Pausing, he held her away and peered down at the swaddled pup in her arms. “Another beastie ye’ve rescued?” He set her down and tugged the swaddling aside to get a better look at the baby fox’s fuzzy face. A smile tipped his lips as he took in the linen bandages running around his head and tied under his chin. Shaking his head, he warned, “Lovey’ll be jealous.”
“Aye,” Claray acknowledged with a small sigh as she peered down at the now squirming bundle.
“He does no’ seem too happy at the moment,” Alick commented.
“He’s no doubt hungry,” Claray said, her eyebrows drawing together with concern. She’d been most negligent of the fox pup and the bunny the last day while sleeping. Babies had to eat regularly. He should be fed.
“I’ll tend him, lass.”
Claray turned to find her father’s stable master behind her and smiled at the older man as she gave up the pup into his capable hands. “Thank ye, Edmund. Be careful o’ his ears. Some vile creature chewed them off.”
He nodded, but then arched one bushy salt and pepper eyebrow. “Is it only the fox I need fetch?”
“Oh. Nay, there’s a bunny too,” she admitted. “Hamish has him.” She glanced around to see that Hamish was standing in a circle with her father, her cousin Aulay, Conall, Payton and Roderick. They all looked most serious, she noted, and wondered what they were discussing. Probably MacNaughton, she suspected, but couldn’t help wondering what they were saying about him.
“I’ll fetch the bunny, lass,” Edmund said, drawing her gaze back to him. Despite the words, he didn’t leave at once, but tilted his head and considered her briefly before asking, “Is that it?”
As if the question were a cue, Squeak climbed out of her plaid and scrambled up to sit on her shoulder.
“A stoat?” Edmund asked with a pained grimace as Alick began to chuckle.
Claray scowled at her cousin, but assured Edmund, “I’ll manage Squeak. He’s fine with me.”
The stable master just shook his head and turned to walk toward Hamish.
“I see yer da has no’ reined in yer habit o’ rescuing the wee beasties,” Alick said, eyeing the stoat on her shoulder with amusement.
Claray turned her head to try to see Squeak, and the small creature immediately scrambled closer, rose up on his back legs and grasped her face with his tiny front paws, then commenced to chitter and squeak most demandingly.
“The fox pup is no’ the only one who’s hungry,” Alick said on a laugh as he scooped Squeak off her shoulder and away from her face to offer him to her.
“Aye. I’d best feed him,” Claray murmured as she took the stoat from his hands into her own.
“Him? I meant me,” Alick said on a laugh, throwing an arm over her shoulders and turning her toward the keep stairs. “Ye should feed both o’ us.”
Claray shook her head with amusement, but was thinking that she was quite hungry herself. Probably Conall and the others would be too. As far as she knew none of them had eaten anything other than an oatcake or two in the saddle since their stop in the clearing when they’d captured, cleaned and cooked up the fish for her. That had been a day and a half ago. Maybe even two. Claray had lost track of time on this journey and wasn’t even sure what day it was now. Setting aside that worry for the present, she glanced toward her father and the other men, and asked, “Should we ask if they want something to eat too?”
“Nay. Just assume they do and leave them to their planning,” Alick suggested, and then said solemnly, “Yer da has no’ eaten more than a bite or two this last week since we got news o’ what Uncle Gilchrist was up to and the peril he’d put ye in. He was most concerned.”
Claray wasn’t surprised to hear this. Her father always lost his appetite when trouble was afoot. It had been something of a concern when her mother was ill. He’d lost so much weight that Claray and the rest of her siblings had begun to fear they would lose him too. In fact, if her mother had struggled on living any longer than she had, they might have.
“Then let’s go see what we can scrape together,” Claray suggested, starting up the stairs with him to the keep doors. “Hopefully, Cook has food left over from the day that we can make a meal of.”
“Now?”
Conall tore his gaze from where Claray was slipping into the keep with her cousin Alick Buchanan, and turned to face his outraged soon-to-be father-in-law. “Aye. Now,” he responded, and then raised his eyebrows and added. “I thought ye’d be pleased. Ye’ve been natterin’ after me fer years to do me duty and marry yer daughter, and now I am.”
“But ’tis near to midnight,” Gannon MacFarlane pointed out. “Father Cameron’ll be sleepin’ and—”
“Wake him up,” Conall interrupted reasonably.
Claray’s father opened his mouth, closed it and then tried again. “Surely this can wait until the morrow? We could prepare in the mornin’, hold the ceremony in the afternoon, have a celebration feast and . . . Stop shakin’ yer head, dammit. She is me daughter and I’d see her married proper.”
“Then ye’ll want to hold it now and see the proof o’ consummation in the morn, because we leave at first light fer MacDonald,” he informed him, and when MacFarlane looked ready to explode and opened his mouth again to protest, Conall turned to Aulay Buchanan and asked, “Ye’re sure MacNaughton is still at Kerr?”
“Aye. After ye headed out to retrieve Claray, I sent men to follow and watch Kerr and MacNaughton. I wanted warning if he, or they both, followed and planned to attack. But he’s remained there. I am hopin’ he’s given up, but . . .”
“But?” Conall prompted.
Aulay shook his head. “But Maldouen MacNaughton is known to be a stubborn, sneaky bastard. I half suspect he’s just lettin’ us think he’s given up and plottin’ something else.” He raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”
“I think MacNaughton is determined to get his hands on MacFarlane. He no doubt sees it as his only protection against the Campbells chargin’ right o’er him and takin’ o’er MacNaughton to make it part o’ their own lands. And if Claray is to be believed, he’s desperate to the point he’s willin’ to kill every last one o’ us to manage that. I think he’s remained at Kerr to lull us into thinkin’ he’s given up on Claray and she is safe, but that he’s probably sent a man, or several, out to try to sneak in here and either poison the food or drink, or pay one o’ the people here to do it.”
“But that would kill Claray too,” Claray’s father protested with a frown. “He could no’ force her to marry him and claim MacFarlane if she’s dead.”
Conall had already considered that during the journey here and now pointed out what he’d realized when Claray wouldn’t eat the pheasant. “She would no’ be harmed if the poison was on the meat. Claray does no’ eat meat.”
“Nay, she does no’,” Gannon agreed with a small frown, and then shook his head and muttered, “She’s a soft heart, our Claray. She’s forever findin’ wounded beasties, from wee birds to big bulls. She mends the damned things and, worse yet, befriends them, and once she’s done that, she can no bring herself to eat the flesh o’ their kind,” Gannon admitted with a sigh. But then rallied and said, “But no’ one o’ me people would agree to kill everyone here. Especially Cook. He’s been with us forever, keeps a close watch on his kitchens, and rubbin’ poison in every side of meat here would take forever.” He shook his head firmly. “No one could sneak in and rub poison on the meat without being caught.”