Highland Sinner. Hannah Howell

bedchamber and smiled at the young boy standing there. Walin was only six but he was rapidly becoming very helpful. He also worried about her a lot, but she supposed that was to be expected. Since she had found him upon her threshold when he was the tender age of two she was really the only parent he had ever known, had given him the only home he had ever known. She just wished it were a better one. He was also old enough now to understand that she was often called a witch, as well as the danger that appellation brought with it. Unfortunately, with his black hair and blue eyes, he looked enough like her to have many believe he was her bastard child and that caused its own problems for both of them.

      “I am fine, Walin,” she said and began to ease her way out of bed around all the sleeping cats. “It must be verra late in the day.”

      “’Tis the middle of the day, but ye needed to sleep. Ye were verra late returning from helping at that birthing.”

      “Weel, set something out on the table for us to eat then, I will join ye in a few minutes.”

      Dressed and just finishing the braiding of her hair, Morainn joined Walin at the small table set out in the main room of the cottage. Seeing the bread, cheese, and apples upon the table, she smiled at Walin, acknowledging a job well done. She poured them each a tankard of cider and then sat down on the little bench facing his across the scarred wooden table.

      “Did ye have a bad dream?” Walin asked as he handed Morainn an apple to cut up for him.

      “At first I thought it was a dream, but now I am certain it was a vision, another one about that mon with the mismatched eyes.” She carefully set the apple on a wooden plate and sliced it for Walin.

      “Ye have a lot about him, dinnae ye.”

      “It seems so. ’Tis verra odd. I dinnae ken who he is and have ne’er seen such a mon. And, if this vision is true, I dinnae think I e’er will.”

      “Why?” Walin accepted the plate of sliced apple and immediately began to eat.

      “Because this time I saw a verra angry gray-eyed mon holding a sword to his throat.”

      “But didnae ye say that your visions are of things to come? Mayhap he isnae dead yet. Mayhap ye are supposed to find him and warn him.”

      Morainn considered that possibility for a moment and then shook her head. “Nay, I think not. Neither heart nor mind urges me to do that. If that were what I was meant to do, I would feel the urge to go out right now and hunt him down. And I would have been given some clue as to where he is.”

      “Oh. So we will soon see the mon whose eyes dinnae match?”

      “Aye, I do believe we will.”

      “Weel that will be interesting.”

      She smiled and turned her attention to the need to fill her very empty stomach. If the man with the mismatched eyes showed up at her door, it would indeed be interesting. It could also be dangerous. She could not allow herself to forget that death stalked him. Her visions told her he was innocent of those deaths, but there was some connection between him and them. It was as if each thing he touched died in bleeding agony. She certainly did not wish to become a part of that swirling mass of blood she always saw around his feet. Unfortunately she did not believe that fate would give her any chance to avoid meeting the man. All she could do was pray that when he rapped upon her door he did not still have death seated upon his shoulder.

      Chapter 2

      “Do ye intend to be my judge and executioner, Simon?”

      Tormand watched as Simon struggled to gain some semblance of the calm and sanity he was so well known for. Despite how badly it stung to think that, even for one brief moment, Simon could believe that he could do such a thing to Clara, to any woman, Tormand could understand what prodded the man. Any man of honor would be horrified by what had been done to Clara and would ache to make someone pay for the crime. The brief insanity that could grip a man upon seeing such dark brutality easily explained why finding Tormand’s ring clutched in Clara’s hand would bring Simon to Tormand’s door in a blind fury. The fact that Simon had not immediately killed him told Tormand there was some doubt stirring behind Simon’s shock and fury.

      “Why was she clutching your ring?” Simon demanded.

      “I fear I have no answer for ye,” Tormand answered. “It was undoubtedly put there by the same one, or ones, who placed me in Clara’s bed.”

      Simon stared at Tormand for a moment before sheathing his sword. He sat down, poured himself a tankard of ale, and drank it all down. A shudder went through his tall, almost too lean frame, and then he poured himself another tankard full of ale.

      “Ye were there?” Simon finally asked in a much calmer tone of voice.

      “Aye.”

      Tormand drank some ale to prepare himself and told Simon everything he knew. He had not even finished his tale before he began to realize that he actually knew very little. All he could swear to was what he had seen—someone had killed Clara—and what he knew in his heart—that someone was not him. He did not know how he had been captured and taken to the room. He did not even know how Simon had become involved. It could have been simple bad luck, but Tormand’s instincts told him that it was much more than that. Although he had no proof of it, he felt certain it was all part of a plan. He just had to figure out what that plan was.

      “Why did ye go to see Clara?” he asked Simon. “Did her husband return, find her body, and then send for you?”

      “Nay. I received a summons I believed had come from Clara.” Simon shrugged. “It told me to arrive at her house with some of my men at a very precise time and to do so as furtively as possible.”

      “And ye acted on that? Did ye ken Clara weel enough for such a summons to make ye hie to her side?”

      “I didnae ken her as weel as ye did,” drawled Simon. “But, I did ken her weel enough. She was a cousin of mine.” He smiled faintly at the shock Tormand could not hide. “Dinnae fear that I will demand ye meet me at sword point to defend her honor. She had little left to defend. The woman had been lifting her skirts for the lads, any lad with a fair face, since not long after her first flux. She was ne’er sweet, rarely honest, and felt the world owed her homage simply because God had gifted her with a bonnie face. Nay, I did as she asked because I hoped she was about to give me proof of her husband’s many crimes, ones I have been looking into most carefully for months now. It was a faint hope as she benefited from his dealings, but I couldnae ignore it.”

      “Do ye think he may have killed her?” Tormand began doubting that possibility even as he asked Simon the question.

      “Nay. She was useful to him and, e’en if she had thought to betray him, she was cunning enough to keep him from discovering it, to make sure she could never be connected to that betrayal. As I said, I doubt she would e’er have betrayed the mon, for she fully enjoyed spending the coin he gained from all his crimes and lies. Yet, it can be no surprise that, upon seeing her butchered body, his was the first name that leapt to mind.”

      “But then ye found my ring in her hand.”

      “Aye.” Simon grimaced and dragged a hand through his thick black hair. “I couldnae believe it of ye and, yet, why was it there? And then I recalled that ye were once her lover. Jesu, I feared some madness had seized you and, like some rabid dog, ye needed to be cut down. I think a madness overcame me e’en to briefly consider that ye could do such a thing. ’Tis as if whoever did that to Clara left the stench of their insanity befouling that room and I breathed too deeply of it.”

      Tormand nodded. “I ken exactly what ye mean. When I realized that Clara must have been alive during some of the horrors inflicted upon her, I did wonder if someone had tortured her because they thought she had some information they needed.”

      “That is a possibility, although it doesnae explain why such an effort was made to make it look as if ye had committed the crime. There may be some cuckolded husbands who would like to see ye