Cathy Maxwell - [Chattan Curse 03] (9 page)

She rode up to them and dismounted without waiting for help from Laird Macnachtan.

For a moment, she feared she would be overwhelmed with loss and guilt. She walked around each grave, offering a prayer. She couldn’t believe the hearty Balfour or the steady Thomas were gone.

Laird Macnachtan joined her, while the others, still mounted, kept a respectful distance.

“You even gave them markers,” she said. “How did you know their names?”

“Most had some sort of identification. Balfour also had a list in his pocket.”

“Balfour. He was always thorough,” she said, her jaw hardening.

A Chattan didn’t show emotion in public. It was not seemly. She could almost hear her mother’s voice chastising her. Then again, her mother had never demonstrated the tenderest of feeling to anyone, not even her children. These servants had been closer to Margaret than either of her parents.

“I should have written Harry,” Margaret said. “It’s all so confusing. Everything is happening so fast.”

“I did send word to London to your brother Lord Lyon,” he reminded her. “I’m sure he will tell their families.”

“Thank you.”

She sounded so civilized but in truth a rage was building inside her. How dare that witch claim them all? The servants were not a part of this. How dare she take their lives as if they were nothing?

Margaret faced the laird. “I’m going to beat her,” she vowed. “I shall not let that witch win.”

He nodded, yet there was a wariness in his eye and not of Fenella, but of her. He thought she spoke nonsense. No one believed save her, and Margaret realized she must protect them all.

She was
here
, where Fenella had once lived. Harry had been right. The battle would take place here and Margaret was not going to shy away from the reckoning. But she must be wary or more lives could be lost.

“Take me to the site of the accident,” she ordered, purpose filling her words. “I must find that book.”

“Of course, my lady,” he said, his doubts in his voice. Well, let him think she was a lunatic. She no longer cared what anyone thought of her. Her sole purpose was to defeat the curse.

She started to let him help her mount her horse, when a new concern struck her. “You said you sent a messenger to my brother. When did you do this?”

He shrugged. “When we discovered the accident.”

“Should you not have heard something from London by now? Can a man travel to London and back in that span of time?” A heavy weight settled upon her. “Perhaps my brother is already dead.”

He shook his head. “You are leaping to conclusions, my lady. Perhaps you would be wiser to focus on facts. On what is real and true. My man has not been gone four days and I have no reason to believe he will travel faster home than he did on the way to London. Have patience.”

Margaret looked around the churchyard, suddenly feeling as if the trees could listen to their conversation. “Fenella could have stopped your messenger. She would if it suited her purpose.”

His brows came together. “Or there might be some reasonable delay such as the weather.”

“You still don’t believe,” Margaret said. “I understand. I would have my doubts as well. But you are a fool to not heed my warning—”

“Is something the matter?” Lady Macnachtan asked, riding up to them, with Laren and Anice alongside. They had all been on the other side of the clearing.

Laird Macnachtan made an impatient sound and faced them. “Nothing is wrong. Lady Margaret and I were discussing the messenger I sent to her brother.” He started walking to his horse. “Come, we need to be on our way.”

The distance to the site of the accident was a good five miles’ ride.

Laird Macnachtan turned off the road, riding through a forest of pine, their breathing coming out in puffs of cold air. The ground was wet, marshy even. The mare picked her own way and Margaret had the good sense to let her have her head.

They reached higher land. The woods changed here. Gone were the mighty pines. In their place were bare-limbed trees, dry shrubbery and layers of damp leaves padding the ground.

Margaret’s pulse picked up a beat.

She recognized this place.

She’d dreamed of it shortly before the accident. Here were the gnarled limbs of ancient trees looming over a forest path.

And there was the bend in the road, straight ahead of her.

She reined in her horse.

“Is something the matter?” Laird Macnachtan asked.

“Where are we?” she demanded.

“In the shadow of Ben Cruachan.”

“This is where you found the accident?” Alarm gave her voice a strident tone.

“Around the bend and a bit of a ways, my lady.” There was a pause. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head, not answering, but she moved her mare closer to his horse. She felt safe when she was with him.

