The Sinner (21 page)

A
lex stood on the wall of Dunfaileag Castle with Tormond, the crusty old warrior who had become his right-hand man in overseeing the rebuilding of the castle’s defenses.

“We’ll be done patching this last hole in the wall today,” Tormond said, as they examined the work.

“’Tis a shame this old castle wasn’t built on an offshore island,” Alex said, not for the first time. Unlike many castles in the Western Isles, including Dunscaith and the MacNeil stronghold, Dunfaileag sat on a rocky hill above the shore, where it was accessible by land. “We’d have trouble withstanding a large attack by another clan.”

“Not much risk of that here, is there?” Tormond said. “Now that it’s patched up, Dunfaileag will do fine against raiders.”

The pirates relied on stealth and speed, usually attacking with a small group of men. When Alex first arrived, he had regular skirmishes with raiders. They ventured onto his side of the island less and less now. But he hadn’t seen Hugh’s ship at all, and he wondered why.

Alex smiled when he turned and saw his wife and daughter on the beach below the castle. It reminded him of the first time he’d seen Glynis without her disguise on the beach at Barra. He chuckled to himself, remembering the blotches of red clay sliding down her face. What a determined woman his wife was.

These days, Glynis focused that determination on turning Dunfaileag Castle into a home that ran smoothly and was a comfort to all who lived and worked within its walls. She thrived on being in charge of a large household.

The weeks had flown by. Alex didn’t even know how it had come to pass that he could no longer imagine his life without her. She had come upon him slowly, insinuating herself like a warm summer mist permeating his skin, his senses, and his very soul until he needed her like air to breathe.

“Take over for me here,” Alex said to Tormond. “I’m going to have a wee visit with my wife and daughter.”

Tormond nodded. “Ye are a lucky man to have those two.”

But luck was a fragile thing that could turn on you in a moment. Alex knew that a sinner like him did not deserve his good fortune, but he was praying that mending his ways counted for something.

He went down the steps and then followed the trail to the beach. When Sorcha saw him, she ran to him holding out an oyster shell.

“I see ye found a magical shell.” Alex held it up, examining it carefully. “This one came all the way from Ireland on the back of a dolphin.”

Sorcha laughed and snatched it back. Her laughter came more and more frequently now, and sometimes she seemed within a breath of speaking. Before long, he would hear his daughter’s voice, he felt certain.

When Sorcha went off in search of more treasures, Glynis took his arm, and they walked along the shore. Ah, life was very good.

“Have ye noticed how Peiter, the young fisherman who brings fish up to the castle sometimes, stops what he’s doing every time Seamus’s sister walks by?”

Seamus was the ten-year-old lad who followed Alex around like a young pup. At Glynis’s suggestion, Alex had finally given the lad the job of cleaning his weapons.

“Seamus’s sister?” he asked.

“Aye, she’s that pretty lass with the golden hair,” Glynis said. “Her name is Ùna.”

“Hmm.” Though Glynis had come to trust him, Alex took care not to say or do anything that might change that. For the same reason, he didn’t find it necessary to tell Glynis that all his men stopped working to watch that particular lass when she came to the castle.

“Peiter wants to wed her,” she said, looking up at him with a soft look in her eyes.

“And how would ye know this?”

“I asked him, of course.”

Alex chuckled, wondering how she had wrung this confession out of the young man. Unfortunately, his wife appeared to see Peiter’s lovelorn state as a problem that needed fixing.

“Would ye consider speaking to her father on his behalf?”

Alex groaned. “You’ve only to ask, and I’ll fight a hundred men for ye. But matchmaking … ach.”

“Ye act in your chieftain’s place here on North Uist,” Glynis said in her most reasonable tone. “And one of a chieftain’s duties is to approve marriages—and even encourage them at times.”

“Connor failed to mention this duty to me.” Alex didn’t bother pointing out that she had not appreciated it when her own father exercised that particular chieftain responsibility.

Glynis leaned against him and smiled up at him. “I want them to be happy like us.”

“I’ll talk to Pieter first. And if he says he wants me to, I’ll speak to the father.” Alex sighed and kissed her nose. “Now we both know there is nothing ye can’t get me to do.”

