Thistle and Flame - Her Highland Hero by Anya Karin

table. The two slender men snaked up a pillar, tossed a rope down to Red Ben,
who wrapped it round his wrist, and managed to climb high enough that the other
two could grab him under the arms, and then out the window they went, Red
first, in a sparkling shower of exploding stained glass.
    “Lady Kenna!” Orrick shouted as he neared her
side. “Are you alright? That knave, he-”
    “Remember the man I told you about, Orrick?” Kenna
said through tears that washed her flushed cheeks.
    “Yes, but-”
    “He’s real,” she said. “And he’s most certainly
not dead.”

Chapter Nine
    ––––––––
    “W hat is it, exactly, that I pay you for, if not to
stop things like what just happened?” Ramsay Macdonald paced back and forth in
front of the sheriff, wringing his hands. “Gunfire! In my estate! Right here,
right under my own roof, Sheriff. I paid you for security, not to have you eat
my food, then promptly get drunk off my brandy!”
    “I – I’m sorry, sir,” Sheriff Alan said.
“Everything seemed so calm, I didn’t-”
    “Think? You didn’t think? Is that what you were
going to say?”
    “Now look, sir, I know I made a mess of things,
but I’m the King’s man. You can’t just-”
    “I canna talk to you like that?” Macdonald slipped
out of his practiced borderland accent in his anger. “I canna say how useless
and how awful you are? I canna tell you what kind of worm I think you to be? I
canna even give you a wee little bit of my anger, because you’re in the King’s
employ. Is that it?”
    “Well, I...”
    “Finish your sentences, man! At least have that
respect for me if you have none other.”
    “All I was going to say, sir, is that even if I
hadn’t been in my cups, it would not have mattered much. I was out of the room
dealing with another pair of your guests who decided your party the best time
to deal with their personal squabbling about honor.”
    “So while you were breaking up a fist fight, some
brigands started shooting in the room next door?”
    “Yes sir, and as soon as they did, I came
running.”
    Macdonald squeezed his hands together so that his
fingers popped at the gnarled joints. The Sheriff fished out his tobacco plug,
and cut himself a slice.
    “Why are you doing that?”
    “Oh well, sir, if Rodrigo isn’t around, I got to
do it myself.”
    “No, you great bumbling fool, why are you doing it
at all? Do you think this is a horse stable?”
    “Now look, sir,” Alan said. “I know you’re upset,
but let’s not get at each other directly. There’s little point to it. The
matter at hand is the fact that Reid Crannaugh expects you to pay him back for
the purse that was stolen.”
    “All this? All this over a stolen pouch?”
Macdonald shrieked. “A stolen purse? Why did he not just give the robber a few
pounds and ask me to replace his coin purse? Or better yet, why didn’t he just
stop the thief? Grab his hand and slap him across the face? Everyone knows that
robbers are just overgrown children. If you confront them, they cower.”
    “Well, my lord, in a manner of speaking, that’s
what he did. Although admittedly he did it with a lot more squealing and a
little bit of crying and a knife to the man’s face.”
    “Cut in the face, laden with coin and, from what
my butler has told me, with my silverware and some china, and even a few
bottles of whiskey and two very expensive bottles of brandy, they escaped! One
of them, Orrick said, was Red Ben Black, a great fat man with a huge beard. How
could a man such as he just pranced off without you having anything to say
about it?”
    “Well I tried to stop them. They went out a
window.”
    “A window ?”
    “Yessir, the two little ones scampered up, got
into one of those display windows that goes outside, and dropped a rope for the
fat one. He’s a strong one, no matter how fat, because he climbed right up and
punched through the window, then they jumped.”
    Laird Macdonald, going gray in the face, sat