Page 77 of The Highlander's Alluring Spy
Father—
The door opened, and there he stood. His pale hair had a few more silver strands, and he wore a tired expression behind the thick rims of his spectacles, but his eyes widened at the sight of her.
“Magnolia!” he gasped, surprise, gratitude, confusion, and even more coloring his tone. “Is it you? Are you truly here? I do not understand, I—”
Everything she had planned to say, all her decorum, disappeared as she met her father’s eyes. Tears ran unchecked down her face once more as she threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. “Daddy, ithurts,” she sobbed, using a name she hadn’t for him since childhood. “It hurts so much.”
Her father clearly had no idea what she was talking about, but he drew her gently inside the study and closed the door. He led her to a seat, coaxing her to sit down, and fetched her some water. Then he returned to her side and hugged her while she cried, without asking any questions yet, and Magnolia had never been so grateful.
* * *
The door to Elaine’s chambers creaked open, but Nathair didn’t try to move. The girl had screamed for over an hour before descending into terrible heart-shattering sobs that he thought he would never erase from his mind.
At some point, she had climbed into his lap, and he’d held her tight, and they’d cried together. He wished he could explain to his baby how all of this had happened, why things were like they were, but Nathair barely knew himself.
Eventually, she’d cried herself back to sleep, and now he sat cross-legged on the floor, the child curled on his legs. The two pups sat around them, too, as though guarding the little girl.
“Nathair,” William said, entering the room. “I need to speak wi’ ye.”
“I’m busy, Commander,” Nathair said roughly.
William didn’t move, folding his arms. He looked tired again. “We’ve had a runner.”
Runners were what William called his unique message service that ran throughout Scotland, England, and even part of Wales. Travel from the South could take weeks or more, but with the vast system of messengers the MacFoihl Clan had in place, messages could reach the castle from England in a matter of days.
Which was why Nathair stiffened at those words and looked up sharply into his friend’s face. “What news?”
William’s expression was grim. “They’re comin’, Nathair. They’re comin’ now.”
Nathair looked down at the sleeping child in his lap, the little that was left of his strength ebbing away.
They were coming. Nathair’s people, his castle, his daughter…they would all be gone soon.
And all because their foolish Laird had given his heart to a spy.
22
The Intervention
The first thing her father did when Magnolia had calmed down enough to breathe was to ask her how the Laird had hurt her. Magnolia gave him an astonished look, unable to understand how he could come to such a conclusion.
“Didn’t you get my letter, Father?” she asked, a little more composed now. “The private one I sent alongside the one for the Order?”
Lord Gallagher’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t understand,” he said. “There was only one letter. The one in which you advised us to attack immediately and lamented your own safety. And yet, now, here you sit. How can this be?”
What?
Magnolia stared at him, uncomprehending. What did he mean? She thought of the letters she’d sent, and she knew that there was simply no possible way for him to get that impression from her words. “Father, whatever are you talking about? That is not what my letter said at all. Neither of them.”
Daniel looked confused and turned to take a letter from his desk. He handed it to her. “This is your signature, is it not? I asked the Viscount to allow me to keep it so that I may have you close to me.”
Magnolia stared at the document. It started similarly to her own letter, true, and that certainly looked very similar to her signature. Still, the words were all different–all wrong. “I don’t understand,” she said, tracing her finger along her own name.
She felt a slight dent below her touch and gasped as she realized exactly what had happened. “Father…someone used my original letter to trace my signature through. They must have leaned hard as they wrote over the original, then simply followed the lines for their forgery!”
Daniel frowned. “What—why?”
She reached into her cloak, pulling out the letters Nathair had returned to her just when he’d commanded her to leave. “Here, Father. Read.Theseare the letters I sent. I do not understand…I can’t…”
