Page 76 of Highland Spy

Most of them.

A chill coiled up his spine.

I recognize ye. Many of us do.

He may have recognized Connor, but Connor had not recognized him. There’d been too little time to see the man’s face, and he’d blended into the crowd of people behind them before Connor could get a second look.

Even the man’s tone had been indiscernible. There had been no note of threat, but nor had there been one of hope.

Connor stared through the cluster of people to where Ariana moved through the market and placed purchased goods in the basket strung over her arm. Provisions for the next few days.

The idea of being here another few days left his muscles tight.

He searched the crowd for a familiar face. Perhaps if he could find someone he recognized from the castle, someone he trusted who had not been slain, he could ask after the others.

But had there been others?

He thought back to the day when he’d returned to the castle to find it bathed in a river of blood. It had been a massacre.

And when it had all ended, the only movements he saw were those of the men surrounding his father.

But he hadn’t checked. A little voice in his head reminded him of this.

There hadn’t been time to check.

But the Gordons had stayed in the castle. Surely anyone alive would have been dealt with. Then there were the people of the village. Connor hadn’t gone through the village. He was too concerned with keeping Cora safe. Murdoch had told him all the villagers were dead.

Murdoch would have located the survivors if they were alive. He’d been searching too.

Everyone was dead.

From what Connor knew, only himself, Cora, and Murdoch had survived.

“I’ve finished.” A feminine voice sounded beside Connor and nearly made him part with his flesh.

Ariana studied him with an amused glint in her sea-colored eyes. “Did I scare you?” Her full lips parted in a coy smile.

He tried to give her an expression of boredom. “Of course ye dinna.”

Her smirk told him she didn’t believe the lie. “I’d tried to get your attention, but you were so lost in your thoughts, you didn’t see me.”

Irritation coiled through him.

First being distracted by Ariana back in the town near Kindrochit, and now being lost in his musings over the potential survivors of Urquhart Castle’s massacre.

The weight of his thoughts pulled him to a point of sleeplessness, save the rarity of the previous night with Ariana.

The burden, the exhaustion—it was all catching up with him.

His father would have been disappointed by his performance.

As soon as it’d come, Connor knew the thought to be a lie. The Shadow had never found fault in his son.

“Meet me on the outskirts of town,” Connor said. “Stay where ye can be seen.” Her light-colored gown would be too conspicuous and she was safer if she continued to pretend to be a woman out gathering household wares and food stores for her mistress.

Ariana nodded and slipped back out into the busy marketplace.

Connor made his way through the shadows, moving with the invisibility of a beggar.