Page 24 of Highland Sword
“We have a great deal in common.”
A shadow crossed Fiona’s face, and Morrigan knew she was still haunted by her months in captivity. Since arriving at Dalmigavie, she wouldn’t talk of it. She never shared how she was treated or what was done to her. Morrigan understood. She knew that dwelling on some evils only made them loom larger in your mind. It only made matters that much worse.
And then the doubts took root and sprouted. What if people looked at you differently? What if speaking about the past brought the nightmare back? What if one lost the ability to forget?
Morrigan realized she was thinking of her own demons and not Fiona’s.
“I heard you and John Gordon are getting married,” Morrigan teased, deciding to lighten the mood.
Fiona planted her hands on her hips and flushed an unexpected shade of red. “Aye, right after you and that Aidan Grant fellow are wed. The word going about is that you two are long lost lovers.”
“Lies,” Morrigan gasped. She thought of the few moments they’d spent in each other’s company in the library a couple of nights ago. “Who’s been saying such things?”
“If you came down and took a meal or two in the Great Hall, then you’d know.”
She wasn’t ready to circulate amongst the castle folk. Not yet. A few more days, perhaps, when the bruises were gone.
“All I can say is,” Fiona continued, flashing a quick grin at Maisie, “a handsome young man has been mooning about.”
Hewashandsome… and mildly amusing. Not that she’d admit any such feelings to anyone. She did give him permission to make up a story. But would he go so far?
“I’ll blacken his other eye if he’s been lying about us.” Morrigan turned to Maisie. “Has he?”
“Now, that’s not very ladylike, is it?”
“I’ll cut his tongue out.”
“Much better,” Maisie replied. “The truth is, he hasn’t said a word. In fact, he’s been very much the gentleman. He says nothing at all in response to the tales Sebastian Grant is weaving at supper every night.”
“What tales?”
“That his brother made the mistake of getting too close to you in an alleyway in Inverness. That you thrashed him like a Latin master on examination day.”
“I’ll never be allowed to go back to town,” Morrigan huffed, walking back to the table. She removed the books from the flyers. Even from the few words she’d shared with Sebastian, though, she could see the man had a sense of humor.
She’d learned a little more about the Grants since that first day. The brothers had come north to take up the case of the Chattan brothers at the request of Searc. Aidan was quite famous, apparently, in Edinburgh and Glasgow. But this case would help his standing in the Highlands, and it would help him move a few steps closer to a seat in Parliament.
Morrigan’s thoughts again meandered to their moments in the library. She wished she’d been brave enough to stay longer and continue their sparring. Or go back to that room the next night, knowing that was where he’d be working. The quickening of her pulse was as unwelcome as it was troublesome.
“Why are you staring at this twaddle again?”
Fiona’s question shook Morrigan free of her musing about Aidan. The young woman was standing at her shoulder and gazing down at the flyers spread out on the table. She’d seen the sketches the last time she wandered in here. Maisie explained what they’d discovered earlier.
“It’s a curious thing that he should repeat these suggestions of Catholicism in every one of the etchings we have,” Morrigan added.
“And you believe this is part of his signature?” Fiona asked, reflecting on it.
“Other than the nuns,” Morrigan asked, “do either of you see anything else?”
From the first time Morrigan laid her eyes on these flyers, she’d sensed there was something hidden in them.
“I wonder if thishemight actually be ashe,” Fiona suggested suddenly, motioning to the caricatures. “In several of them, you can see a ring of women looking at the central images. We also have the nuns. The children, which appear to be girls. It’s the same thing in several of the others. It’s mostly women.”
Morrigan leaned over the table again. “It’s a possibility.”
Maisie nodded. “Particularly if she is somehow connected with nuns or a school for Catholic girls.”
There was a great deal more to these than immediately struck the viewer. Morrigan tried to justify in her mind why a woman, a talented artist living in the Highlands, would draw these for the enemy. She recalled what Maisie said only a few minutes ago. People were hungry. Jobs were scarce. Perhaps she had children with no roof over their heads and no food to sustain them. Desperation made people do terrible things. And there were thousands upon thousands of struggling war widows throughout Scotland.