Alex kept his eye on Peiter the next time Seamus’s sister came up to the castle. The poor fool stood with his mouth open and didn’t hear Alex until he’d said his name twice.

“Ùna is a pretty lass,” Alex said to him.

“Aye,” Pieter said on a sigh, as he followed her across the castle yard with his eyes.

“Have ye tried speaking to her?” Alex asked.

“We were good friends as children,” Pieter said. “But she won’t even look at me now.”

Alex watched how the young woman kept her gaze fixed on the ground and didn’t greet any of the men, though she must have known most of them all her life. But as shy as she was, she came to the castle often. Seamus was old to have his sister fetch him, but the lad was always glad to see her. Despite their age difference, the two seemed unusually close.

“Is it marriage ye have in mind, then?” Alex asked Peiter.

“All I want in this life is to marry Ùna,” Peiter said, his gaze fixed on the lass’s back as she went out the castle gate with her brother. “I’ve asked her father, but he refuses to consider me, though I could provide for her better than he does.”

Alex had met Ùna and Seamus’s father and disliked him on sight. He was not surprised to hear that the man was not a good provider, for although he was a powerfully built man, he had a reputation for being both lazy and overly fond of his whiskey jug.

“Has her father made an arrangement with another man to wed her?” Alex asked.

“Nay, he’s just a selfish bastard,” Pieter said. “He told me he needs Ùna to keep house for him because his wife is dead.”

Alex made himself drag the words out, “Would ye like me to speak to him?”

“I would be forever grateful,” Pieter said, turning pleading eyes on him. “Ùna is the only lass who will ever do for me.”

Ach, the young man was in a bad way.

“I saw Seamus and Ùna’s father with some other fishermen on the shore today and went down to have that talk with him,” Alex reported to Glynis a few nights later while they were lying in bed. “It did not go well.”

“Ye have the chieftain’s authority so ye could order the match,” Glynis said. “But I suppose that wouldn’t be wise, at least not yet.”

Alex was glad Glynis understood that forcing a lass’s marriage against her father’s wishes would cause a good deal of grumbling among the men.

“I’ll see to the marriage in time, provided Ùna wants it as well, but my first duty is to protect the MacDonalds on North Uist,” Alex said. “To lead my clansmen here, I must gain their trust.”

“I’d follow ye anywhere,” Glynis said, and kissed his cheek. “Most of the men already know ye are a good man and a strong leader, and the rest will soon.”

Alex’s chest swelled at her compliment as if he were a young lad instead of a seasoned warrior. So long as Glynis had faith in him, he could do anything.

A week later, Alex was practicing in the bailey yard with the other men when he noticed Seamus had a black eye. The lad was keeping his head turned, as if he did not want anyone to see it.

“That’s enough for today,” Alex called out to the men. “Good work.”

Alex strolled over to where Seamus was leaning against the castle wall.

“Ye get into a fight?” Alex asked.

Most lads are proud to have something to show for a fight, but Seamus’s head sunk even lower into his shoulders.

“Come now, what happened to your eye?” When Seamus pressed his lips together and shook his head, Alex put his hand on the lad’s shoulder. “I’ll do what I can to help, whatever it is.”

Seamus ventured a sideways glance at Alex. “In private,” he whispered. “No one can know. Ye must promise me.”

“Ye have my word,” Alex said. “Here, take my shield, and we’ll go into the armory.”

Once they were alone in the armory, Alex sat beside the boy on a low wooden bench. He pretended to study the axes and other weapons hanging on the stone wall in front of him while he waited for Seamus to speak.

“’Tis about my sister,” Seamus choked out.

Ach, family troubles, the worst kind. “What about Ùna?”

“My da…my da…” Seamus couldn’t get the words out, and various thoughts whirled in Alex’s head, none of them pleasant.

“Has your father hurt her?” he asked.

Seamus nodded without looking up.

Alex forced himself to keep his voice calm. “I suppose ye got that black eye trying to protect her?”

When the lad nodded again, Alex clenched his teeth against the blinding rage that roared through him. Seamus’s father was a foot taller and twice the lad’s weight. Alex wanted to murder the man.

“I know what it’s like to be angry with your father,” Alex said, though his own father only laid a hand on him when it was well deserved, and then it was always measured. “How has your father hurt your sister?”

