Chapter 47

Fann paced restlessly in Padrig’s solar. Something wasn’t adding up. Why had Eleanor’s father left her in the abbey and never communicated with his daughter? He had not even told her of her mother’s passing! He had not passed on messages between sisters and not seen to the marriage of his heir in a timely manner. What sort of man did all these things? It was as though he wanted the clan to die out.

Was that it? Fann wondered. Was the man so enamored with the English that he wanted the Scottish bloodline to end and his lands to become English? But if he loved the English so, why had he not paid his tax to the crown?

He looked up as the door opened and Padraig came in.

“There is more you should ken,” his face solemn as he went to the bookshelves and opened a false front to retrieve some hidden papers. “The day before Eleanor was sent to the abbey, my father approached Donald MacDonald for her hand.” Fann stopped pacing and took the papers, shuffling through them.

“She was two and ten.”