The Ghost, Greyson, Maeve [funny books to read TXT] 📗

hope ye’re happy. I heard’m say they plan to hang him.” Her sullenness shifted to seething hatred. “I came back here to tell ye afore I left, so ye’d know what yer deceitfulness done to him.” She snatched up a broken piece of wood and pointed it at Brenna like a knife. “Now I’ll be going to Fort William, so’s he can at least see me a grieving for him while he hangs.”

The girl’s gut-wrenching revelation knocked away Brenna’s ability to stand. She dropped to her knees. “Ye lie, ye vicious girl,” she choked out once she calmed enough to draw a breath. “Dinna think I willna kill ye for telling me such tales as a cruel jest.”

“Why would I lie?” Cadha dared. She dismissed Brenna with a rude flip of her hand. “I’m nay the one who got him hunted down like a rabid wolf.” She jabbed the stick at Brenna again. “That there sin lays at yer feet, not mine.” With a scowling glance around the cavern, she shook her head. “I’m also nay the one who done all this. Them feckin’ Sassenachs came through here. Lost four of their own whilst they sacked the place and didna even care about them there men.”

An ugly snort exploded from her as she tossed the shard of wood into the fire.

“The redcoats destroyed the stores? All of them?” Brenna wondered if the lass spoke the truth or if the malicious babbling came from her madness.

“Aye, they did. All the necessaries I was using done been ruin’t. Ever last bit.” Cadha stared at her as if she thought her a dullard. “Why would I do it? I been living in these caves since old Fitzgerald kicked me out.” She scooted closer to the fire. Disgust twisted her face. “That wicked old cow. I warned her ’bout that Alice whoring around with that lying redcoat, and she called me the liar. Pulled me out by my ear in front of God and ever’body.” She angled around toward the fire, lifted her chin, and tapped a string of mottled bruises framing her jawline. “I even showed her proof. See here? All them MacCoinnichs trusted Alice’s soldier, but this here’s what that man done to me when I told him I’d be telling my Magnus about him spying to help that new Fort William officer clear them off the mountain.” With a curt dip of her chin, she snatched up an oatcake and tore into it. “That Thomas Parlorn wouldha sold his soul to the devil himself if’n he thought it’d get him ahead.” She laughed, spitting oatcake everywhere. “Guess he’s talking to old Scratch right now. As long as his yelling lasted, probably shook every wall in Hell when he finally hit bottom.”

Brenna remembered Catriona had spoken about Thomas Parlorn and Alice as though she trusted them. The picture Cadha painted said otherwise. “Ye said Magnus had been captured,” she reminded, forcing the words out. “When?”

“Right ’fore I came back here to tell ye.” Gingerly touching the purple knot swelling just above her wrist, Cadha frowned at the injury as she talked. “I tried my best to get to Magnus to warn him ’bout the trap the English planned to set, but I had to wait ’til I didna think the soldiers was in that part of the caves anymore.” She frowned, turning her arm and studying the break from a different angle. “But they blocked my way. It took me a while to find another opening.” Easing her arm down to rest in her lap, she gave a sad shake of her head. “I came out near their horses. Saw them throw my Magnus over a mare like a sack of grain.” The girl drew herself up and jabbed a finger at Brenna. “This here’s all yer fault. If ye hadna made him feel all sorry for ye about yer whoring days, he wouldha never tried to jump that English dog. He and I couldha been together, like I planned.”

“Enough! Just because a man saved yer life doesna mean he loved ye!” Brenna had tolerated all the insults she could stand. “Ye might think ye love him—” Both hands fisted, she charged forward, ready to fight. “But know this, ye hateful bit of scum, he is my husband, and if ye dinna shut yer maw, I’ll be shutting it for ye!”

Cadha jerked away as though dodging a hit. “He saved me, he did, and I know’d him long before ye did,” she said, but her tone had changed. She still reeked of jealousy, but her hatred had somehow waned. In its place was a hint of respect and maybe a little fear.

“Aye, that’s true.” Brenna stood her ground, forcing a calmer demeanor but keeping her hand on her dagger. Cadha couldn’t be trusted. The girl’s eyes gleamed with madness. If she wished to best the maid, she had to keep a cool head and reason with her addled mind. “Ye have known him longer.” She sidled around the fire, deciding it safer to keep her back to the wall rather than the bottomless fissure. A good shove could be disastrous. “And Magnus saved ye because he has a good heart and doesna wish for anyone to suffer—not because he loved ye.”

The maid frowned. Not a hateful scowl, but a studious pucker as though sorting through her thoughts. “But I love him,” she argued with a disturbing calmness.

“Aye, but he doesna love ye back,” Brenna said. “Unfortunately, love doesna always work as we wish it.” The swelling on Cadha’s arm looked worse. It needed a splint, a poultice of knitbone, and a good wrapping. Brenna nodded at the lass’s wound. “Let me help ye now, aye? I’m a healer.”

“Why ye acting like ye want to help me? There’s no one here to see yer charity and tell ye how good ye are.” The lass cradled her arm in her lap and crammed the last of the oatcake into her mouth. “My arm be