Annys listened to Harcourt walk away and breathed a sigh of relief. She had not meant to say anything about why she had chosen to marry David, at least nothing beyond the fact that he would be a good husband and a kind one. Only David and Joan had known that her acceptance of David had had little to do with betrothal contracts, dowries, or some attempt to still become a laird’s wife despite the fact that the laird chosen for her was dead. After the three short visits her parents had made to Glencullaich she suspected the people here fully understood her reasoning. Most had undoubtedly guessed that she had married Glencullaich more than that she had actually married David.
No one had told her parents that she had married a man who could not give her any sons. As far as she knew, no one had ever even confirmed that to the rest of David’s kinsmen, either. The men who had gelded David were all dead. Nigel had seen to that before he had departed for France, leaving her with the promise that he would return a rich man in time to marry her.
She shook her head as she walked over to her writing table. Men with their quests for fame, fortune, and land were the bane of women everywhere, she decided. Nigel had been a good man, would undoubtedly have made a good husband, father, and laird. He had been tall, strong, and handsome with his wild black hair and light green eyes. Now he was gone. There was not even a grave site at Glencullaich where one could go to mourn his loss.
“How can such witless oafs rule the world?” she asked aloud as she sat down at her writing desk and began to sharpen her quill point with a small knife.
A soft meow startled her and she looked down to find the cat she had rescued sitting by her chair, watching her with those eyes. She wondered if Harcourt had yet noticed how closely the animal’s eyes matched his own. Frowning, she looked at the closed door and then back at the cat. It was clean, its golden fur freshly washed, and it smelled slightly of the herbs used to get rid of fleas. A clean bandage was wrapped around the leg that had kept it cruelly tethered to a stake in the alley. It looked like it would recover nicely from its wound. It also should be in the stables.
Shaking her head again, she patted her lap and the cat immediately leapt up on it, curling itself into a tight ball. “I dinnae ken how ye got in here but ye will be returned to the stables. Howbeit, for now I dinnae mind the company.”
The cat began to purr, a deep, rumbling noise she found strangely comforting.
“I think ye might weel prove to be some trouble.”
Annys laughed when it opened one eye to look at her and then closed it again. She set a sheet of fine French linen paper in front of her and stared at its pristine emptiness for a long time. This was not going to be easy. How did one politely tell a man to rein in his son before they had to kill the man for his crimes?
Harcourt watched the young man ride off to deliver Annys’s message to Sir Adam’s father. A glance over his shoulder revealed her standing in the doorway to the keep looking worried. He hoped she had not put too much hope behind her letter to the elder MacQueen. No man could be that blind to what his son was doing so he had to be condoning Sir Adam’s actions, if only by ignoring them.
The MacQueens outside Glencullaich had to be helping Sir Adam because he came and went from the area too often and left no trail to follow. It would also explain how he had obtained a spy within the keep itself. Harcourt was now well acquainted with the deep loyalty of David’s people living at the keep or even in the town. Sir Adam or one of his men would have had to work hard over a long period of time to gain an ally, especially one willing to kill David.
He walked over to Annys, resisting the urge to take her into his arms and try to ease her obvious concerns. “Ye dinnae think he will help.”
“Nay.” She sighed. “I cannae make myself believe he will do anything to stop Sir Adam, nay matter how much I argue with myself. All I am nay certain of is how great a part the laird is playing in his son’s plans. The one thing that keeps me uncertain is that I cannae believe the laird would kill David.”
“He didnae, did he. Nor did Sir Adam.”
“Someone had to tell someone here what to do.”
“Aye, but they could talk their way out of that accusation for they didnae do the deed themselves, were ne’er here to do it.”
“Ye have some opinion about who it was, dinnae ye.”