Kelpie glowered from under her thick lashes. Had he seen her, then, all that while at Blair Atholl? Or was it just his evil way of always knowing what she was thinking? She had begun to feel a trifle more friendly since learning that he had saved Ian yesterday instead of cutting him down. But once again Alex was taking the offensive.
Alex had known what she was about at Blair Atholl, and it had amused him, in a way—once he was sure her spells were impotent. But just now, for some reason, all her hatred for him was rankling, and he was in the mood to goad her a bit for her irritating ways—although he was not at all sure why she got under his skin so easily. So he deliberately treated her to his most satirical grin. “And didn’t your hex work at all, poor lass?” he inquired sympathetically.
Kelpie started to hiss at him, but Ian was looking at her oddly. He would not take it kindly that she had tried to hex his foster brother, even though it was himself she was trying to protect. And she wanted to keep Ian’s good will.
Her lip drooped. “Always and always you will be thinking evil of me, Alex MacDonald!” she lamented. “You will be trying to make everyone hate me, and never giving me the chance at all to be better, no matter how I might try.”
The other lads were listening to all this with great interest, and they now regarded Alex with severity, and Kelpie with sympathy. But it was Ian’s sympathy she wanted—and got.
“’Tis true enough, Alex,” he said accusingly. “You’ve ever thought the worst of the poor lass, and her only sin is in being what she was taught to be. How could she ever change with you condemning her in advance?”
A rare blaze of rage swept over Alex. “Dhiaoul! ’Tis a fool you are, Ian!” And suddenly he was quarreling—it was incredible—with his foster brother, dearer than kin, and over a young rogue of a gypsy lass not worth a hair on Ian’s head! And yet the quarrel went on and on.
Kelpie had never seen them angry at each other before, and she was frightened. It was the town had done it! The town was filled with hate and malice and had put a spell on them all! And she, who should be pleased at seeing Ian turn from Alex, found that she couldn’t enjoy it. She couldn’t even bear to listen. She slipped out of the tavern with their angry words drifting after her.
The streets were no longer empty. A crowd was streaming out of the four-square meeting house and along toward the town square, and it was the sort of crowd she knew all too well. Their faces held a savage and bloodthirsty fanaticism, and this was not a mob looking for a victim, but one which had found one. It was someone, no doubt, who had committed the sin of breaking the Sabbath, or dancing, or perhaps chancing to glance at a neighbor’s cow before it fell ill. Och, it was a witch trial they had been having! No knowing was it a real witch or not, nor would it matter; for to be accused was to be condemned.
“Burn them!” the crowd growled as it surged past the tavern. Kelpie should have ducked back inside, but her curiosity was too great. And despite her vow to be hard-hearted there was a flicker in her of pity. The victims were coming now, being roughly hustled along toward the square. The crowd swept Kelpie along, not noticing one more gray gown among so many others.