Ransom

  Dylan glanced about the hall and relaxed. His anger quickly turned to satisfaction. Robert and Liam had stationed themselves near the hearth so that they could easily intercept any eager soldier foolish enough to attempt to get to Gillian. With the same determination, Stephen, Keith, and Aaron had taken up positions on the opposite side so that they could effectively block access to the lady from both the entrance and the south side of the hall.

  Brodick changed the subject then. “How did Ramsey take the news that it was Michael they wanted?”

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  “Why not?”

  “There were too many others there, including the bastard MacPhersons,” he explained. “Not knowing who to trust—”

  “You shouldn’t trust any of them,” Brodick interjected.

  “That’s true,” Dylan agreed. “So I simply told him that Iain and you wanted a conference with him as soon as possible. I also insisted that Michael come with us. When I was finally able to get him alone, I told him that Alec had been found.”

  “I imagine Iain’s telling Ramsey the full truth now,” Brodick remarked when he saw the two lairds in deep discussion. Iain’s anger darkened his expression and his gestures were animated as he related what had happened to his son, but Ramsey didn’t show any reaction to the startling news. He stood with his hands at his sides, looking as though he were hearing complaints about the weather.

  “Ramsey seems to be taking the news well,” Dylan remarked.

  Brodick disagreed. “No, he isn’t. He’s furious. Can’t you see how his hands are clenched? Ramsey’s better than Iain and me at masking his feelings,” he added.

  “Laird Maitland’s beckoning you,” Dylan said.

  Brodick immediately went to join his friends. He showed his affection for Ramsey by slapping him on his shoulder and shoving him hard in his side with his elbow. Ramsey shoved back.

  “It’s good to see you again, old friend,” Ramsey began.

  “There’s a foul rumor spreading through the Highlands about you, Ramsey, but I refuse to believe it. They say you’ve taken the MacPherson weaklings under your wing, but I know such odious gossip couldn’t possibly be true.”

  “You know good and well the MacPhersons have joined my clan. They wanted to be Sinclairs,” he added. “But they aren’t weak, Brodick, only poorly trained. They didn’t have the good fortune of a chieftain like Iain to train them properly the way you and I did.”

  “That’s true,” Brodick conceded. “Iain, what have you told him?”

  “I told him Alec was taken by mistake and that Michael was the target.”

  “Where’s the woman who brought Alec home?” Ramsey demanded. “I would have a word with her now.”

  “And so would I,” Iain announced. “The party is over.”

  Iain signaled to the elders, and within minutes the crowd of well-wishers left. Ramsey said good night to his brother and asked him if he would like to stay with the Maitlands for a while.

  Michael was thrilled. “Alec said his papa would take us fishing and he won’t let us drown.”

  “I would hope not,” Ramsey replied. “While you are here, you will remember your manners and you will obey Lady Maitland.”

  Michael went running up the stairs with Alec and his older brother, Graham, as Winslow came back inside. The Maitland commander went directly to Gillian, who had just said good night to Frances Catherine.

  “My wife was upset with me because I didn’t introduce her to you. If you could make time tomorrow . . .”

  “I would love to meet your wife before I leave.”

  “Leave?” he repeated, sounding puzzled. “Where will you be going?”

  “To the Sinclair holding with Ramsey.”

  “Brodick’s allowing this?” he asked incredulously.

  “I haven’t asked his permission, Winslow.”

  “My brother would never let you go anywhere with Ramsey,” he announced.

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “My wife’s name is Isabelle.”

  The abrupt change in topic was deliberate, of course. He wanted to end the discussion. His behavior reminded her of his brother’s, for Brodick was just as abrupt.

  And just as bossy, she decided when he told her she would like his wife. He hadn’t made the statement as a hope. No, he’d ordered her to like Isabelle.

  “I’m sure I will like your wife, and I look forward to meeting her.”

  Winslow nodded approval and then said, “The lairds are waiting for you.”

