Toran handed off the two horses. The men looked at the animals suspiciously. Though he’d gotten rid of the dragoons’ personal effects, there was no mistaking the English saddles with King George’s crest carved into the leather.
“Destroy everything but the horses. Change their shoes to be rid of the King George crest and repurpose the iron for shot.”
“Aye, sir.” The men were used to such requests, given his uncle’s way of life. And his own.
Toran didn’t waste another minute before rushing inside. The doors to the great hall were open, and voices could be heard inside, but before he reached it, a hand snaked out of the dark, wrapping firmly around his forearm.
“Toran.” He whipped his head to the side, recognizing the grizzled, shadowed face of his cousin Simon. “We need to talk.”
“Not now.”
Simon gripped him harder. “Aye. Right now. I know what ye did. And my da knows too.”
Toran felt his blood running cold. Was he too late already? But instead of reacting, he yanked his arm from his cousin’s grasp. “Ye know nothing.”
Simon laughed, the sound always reminding Toran of a dagger scraping against stone. “Ye’re just like your mother.”
Toran was swift to react, wrapping his fist in Simon’s shirt and slamming him back against the wall. “Dinna speak of my mother.”
Simon’s lips peeled away from his teeth in an ugly smile. “Traitor,” he whispered.
But to even suggest that Toran was a traitor when Simon and his own father had made a life from doing such was absolutely ridiculous. His cousin always had been one to shoot off at the mouth when he shouldn’t. Which could only mean one thing—he did know something.
Toran shoved his cousin back, letting go of his shirt and raking him with a look of disgust. “Watch your back, Simon.”
“Is that a threat, Cousin?”
Toran didn’t bother to respond. He backed away slowly to the great hall, where he found his uncle at the head of the table, Camdyn and Isla flanking him along with several other Frasers. Slowly his uncle raised his glittering gaze, the threats Simon had issued in the corridor clear in his uncle’s eyes. Toran braced for an attack, or men to rush him from the dark corners, but none came—yet that didn’t mean they wouldn’t.
“So, ye’ve returned.” His uncle sounded surprised, but the satisfied grin on his face only set Toran’s nerves on edge.
“Toran!” his sister called as she and their brother pushed out of their chairs. Isla bounded for him, and Camdyn walked as stoically as any adolescent on the verge of manhood might.
Toran tugged Isla into his arms, the impact of her body making him waver. He held her tight and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She resembled their mother so much it made him ache—auburn hair threaded with gold and eyes the color of the sea. She was taller than their mother had been by several inches, taking her height from their father.
“I see ye’ve suffered greatly in my absence,” he teased, tugging lightly on her braided hair.
“Aye, ye were gone too long, Brother. Another week and we’d have forgotten ye existed,” she taunted right back, giving him a tug of his locks in turn.
Toran grinned, proud of the backbone his sister had—another trait she’d inherited from their mother.
Camdyn stopped a couple of feet away, nodding to his brother, though Toran saw a yearning for an embrace in his eyes as well. Staring at his brother was like glancing into a looking glass, the same dark hair falling around their shoulders and eyes that were blue as an afternoon sky. With a year or two more to grow, Camdyn might end up being as tall as Toran himself, but for now he came just about up to his chin. His body was lanky, not yet filled in with a man’s muscles, and his face was smooth of any of the hardness war would soon give him.
“Ye look well,” Toran said.
“Ye look alive,” Camdyn replied with a quirk to his lip. “We thought ye were dead.”
Toran clapped his brother on the back, squeezed his shoulder, and then rubbed his hand over the lad’s hair.
“Why are ye not dead?” their uncle said from across the room.
Simon slinked into the great hall then, leaning against the wall by the door, a grin of evil satisfaction on his face.
Toran faced the man who’d raised him after the death of his father. “Uncle.”