Page 55 of Hold Fast

“Well?” Ewan said. “Who is the man?”

“He’s a crabbit auld git to be sure,” David said with a snort.

“Och, aye,” Kenneth said, his eyebrows going high on his forehead. “Making demands like the king and criticizing the ale, accusing the serving women of giving him the worst stock.”

Ewan clenched his fists tightly, the knuckles cracking. Only a laird would come with such a presence. Only a laird would dare. But had Malcolm Cameron changed so much that Kenneth and David did not recognize him? Was he disguised?

“How many men accompanied him?”

“None,” David replied.

“None?” Ewan said in disbelief.

“Nary a one.”

“And you—”

“Aye. I ordered patrols to search the woods around the keep. He came alone.”

That made no sense at all. Even disguised, Laird Cameron would not travel alone. But he wouldn’t get any answers standing out here. He gripped the hilt of his sword with one hand and took a deep, fortifying breath.

“Verra well. Let us nae keep the man waiting,” he said as he pushed open the doors to the Great Hall and scanned the room for the visitor, who was sitting at a trestle table just next to the dais.

It was an old man, with a leathery, tanned face and a halo of long, lank gray hair around his head below the tops of his ears. The man looked as indolent as he did inconvenienced.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Ewan asked, his voice sharp like a whip strike.

“My name is Fergus,” the man said with a broad smile, revealing several missing teeth. “I am Una’s father.”

Ewan blinked at the man.Una’s father?

“You were expecting someone else?” Fergus said with a smirk.

His own father would have dressed the man down for talking to him as though they were equals, but Ewan didn’t know how to deal with this sudden, unwelcome stranger. Especially not so close to hearing Una confess to him that her father had all but sold her to Malcolm Cameron.

“What do you want?” Ewan said, his teeth clenched. He’d done so much of that the past few weeks, both waking and sleeping, that his jaw hurt.

“What do I want?” he asked, leaning forward on his elbows over the table. “I came for my daughter, of course.”

“She isnae here,” Ewan lied.

“Och, m’laird, dinnae take me for a fool. Word has travelled far and wide about Laird MacDonald’s new healer, a bonny young lass with black hair and a temper like Cain. How many of those do you think there are in the Highlands?”

“I wouldnae ken,” Ewan said, keeping his face placid.

“Because there’s only one,” Fergus said, leaning in. “And she is my daughter. I’ll be takin’ her home with me.”

“You cannae take her,” Ewan said flatly, glaring at Fergus and crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“You mean to keep her here then? ’Tis improper. She belongs with her clan,” Fergus scoffed.

“She is with her clan.”

“She’s a Cameron!” Fergus snarled.

“Nae anymore.”

“You think that just because a lass runs away from her clan that she cannae still be claimed by the people who raised her?”