CLAIMED BY A HIGHLANDER (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY Book 2) (20 page)

“The news of our brother’s death reached me through church channels just two days ago,” Alex said. “I’m told that the men carrying his body were injured and had to stop at a monastery to recuperate.”

“Malcolm said Brian was headed to Killin before he left for Edinburgh,” Rory said. “He was looking for me.”

“He didn’t stop to see me,” Alex said, shaking his head. “And I haven’t spoken with Catriona in a few weeks.”

“We’re on our way to Killin now,” Rory said. “Hopefully Catriona knows what he was so desperate to tell me.”

“I expect Brian just wanted to make peace with ye,” Alex said. “He always hated to have ye cross with him.”

“I regret how often that was.” Rory pressed his lips together. “There had to be more to it than that for him to ride the length and breadth of MacKenzie lands looking for me.”

“His reason for traveling to Edinburgh is equally mysterious,” Alex said.

“Something has been nagging at me,” Sybil said. “We’re told that Laird Buchanan’s party met your brother’s party on the road near Falkirk, a place your brother was unlikely to be.”

“Go on,” Rory said when she hesitated.

“Well, Buchanan should not have been there either,” she said. “There was a warrant for his arrest too, and yet he also left the safety of his clan’s lands. Does that not strike you as an odd coincidence?”

“I’ve been troubled by that as well,” Rory said, nodding. “How did Buchanan happen to take that risk and be in that place at the one and only time that Brian was there?”

“What do ye suspect?” Alex asked.

“Someone knew where Brian was going and arranged it with Buchanan,” Rory said.

“Who would do that?” Alex said.

“Who would benefit by having your brother out of the way?” Sybil raised an eyebrow. “If Hector feared Brian would no longer give him a free hand…”

“I dislike Hector, but he shares our blood.” Alex turned to Rory. “Ye truly believe Hector wanted our brother murdered?”

“I doubt he expected Brian to fight and get killed in the scuffle,” Rory said. “More likely, the plan was for Brian to be captured and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle for years.”

“Then Hector could continue ruling in Brian’s name,” Alex said.

“Either way, Brian murdered or in prison, the outcome would be the same for Hector,” Rory said. “Or so he thought.”

“The clan needs you to be chieftain,” Alex said, clamping a hand on Rory’s shoulder. “Ye know I’ll do whatever ye ask.”

“Malcolm and some of the other men who were on our father’s council are meeting me at Killin day after tomorrow to make our plan,” Rory said. “Join us if ye can.”

***

Sybil struggled to keep her spirits up as they rode the final miles to Killin. It was all happening too quickly. Rory’s fight for control of the clan would leave little time for her. And once he became chieftain, she could count the days until she lost him forever.

“Ye never finished telling me how your mother came to marry your father when he already had a wife.” Sybil hoped the tale from the past would take her mind off the future.

“It all began with a wedding,” Rory said. “The Gordon chief, who was grandfather to the current Earl of the Huntly, invited the MacKenzie and Fraser chieftains to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, and my mother accompanied her father, Lord Lovat, to the gathering.”

Sybil imagined the couple sneaking off for quiet talks and stolen kisses.

“By all accounts, my parents didn’t speak a word at the gathering. The Frasers and the MacKenzies were not on friendly terms at the time,” Rory said. “But from the moment someone pointed out the lively Fraser lass, my father made up his mind to have her.”

“Just like that?” Sybil said with a laugh. “But he was married. What could he do?”

“As soon as he returned home, he sent his MacDonald wife away.”

“That seems harsh,” Sybil said.

“She was as anxious to leave as he was for her to go,” Rory said. “Of course, sending her back was a grave insult to the MacDonalds, but that did not sway my father.”

“How long did he wait before courting your mother?”

“He set off at once with two hundred warriors to lay siege to Lord Lovat’s castle.”

“Good heavens!” Sybil said.

“My grandfather Lovat stood on the castle wall and demanded to know what in the hell my father intended by this unprovoked threat of force.”

“What did he answer?”

“My father said he was in need of a wife, as he had just rid himself of one that did not suit him.” Rory chuckled. “He demanded that Lovat give him his daughter in marriage—and do so at once. In return, he promised a bond of friendship between their clans. But if Lovat refused, he swore he would be an enemy to Lovat and the Fraser clan to his dying day.”

“By the saints!” Sybil’s hand went to his chest. “What did Lovat do?”

“Now, we Highlanders appreciate a bold gesture,” Rory said. “Lovat was verra fond of his daughter, but he could see that this brash young MacKenzie chieftain would make either a strong ally or a dangerous enemy.”

“So he simply handed over his daughter?” She was disgusted, but not surprised.

“Lovat was inclined toward the match, but he said he’d let his daughter decide,” Rory said. “He sent for her to join him on the wall.”

“Since they did marry, I assume she said aye to protect her clan from attack.”

“That’s not the reason she gave me.”

“What persuaded her, then, his fine looks?” She was only half joking. If Rory took after his father, she could understand.

“Perhaps that was part of it,” Rory said with a chuckle. “But as she told the tale to me, it was what my father said to her when she stood on the wall.”

Sybil gripped his elbow. “Did he threaten her?”

“He told her she had stolen his heart and that he would love her until the end of his days.”

Sybil could not help but sigh. What woman would not be tempted to run off with the handsome young chieftain who would make that declaration in front of the warriors of two clans? But such bold gestures and extravagant promises bespoke of a passion that could leave as quickly as it came. Most likely he broke the poor lass’s heart and took a mistress within a year.

“’Tis a lovely story,” Sybil said. “Did she come to regret going with him?”

