Page 66 of The Cruel Highlander's Healer
“Alistair!” Conall bellowed, stamping his fists down on his desk as he yelled for his guard for the third time.
Finally, after what felt like a blessedly long time, the sound of bumbling footsteps filled the air. Alistair appeared a moment later, stooped and wheezing.
His watery grey eyes fixed on Conall and immediately began bumbling out apologies.
Conall took a second to regard the man. Once one of his most favored guards, and an injury a couple months back had seemed to zap all the life from him entirely.
It had bowed his spine and stolen his once powerful voice and turned it meek. Conall would not cut the man loose, he would not do a disservice to the years of loyalty that Alistair had paid to his family. But perhaps he could reassess his duties once again.
Alistair had already been reassigned, not long after the injury. Guarding the dungeons and Conall’s most important prisoner, instead of out in the field. But perhaps they could find something else for him?
“I need ye to start investigatin’,” Conall said, his attention fixing on the man once more.
“Investigatin’, me laird?”
Doubt crossed Alistair’s face and Conall nodded.
“The poison in the water,” he explained. “I’ve been up here thinkin’ about it all day in me study. It had to be someone in the castle.”
Alistair cocked his head to the side, a question written clearly on the man’s face.
“What makes ye think it was someone in the castle?”
Conall didn’t like being questioned, but he’d always told his men that they could raise concerns with him. His father had taught him a long time ago that it was what made a good leader and what bred faithful guards.
He still bristled all the same.
“It was nae someone from the village,” Conall explained, his voice conveying more patience than what he truly felt. “Nae when it would be too big a risk that they could be poisoned as well. Everyone in the town made their food, washed their clothes, and drank ale made from the water of that lake.”
“And the only other people who ken the children play in that lake,” Conall continued, “are the people within this castle.”
He waited a moment for the information to wash over Alistair, watching his guard as he took it all in. The confusion on Alistair’s face slowly faded as he processed the information, slowly shifting into something else. Something that Conall couldn’t entirely read.
“I ken ye can be discreet,” Conall explained further. “I ken ye are able to get information out of people and win their trust. So I need ye to understand how delicate this matter is. I cannae have me men thinkin’ I daenae trust ‘em, and that I suspect them of somethin’ such as this.”
“But ye do,” Alistair pointed out.
Conall’s chest puffed up. He would allow his guards to question him, but he would not allow them to be disrespectful.
“I daenae ken if it’s one of me men,” Conall growled, and Alistair shrank back slightly at the shift in his Laird’s tone. “I just ken it’s someone in the castle. Servants, stable hands. All of them need questioned. Discreetly, if ye will.”
Alistair studied him for a moment more before bowing his head in acknowledgement. Conall heaved a sigh of relief, dismissing the guard as he turned back to his desk.
Conall had been to see the children before supper. When he’d talked to Kate that morning, when they’d first arrived back at the castle, she’d informed him of how much better they’d been doing, but Conall had wanted to see it all for himself.
He hadn’t wanted to see Eliza, though. Hadn’t wanted to impede on her space. So he’d waited until he knew she and Kate would be at supper and he’d gone to see them.
He still found it hard to believe, the difference in the children from when he’d left for Councilman Auld’s village just a few days ago. Conall had talked to a few of them, then made his way to the kitchens to get the servants to deliver them a hearty supper for the ones that felt like they could stomach it.
Which, admittedly, had been most of them.
He knew it would not be long before Eliza had him write to the families, informing them that their children were ready to come home. So he’d retreated to his study to begin preparing them. There were so many of them to write.
Sitting down at his desk, he took up the letter he’d been finishing. It was about a young boy named Balfour. He’d been one of the first to fall ill.
He felt joy, now, writing to them to tell them that he would be coming home soon. Conall took his time finishing the letter, deciding that there would be no more for the night. Thoughts of Eliza had begun creeping into his mind.
I need to explain to her about last night. I need to apologize.
