Caird fought his frustration and lust in equal measures. Mairead had made the only request left to her and this time, he believed her. He could never physically force a woman and that’s what he’d have to do if he took her to the celebrations.
Had the conversation from the woods finally broken her?
Malcolm, feeling along his horse’s hoof, looked up expectantly as Caird approached him. The Grahams, fortunately, were tending the traps for more food.
‘How fare the horses?’ Caird asked.
‘Yours will travel, I still need to see to mine.’’
Soon, they could go.
‘Mairead will travel nae further,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Malcolm rose to his feet.
His brother’s unreasonableness fuelled his frustration, burning the last remnants of lust he felt.
Mairead’s hand on his arm had been cold, too cold. When she had touched him, he stopped not because she wanted him to, but because he fought the impulse to take her hands between his own and warm them. His lust he could understand, but not the care.
‘Not good,’ he ground out. ‘You know what we possess.’
‘But you believe she doesn’t know about the jewel?’
‘She couldn’t.’ Mairead had relinquished everything.
‘So she wanted compensation, coin instead, and a ride back to the inn.’ Malcolm’s disgust laced his words.
Mairead stood with no anger or guile, only resolve. It was he who had stood like a besotted innocent, wanting to warm her hands. ‘She wants nothing.’
‘She asked you to just leave her? It makes nae sense.’ Malcolm picked up a stick, but it stayed idle in his hands.
The Grahams should have been done with their work by now, which meant they waited for his signal, for his resolution. He was, after all, the dependable one. He would fix it, but not to his liking.
‘There is another plan.’
He looked around. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, realising he’d turned his back on Mairead. Had he been expecting obedience?
‘Into the woods,’ Malcolm said.
She had left already? He moved.
‘The other way, Brother, for privacy I’m sure.’
Not gone, then. He frowned. Lust, anger and now...worry. He had the dagger and the Jewel of Kings. Of any man in the whole of Scotland, he was at this moment the most powerful.
He felt anything but.
And just now, he had to cede even more control of this situation. He, who demanded absolute control. ‘You go with the Grahams; you look for the thief.’
Malcolm exhaled. ‘You want me to go alone?’
Caird raised his brow.
‘You want me to go, when I already have difficulty with Gaira’s wedding celebrations.’
‘You accepted our sister’s happiness when she married that English knight.’
‘Aye, but I doona fully ken. Then after Dunbar, how could I accept who she wed?’
‘You weren’t to go to Dunbar.’
‘Ah, aye, I disobeyed our laird’s orders. That still doesn’t sit well with your rule-controlled world.’
No, it didn’t. It made no rational sense for Malcolm to have gone. Bram had forbidden it.
‘One of us had to go,’ Malcolm replied. ‘You were there. You saw. Despite your strict adherence to rules, it was the honourable act.’
Caird refused to give words to what he had seen at Dunbar. Many a Scot had fled to Ettrick Forest but the battlefield was strewn with arrows and broken men. Malcolm was buried under another body, unconscious and unaware Caird was trying to save him.
Unerringly, Caird’s eyes moved across the thin scar on Malcolm’s face. He knew it cut further along his body, deeper across the chest. It would take time to heal, but would never go away.
A permanent reminder of a nightmare.
And Malcolm going to Dunbar was incomprehensible. Senseless. Malcolm had always believed in right and wrong. There was no middle ground.
For Caird, disobeying a laird’s orders was wrong. So either Malcolm had found a middle ground, or they differed in what they believed was right.
Neither option sat well with him. Colquhouns always presented a united front.
‘I’ll go.’ Malcolm exhaled, then laughed, but there was no humour in his voice. ‘The jewel, and apparently you, require nothing more than my going. Silence you give me, but I’ll get nae peace from you.’
Caird knew their argument over Dunbar wasn’t over, might never be over, but for now he’d accept any cooperation and a distraction from his brother’s wounds.
‘If I find this thief?’ Malcolm turned to his horse again. ‘What am I to do with him?’
‘Get the truth from him,’ Caird replied. ‘Then go to Bram. As laird, he must know the clan’s involvement. I’ll meet you there in a fortnight.’
‘Bram has his own concerns now.’
Caird shook his head. ‘He is decisive. The occurrence on Fergusson land will not take him long to resolve. There will be time to prepare the course for the jewel.’
Malcolm stopped feeling along the horse’s neck. ‘You still mean to use the jewel? How?’
‘I’ll find her brother,’ he answered. He still didn’t believe the Buchanans had hidden the jewel, but he had to reveal all lies to gain answers. The jewel was too powerful a weapon, and he had to be certain of how to proceed.
‘Then do to her brother as I do to the thief?’ Malcolm asked, his question lingering.
Caird knew what he meant. When either of them found the thief, there would be no letting him go this time. And it wouldn’t necessarily be in the heat of the battle, but in cold blood.
He did not doubt his brother could do it. Malcolm had lost once and as a result had never been the same. Oh, he laughed and he enjoyed, but his grief was like an ice shard next to his heart forbidding it from ever thawing.
He masked it well, but it made him lethal. His brother could kill in cold blood. Could Caird do the same to Mairead’s brother?
‘I will find the truth,’ he said enigmatically. He could give no better answer.
‘From Buchanans?’ Malcolm scoffed. ‘You go to Buchanan land with the Jewel of Kings. What’s to prevent them from taking it from you?’
‘I will question the brother separate from the clan,’ he said. ‘I will keep it safe until we talk to Bram.’
‘I could take it straight to Bram now,’ Malcolm replied.
‘The jewel is too powerful; we need answers to know how to proceed before we address him.’
‘Why not separate the dagger from the jewel? You take one, I the other.’
‘I cannot know if the dagger is somehow tied to the jewel. I may need both to discover the truth.’
‘Answers. Which is why you won’t let Mairead go,’ Malcolm said, not a question but a fact. ‘It never occurred to you to give it to me, did it?’
Caird remained silent. He couldn’t give it to his brother without knowing more about the jewel. He’d never knowingly risk his brother like that again.
Malcolm grunted at Caird’s silence. ‘I won’t give my blessing with this, but I’ll do what you ask. If only to give you time to come to your senses.’ He turned back to his horse to feel along its sides. ‘I’m assuming you want this done without the Grahams’ knowledge.’
‘It is necessary.’
‘What if the thief is not at the games?’
Caird relished the thought of seeing the thief again. ‘It makes nae sense he’d be elsewhere.’ The thief had been at the inn where they’d started celebrating; he had to know where they were headed.
He heard the sound of sticks breaking as Mairead entered the campsite. Her hair was loose, untamed, and a leaf stuck to one tendril.
Mairead was just as wild. Just as impulsive. He wondered how she’d respond when she discovered she’d only be travelling with him.
Want coiled too easily in his loins at the thought. He hoped for her sake he found the thief. There was too much responsibility, too much lust and he had nothing but a Buchanan, with hair and curves that taunted him.
He forced his eyes to return to his brother. ‘A fortnight,’ he ground out. ‘Nae more.’