“I treated you fine. I fed you, didn’t I?”
“Aye. Barely. Moldy bread and… Never mind. Where did you find us?”
“I don’t know,” she grumbled.
He cracked the whip. “Where?”
“Raghnall!” she called out. “Come save your mother!”
Eli entered and took the spot next to Thane. “Please. Allow me to stay,” she whispered to him. “It would please me so much to assist you.”
He gave Eli a slight nod before he repeated himself. “Where?”
“Raghnall?”
Eli smiled and stepped in front of her. “Your son is dead. Tamsin put an arrow in his bollocks, then kicked him there to uncover Alana’s location. He removed the arrow and bled out within minutes, killing himself. He can’t save you.”
“Why, that little whore killed my son?”
Eli reacted so quickly that she startled Thane, slapping the woman hard across the face. “She is not a whore. Close your mouth or I will sew your lips shut with a needle and thread, you witchin’ bitch.”
Dagga’s eyes widened, then she mumbled, “Coll. We stole you from Coll. All three of you. Raghnall killed your parents. It was a small village of five cottages.”
Thane dropped the whip on the floor and said, “You can leave her there if you wish.”
Alaric came in behind him and said, “I’ll tie her up and take her to the sheriff on Mull.”
Thane nodded, walking outside and straight into Tamsin’s arms. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. He just needed her. Alana slept on Tamsin’s shoulder, and he leaned in, clutching the woman as if she were all he had. And he let out what had been building up inside him for years. The tears erupted and flowed so easily but he didn’t care.
Tamsin did the one thing no one had ever done for him—she held him close.
And he cried. All the tears he’d kept inside for so many years. He cried the tears for everything they’d endured. For wee Mora, for Brian, and for a little boy named Thane who’d been forced to grow up too quickly.
Tamsin whispered, “It’s behind us now. All of it, Thane.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Tamsin
Tamsin fussed with the fruit tarts in the kitchen at MacQuarie Castle. “This is how you fix the dough.”
Mora played with the pastry while Alana and Lia watched. “How’s this? I think I did it right. Does it look right? Should I pinch it more? Or less?”
Tamsin said to Mora, “You did a fine job. It is lovely and will taste even better.”
Then she gave a wee cup of honey to Alana and said, “Sprinkle a wee bit across the top like this.” And her daughter did exactly as she had done, giggling all the while she sprinkled. “I wuv you, Mama.”
“I love you all,” Tamsin said, offering the honey to Lia. “Would you like to try?”
“Nay, allow Alana to do it. She did such a fine job.”
She washed her hands and helped her daughter to wash the honey from her fingers, though the child was busy licking them as fast as Tamsin could clean them.
When they finished, she handed a tray to Mora with a smile. No matter how Tamsin tried, she couldn’t get the image out of her mind of Mora as a child being hung on the pegs by Dagga, scaring her with the whip. The sheriff of Argyll had arrested Dagga the next day and taken her away, her list of crimes so long, he left shaking his head while the woman cursed him out, declaring her innocence.
She helped Alana down off the stool and said, “Why don’t you three take the desserts out to the sideboard and I’ll clean up. We can eat once the pottage is done.” The three took off giggling in unison, trying to decide which berry tart would taste the best.
Thane came in once the girls left, coming up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her neck. Tamsingiggled and wriggled away from him. “I’ll be done soon.”