  With a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and nodded.

  The hall was still ablaze with light from the burning candles and the roaring fire in the hearth. The imposing assembly was gathered at the far end of the massive oak table, waiting for her to join them. Iain sat at the head with Ramsey to his left and Brodick to his right. As soon as the lairds saw Gillian coming, they rose to their feet. She pulled out a chair at the opposite end and sat down. Dylan and Winslow took their places behind their lairds.

  “I would hear now exactly what happened to my son,” Iain said.

  Brodick dragged his chair to her end of the table, sat down next to her, folded his arms across his chest, and gave his friends a glare that suggested he’d bloody them if they said a word about his seating preference.

  Ramsey kept his thoughts contained, but Iain looked quite smug and satisfied. Dylan actually nodded, as though giving his approval, and then walked over to stand behind his laird.

  Iain seemed amused as he watched Brodick, and it suddenly occurred to Gillian that the Maitland laird was actually a very kind man. When she had first met him, she’d found him intimidating and gruff, but she didn’t any longer. Perhaps it was the affection she had seen him show his wife and children that had changed her opinion.

  Ramsey, on the other hand, was more difficult to judge. He seemed far more relaxed than Brodick, which was amazing, given the fact that he had just learned that someone wanted to harm his brother. What would he do when he heard the rest of the story?

  “I should have thought to have Dylan tell you to bring your commander,” Brodick said to Ramsey.

  “I’ll tell Gideon what he needs to know when I return home,” Ramsey said.

  “My commander, Winslow, and Brodick’s commander, Dylan, are here for a specific reason, Gillian,” Iain explained.

  She folded her hands on the tabletop. “For what specific reason, Laird?”

  Brodick’s arm rubbed hers when he leaned forward. “Retaliation.” He said the word in a hard voice that sent chills down her spine. She waited for further explanation, her mind racing with questions, but Brodick didn’t say another word.

  “What kind of retaliation? Do you mean war?”

  Instead of answering her, Brodick turned to Iain. “Let’s get on with it. She’s tired.”

  “Gillian, why don’t you start at the beginning, and I promise not to interrupt,” Iain said. “We’ll get through this quickly and you can get some rest.”

  She had half expected Ramsey to rant and rave at her and blame her by association for the treachery of other Englishmen. Thankful she had been mistaken, she relaxed, leaning into Brodick’s side.

  “I’m not so overly tired tonight,” she insisted. “But I appreciate your concern. I should start at the very beginning, the night my father awakened my sister and me and tried to get us to safety.”

  For the next hour Gillian took the men through her history. Her voice didn’t falter and she never once hesitated in her recitation of the facts. She simply told them everything that had happened in concise, chronological order. She tried not to leave anything of importance out, and by the time she was finished, her throat was dry and scratchy.

  The men never interrupted her, and only the burning logs crackling in the fire could be heard in the silence that followed. She must have sounded hoarse because Brodick poured a goblet of water for her. She drank it down and thanked him.

  To their credit, Iain and Ramsey were
amazingly calm, considering what they had just heard. They took turns questioning her, and for another hour she was subjected to an intense grilling.

  “Your enemy thought to use your brother to draw you out, Ramsey, so he could kill you,” Brodick said. “Who hates you so much that he would go to such extremes?”

  “Hell if I know,” Ramsey muttered.

  “Ramsey, do you know Christen?” Gillian asked. “Have you heard of the family who might have taken her in and claimed her for their own?”

  Ramsey shook his head. “I’m only just now getting to know all the members of my clan,” he said. “I had been away from home for many years, Gillian, and when I returned to the Sinclairs and became laird, I only knew a handful of my father’s followers.”

  “But Christen isn’t a Sinclair,” Gillian reminded him.

  “Yes, you told me she’s one of the MacPhersons, but unfortunately, I haven’t had time to get to know many of them either,” he admitted. “I honestly don’t know how we’ll find her.”

