Highland Sword (Royal Highlander #3) - May McGoldrick Page 0,24

he’s been very much the gentleman. He says nothing at all in response to the tales Sebastian Grant is weaving at supper every night.”

“What tales?”

“That his brother made the mistake of getting too close to you in an alleyway in Inverness. That you thrashed him like a Latin master on examination day.”

“I’ll never be allowed to go back to town,” Morrigan huffed, walking back to the table. She removed the books from the flyers. Even from the few words she’d shared with Sebastian, though, she could see the man had a sense of humor.

She’d learned a little more about the Grants since that first day. The brothers had come north to take up the case of the Chattan brothers at the request of Searc. Aidan was quite famous, apparently, in Edinburgh and Glasgow. But this case would help his standing in the Highlands, and it would help him move a few steps closer to a seat in Parliament.

Morrigan’s thoughts again meandered to their moments in the library. She wished she’d been brave enough to stay longer and continue their sparring. Or go back to that room the next night, knowing that was where he’d be working. The quickening of her pulse was as unwelcome as it was troublesome.

“Why are you staring at this twaddle again?”

Fiona’s question shook Morrigan free of her musing about Aidan. The young woman was standing at her shoulder and gazing down at the flyers spread out on the table. She’d seen the sketches the last time she wandered in here. Maisie explained what they’d discovered earlier.

“It’s a curious thing that he should repeat these suggestions of Catholicism in every one of the etchings we have,” Morrigan added.

“And you believe this is part of his signature?” Fiona asked, reflecting on it.

“Other than the nuns,” Morrigan asked, “do either of you see anything else?”

From the first time Morrigan laid her eyes on these flyers, she’d sensed there was something hidden in them.

“I wonder if this he might actually be a she,” Fiona suggested suddenly, motioning to the caricatures. “In several of them, you can see a ring of women looking at the central images. We also have the nuns. The children, which appear to be girls. It’s the same thing in several of the others. It’s mostly women.”

Morrigan leaned over the table again. “It’s a possibility.”

Maisie nodded. “Particularly if she is somehow connected with nuns or a school for Catholic girls.”

There was a great deal more to these than immediately struck the viewer. Morrigan tried to justify in her mind why a woman, a talented artist living in the Highlands, would draw these for the enemy. She recalled what Maisie said only a few minutes ago. People were hungry. Jobs were scarce. Perhaps she had children with no roof over their heads and no food to sustain them. Desperation made people do terrible things. And there were thousands upon thousands of struggling war widows throughout Scotland.

If this was indeed the work of a woman, perhaps she was being forced to do it against her will.

The three turned as one at the sound of another knock at the door. Morrigan opened it to Auld Jean, John Gordon’s aunt. Though the old woman was afflicted with shaking palsy, nothing slowed her down. She’d taken it on herself to bring up Morrigan’s clean, mended dress from the seamstress. The outfit was the one she’d worn to Inverness.

Morrigan took the dress and invited her to sit. Jean shuffled across the floor, limping slightly. She hadn’t seen the caricatures on the flyers, and it didn’t make any sense to show them to her now. She was devoted to both Cinaed and Isabella, and there was no point upsetting her.

Once settled into her chair, she looked suspiciously at the three of them. “What goes on here? Ye look to be a gaggle of witches getting up a brew for Samhain.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Well, ye’ll not be leaving me out. I been doing it since I were a wee lass.”

Auld Jean was from a village huddled beneath a rugged headland east of Inverness. If not for her involvement with Isabella and Cinaed, she’d still be there. But her old life was gone too, and she now lived at Dalmigavie, where she watched over everyone while her nephew mended.

“No witch’s brew here,” Maisie assured her.

“Actually,” Morrigan said, “we could use your knowledge of the area.”

“What knowledge?” Her old eyes flashed. “I’m no mountain ewe, lassie. Born and bred in the shadow of Duff