Bride For A Knight Page 0,68

me and no other - as I've already told the lackwits!"

Morag huffed. "I'd sooner believe it was God Almighty. You've e'er given Him ample reason to be vexed with you!"

"'Twas Neill's bogle so sure as I'm looking at you!" Munro narrowed his eyes on her.

Jamie and Aveline exchanged glances.

"Bogles dinna use crossbows," Jamie said, beginning to ease back the edge his father's blood-drenched plaid. "And lest you've forgotten, so far as I recall, Neill was a master with a blade but he ne'er fired a crossbow in his life."

He slid another glance at Aveline. "If you didn't know," he told her, "most knights frown on crossbows. Neill held them in particular scorn."

Munro sniffed. "How would you ken what he can or canna do now, in his after life? Him, being a bogle and all?"

"My brothers may be dead, but I've yet to see proof that any of them are returning here as ghosts. Despite all the reports to the contrary." Jamie bit back his temper and kept working at getting the bloody plaid off his father without causing him more discomfort than necessary.

The man's failing wits were suffering enough. If he had them in better order, he'd recall his eldest son's vaunting pride.

Truth was, Neill had despised crossbows, calling them a coward's weapon, good only for the lowliest paid mercenaries and brigands.

Neill had loved their father, too. Ne'er would he attempt to harm him. Not in a thousand lifetimes - whether Munro had neglected to repair the old footbridge or no.

Jamie pressed a hand to his brow. His temples were beginning to throb again.

"You don't think it was one of my father's Pabay men?" Aveline stepped close, pitching the question for his ears alone.

He looked at her. The notion had flashed across his mind, but he dismissed it now.

"Nay, lass, with surety not," he said, speaking equally low. "One of your father's reformed brigands would ne'er have missed their target. My da lives because the shot was clumsy. A true crossbowman would've had the skill to send his bolt through my father's heart and not his arm."

She bit her lip, looking unconvinced.

Jamie shook his head, seeking to reassure her. "I'd wager my last breath that none of Fairmaiden's Pabay men did this. Dinna you worry. I only meant to say it wasn't Neill's ghost, either."

Proud as he'd been, he wouldn't have touched a crossbow, insisting that doing so would've been beneath his dignity as a noble and belted knight. If Neill, Kendrick, or any Macpherson stood on the wrong foot with a man, they'd challenge their foe outright. It wasn't their clan's way to hide in the shadows, using darkness to cloak their blows.

Truth be told, such wasn't the way ofany Highlander.

Jamie turned back to his father, that knowledge making his head hurt all the more.

"Tell me, Da, was Neill wearing his wet plaid again when he shot you?" he prodded, certain that whoe'er was masquerading as his brother's ghost had also fired the crossbow. "Did you see him?"

"Of course, I saw him." Munro's eyes blazed, but his voice sounded wheezy, hoarse and growing fainter. "Do you think I'd say it was him if I hadn't seen him?"

Pushing up on his elbows, he pinned Jamie with a fierce stare. "I'm no' the only soul hereabouts who's seen Neill lurking about and Kendrick, too. So dinna go a-telling me I'm daft."

Ignoring his da's outburst, Jamie only cocked a brow. "And the plaid?"

Munro clamped his lips together, wincing when Jamie eased away another blood-sodden bit of cloth from the wound. "Nay, he wasn't in his plaid," he finally admitted, pushing the words past gritted teeth. "He - eeeeeeiioooow! "

The scream speared Jamie's heart, hurting him, he was sure, a thousand times more than the old man writhing on the high table.

"I am sorry," he said, hating the tears filling the older man's eyes. "The last bit of plaid and your tunic had to be ripped away."

He didn't mention that still more of the cloth would have to be picked and dug from his flesh. Deep in his flesh, for the iron-headed crossbow quarrel had gone clear through Munro's arm.

Morag, Lady Juliana, or even Aveline would perform the task with great care, seeing to it as soon as the wound was washed and rinsed, though Jamie doubted his father would appreciate their gentleness.

"I willna have the wound seared." Munro grabbed Jamie's wrist then, staring up at him with glittering, fear-glazed eyes. "Tell them. No hot blade on my flesh."

Looking down at him, something