Traitor or Temptress - Хелен Диксон - Chapter One Читать онлайн любовный роман

Chapter One

1698

Astley Priory was situated in one of the most delightful settings that could be found north of York. Once a priory of the Augustinian order until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, it was now the home of Lady Sarah Barton, Lorne McBryde’s maternal grandmother. Her father had sent her to live with her grandmother following the affray in Kinlochalen, and Lorne now considered Astley Priory to be her home where, in the care of her grandmother, she enjoyed a free and protected life.

One bright but cold morning, Lorne left the house with her cousin Agnes to take some exercise in the gardens. Since her father had been killed fighting for King William at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690, Agnes and her mother, Lorne’s Aunt Pauline—her mother’s sister—had lived at Astley Priory. To ward off the chill, long cloaks covered their pretty dresses. With arms linked and spirits soaring, smiling broadly, they were in frivolous mood as they excitedly discussed their forthcoming visit to London. Ever since their grandmother had told them she was to take them to the capital for their nineteenth birthdays, after weeks of waiting, the time for them to leave had finally arrived.

Devoted to each other, Agnes had been just what Lorne had needed to shake her out of the sullens when she had come south, where everything was so very different from her life in Scotland. Despite her father’s and brothers’ constant blusterings and their barbarous way of life, she had missed them terribly at first. For a long time, what had occurred in Kinlochalen had been a private nightmare, painful memories that came to her in the dark like unloved friends with hostile faces and ugly smiles.

‘Perhaps we can persuade Grandmother to take a London residence,’ Lorne said gaily, feeling absurdly happy and an odd burst of pleasure at the thought of going to London, ‘then we could go there more often.’

‘She won’t. You know how she detests crowds and that awful smog, which she says makes her wheeze and her head ache. She much prefers the country.’

‘But we cannot remain in the country for ever. Perhaps if Lord and Lady Billington didn’t make us so welcome whenever we go to London, she might be persuaded. Oh, Agnes—London is going to be so exciting,’ Lorne enthused. ‘People only wake up after midnight—so I’m told. It’s a shame that when we were there before we were considered too young to be allowed out after dark.’

‘Fifteen, as I recall.’

‘I know, but this time it will be different. There will be theatres to attend, and balls where we can dance the night away and wear our best gowns.’

‘And handsome young men all vying with each other to dance with us,’ Agnes giggled, her eyes sparkling as she became caught up in the excitement of the occasion. ‘Let’s just hope that Rupert Ogleby won’t be in town—his military duties should be keeping him occupied elsewhere,’ she said, looking worriedly at Lorne, knowing the effect this particular young man’s name always had on her cousin.

The name sent a blaze of animosity jolting through Lorne’s entire body. ‘I sincerely hope he is not there,’ she replied vehemently. ‘You know what my feelings are for that particular gentleman.’

‘I do. He treated you most shamefully, and if he knows what’s good for him he won’t come within a three-mile radius of you. He almost ruined your reputation.’

‘Afraid that Robert might order me back to Scotland, Grandmother never did inform him of the incident. Still,’ Lorne murmured quietly, giving Agnes a brief, distracted glance, before shifting her gaze and resting it sightlessly on the trees ahead of them, her eyes hard and remote with an expression of sadness, regret, and something else mingled with memory when she thought of her brother, ‘I don’t think Robert would have given it much attention anyway. He would have been too busy fighting one of his clan wars to worry himself over what his sister was doing.’

Thrusting back the dark images that were trying to worm their way into her mind, Lorne laughed and linked her arm through her cousin’s once more. The happiness they felt about their forthcoming visit to London barely concealed beneath the brim of their bonnets, the two of them strolled through the park, unaware that their grandmother was watching them from a window of the second-floor drawing room.

Lady Barton’s face was white. In her hand she held the opened letter that had just been delivered from Scotland. It bore the bold writing and elaborate seal of her grandson, Robert McBryde. When his father had been outlawed back in ’91, feeling deeply the disgrace and dishonour of the sentence issued by the Privy Council in Edinburgh against his father, Robert had followed him to France, leaving Drumgow under James. There he took part in the war that broke out against the Protestant powers in Europe. After the recently declared peace, he had returned to Scotland in disgust, angered that the French King, Louis XIV, had humbled his pride and abandoned King James VII of Scotland and II of England, and recognised the Protestant William III as King of England and Scotland.

