Page 53 of Highland Sword
“My apologies.” She gave him a side look. “It’s easy to forget.”
“And why is that?”
“Well… a barrister? A politician?” She paused, searching for the appropriate words. “Your chosen professions evoke certain qualities. A refined disposition. A certain genteelness of behavior, speech, attitude, dress, and bearing.I believe all of those things are necessary for one to be successful as a member of Parliament. You, sir, possess all of them. I’m certain you’ll be the toast of society in London. I can’t imagine you driving a herd to market or sweating behind a plow.”
“Genteelness of dress?” he scoffed. “Why do I feel like I’ve just been insulted?”
“You shouldn’t. I meant it as a compliment.” She turned her attention back to the men training in the yard.
Her comments and her conspicuously detached manner hinted at her true feelings. She now saw him as a politician, and she didn’t care for it. He didn’t know why. Someone needed to represent the people of the Highlands. Someone who knew the law and didn’t have an agenda of personal advancement. This was the life he’d been preparing for.
“Well, before I schedule the requisite hours with my tailor, I have a few responsibilities as barrister that I need to see to.”
“Good idea. Your clients will be grateful.”
On their way back from Inverness two days ago, Aidan told her about the list of names he’d gotten from the Chattan brothers. He also explained briefly why Wemys’s cooperation was critical in finding out which name belonged to the agent-provocateur in the government’s entrapment scheme.
“Right now, my clients have nothing to pin their hopes on, unless your… unless Wemys agrees to cooperate and tell me who was helping the authorities.”
Somehow, he needed to get through to her.
“Andrew Hardie and John Baird were sentenced to death and executed in Stirling on September 8. Hanged and beheaded.” He spoke plainly, knowing she was not skittish about such bluntness. Perhaps that was what wasneeded to convince her to go downstairs and listen to what her uncle wanted to say. “Edmund and George Chattan are facing the same fate. They’ll surely lose their lives if I can’t secure Wemys’s help.”
Morrigan walked along the ramparts, and Aidan followed.
“He has the answers but refuses to help me unless you see him. If he lives to see next month, he’ll renege on his promise to testify in court.”
“He is of no use to you, then. I can help you, however, if you choose to throw him off this parapet.”
She continued to walk along the perimeter of the tower. There was no hint of joking in her tone. Aidan had a strong suspicion she was dead earnest.
“I’d take you up on your offer, if the lives of two men weren’t at stake.”
She leaned to a dangerous degree out over the edge to stare at some people in the gardens below.
“Don’t jump. I have no wish to lose you or your friendship. I promise, after this, never to ask you again.” He touched her elbow, hoping she’d face him. “But for this one time, will you consider hearing what Wemys has to say? He promises they are the last words you’ll hear from a dying man.”
Morrigan turned and Aidan was stunned to see tears pooling in her dark eyes. “I can’t, Mr. Grant. I’m sorry about your clients. Dreadfully sorry. But nothing you say, nothing he says, will ever convince me to go to that man.”
Without uttering another word, she went around him and disappeared down the stairs.
CHAPTER17
MORRIGAN
For the next three days, nightmares hung about Morrigan like spirits of the dead. Every dark corner of her bedchamber seemed to be inhabited by shapes that shifted and changed and disappeared when she mustered her courage to approach them.
It was the coming observance of Samhain. It had to be. The ongoing preparations in the castle and the village were affecting her.
She had no desire to sleep. Closing her eyes would surely bring these spirits and fairies creeping across the wood floor, their fangs and claws out and gleaming in the moonlight.
She wouldn’t give them the chance. With a blanket around her and a lit candle in her hand, she paced like a caged beast. Like a condemned prisoner waiting for the dawn. Waiting. Finally, she could walk no longer. She’d settle in her chair, fighting to stay conscious and alert. Then she’d doze, awaken with a start, and resume her nightlong watch into the dark places, praying for the rising of the sun. Praying for release from these night terrors.
As soon as the sky began to lighten, she’d descend to the kitchens, where the fires were lit and the smells of bread filled the air and bleary-eyed workers went about their daily tasks. She was safe here.
The Mackintoshes of Dalmigavie had a kirk in the center of the village, and a chapel in the castle. Both had seen changes in services performed within their walls. Several times. But the folk held to the auld ways for the most part, in their language, their traditions, and their beliefs. Christianity itself was still a newcomer in the Highlands, where the belief in fire and stone and oak and wind and rain and darkness was as old as the earth and the sky. There was the world that could be seen and the world that could not be seen.
Morrigan had come to learn that these Highlanders had a special reverence for the threshold places and threshold times. Borders, bridges, crossroads, doorways. Dawn and dusk. The spring and autumn equinoxes. Samhain marked the transition between summer, a time of growth and light and order—and winter, a time of death and darkness and chaos.
