The Bard (Highland Heroes #5) - Maeve Greyson Page 0,90

his lantern light grew stronger.

“The son of a whore escaped me!” Sutherland punched the wall again, wishing he had never been foolish enough to think the mad man too addled to be a threat. “It’s been that sneaky bastard all along!”

“Come.” Magnus pulled him away from the wall. “Breaking yer knuckles willna save yer lady love. We’ll find out as much as we can about the wily fool, and then we’ll hunt him down, ye ken?”

“How could I have trusted him?” He wished he could turn back time and snap the man’s neck instead of just knock him down the stable aisle. “I am a damned fool.”

“Nay.” Magnus took hold of his shoulder and steered him forward, back through the passage, and down the hallway. “Ye are a good-hearted man who believed what the woman ye loved told ye.” He huffed out a deep sigh. “I imagine she’s regretting ever defending that man by now, too.”

“If he’s hurt her…” He couldn’t bear to think about it.

MacIlroy stepped forward as they entered the hall. “Is he…?”

“Nay,” Sutherland snapped. “Yer damned son escaped. It appears he knows those tunnels like the back of his bloodied hand.”

The war chief covered his face with his hands and lowered himself to a bench. “God forgive me,” he said. “He’s even worse than his mother was when I took her away.”

“Ye knew of his insanity, and yet ye said nothing?” Sutherland barely held himself back from striking the man.

Greyloch stepped between them, holding up his hands and shaking his head. “We all knew of his insanity but didna think him capable of such malice and cunning. Heckie has always been a kind, simple soul since the day he was born.”

“Aye, as his mother was until she reached a certain age.” MacIlroy dropped his hands to his lap and lifted his head, but the faraway look in his eyes said he was trapped in his memories. “I loved her so. She seemed a bit on the simple side, but the kindest, sweetest lass I had ever known. Until later. At times, she would change. Wasna herself at all.” His shoulders slumped, and he rocked forward with his head bowed. “She killed our firstborn. Three years old, my precious son was, when I came home, and she had strangled him with her belt. When I opened the door and found her holding him in her arms, she smiled and told me she had sent him to the Lord to save him from all the evil in the world.” He continued staring at the floor. “I wouldha killed her, but the crazed look in her eyes stayed my hand. So, I took her to the asylum after I buried my dear little lad. They sent me word of her expecting another bairn a few months later.”

“She had Heckie in the asylum?” Sutherland asked, feeling sorrow for the man and all he had endured, but nothing but malice for Heckie and increasing fear for Sorcha’s safety.

“Aye. She birthed him early and died with his coming. I brought him here and found a wet nurse, thinking God had given me another son to replace the one I had lost. But every year, as I watched him grow, I realized—my Heckie wasna quite right.” He blew out a heavy sigh. “I know now I shouldha had him locked away years ago, but I didna have the heart. I prayed the kindness he found here at Greyloch would somehow keep his simpleness from turning dark as his mother’s had. I had hoped he’d escaped that part of the madness.” He stared at Chieftain Greyloch. “He loved yer daughter. I pray he hasna harmed her.”

“Where would he take her?” While Sutherland felt bad for the man, his sad tale made the need to find Sorcha even stronger. Heckie’s mother had killed her own firstborn d. Who was to say Heckie wouldn’t murder Sorcha? “Where would he hide her?”

“She has to be somewhere in the tunnels,” Greyloch said. “There’s no other place he could hide her and still walk among us as he did today.”

“She’s awake!” One of the sentinels around Jenny’s bed clapped his hands to get their attention. “Mistress Jenny’s eyes have finally opened.”

Aderyn climbed down from the bench where she had been bandaging Kiff’s arrow wound and hurried to Jenny’s side. “Aye, ’tis true! The lass be awake!”

The guard who had first noticed the change in Jenny’s state remained on his knees at her bedside, her hand cupped between his. “Jenny,” he