The dream was very clear in her memory.

However, there had been a green glow hovering just around the bend in the road, and there was nothing now except for the hazy light of winter. Nor did the trees seem as threatening as in her dream.

They rode on. Margaret braced herself, uncertain of what to expect, and was rather disappointed to ride around the bend and discover only more trees, more brown brush.

But there was one tree among all the others that commanded attention. It was massive oak whose branches seemed to spread over the forest—

“It was
here
, wasn’t it?” Lady Macnachtan said, reining in her horse.

Margaret had been so involved with her own turbulent emotions, she had almost forgotten what significance this route held for the laird’s sister-in-law.

“Yes,” he answered. Laren and Anice flanked Lady Macnachtan with their horses. They all waited, Margaret included, for what Lady Macnachtan wished to do.

“Is that
his
blood on the tree?” she asked. There was a dark stain on the oak above the mistletoe. It could have been the oddity of nature, or something else more sinister.

“It is,” he confirmed. “One would think it would be worn or washed away, and yet I see it still.”

Lady Macnachtan’s frown deepened. She raised a gloved hand to her eyes. “He died alone,” she whispered. “All alone.”

Anice leaned forward with a comforting arm but Lady Macnachtan shook her off, her gaze fastened on the tree. She sat quiet for a long moment, and then said in a small, hoarse voice, “I wish to leave now.”

“If you would like to return to Marybone, I shall go with you,” Anice said.

The answer was a shake of the head. “Let us go forward.”

Laird Macnachtan sat a moment in silence as if reasoning something out in his own mind, and then said, “I was visiting this place where Brodie died, when a stag came through the forest and stopped right here almost in front of me. He was a magnificent beast and for a moment we took each other’s measure, but he was frightened away by a piece of clothing the wind blew through the air. It seemed to fall out of the sky but then I noticed more clothing and debris from the accident. I followed a trail of clothing up the slope.”

As he spoke, he kicked his horse forward. There was no path here. Margaret’s mare pushed her way past the branches of shrubs and small trees that tried to catch up on them as if to hold them back.

They were in the shadow of the mountain and Margaret saw broken trees where her coach had come tumbling down the mountain.

Shattered, splintered pieces of wood and harness tracings still littered the ground.

Margaret dismounted, her heart pounding in her ears. Fenella’s book
must
be here.

The laird and his sisters also dismounted.

“Where did you find me?” Margaret asked, swiping at the brush with her crop.

“This way,” he said, and led her up the slope to a small clearing protected by stately firs. Their evergreen branches shut out the light and deadened sound, giving this place a sense of being another world. “You were in here.”

Margaret frowned. “This is not what I remember. I was on hard, cold ground without any layer of pine needles.”

“Are you certain?” he asked. “Sometimes our mind plays tricks upon us.”

“Where was my maid’s body?” Margaret asked.

“Over here,” he said, and walked down the hill a bit to a level spot against a beech tree.

This was the place she remembered. “Someone moved me.” She looked to the laird. “Is that possible?”

“It might be. You were on your back, your hands folded at your waist as if someone had posed you in that manner. Everyone else looked as if they had been tossed to the ground like rag dolls, but you appeared to be merely sleeping.”

Anice had wandered away from their little group. She now stood as if listening.

Margaret tried to listen as well. There was no sound save for the wind in the trees—and then she heard it. Someone was coming toward them through the woods and there was the smell of burning tar in the air.

Laird Macnachtan heard as well. He stepped over to his horse and removed a pistol from his saddlebag. He placed himself in front of the women.

Within seconds, a party of five men came marching through the woods. They apparently had not expected anyone to be there and their steps slowed when they saw Laird Macnachtan.

Two of the men held torches. The group was led by a tall, thin man who wore a black tunic cloak that reached below his knees and no hat on his balding head. Tufts of gray hair grew around his ears, and his beard was separated and braided into two long plaits that almost reached his chest. Tucked under his arm was a book.

Fenella’s book
.

Margaret started forward.

Laird Macnachtan anticipated her movement and held out an arm to block her. “Stay behind me.”