Alex pretended not to see the tears that started spilling down the lad’s face and took a deep breath. This was even worse than he’d first thought.

“You’re a brave lad, but ye don’t have the size or the years to handle this problem yourself,” Alex said. “When our chieftain made me keeper of Dunfaileag Castle, he made the safety of every member of our clan here on North Uist my responsibility—that includes you and your sister. Ye must tell me what the trouble is so I can do my duty.”

“I don’t know exactly,” Seamus said, fidgeting. “But he gets drunk and sends me out of the cottage. He bars the door so I can’t get back in, but I can hear my sister screaming.”

Alex’s stomach turned sour. Oh, God, there was evil in this world.

“When he lets me back in,” Seamus said, his voice barely above a whisper, “Ùna is on the bed weeping. Da tells her to keep her mouth shut, or he’ll do it again.”

The man should go straight to hell, and Alex wanted to hurry him on his journey.

“Ye did well to tell me,” Alex said, and the lad’s shoulders relaxed as if a weight had been taken from them. “I’m going to pay a visit on your father.”

“He’s gone fishing in deep waters,” Seamus said. “We don’t expect him back for a few days.”

May he drown and save me the trouble.

“The two of ye will stay at the castle until I can sort this out with your father,” Alex said. “We’ll go get Ùna and your things now.”

“I don’t know if she’ll come,” Seamus said. “Men frighten her. Best let me talk with her first.”

“I’ll bring my wife,” Alex said. “She’ll be able to persuade Ùna.”

“But ye promised ye would tell no one!” Seamus’s eyes were panicked. “Ye gave me your word.”

“All right, I won’t tell my wife just yet,” Alex said, putting his hand up to calm the lad. “Go home and talk to Ùna, and I’ll come get the two of ye after supper.”

With their father out to sea, waiting a couple of hours should make no difference.

I
must see to a matter with one of the tenants,” Alex said at the end of supper. He got up and kissed his wife’s forehead. “It shouldn’t take long, but don’t wait up.”

The wind swept over the tall grass, making it move like an amber sea, as Alex crossed through it in the growing darkness. Ahead of him, weak candlelight shone through the window of the small cottage at the edge of the sea. Sadness seemed to weigh down its sagging thatched roof.

Alex knocked on the cottage’s weathered door. When his knock was met by silence, he knocked again. “Seamus, it’s me, open up.”

Silence again. Unease settled in Alex’s gut. He gave them another moment, and then he opened the door.

Alex was a warrior, and he’d fought since he was almost as young as Seamus. And yet, he stood staring for a long moment at the chaos in the one-room cottage before he could take it in. Questions flooded his mind as his gaze traveled over the broken crockery strewn across the floor, the broken table and overturned benches, before coming to rest on the body.

Seamus’s father lay on his back in a pool of blood with a knife stuck in the middle of his chest.

The smell of burning herring finally penetrated Alex’s thoughts. As he crossed the small room to the hearth, he wrapped his shirt around his hand, then lifted the flaming pan from its hook over the fire and set it on the dirt floor. The pan hissed and smoked as he doused the flame with a jug of water that had miraculously survived the maelstrom.

Alex waved the smoke away from his face and looked about the cottage again. Mother, Mary of God, where were the children?

His heart missed a beat when he saw a still, bare foot under the edge of the bed. When he dropped to his knees amid the broken crockery, he saw a tangle of arms and legs under the bed. He prayed hard for a sign of life.

“’Tis safe to come out,” he said, speaking in a low voice. “It’s me, Alex.”

When Seamus’s head and shoulders popped out from under the bed, relief coursed through Alex’s body. He pulled Seamus out and held him on his lap as if he were a bairn Sorcha’s age.

Ùna rolled out from under the bed with a fire poker in her hand. The lass was covered in blood. When she saw Alex holding her brother, she blinked several times and then slowly dropped her arm with the poker to her side.

“I did it, not Seamus,” she said. “I killed him.”

“Ye had good cause, lass,” Alex said. “No one who knows what your father did to ye will blame ye.” Whether everyone would believe it was another question.

“I would die of shame if anyone knew,” Ùna said. “I don’t want anyone to know what he did.
Not ever
.”

Ùna had started shaking, and Alex did not have the heart to cause the lass any more suffering. He took a deep breath as it became clear what he would have to do.

