Chapter Five

 

 

 

When Niall burst into the keep, he found Ansel, Logan, Kirk, and Will all talking quietly around the table. Isolda must have retired for the evening with Lillian and the children, for she was gone.

Logan lifted his head at Niall’s abrupt arrival, his brows lowering with concern.

“Mairin?”

“She is well. But Angus just arrived.” Niall’s gaze shifted to Will, his chest pinching. “With news.”

Will jerked to his feet, but even before he could form a question, Angus and Mairin filled the doorway behind Niall. Angus moved straight to Will, not even greeting the others.

“Angus, is—”

“Yer father,” Angus said, his voice gruff. “He passed on a few hours ago.”

Will exhaled and sat down, hard.

“It was peaceful,” Angus went on. “He slipped away in his sleep. I only wish I had realized sooner that he would depart this night, for I would have fetched ye earlier, lad.”

Kirk rose slowly. “Rest and warm yerself, Uncle,” he said to Angus. “I’ll get ye some stew.”

As Angus settled in Kirk’s chair and began quietly recounting William Sinclair’s final hours, a somber hush fell over the others at the table.

From what Niall had gleaned, Will’s father had been injured years ago in a horseback riding accident. William had lived, but he’d been an invalid ever since. Before joining the Bodyguard Corps, Will had been learning how to run his father’s keep, a holding on the western edge of Sinclair lands.

When Will had begun training at the camp not long before Niall, he’d left the day-to-day operations of the keep in the hands of the castle’s seneschal and chatelaine, both of whom had capably managed things when Will was too young to do so himself.

Angus had joined the seneschal and the chatelaine more than a year ago, partly to help keep Will abreast of the castle’s management, but also because he’d declared he was too old to live and train in the camp with the “wee laddies—and the one wee lassie,” as he called them all.

But now that Will’s father had passed, the castle would be entirely his responsibility.

Will lifted his head as Angus concluded speaking, his features pulled taut.

“I’ll need to see my father laid to rest,” he said, his blue-green eye unfocused in thought. “And ensure the castle is in order before returning.”

“Ye’re needed for more than that, laddie,” Angus said softly. His eyebrows, more white than red now, drew together and down. “The staff will need direction from ye. They’ve been holding steady all these years, but that willnae be enough forever. And yer father couldnae deal with even the most basic matters by the end. Things have been piling up.”

Will swore quietly. “I am to depart on a mission for the Bruce come first light tomorrow morn, Angus.”

Angus glanced uncertainly at Ansel. Ansel closed a hand over Will’s shoulder and squeezed. “Yer family must come first from time to time, lad.”

“But what of the mission?”

The room fell silent, and Niall felt several pairs of eyes shift slowly to him.

His heart hammered hard against his ribs. “I’ll go.”

Logan began to protest, but Niall cut him off. “I have fought for the Bruce’s cause for six years now. I have trained beside each of you, sweated and bled along with you. And when the Bruce called us all to Scone Palace a year and a half ago, I fought and killed for the King—didn’t I, Will?”

Will nodded grudgingly. “Aye, ye did.”

“But that was on Scottish soil, and against Scottish enemies,” Logan inserted. “Ye havenae ever been asked to fight against yer own countrymen, and on yer home soil.”

“Mayhap the laddie deserves a chance to try,” Angus said, casting Niall an assessing look.

Niall gave Angus a nod of thanks, then drew in a deep breath. “You’ll always doubt me, see me as an outsider, unless I prove myself. But I cannot do that without being given a chance.”

“And ye think ye should get this chance when Mairin’s life hangs in the balance as well?” Logan’s voice was quiet but cold as ice, his eyes flashing like sharpened blades.

“I can look after myself, brother,” Mairin said. Logan’s gaze flicked to her, but then he pinned Niall with his stare once again.

Niall didn’t flinch under Logan’s steely glare. Naught he could say would set the men’s minds at ease—either they trusted him, or they didn’t—especially not Logan, who was more protective of Mairin than even Niall was.

At last, Logan tilted his head in the barest of nods. “Verra well. Beaumore will take Will’s place. Naught else has changed.”

Those at the table began to rise slowly. Will and Angus murmured about preparations for Will’s father’s burial as they slipped out the door at the other end of the keep’s hall. Kirk cleared away Angus’s half-eaten bowl of stew, then ducked out into the night, presumably headed toward his hut to share the news with Lillian.

Ansel, too, stood in preparation to depart for the hut he and Isolda used when they opted to stay in the camp instead of making the ride back to their own cottage in Roslin. Ansel murmured a word of encouragement to Mairin as he passed, then gripped Niall’s shoulder in a quick, wordless show of encouragement before setting out into the darkness.

Niall turned to go, but Logan caught his arm in a vise-like grip, halting him.

“A word, if ye please, Beaumore.”

“Logan,” Mairin said, eyeing her brother. “What are ye about?”

“Ye’d best start preparing for yer journey, Little Bird,” Logan murmured, fixing Mairin with a pointed look.

It was an obvious dismissal—one meant to leave Logan alone with Niall.

Mairin frowned, clearly annoyed at being sent away so blatantly. But instead of arguing, she sank her teeth into her lower lip—a gesture Niall knew she made out of nervousness—and nodded.

Once she’d slipped out, taking her candle with her, Logan’s grip eased a hair’s breadth, but he fixed Niall with a deadly look.

“We need to talk.”