Page 41 of Laird of Secrets
“If I may, sir.” MacCarran walked toward the group of men, and Dougal went with him. Fiona’s brother reached toward the nearest horse, its back strapped with pannier baskets, and peered into the baskets.
Dougal waited as the young man shifted aside small sacks of barley, which was in place merely to serve as packing to stifle the clink of the many glass bottles being transported as that night’s cargo.
Dougal leaned forward. “Patrick MacCarran, good to meet you, sir.”
Patrick looked around. “Have we met?”
“Your sister is the dominie in our glen school. Teaches my niece and others.”
MacCarran frowned. “We have no need to discuss my sister, sir.”
“We do not,” Dougal agreed. “I only want to say she is well thought of here.”
The new guager’s hand stilled on the barley sacks, inches from detecting far too many bottles to pass as local supply. “Say what you mean, sir,” he growled.
“A warning,” Dougal began.
“MacCarran! Hurry up there!” Tam shouted.
“Take your sister away from this glen,” Dougal continued quickly. “There is danger in this glen for her. And for you, sir.”
“Danger! She should stay away from rogues like you.”
“I will keep the rogues away from her myself, I promise you. She should leave here, but she is as stubborn a lass as I have ever met in my life.”
MacCarran almost smiled. “That indeed is my sister.”
“Does MacIntyre know your sister is here?”
“I do not discuss family business with him.”
“Good. See that he stays ignorant of it. Do not trust him in anything.”
“Why should I trust you?” Patrick MacCarran asked low.
“Trust me or not. Just get Fiona MacCarran out of here. It is not safe for her.”
“I will think on it.”
“Just so,” Dougal murmured.
Patrick moved to the next horse, and the next, checking each basket. Dougal knew he must have noted a large number of bottles tucked among the grain sacks that cushioned them. Finally, wordlessly, the young man progressed to Fergus’s pony, opened the panniers and rooted around. He lifted a bottle, upended it to find it nearly empty, and took that and a small grain sack toward MacIntyre.
“What did you find?” Tam demanded.
“A few bottles,” Patrick said. “The panniers hold mostly barley sacks.”
Fergus, standing with Dougal, huffed quietly. “Good lad.”
“Transporting barley is no crime,” MacIntyre growled, “though they will just make more whisky from it. What about the bottles? How many?”
“Not a lot. Most are like these, sir.” He handed the bottle up to his supervising officer, who took it, tugged out its wax plug, sniffed it, and upended it to his mouth to drain the rest of it.
“Bah, already empty!” MacIntre snarled, wiping his mouth. “Good stuff. I doubt they only share it locally. It would sell well, this, and earn good coin.”
“It does seem they are just transporting barley for their own use, which is no crime.” MacCarran handed up the grain sack. “If they carried more whisky than I’ve found, it is in their bellies by now. You can smell it everywhere on them. Some of them can hardly stand upright. A few are giggling like schoolboys. They are fou, sir. Drunk as can be.”
“Fou,” Tam growled, and looked at Dougal. “You devil, Kinloch.”
