asked.

Catherine had laughter in her eyes.

“Yep.”

Well, he wasn’t shocked.

Not.

At.

All.

“She said that you absolutely can marry a woman who is divorced if she was forced into that separation by violence. Fiona believes that God makes exceptions, and that’s the big one for her.”

Immediately, he was relieved.

“Thank you, Catty. I appreciate you telling her. I would have married her either way, but it helps if my family approves. We’re getting married quickly.”

Catherine lifted a brow.

“You are?”

He was to the point.

“We’re not practicing safe sex,” he stated, not that it was any of her business. “She wants a family, and so do I, so I’d rather not play that game with Fiona.”

She laughed.

“Good plan, Finn.”

When the ring was packaged up, she warned him again as she held onto it.

“I’m to walk you to your house,” she admitted. “Our mother and our sisters are on their way there.”

He lifted a brow.

“I was told to box your ears if you tried to fight me on it. Oh, and I’ll do it too.”

Honestly, he believed Gabby could hold up under the scrutiny. She’d handled Rosie just fine.

“Well, then, get your things, Catty. I want to go make sure my woman is okay. You guys can be a bit much.”

She snorted.

“Well, you should talk. It’s day two, and you’re getting a ring. Someone likes drama.”

No.

He hated drama.

He loved an American, and didn’t want to let her go.

There was a big difference.

And he knew it.

* * *The Ravensmire Castle* * *

Fineas McKnight’s

Home

Thursday Afternoon

Gabby had set herself up at his kitchen island.

The whole time, she was enjoying the smell of heather from the flowers he bought her. Someone was going to have a really amazing life in Scotland, and that someone was HER .

As she worked, and found her way into the church’s ancestry database, she was doing a deep search.

What she found was interesting.

The historical records had Duncan Granndach listed as a Lord, his title given to him by the king. In those pages, she found a bunch of names, but one stood out.

Ciarán Begbie.

She found him.

Sending the pages to herself, she’d print them out later at the castle and put them with the book so whoever worked on this mystery would have a trail—much like Ian had left for them.

Scrolling, she found a picture of him. It was a painting, and she realized something.

What she thought was a painting of Duncan’s son wasn’t. It was actually Ciarán Begbie. They saw his face already in that one particular painting.

It was the one that had appeared from the storage room against the table where Ceit’s bones had been laid out.

She began reading, trying to dig deeper.

‘Ciarán Begbie, the loyal attendant to Lord Duncan Granndach, was killed when someone tried to make a move on Duncan’s castle. While sleeping, Ciarán heard a noise and put his body over Duncan to spare him from being murdered.’

She stared at it.

“Oh, wow,” she whispered.

Needless to say, she kept reading. Now, she was learning some things.

‘When Duncan awoke, he heard the screams of Ciarán that they were under attack, and he was able to defend himself to push back the attack on his castle. In the process, Ciarán Begbie died.’

She looked at the date, and it was twenty years after Duncan had returned from the war when Ceit had written to him.

Gabby kept scanning, and didn’t see anything else of importance, but one last thing.

‘Ciarán Begbie’s body was removed from the crypt in the castle, and instead he was interred in a secret location that was handpicked by Duncan Granndach.

It was to show honor for the sacrifice that Ciarán had made to save his life.

Historians believe that the only reason he wasn’t buried in the official crypt was because it was considered taboo. ’

Holy shit.

Taboo?

She did another search, and found that the punishment for being gay in the sixteen hundreds in Scotland was pretty simple.

It was death.

Sitting there, she considered it.

The extra crypt in the castle could very well be for Duncan’s son, but she didn’t believe it was.

“You were in love with him, and when he saved you and you had to move him, you put him somewhere safe where the church couldn’t destroy his body, didn’t you, Duncan?

” she asked, talking to herself. “But you left that crypt empty because he loved you and you loved him. In your heart, he was your soulmate and husband.”

Gabby believed she’d solved another piece of the puzzle.

Only, she wanted more. So, she kept researching Ciarán.

She felt like there was still information that could be found, and if anything, she was thorough.

Since she knew how he died, Gabby wanted to know how they met. Was it a mere coincidence, or was there more?

It was time to find out.

She spent the next ten minutes going through anything she could find with his name.

That’s when she located the mother lode.

What she found was he was sold to the Lord to be a soldier to defend their lands. He was purchased when Duncan was eighteen, and Ciarán was sixteen. Then, the castle was built.

The dates lined up.