Taming a Wild Scot: A Claimed by the Highlander Novel Read Free Page B

from the January sky, but not enough to hinder his view. She was accompanied by a tabard-draped guard who was carrying her purchases. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
    His brother cast a sharp look over his shoulder. “Do you know that woman?”
    “Aye,” Niall said. She had fuller lips, rosier cheeks, and an unfamiliar pink scar on her lovely brow, but he trusted his memory of that dark night in November. “’Tis the lass I rescued from Lochurkie.”
    “The murderess?”
    In the weeks following Aiden’s escape from prison, they’d heard several rumors about the redheaded woman, including that one. “Aye.”
    “Did you not say she was knocking on Death’s door?”
    A familiar knot twisted in Niall’s gut. Leaving the lass behind had cost him many a sleepless night imagining her dismal fate. The hopeless look in her eyes as he bid her adieu had haunted him for days
.
“Aye.”
    Aiden bestowed the meat tart upon a scrawny young lad who was eyeing his bounty with desperate longing. “Then how did she escape the castle guards?”
    How indeed? Had her frail appearance that night been a ruse? If so, it had been a good one. But he couldn’t deny the uncanny coincidence of finding her
here
, in the same village that held Queen Yolande’s stolen necklace, more than sixty miles from Lochurkie. “It matters not. She has access to the manor.”
    His brother dusted pastry crumbs from his hands. “Think you can sway her to our cause?”
    Niall was not known for his silver tongue. He did well enough with the ladies when it suited him, but he much preferred guarding the hidden passages beneath Dunstoras over the endless small talk required to coax a smile from the fairer sex. Still, everything he valued rested on proving his brother had not stolen the necklace—Aiden’s honor,
his
honor, and the future of the entire MacCurran clan. “I’ll do whate’er is necessary.”
    “I don’t doubt your commitment,” Aiden replied, “but time rides a fleet horse. The king intends to bestow Dunstoras upon a new lord when he next holds court. At best, we have a fortnight. If you fail—”
    “I will not fail.”
    “You cannot be certain of that.”
    “I will not fail,” Niall repeated firmly.
    Aiden sighed. “Were it only me, your word would be enough. But I cannot hang the fate of our clan upon your promise of success—no matter how ardently spoken. The challenge before you is too difficult. I must return to Lochurkie.”
    “Are you mad? Was one stay in their dungeon not enough for you?”
    His brother rubbed his bare chin. “The risk is not as great as you suggest. None will recognize me with my beard gone.”
    “’Tis a fool’s errand, Aiden. Your memories of those days are scattered. You cannot even be certain there
was
a man in a black wolf cloak.”
    “My wits were not as addled as you think,” Aiden insisted. “I saw him twice. Once at Dunstoras on the night the necklace was stolen, and a second time in the dungeons of Lochurkie.”
    “Dunstoras was a madhouse after the murders. People crying and shouting, soldiers dashing for their swords. No one knew who to blame. The alarm was raised at every shadow.”
    “I saw him before the murders, not after. In the passageway to the kitchens. Had I known then what he was about . . .” Aiden gripped the hilt of his dirk with a white-knuckled fist. “And, dear brother, let us not forget the way the night ended. The earl’s men located the missing necklace—in
my
rooms. How do you explain that, if not for the man in black?”
    “I can’t,” admitted Niall with a sigh. “But returning to Lochurkie is still a fool’s errand.”
    “Perhaps. But I owe it to the memory of my kith and kin to see our honor restored—any way I can.”
    Niall’s lips tightened. “They were my kin, too.”
    “Of course they were. I did not mean to imply otherwise. But I’m the chief. The responsibility for claiming vengeance lies with me.”
    Aye, Aiden was the