It was a thing obviously not lost on the lass, either, who stood trembling now, clinging to her blanket, staring at the corpses on the floor. Thank goodness it had been Malcolm to come running at the sound of her scream. Any other man in the castle might have something to say about finding the laird, his woman, and one of his warriors in a state of undress together in the wee hours of the night.
Thankfully, Malcolm was so taciturn that not only wouldn’t take any interest in what he saw, but would never say a word about it.
Even so, they had better get their stories straight lest the castle be thrown into paranoid turmoil. John would have liked to deny the incident completely, but that wasn’t possible, so a story would have to be concocted. “There was a lone attacker,” the laird said, slowly. “Ian was standing guard outside my door—the assassin grappled with him. Knocking Ian momentarily senseless, the attacker burst into the room; fortunately, the noise alerted me before the ax came down on the bed.”
Heather blinked, but, fortunately, John’s men knew what he was about. “One attacker instead of two,” Malcolm said, with a nod. It would be the official story…one that would leave any conspirators confused and worried. Perhaps enough to accidentally reveal themselves.
“What do we do with the extra body?” Ian asked.
Without the slightest regret in his heart, the laird said, “Dump it in the loch.”
His men would have to arrange it when no one was about; but t
he laird could trust them. For that matter, he trusted Heather, too. This carnage and cloak-n-dagger business wasn’t for simple crofter’s girls or the faint of heart. But he understood a strength in her that no one else knew. “Heather, we tell no one what actually happened here tonight. Not your sister. Not anyone.”
Heather’s lower lip wobbled. But she nodded. “I understand.”
“Malcolm, take her to get cleaned up and tended,” the laird commanded.
Heather didn’t want to go. “I’m no more wounded than you. It’s Ian who—”
“I’m well enough,” Ian protested, to Heather. “But tending to you will keep the staff occupied.”
Heather’s violet eyes shifted to meet the laird’s a question in them, which he answered with a nod. “I’ll come find you soon, lass. Go.”
She went, with only one backward glance at the bed where John had shared her with another man—and where an ax nearly chopped her in half. And her bleak expression would haunt the laird, he was sure, for what remained of his life.
He’d made his admission of love to her in the quiet of the night, just before these devils had attacked them. It had been an emotional moment, exquisite and perfectly vulnerable. Destroyed now. He was almost as bitter about that as the fact they’d been sent to kill him.
With Malcolm and Heather gone, Ian kicked one of the corpses and spit a curse. “So the story is to be that I was outside your door…I should’ve been, laird.”
John decided to ignore the possible double-meaning in his kinsman’s words. He’d shared Heather with Ian to bring them closer together; it would ruin everything if Ian would now regret the experience. “There was no cause for you to be outside my door. You’re not a bodyguard. You’re my second-in-command.”
Ian gave a frustrated shake of his head. “Someone should have been outside your door. You must have guards now at all times.”
“We can’t spare them from the walls.”
“You need someone if only for the show of the thing!”
The laird shrugged. “Post Rodric there, then, if you must.”
“The young fool who fell asleep at his post?”
“That was weeks ago,” the laird replied. “It won’t happen again. The lad will be wanting to redeem himself.”
“You won’t risk the castle, just yourself?” Ian asked.
“What’s the point of being a laird if not to do just that?”
Still holding a bleeding forearm, Ian paced. “If I hadn’t been here tonight…”
John’s pride nearly compelled him to argue that he could’ve taken on both assassins by himself in the dark. But that was unlikely and Heather would’ve come to harm. So he conceded the point. “If you hadn’t been here tonight, then I’d be dead now and you’d be the laird of this clan.”
Ian slanted him a glance. “Why was I here tonight?”
The laird noticed Ian’s his hooded, carefully guarded eyes, and thought it was not merely the fact they were having this talk over two dead bodies that accounted for the tension in Ian’s shoulders. “Because I invited you.”
Ian’s eyes slid away. “And yet, it felt as if you were testing my loyalty and that I failed in every particular.”