Page 3 of Transporting a Ruthless Highlander
Kevin and Struan put their arms around him and led him back into the castle.
“Thank God I have my two other sons to love,” David Gilchrist said sadly, with a valiant attempt at a smile.
“We will always be here, Father.” Kevin’s voice was firm. “Neither of us will ever go to war.”
“Aye, we will always be here,” Struan added, hugging David’s shoulders.
The laird still had to endure the ordeal of greeting his guests and hearing their commiserations, but afterward, although a delicious spread had been laid out for all the mourners, he slipped away to mourn by himself. Kevin made to go after him, but Struan caught his arm and held him back. “I think he needs to be by himself now, Kevin,” he said softly.
Kevin nodded as he watched his father walk slowly away. He was a broken man. “Perhaps you are right, Struan,” he agreed.
Presently, Struan’s betrothed, May Telfer, came to stand beside him. The daughter of a gentleman farmer, she was short, fair, and very pretty, with wicked blue eyes and a mischievous nature. Now, however, she was dressed in deepest black with no adornments of any kind on her person, and her expression was one of heartfelt pity as she looked up at Struan.
“How are you, Struan?” she asked gently. “You look tired.”
“I have done all my weeping,” he told her, his voice firm. “Now, I intend to be married to you and move on with the rest of my life.”
“I hope it is soon,” she murmured. “But I doubt we will be allowed to wed before the mourning period is over, and that is six more weeks.”
“Father will not want us to wait,” Struan replied. “He is a great believer in seizing the moment.”
“I think we should, though, out of respect for Dougall,” she countered. “Forty days is not too long.”
Struan sighed and looked down at her fondly. “You are right, May, as you always are.”
“You were always his favorite, you know,” May said suddenly.
Struan frowned. “What makes you say that?” he asked, mystified.
“Everything.” She turned to face him. “He respects you as a man but loves you like a child. I can see it in his eyes every time he looks at you. He does not look at Kevin that way, and he never looked at Dougall like that. He tries not to, but he loves you the best, perhaps because he loved your mother. He was a fortunate man to have discovered love twice in a lifetime.”
“He did not love her enough to marry her,” Struan replied bitterly. Then he banished his bad thoughts. He smiled as he kissed the top of May’s head. “I am sure he loves us all the same amount. He is a fair man.”
No one disturbed David Gilchrist the next morning, and the door to his bedroom stayed closed until well after noon, which was when they began to worry.
“Do you think we should wake him?” Kevin asked Struan anxiously. “It is not like him to stay in bed so long.”
“It is not every day he buries a son,” Struan pointed out, “but perhaps you are right. We should wake him up.”
Kevin led the way, and Struan knocked on the door, but despite them waiting outside for a while, there was no answer. They both knocked again, this time more loudly, but there was still no reply.
Struan tried the handle, convinced that the door would be locked, but it turned easily in his hand. “He always locks his door,” he said, puzzled. The two brothers exchanged anxious glances before Struan stepped inside.
The still figure lying in the bed did not resemble their father. The corpse’s mouth was gaping, and his face was frozen in a mask of terror. His eyes were fixed and wide open as if staring into those of the monster who had ended his life in the cruelest way possible.
There was a massive slit in the laird’s throat that went from one earlobe to the other, a cut so deep that his spine was visible among the tattered flesh. He was lying in a pool of his own blood, which had soaked into the sheets around him and underneath him. In contrast to the bright red shape on the bed, his skin was paper white from being bled dry. It was a horrific sight, and Kevin turned away at once, retching.
“Who could have done this?” Struan asked, horrified. It seemed that his whole family was being decimated all of a sudden, but why? He turned away from the awful sight of his father’s body and saw Kevin bending down to pick something up from the floor.
Kevin turned around, holding up a dagger. It was a beautiful weapon, its silver handle intricately carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, its blade wickedly sharp and lethal, and it was Struan’s.
“This is yours.” Kevin’s voice was hard. “You did this. You murdered my father.”
Struan frowned at him. “You are jesting, of course!” He was half-laughing, but his heart was beating wildly. Did Kevin mean what he said? Surely not; he was obviously in shock. “If I had murdered him, would I have been stupid enough to leave the murder weapon at the scene? This is no time for laughing, Kevin.”
“Nevertheless, here it is.” Kevin shrugged, and Struan saw a glint in his brother’s eyes that he had never seen before, a narrow, evil gleam that froze his blood. “How did it come to be here?” He ran his forefinger down the blood-smeared handle and held it up for Struan to see, then he backed up toward the door, keeping him in sight.
“Guards!” he called, and immediately two hefty men appeared at the door. Pointing to one, he said, “You, search his room, and you”—he indicated the other one—“stay and watch him.” He nodded toward Struan.