“My parents’ marriage was a happy one,” Rory said, but the jocular tone he used while telling the story was gone. “My mother drowned during a storm a month after my father died. Some say she slipped into the river. Others say she could not bear to live without him.”

***

Rory urged Curan into a canter as they followed the familiar path home. He was anxious to finally reach Killin and speak with his sister. Yet when he heard the sound of the waterfall, he slowed Curan to a walk and turned toward the river, as he always did.

The roar of the falls grew louder as they rode on the trail through the thick brush to the river. Rory brought Curan to a halt beside the large, flat rock ledge overlooking the top of the falls, where he always stopped, and watched the rushing river tumble over the falls to the jutting black rocks twenty feet below.

“What is this place?” Sybil asked.

“Rogie Falls,” he said. “This is where my mother died.”

The rock ledge was slick from spray even in good weather, and it had been storming all that day. Rory imagined the trail slippery with mud, the driving rain bouncing off the rocks, and the wind pummeling his mother’s cloak against her legs. It would have been easy for her to lose her footing.

And yet Rory could never quite accept that his mother had fallen. She was familiar with the path and the danger of the falls. He could think of only one reason for her to come here in the midst of a storm. Absorbed in her own pain over the loss of her husband, she chose to end her life and leave her children orphans.

At fifteen, Rory had been nearly a man, but he found it hard to forgive her for abandoning his younger brother and sister. Losing her had been hard, especially after their father’s death. At least Alex and Catriona did not know what she had done. Her parting gift to them was to make her death look like an accident.

“You and your mother were close?” Sybil asked.

“I thought we were.” He thought he knew her, but he never would have guessed she would abandon them.

Rory felt someone watching them and snapped his gaze across the river. The brush was too thick to see if anyone was hiding there, but it probably was his imagination. Ever since his mother’s death, the falls made him feel uneasy, as if there was a hidden evil here.

“What’s wrong?” Sybil asked.

“Nothing,” he said, and turned Curan around. But he did not relax until the sound of the falls faded behind them.

CHAPTER 21

Two miles after the falls, Rory’s spirits lifted when they crested a hill and he saw the familiar two-story stone house in the midst of green, fertile fields. He dismounted and lifted Sybil down to stand beside him.

“That’s Killin,” he said, pointing. “It was my father’s wedding gift to my mother. She always loved it, and they came here often when they wanted to get away from the castle.”

“I can see why.” Sybil tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. “’Tis so peaceful here.”

“My mother left it to me when she died,” he said. “Though I’m not able to spend much time here, I consider it my home.”

“Won’t Castle Leod be your home now?”

If he succeeded in becoming chieftain it would.

“Perhaps I should grant Killin to my sister,” he said. “Catriona likes a quiet life, and she has lived here since our mother moved out of Castle Leod after our father’s death.”

“That would be kind,” Sybil said. “I’m sure it would have pleased your mother.”

“Killin always reminds me of her.” He kissed Sybil’s hair. “I wish the two of ye could have met. She would have liked ye.”

“No mother would be pleased to see her son make such a poor match,” Sybil said with a laugh.

“If she had any qualms,” he said, “the first grandchild would have won her over, for certain.”

Sybil’s hand went to her flat belly, then she looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Aye, ye could already carry our child.” His heart swelled at the thought, and he leaned down to kiss the sweet spot below her ear. “If ye aren’t with child soon, it will not be for lack of trying.”

When they rode down the hill and he saw no one in the fields, his cheerful mood turned to unease. The farm was eerily quiet. No dog barked to warn the household of their coming, and no one moved about the yard and outbuildings.

“Wait here,” he told Sybil when they reached the house and no one came out to greet them.

He dismounted and unsheathed his sword. Slowly, he opened the front door. No fire burned in the hearth, and the house was so still that his footsteps echoed as he crossed the floor.

Sweat broke out on his palms. Where was Catriona? He kept watch on the doorway to the kitchen and upstairs as he leaned down to touch the stone floor of the hearth. It was cold. Catriona had been gone for at least a couple of days.

Upstairs, he found open drawers and chests, as if someone had packed to leave in a hurry—or had come looking for something. Alarm rose in his throat, and he hurried back outside.

When Sybil saw him, she started to dismount, but he held up his hand.

“Stay put,” he ordered. “I’m going to have a look around the back of the house and the outbuildings.”

He heard movement and spun around brandishing his claymore. When a lad and a dog appeared around the corner of the cowshed, he took a deep breath to calm the battle fever pulsing through his body.

“Ewan Òg,” Rory called to the boy.

“Good day to ye, Master Rory,” the lad said. “Have ye brought mistress Catriona home?”

“Nay,” Rory said. “Do ye know where she’s gone?”

Ewan shook his head. “She said it was best we didn’t know.”

O shluagh,
Rory silently called on the faeries for help. “When was this?”

“Before that big storm we had,” Ewan said. “Thought I’d lost some of the sheep in it, but I found—”

“Catriona left on her own?” Rory pressed. “No one took her?”

“Aye.”

“How long has she been gone?” Rory asked. “And don’t tell me after the storm.”

Ewan scrunched his face up. Apparently, calculating the passage of time was a difficult task for him, and Rory struggled to be patient.

“’Twas two days ago, right after we heard that the MacKenzie had been killed.” The lad crossed himself. “She took off on her horse.”

“Did she take any of the men with her?”

“Nay.” Ewan shook his head. “She told us to take the cattle to the next farm and stay in the village, but I couldn’t leave the sheep, now could I?”

Rory could strangle Catriona for going alone. He turned to glare at the horizon. Where in the hell was she? And why would she send the servants away?

His worry over his sister spilled over into anger when Sybil appeared beside him. “I told ye to stay put.”