Page 72 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

The lower vaults of the keep were always damp, smelling of old iron, wet wool, and oil. Dougal was sitting on a low wooden bench near the back wall, a long-handled axe resting across his knees, an oilstone gripped in his hand. The rhythmic shhhk-shhhk of steel against stone stopped the instant Alpin’s heavy boots struck the threshold.

Dougal didn't look up immediately. He kept his head bowed, his knuckles white against the haft of the weapon.

Alpin didn't stop until he was standing directly over the older man, his shadow swallowing Dougal whole. He didn't ask a question. He didn't shout. He stood there, his chest heaving silently, his eyes fixed on the graying crown of Dougal’s head.

The silence between them stretched, heavy and poisonous, until the air felt brittle enough to snap.

Dougal’s shoulders caved inward. The oilstone slipped from his numb fingers, clattering against the flagstones and rolling a few inches before coming to a rest.

"Alpin..." Dougal’s voice was barely a rasp, dry and broken.

"The morning before I sailed," Alpin said. His voice was terrifyingly quiet, void of all warmth, void of all nuance. "She touched me arm."

Dougal closed his eyes. A long, shuddering breath rattled in his chest, making him look suddenly twenty years older than he had five minutes ago.

"She touched me father's arm," Alpin added, stepping an inch closer. "Tell me."

"I couldnae stop it," Dougal whispered to the stone floor.

"Tell me."

Dougal lifted his head, his face pale, lined with a deep, crushing exhaustion that had clearly been eating him alive from the inside out for decades. Tears glistened in the deep folds around his eyes, but he didn't wipe them away.

"It was the poison from the southern weeds," Dougal choked out, his hands shaking as he let the axe drop to the floor. "The ones that take weeks to work. Slowly. Like a rot in the blood that looks like a failing heart."

Alpin’s hand dropped to his sword hilt, his knuckles turning dead white. "Me father."

"Yer father," Dougal admitted, his head dropping into his hands. "She did it for the council. For the elders who thought he was going to sign away the eastern grazing lands to the southern lords. They came to her. They paid her in silver, in protection, in land rights for her kin."

Alpin stepped forward, grabbing Dougal by the wool of his tunic and dragging him up off the bench until they were nose-to-nose.

"And ye?" Alpin snarled, his breath hot against Dougal's face. "Ye were his captain. Ye were me shield."

"I found the vial in her cottage!" Dougal wept openly now, making no effort to pull away from Alpin's grip, accepting the rough handling like a man standing before an executioner. "I found it after he was already in the ground. She looked me in the eye and told me if I spoke a word to ye—if I brought it to the clan—she would make sure the same powder found its way into yer porridge before the week was out."

Dougal’s hands came up, hovering near Alpin’s wrists, trembling violently.

"Ye were nineteen, Alpin! Ye were a boy playing at being a Laird, surrounded by wolves in yer own hall! I kept quiet to keep the cup away from yer mouth! I took the burden! I carried it every damned day so ye could breathe!"

Alpin shoved Dougal backward. The older man stumbled, hitting the stone wall with a thud, slid down it, and sat collapsed on the floor, weeping silently into his dirt-stained hands.

Alpin stood in the center of the armory, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped beast.

The quiet morning before he sailed. The soft touch on his sleeve. The herbs for a "peaceful journey."

It hadn't been a blessing. It had been the beginning of the end. She had started the process on him, just as she had done with his father, waiting for the right moment, the right political shift, to let the poison finish its quiet work. And Grisselle—Grisselle had been collateral, pulled into the web the moment she stepped onto their shores.

Alpin turned toward the doorway, his broadsword clearing its sheath with a sharp, ringing shriek of steel that echoed down the dark stone corridor.

The echo of the steel died against the stone walls, but the ringing in Alpin’s ears remained.

He didn't charge down the hall. He couldn't. The sword stayed heavy in his hand, the tip pointing down toward the flagstones as the full weight of Dougal’s revelation settled over him. It wasn't an invading garrison he had to fight; it was a web of old lies woven into the very bones of his own keep.

He turned on his heel and strode back into the inner passage toward the armory, his boots slamming hard against the floorboards.

Isobel was coming up the corridor, a bundle of fresh linen tucked under her arm. She stopped short when she saw his face; the blood drained from his cheeks and his knuckles white around the hilt of his weapon.

"Alpin?" She set the linen on a stone bench, her dark eyes sharp with sudden alarm. "What has happened?"