  “Then you’ll help me?”

  He seemed surprised by her question. “Of course I’ll help.”

  “The old men will know about Christen.” Brodick drew everyone’s attention when he made the comment.

  Iain agreed with a nod. “You’re right. The old men will remember. They know all the families and all the gossip. How old was Christen when she came here?”

  “Six or seven years old,” Gillian answered.

  “If a family suddenly claims a little girl as their daughter—” Ramsey began.

  Iain interrupted him. “But Gillian just told us that the family lived near the border for several years before going north to join their relatives.”

  “Still, word would have gotten out if she wasn’t their own child,” Brodick insisted.

  “I’ll make inquiries,” Ramsey promised.

  “Finding her may not be as difficult as you’re assuming,” Iain said. “Brodick’s right about the old men. When Graham and Gelfrid were alive, they knew everything that went on.”

  “Aye, they did,” Ramsey agreed before turning to Gillian again. “Tell me, what will you do when you find her? Will you ask her to return to England with you?”

  She bowed her head. “No, I won’t,” she said. “But it’s my hope that she’ll remember Arianna’s treasure and that she might even know where it’s hidden.”

  “She was very young when she was given the box,” Iain said. “You’re expecting her to have a strong memory. I doubt she’ll remember anything.”

  “She may not even remember you,” Brodick said.

  Gillian refused to believe that possibility. “Christen is my sister. She’ll know me,” she insisted.

  “You told us that Christen is a year older than you are,” Ramsey said.

  “Almost three years older,” Gillian corrected.

  “Then how is it you remember the details so vividly? My God, you were little more than a baby.”

  “Liese, my dearest friend, God rest her soul, helped me hold on to the memories. She constantly talked about that night and what she had learned from the others who survived. Liese didn’t want me to forget because she knew that one day I would want . . .”

  Brodick nudged her when she suddenly stopped. “She knew you’d want what?”

  “Justice.”

  “And how do you plan to accomplish that?” Ramsey asked.

  “I’m not sure yet, but one thing I do know. I won’t have my father’s name slandered. The man who holds my uncle Morgan captive thinks he can prove that my father killed Arianna and stole the treasure. I mean to prove he didn’t. He will rest easy in his grave,” she added, her voice shaking with emotion. “I do have a glimmer of a plan,” she said then. “Greed motivates the monster,” she added, referring to Baron Alford, though she deliberately withheld his name. “And he likes games. He thinks he’s so clever, but perhaps I can find a way to turn that against him. That is my hope, anyway.”

  Weary from having to revisit the past, she took another drink of water and thought to end the discussion. “I don’t think I’ve left anything out,” she said. “I tried to tell you everything.”

  She was about to add her request that she be excused for the evening, but Iain changed her mind with his comment.

  “Not quite everything,” he said softly.

  She leaned back in her chair and put her hands in her lap. “What did I leave out?” she asked, feigning innocence.

  Brodick put his hand on top of hers. “They know you saw the Highlander who made this pact with the English devil,” he said.

  “You told them?”

  “Alec told his father, and he told Ramsey,” he explained. “But just so you understand, Gillian. If the boy hadn’t mentioned it, I sure as certain would have.”

  “Why did you ask Alec not to tell us about the traitor?” Ramsey asked.

  She took a deep breath. “I worried that you might think to keep me here until I pointed out the man who betrayed you.”

  Iain and Ramsey exchanged a quick look, and she instinctively knew that was their exact plan. They were planning to keep her in the Highlands. She wanted them to admit it. “Is that what you’re thinking to do?”

  Both lairds ignored the question. “What did he look like?” Ramsey asked.

  “He was a big man with long dark hair and a firm jaw. He wasn’t unpleasant to look upon,” she admitted.

  “You’ve just described most of the men in the Highlands, Gillian. Were there no distinguishing marks that would help us find him?”

  “Do you mean scars?”

  “Anything that would help us recognize him.”

