Highland Promise Read Online Free PDF

small spoonful of the porridge and then fed it to James. “Do ye think me some faint-of-heart lass who sees evil lurking around every corner?”
    “Nay, but murder is a hard crime to hang about a mon’s neck. Aye, it can e’en set a noose there.”
    “I ken it. Sir William and his loathsome spawn deserve to be hanged from the highest tree.”
    “If they have done as ye have claimed, they do.”
    “’Tis nay so strange for a mon to kill to gain riches.”
    “True. Greed is a common motive for crimes as is vengence or passion. But ye dinnae speak of throats cut in the dark of night or a dagger slipped between a mon’s ribs. Such acts are easily seen as murder and can be loudly decried.” He sighed and shook his head slightly. “Ye speak on poison—a black, subtle method of murder. Verra hard to prove. There are a few poisons which leave a mark, quickly seen, and weel kenned. Others work in a way that could easily be claimed as naught but a malady of some sort.”
    Bethia reluctantly nodded. “’Tis why I now run to my family, race to seek their protection and aid. Weel, that and the fact that the people of Dunncraig are so cowed that none there would help me. Nay, not e’en if William slaughtered us all afore their verra eyes.”
    “Ye implied that your sister and her husband had but recently died, yet the keep is already beneath William’s boot?”
    “Oh, aye.” Bethia took a long drink from the wineskin and then handed it to him. “I fear my sister Sorcha and her husband Robert were, weel, nay too wise. Mayhap they were too newly wed, then caught up in the joy of the bairn.” She shrugged. “Whate’er it was, something kept them blissfully unaware of how their lands were being bled dry, their keep left to crumble, and the loyalty of their people stolen away. Fear grips the people of Dunncraig and all could see that Robert and Sorcha were too weak to free them from William’s ever tightening grip. I didnae ken Robert that weel. Mayhap he was cowed by William as completely as all of the others were.”
    “Harsh words.”
    “Verra,” she agreed in a near whisper, sadness weighting her words. “At times I hate them both for the trust and weakness that allowed them to be murdered, for leaving me no tale of martyred bravery and honor to console myself with.”
    Eric moved to sit by her side and put his arm around her slim shoulders. It pleased him when her stiffness at his touch rapidly faded. Some of her initial wariness had already begun to fade. She needed help and was wise enough to know it. That could only work in his favor.
    “That would indeed be finer,” he agreed. “Howbeit, for each death met in glory, there are many that are not. Ye must forgive them their blindness and their weaknesses. In the end they acted, did they not? They sent for ye to come to the aid of their son.”
    “Aye, I believe they did. I didnae understand at first. ’Twas nay until I saw them buried that I realized Sorcha’s message to me had held a warning. She bade me come to watch o’er her son. An odd choice of words I thought until I saw how matters stood at Dunncraig. I but wish she had lived long enough to tell me what she may have seen or heard, to tell me what finally warned her. It may have led to some proof of William’s guilt.”
    “No one else spoke out against him and his sons?”
    “Nay. I told you, they are all cowed, fearful for their verra lives.”
    “Who can blame them if they too ken that William has killed their laird and his wife? After all, if he can strike those so high with apparent impunity, he would find no qualms about striking the common ones down in an instant.”
    “Aye, there is a sad truth in that.” She sighed. “And the only one they see who could take the laird’s place is a barely weaned bairn. And I suppose they could nay be sure that I could gather any strength of arms to stand against the mon.”
    “Can ye?”
    “Aye. My kinsmen will heed what I say and act swiftly to