After all these years—years in which Lady Barton had deluded herself into thinking Robert and James, and even Lorne’s father, had forgotten about Lorne—Robert had sent for her. He demanded that she leave for Scotland to be married to a Highland Laird, Duncan Galbraith, without delay. One thing Lady Barton had learned when her daughter had married Edgar McBryde was that the McBrydes were inflexible and obeyed no law but their own. It would cost her dear to return her darling granddaughter to her brothers, but with her father outlawed and in France, Robert was Lorne’s legal guardian, and as such would exercise his right.

Lorne felt the blood draining from her face as she tried to assimilate what her grandmother had told her. She stared at the older woman in confused shock, her long fingers clutching the back of a chair as the room began to spin with sickening speed. She was to go back to Scotland, to Drumgow—a place she never wanted to set eyes on again—to marry Duncan Galbraith. She shivered, yet she was not cold. It was a physical reaction to what was expected of her.

Closing her eyes against the scalding tears that stung her eyes, she shook her head, a blaze of animosity and shock erupting through her entire body. ‘Never. It’s impossible. I cannot—will not—wed Duncan Galbraith. He is the last man in the entire world I could ever marry.’

‘Robert writes that there will be no discussion on the matter,’ Lady Barton said quietly. ‘Since the death of the two older Galbraith brothers—both he and James have decided that this match is for the good of both families.’

‘My brothers do not know what they ask of me.’

‘Oh, my dear, I’m so dreadfully sorry. If I could, I would defy Robert and James and keep you with me—but I cannot. Robert is your legal guardian whose wishes must be regarded as law.’

Lorne stared at her. ‘Then I am lost,’ she whispered.

‘I learned long ago, my dear, that it is best to live for the present and to leave the future in the lap of the gods.’

Lorne raised her head, a spark of resistance igniting in her emerald eyes. ‘Nothing my brothers can say or do will induce me to marry Duncan Galbraith.’

Lady Barton shook her head sadly. There was about her granddaughter the same gentle qualities her mother had possessed, but there was also the implacable stubbornness and steely determination of the McBrydes.

In a matter of days, and after tearful goodbyes, with a heavy heart Lorne departed for Scotland in her grandmother’s big travelling coach. The coachman and two grooms perched on top were heavily armed, for highwaymen did constitute a major hazard. Her grandmother had placed her in the care of a single maidservant, Mrs Shelly, who had been at Astley Priory for as long as she could remember. They were to travel to Edinburgh, almost two hundred miles away, where James would be waiting to meet her. There she would leave Mrs Shelly, who would return to Astley when she had delivered her charge safely into her brother’s care.

Because of the frustrations of inland travel in Scotland, when it could take up to a week to travel fifty miles with a horse and cart, Lorne and James would journey the hundred or so miles on the cattle-droving roads to Drumgow on horseback. Roads were few; with the ever-constant danger of being attacked by wild beasts in the forests—and wild clansmen—James would have a party of men with him.

The coach travelled slowly north, stopping occasionally to take refreshment and to rest the horses. The quality of the service offered at the coaching inns was highly variable. Some were comfortable and welcoming, others less so, and their frequency and comfort deteriorated when they crossed the border at Berwick.

The gentle hills of the Lowlands were spangled with crimson and gold, the trees already shedding their autumn foliage. When they were just twenty-four hours from Edinburgh, Lorne was swamped with gloom and foreboding. Not in the least tired after finishing her meal at the inn in which they were to spend the last night of their journey, she rose from her seat at the corner table in the crowded wainscoted room.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Shelly,’ she said. ‘I find it rather stuffy in here and would like some air before I settle down for the night.’

‘If you must, but just for a minute, dear—and don’t wander away from the inn. All manner of wild men and beasts could be lurking in the darkness.’

Lorne suppressed a smile. Mrs Shelly was a lovable, fussy old thing with an overactive imagination, who was convinced that Scotland was inhabited by wild savages and had fancied certain death awaited them when they crossed the border.

Stepping outside, she was disappointed to find the inn yard still busy with ostlers and stable boys going about their work. Ignoring Mrs Shelly’s warning, she stepped into the road and left the inn, glad of the quiet and solitude as she allowed her thoughts to concentrate on her future. The road was illuminated by a half-moon and the cold air nipped her face under the voluminous hood, but Lorne was too unhappy to notice. The closer she got to Drumgow, the more she thought of what awaited her.