“He has Fenella’s book,” she said.

“All the more reason to stay
behind
me,” the laird repeated in a voice that brooked no disobedience.

“Who are these men?” Margaret asked.

Laren answered. “Swepston and his kin.” She reached for Margaret’s hand as if wishing to protect her. “Heath has had problems with this lot. They are set against his improvements.”

“Improvements?”

“With the land and the way I’ve chosen to do things. Brodie had problems with them as well.”

“He believes he should be laird,” Anice confided.

“What?” Margaret said in surprise. The man appeared more jester than noble.

“Swepston claims his ancestors were cheated out of the chieftain by ours,” Laren said. “It is a silly claim. Some believe Swepston may have been behind Brodie’s murder. We believe he has been behind some mischief against us because of it.”

“Mischief?” Margaret asked.

“Small thievery and the like. He truly disapproves of Heath. Even Brodie would listen to him, but Heath has no patience for the man and his followers.”

It appeared they were about to discover who was stronger.

Swepston stopped ten feet from Laird Macnachtan. Margaret noticed that his men weren’t the only ones with him. In the forest shadows was a silent host of others including women and children. She wondered if the laird was aware he had an audience.

Swepston’s group was a motley lot, dressed in homespun shirts and well-worn boots. Some, like their leader, sported braided beards.

“Good day, Laird,” Swepston said. He had a booming voice, one that commanded authority.

“What brings you to this remote place, Swepston?”

Swepston gave Margaret the full force of his icy gaze. His mouth had the set of the uncompromising. He obviously disliked what he saw. “Send back the Chattan, Laird. We don’t want her here.”

“Lady Margaret Chattan is my guest, and I’ll be determining if she stays or if she leaves.”

“She leaves.”

“And what makes you say so, Swepston?”

It was a match of two strong wills.

“Because that is the way it
must
be” was the cryptic answer. “We know you don’t believe in the old ways—”

“Not believe?” Laird Macnachtan challenged. “Have I not sweated and worked to see my clansmen safe? Are not the crofters still in their homes that they shared for generations and their bellies filled? I have honored the commitments made to my people over the ages.”

Swepston held up Fenella’s book. “You have no understanding of the
old
ways, Macnachtan,” he repeated.

Although his focus seemed to be completely on Swepston, the laird could see that his audience had grown, and when he spoke, his voice was louder, as if he wanted all to hear him. “Don’t challenge me, Swepston. I am of the direct line from Michael, first chieftain of this clan. The blood flowing through my veins dates all the way back to the House of Alpin.” His brogue had grown stronger as he spoke to these men, a reminder that he was one of them. “I lead by the right of my clansmen.” He had tucked the pistol in the waistband of his breeches, a sign he did not fear Swepston. “You are holding a book that does not belong to you. You stole if from this place. Return it to me.”

“It was stolen from us
. Lost, only to be returned as the curse is fulfilled,” Swepston announced. He directed his remarks to Margaret. “The curse will never be lifted. Not until the House of Chattan has been destroyed. Macnachtan pride will not allow it.”

Margaret felt her knees start to shake. Laren took one hand, Anice the other.

“Are you saying
I
have no pride?” Laird Macnachtan asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous tone.

The men behind Swepston shifted their weight as if realizing they might be crossing a line unwise to contest.

Swepston did not so much as blink as he said, “I’m saying, Laird, that you have been away from Loch Awe a long time.”

“My pride in my heritage, my feelings are as strong as anyone else’s, Swepston. And I’ll battle the man who says nay.”

“This book belongs to all of us,” Swepston answered. “I am now the keeper of the curse. I am one of those whose task is to keep it alive.”

Margaret could stay silent no longer. “Is the answer to the curse in that book?” she demanded, shaking off Laren’s hold and coming to Laird Macnachtan’s side.

Swepston sneered at her, but before he could say anything, the laird interjected, his tone almost conversational, “Thank you for that, Swepston. We’ve been concerned over Lady Margaret’s sanity. It is a wild story, is it not? Curses and witches. The ridiculous garble of children’s tales or the ranting of the feeble-minded.”