Frae bounded back into the chamber, shawl in hand. Jack knotted it at her collar before trailing the women to the door.
He had a moment of apprehension, letting Frae out of his sight. But he saw Sidra linking their fingers, her dog following them like a diligent guard.
“We’ll be back in two hours,” Sidra called to him.
He nodded. He waited until they had faded from sight before he shut the front door.
He exhaled against the wood. His exhaustion was rising, but there was no time to rest.
He believed Moray Breccan’s story. He believed every word, but Jack knew there were pieces still missing. Pieces only his mother held.
The kettle was hissing.
Jack removed it from the fire, adding the herbs Sidra had given him for tea. He poured two cups and brought one to Mirin, ensuring that her hands could hold it before he tucked a blanket over her knees.
He sat down in the chair across from her, waiting until she took a few sips.
She seemed to return to life, remembering herself. The color gradually blossomed on her cheeks, and he sighed in relief.
“Can I ask you something, Mum?”
Mirin looked at him. Her shoulders were still stooped, as if she was in pain. But her voice was clear when she spoke. “Yes, Jack.”
He drew in a shaky breath. He could smell the fragrance of the tea, the musty scent of the wool strung over her loom. He wondered how much this little cottage on the hill, built of stone and wood and thatch, had seen in its lifetime. He wondered what the walls would say if they could speak. What stories they guarded.
“On the night the Keeper of the Aithwood crossed the clan line with the Breccans’ daughter in his arms … he came to you,” Jack said. “My father brought Adaira to you.”
Mirin, eyes shining with tears and decades of secrets, whispered, “Yes.”
CHAPTER 26
Acrowd had gathered in Sloane.
The sight deepened Torin’s worry as he and the guard approached, Moray still bound in the midst of them. The entire ride, Adaira had refused to meet Torin’s gaze. He had glanced sidelong at her occasionally, tracing her profile. Her expression was like steel as they passed the city gates.
The moment the Breccan was seen in the streets, the people’s anger ignited.
Torin drew his horse to a halt, watching as Una Carlow pushed through the crowd.
“Is it true, laird?” Una’s voice cut through the air as she looked at Adaira. “Is it true you’re a daughter of the west? That you’re a Breccan by blood?”
Adaira seemed to blanch. At last, she glanced at Torin, and he was struck by a horrible realization.
He had opened the shutter in Jack’s bedroom during the debriefing, but in his fury, he had forgotten to close it. Moray’s story of Adaira’s origins must have slipped out that small crack, riding the wind. This was not the way Torin envisioned the clan learning the truth, and when more questions were shot at Adaira—questions laced with wariness and devastation—Torin swiftly turned his horse around to face his cousin.
“Escort Moray on to the dungeons,” he told the closest guard. “See to it that no harm comes to him.”
It was a mess as the guards moved forward with Moray, forcing the crowd to part. Adaira remained frozen and mounted on her horse, listening as the din rose around her. Torin wove his way to her side, his stallion nearly trampling a few people in the process.
The Elliott boys had approached her now. Eliza’s older brothers.
“You knew all along the Breccans were taking the lasses!” the younger Elliott boy shouted, veins pulsing in his temples. “You knew and were trading with our enemies in secret!”
“Of course she would!” the other brother snarled. “She was giving away our goods, rewarding them for snatching our sister.”
“That’s not true!” Adaira said, but her voice broke.
“You were fraternizing with our enemies!”
“Why would we believe you, when you’ve played us for fools and lied to us for years?”
“Whose side holds your allegiance?”
The comments and questions rose and spun like a whirlwind. Adaira tried to respond again, to calm the people’s distress and anger, but their voices were overpowering hers.
Spirits below, Torin thought. The clan knew of the trade. Like a fool, Moray had remarked about that private meeting between him and Adaira, and now everyone knew only bits and pieces. Enough for the information to become twisted against Adaira, even as she had only striven for peace and the Tamerlaines’ good.
“Quiet!” Torin shouted.