  “No, I’m sorry, there really wasn’t anything unusual about him.”

  “I was just hoping . . . it would make it easier,” Ramsey said, and then he leaned forward once again to ask her more questions. She was surprised by the Sinclair laird’s restraint. He sounded so calm and in control, yet she knew he had to be sickened and furious by what he had heard thus far. He wasn’t letting his emotions get the upper hand, though, and she thought his self-control was quite admirable.

  Alec came running down the steps. “Papa, can I bother you?” he called out.

  His father’s smile was all the permission the child needed. Barefoot, he ran across the hall.

  “Alec, why are you still awake?”

  “I forgot to kiss you good night, Papa.”

  Iain hugged Alec, promised he’d look in on him before he went to bed, and sent him back upstairs.

  Gillian watched Alec take his time crossing the room, obviously trying to delay going to bed. The young fought sleep, she thought, but the old relished it, and at the moment, she felt absolutely ancient.

  “Are there any more questions?” she asked wearily.

  “Just one,” Ramsey said.

  “Yes, just one,” Iain agreed. “We want their names, Gillian, all three of them.”

  She looked from one laird to the other and then said, “And when you know who they are? What do you plan to do?”

  “Let us worry about that,” Iain said. “You don’t need to know.”

  She disagreed. “Oh, but I think I do need to know. Tell me,” she insisted.

  “What the hell do you think we’re going to do?” Brodick asked in a low voice.

  Jarred by his anger, she ordered, “Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Brodick.”

  He was astounded by her outburst and wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Had they been alone, he probably would have pulled her into his lap and kissed her, just for the hell of it, but they weren’t alone, there was an audience watching and waiting, and he didn’t want to embarrass her. He did want to kiss her, though, and that realization irritated him. Where had all his discipline gone? When he was close to her, he couldn’t seem to control his own thoughts.

  “Hell,” he muttered.

  “And don’t curse in front of me either,” she whispered.

  He grabbed her arm, pulled her into his side, and
bent down to whisper into her ear. “It pleases me to see you’ve got the courage to stand up to me.”

  Would she ever understand him, she wondered. “Then I’m about to make you delirious, Laird.”

  “No,” he countered. “You’re about to answer the question. We want the names of the Englishmen.”

  No one noticed that Alec was still lingering in the hall. When he had heard the briskness in his father’s voice, he’d turned around to watch and listen, then slowly crept forward. He was worried his papa might be angry with Gillian, and if that turned out to be true, then the boy decided he would become her champion. If that didn’t work, he would go and get his mama.

  Brodick had leaned back in his chair and was now patiently waiting for her to do as she had been instructed by all three lairds.

  “Yes,” she suddenly said. “I will be happy to give you their names, just as soon as you promise me you will not do anything until after the fall festival.”

  “We need their names now, Gillian,” Ramsey insisted, completely ignoring her demand.

  “I need your promise first, Ramsey. I will not let you put my Uncle Morgan in danger.”

  “He’s already in danger,” Iain pointed out.

  “Yes, but he’s alive now, and I mean to keep him that way.”

  “How can you be certain he’s still alive?” Ramsey asked.

  “If he were killed, I would have no reason to return to England. The monster knows that. I won’t give him anything until I see my uncle,” she explained. “He won’t harm him.”

  Iain sighed. “You’re putting all of us in a difficult position,” he began, trying to be diplomatic. “You’ve brought my son home to me and for that I will be eternally grateful. I know how much your uncle means to you, and I promise that I will do everything within my power to free him, but Gillian, I want the name of the man who locked my son away like an animal, the man who beat you near to death—”

  “Papa, don’t be mad at Gillian.” Alec shouted his plea as he ran to his father. Tears clouded the boy’s eyes. “She didn’t do anything wrong. I know the man’s name.”

  Iain lifted Alec into his lap and tried to reassure him. “I’m not angry,” he promised. “And I know Gillian didn’t do anything wrong.”