Page 41 of The Highlander's Captured Bride
“I’d rather tell ye at a later time,” he said. “Now we need to find this man. Let’s work from the entrance into the far ends of the village.”
“I agree,” she said as they entered the village.
While the charming cottages and huts were still picturesque, somewhere in this pleasant place, there was a man who was aiming to kill him and his father. He still doubted the man was foolish enough to stay behind after he had conned a poor boy to be a scapegoat and had delivered the threat directly to his target, and gotten away unnoticed.
His jaw set hard. Whoever was behind this was a mastermind of deception. And such a person would never leave himself out in the open to be found. Still, they had to try.
The streets were fairly full and, as he searched the bodies and faces, he did not see anyone who matched the boy’s description of tall and thin. From the corner of his eye, he saw Violet and the lad look around too, while exchanging whispers and distressed shakes of the head. They moved further into the village and down the line of private homes.
He took it upon himself to go to those with lights in the windows and ask the villagers inside about the man they were seeking. It was slow going from house to house and some of the people were wary. After all, he was a stranger coming to their doors at twilight, but after identifying himself at the Laird’s son, they were happy to help. Unfortunately, no one had ever seen him before or had the slightest inkling of who this man was.
It’s like I’m—we’re—chasing a spirit.
The old man peering at him from rheumy eyes shook his head. “Sorry, sonny boy, I’ve never seen a man like that before.”
This was the last cottage on the line of houses and as with the dozens before him, this man had nothing to give to them. It was past dusk and night was deepening; their only hope now was the tavern.
“Thank ye, though,” Ethan said, dipping his head in a respectful bow. “I dae appreciate it.”
With the door closed and the sound of the man’s slow shuffle back inside, Ethan rubbed his tired eyes and sucked in a cool breath to combat the headache threatening to bloom at his temples. Spinning, he strode down the narrow steps back to his horse and the two who were waiting for him.
The lad was dozing on Violet’s chest when she looked up. “Nothing?”
“Aye,” he sighed, swinging up to his saddle smoothly. He then looked over the poor child and asked, “I dinnae expect that we’ll, or rather, I will take long at the tavern. Stay with him and then we can go home.”
Violet gently ran a hand over the boy’s flyaway hair and eased him back in her shoulder. For a brief, fleeting breath, Ethan wondered what she would be like with children. If she was even as half of caring for a child as she was with his boy, he knew she would be an exceptional mother.
They rode back to the tavern where Violet stayed close to the doorways, just in case she needed to call him. He entered to see clusters of men in threes or fours around tables, lifting mugs of liquor high and chugging them down soon after. Tavern women wound through the tables adroitly, laughing gaily when a man playfully slapped their behind.
Judging from the slurred speech and level of noise, he realized that speaking to anyone except the man at the bar or the women who served the liquor that he would not get anywhere. Despite the smoky dimness of the room, Ethan spotted the heavyset man manning the bar and wiping out mugs with a cloth.
“I need yer help,” Ethan said but the man was facing away from him. Based on the barkeep's inattention, his words had been lost in the din. Stepping into his sight, Ethan leaned in. “I need to speak with ye.”
“Ale is a pence and wine a double,” the man spoke around the toothpick in his mouth. “Naything free, if that’s what yer edging for.”
“I dinnae come to drink,” Ethan said, “I need to find a man that came through here yesterday.”
“A lot of men pass through here, boy,” he grunted while reaching for another tankard. “If ye expect me to remember them all then ye’ve been chewing on a stick of Henbane.”
Clenching his jaw, Ethan swallowed over the man’s dismissive tone. If he knew what was at stake, he probably would not be so blithe, but he could not tell them what was happening. “I just need ye to remember if ye saw a man, thin and slender, probably wearing a hood or cloak pass through.”
The man’s hand stopped and his thick greyish-brown brows furrowed. Ethan’s hope ramped up while the man collected his thoughts, but the moments felt like decades passing by. When his brows went lax and his shoulders shrugged, Ethan knew the answer before the man spoke it.
“Sorry, boy, I cannae recall anyone like that in these here parts.” The man moved on to another goblet. “Thin, slender men are rare in this village, seems more a man from Clan Hofte. They have them in spades up there.”
The man’s words sent a forbidding chill through Ethan. That was something he had not even considered. Could they be facing a higher tier of threat? Was Clan Hofte behind this? Shelving that thought, he approached the barmaids, and after asking, all five had given him a negative report. He went back outside and found Violet sitting on the stairs with the boy leaning on her arm.
“No one had seen our man, I suppose,” Violet said quietly.
He sat near her and tilted his head to the sky, “No one has seen this man but I have been told we might have a worse problem. The barkeep told me that I’m describing a man from Clan Hofte and honestly, I can see through it. We might have peace now, but it was not all that way. Someone could be whispering something in Laird Russell’s ear, urging him to break the peace. The man we’re looking for could be an emissary from that Clan.”
Violet blinked. “That…is distressing.”
“I ken,” he sighed, then eyed the boy sleeping at her side. “It’s time we went home, though.”
“Ethan…” She nibbled on her lip and was looking almost everywhere but to him. “Earlier today…at the meadow. I…did we go too far?”
His mood shifted as quickly as a river’s tide. The worry of another war between his family and Clan Hofte was shoved away in light of Violet’s unease. Taking her hand, that was a little cold and clammy, he laced her fingers with his. “Nay, that is unless I made ye uncomfortable—”