“If you and your brother can pretend that none of this happened,” he said, “then no one need know that ye killed your father or why.”

Both of them nodded. Keeping secrets about what happened in this house was not new to them.

“I’ll take his body out to sea in his boat,” Alex said. “Fishermen are lost all the time. When he fails to return home in a week or two, folks will assume he drowned.”

Seamus and Ùna looked at Alex as if he were the second coming.

“Can ye clean up here while I’m gone?”

“Aye,” the girl said.

“Seamus, I’ll need a rope and a shovel,” Alex said, as he took off his boots. “Bring them down to the boat.”

Alex hefted the body over his shoulder and carried it down to the boat, which he found on the beach just below the cottage. Their father had kept the boat in such poor repair that none of the fishermen would be surprised when it washed up on shore with a hole in it. A body with a knife wound, however, could be a problem. Alex grunted as he lifted a heavy rock onto the boat.

Seamus came out of the darkness and put the shovel and rope in the boat.

“I’ll be back in a few hours.” Alex squeezed the lad’s shoulders. They felt frail and bony beneath his hands. “It will be all right.”

After sailing down the coast a bit, Alex took the boat straight out to sea for a mile or more. He tied the stone to the body and dumped them both over the side. Damned if he’d say a prayer for the man.

After ramming a hole in the boat with the shovel, Alex dove over the side. He was a strong swimmer, so the worst part of the long swim was the cold. Still, it seemed to take forever to reach shore. When he did, he was so cold he was shaking. He was barefoot and soaking wet, but he warmed up as he made the long walk back by starlight.

By the time he reached the cottage, the sky had the gray cast of predawn. Thankfully, the children—though Ùna was seventeen, Alex could not help thinking of her as a child—had a good fire going. Alex stood before it to dry his clothes as long as he dared.

“Ye did a good job cleaning up,” he said, as he put his boots on.

“I burned what I was wearing,” Ùna said.

“Good. Now get some rest.” They were both too pale and had dark circles under their eyes. “I’ll come back to check on ye tomorrow.”

Alex was exhausted when he returned to the castle just as dawn was breaking. The guards at the gate were men who had come with him from Skye. He suspected they might think he had been in some woman’s bed, as in former days, but he could not very well tell them he’d spent the night disposing of a body at sea—and he was too damned tired to think of a better explanation. He would set them straight in the morning.

Praise be to the saints that Glynis was a sound sleeper. All the same, before easing the bedchamber door open Alex took off his boots and then set them down carefully just inside the door. After hanging his damp clothes over a stool, Alex slipped under the bedclothes and wrapped himself around Glynis. After the hellish night, peacefulness settled over him, as it always did when he fell asleep with his wife in his arms.

Glynis lay on her side watching the pink dawn sky through the narrow window. Her husband’s arm felt heavy slung across her ribs. With every breath she took, the weight seemed to grow heavier and heavier until she felt as if she were wheezing. But she knew it was not his arm, but the weight on her heart that made it so hard to breathe.

She told herself not to rush to judgment. There could be a dozen reasons why Alex crept into bed with the dawn. And yet, she could think of only one. It throbbed in her head.
Another woman, another woman.

She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed.
Please, God, don’t let it be true.

If Alex had planned to meet a lover, that would explain why he was distracted all through supper last night. And then there was his vague explanation about needing to visit a tenant, something he never did in the evening. And his parting words:
Don’t wait up.

Alex was sleeping like the dead—or like a man who had spent the night sating himself.

Glynis could not lie here a moment longer waiting for Alex to wake up and tell her where he’d been all night. When she threw off the bedclothes and sat up, the first thing she saw was his boots. Alex had stood them neatly by the door instead of tossing them on the floor by the bed as he always did.

Her husband had taken pains not to wake her when he came in.

Glynis was so upset that the thought of breakfast made her ill. After grabbing an oatcake for her pocket from the kitchen, she headed out for a walk on the beach. She bid good day to the men on guard as she started through the gate, then she stopped.

“Were ye here when my husband came in early this morning?” she asked one of the men. Her stomach sank as the guard looked away and shifted his weight from side to side.

“Aye,” the man said, then quickly added, “but he didn’t say where he’d been.”

Apparently, Alex did not need to say for the man to guess.