She would appeal to Robert and James and make them understand that she couldn’t possibly marry Duncan. With a sigh, she peered into the darkness of the trees on either side of the road. Somehow the thought of being eaten by a wolf seemed a better prospect than that. James, who had shown her gentleness and kindness when she had last been at Drumgow, might be persuaded, but Robert, whom she remembered as being a tough, forceful man, with the same proud arrogance and indomitable will that had marked all the McBryde men, was a different matter entirely.

A gentle rustling and a hint of movement among the trees caught her eye and she paused, suddenly uneasy, having wandered further away from the inn than she had intended. When the rustling continued, she hurriedly began to retrace her steps, totally unprepared when two phantom figures lunged out of the darkness, slamming into her. Knocked off balance, she started to fall, her cry broken as she hit the ground. In no time at all she found herself gagged, tied, swung into the air and unceremoniously flung over a horse. One of her assailants then climbed up behind her.

She found herself in total suffocating blackness, chafed and extremely uncomfortable as she was bounced along over the saddlebow of the galloping horse with her bottom facing heavenwards; the waves of fear and hysteria crashing through her were palpable. Unable to know why this was happening to her and who these men could be, she had the impression that she was caught up in some strange dream, but the discomfort she was being forced to endure told her that it was all happening, all unmistakably real. One thing was plain. She was being kidnapped. But by whom? And to what end?

Without respite they rode on. Lorne lost all track of time, her torture—both physical and spiritual—increasing with each passing mile. Just when she thought she would faint away, mercifully her assailant slowed his horse to a walk and fell into conversation with his companion. Their voices sounded muffled through the sacking that covered her head, but on hearing the occasional English word she assumed they must be Lowlanders.

Anger and revolt were already brewing in her spirit when the horse clattered over a cobbled yard and finally halted. After being dragged roughly from its back and flung over someone’s shoulder, she was carried inside a building. On hearing more male voices, she was aware that they were no longer alone.

‘So, John, ye’re back then,’ Lorne heard someone say. ‘What happened to ye and Andrew? One minute ye were with the hunt and the next ye’d disappeared. Rode after quarry of yer own, I see.’ The man laughed, which was accompanied by his hand slapping Lorne’s rump. Hidden from view, she seethed with the indignity of it.

‘Aye—of the two-legged kind,’ someone else guffawed. ‘What ye got there, John? Come—let’s see what ye have. Something to eat, is it?’

‘Nay, but what I’ve got is lively enough—and makes up for our lost time.’

Without more ado John dropped Lorne’s wriggling form on to the hard floor, removing the sacking and loosening her bonds before taking the gag from her mouth. Shrouded by her cloak and quivering with fury, Lorne struggled to sit up, her body stiff and sore from the rough treatment she had received.

Making a brief sweep of her surroundings, she saw she was in the hall of some ancient castle, although it had a distinct air of dereliction about it. Ancient timbers supported the high ceiling and the walls were bare but for festoons of spiders’ webs. It smelt stale and musty and damp. A combination of firelight and candlelight illuminated the features of a large number of men seated around the room, drinking from flasks being passed round. Some were dressed in kilts, their tartans in a variety of colours, their plaids slung across their chests.

Lorne suspected they were a hunting party a long way from home and staying the night in this ruined castle. No doubt they would resume their sport at first light. In a huge open hearth where a fire was sustained by one massive burning log, meat was being cooked on a griddle, and something bubbled and steamed in an all-purpose three-legged black pot, the appetising aroma pervading even the darkest corners of the hall. Someone said something that Lorne could not understand, and the laughter that ensued was coarse and loud, adding fuel to her rage.

‘Brute, swine—savage,’ she cried, spluttering with fury as she glared at the man standing over her, who was grinning broadly down at his prize, his eyes filled with something akin to triumph. Beneath the short brown beard bristling fiercely from cheek and jaw, she could see it was a face not handsome or ugly, a face used to living with the harshness of the land. ‘You will pay for this insolence—this outrage. My brothers will make you pay dearly for this—this insult.’

‘So—scratch the wee lassie and she shows her claws,’ her abductor, John Ferguson, chuckled throatily, a strong Scottish brogue marking his speech. He was amused by her anger. She looked like some well-bred, high-sprung horse ready to bolt. ‘Let me introduce ye ta my friends. They’ll not be laughing so heartily when they learn yer identity.’

Reaching out, he snatched away the hood covering Lorne’s head so that the golden treasure of her hair—the thick tresses coiled close to her head—was revealed. It gleamed softly in the golden light. A heavy silence fell inside the room as everyone gazed at it, and Lorne felt their hostility creeping around her. The men who were sitting got to their feet and moved closer, closing ranks around her.

An edge of fear caught at Lorne. The atmosphere had become ugly, the circle of faces masks of hate. Living for many years in her grandmother’s world, Lorne had never had reason to despise anyone, but crouching dishevelled and filthy before this crowd of hostile men who wished her nothing but ill, filled her with a humiliation and hatred she could not even have imagined. Clenching her teeth, she held on to her fury—it was the only thing she had to combat her fear.

‘Behold, Lorne McBryde, me friends,’ John proclaimed. ‘The beautiful spawn of Edgar McBryde—scourge of the Highlands, murderer, arsonist and thief—is reputed to have the most magnificent hair in the whole of Scotland—and I’ll be damned if this isn’t it.’

‘You’ll be damned anyway,’ Lorne spat. ‘My brothers are strong and you would be wise to fear them,’ she threatened, as if the mere mention of her brothers would send a shiver of fear through the stoutest of hearts. ‘When they learn you have taken me, they will slit your throats while you sleep.’

John bent over, thrusting his face close to hers, a snarl turning his mouth. ‘Aye—like rats stealing grain in the dark. I thumb me nose at this carrion ye speak of,’ he scoffed. ‘And where me manners are concerned, I agree they are somewhat lacking—but compared with the brothers McBryde, they are impeccable.’

Lorne was aware of another person entering from outside, but she vented all her anger on her abductor. Her defences manifested themselves in the most unexpected way. Somewhere deep within, a reserve of strength propelled her to her feet and she lunged at him, pushing him hard and sending him staggering before falling on his backside.

Stepping into the fray, Iain caught her arm as, incensed with fury, she was about to inflict further damage on his friend. Instinctively Lorne administered a mighty kick to Iain’s shin and sank her teeth into his hand, relieved when it relinquished its iron hold on her arm.

‘Enough!’ Iain roared, his voice reverberating off the walls of the cavernous hall, experiencing a sharp pain in his leg and hand, where her sharp teeth had punctured his flesh and drawn blood.

Lorne’s whole attention was strained to the sound of the male voice, a voice that sent shivers down her spine. It brought her head jerking up.

Iain was momentarily stunned. He saw a woman with hair the colour of sunlight, and found himself meeting eyes of emerald green set in a face of incredible beauty. After a rewarding and exhausting day with the hunt, he allowed himself a moment to look his fill. A faint smile of admiration tugged at his lips. The sight of her infused passion into his blood and loins. Her skin was creamy white, her lips rosy and moist, and her angular cheekbones gave her dark fringed eyes an attractive slant. She was perfect. She was—

Then he recognised her and he drew himself up, his face convulsed in a spasm of violent rage and disbelief. ‘God help me!’ he uttered, his voice quivering with a murderous fury. ‘What have we here?’

Lorne was struck dumb to find her dream of meeting Iain Monroe again made flesh. His eyes were on her face, evaluating her with a light so intense it sapped her strength. Looking up to meet his incredible silver gaze, she saw he was exactly as she remembered. His features were stamped with implacable authority and granite determination, and there was a dark arrogance about him. His blue-black hair was rough and tousled, and the features not covered by his short beard were sharply defined, his mouth having acquired a bitter line.

‘The lassie’s name is Lorne McBryde, Iain,’ John told him. ‘Ye canna have forgotten the wee girl who betrayed ye brother’s whereabouts to the Galbraiths of Kinlochalen.’

Only the collective breathing of the men in the room and the crackle of the fire could be heard above the silence the memory of that day evoked in each and every one of them—in Lorne, too. It was all around her and inside her, still alive, not quiet as it had been when she had lived at Astley Priory. She saw Iain’s body stiffen as he pinned his rapier gaze on her face. She met his hard, discerning stare and forced herself to return his assessment with a measuring look of her own, but he emanated a wrath so forceful that she felt fear begin to uncurl inside her.

‘I know who she is,’ Iain hissed. ‘Get her out of my sight.’

John was always ready to do Iain’s bidding, but this was one order he would not obey. ‘Nay, not when Andrew an’ me have gone to the trouble of bringing her here. We’ve waited too long to let an opportunity to entrap Edgar McBryde slip by.’

Astounded, Iain glared at his friend. ‘Are you mad? You abducted her?’

John nodded, unperturbed by Iain’s anger. ‘How else do ye think she got here? When we stopped to sup at the inn on the Edinburgh road, I couldn’t believe me good fortune when I saw the McBryde lassie come in. Seven years may have gone by, but I wouldna mistake that face—or that hair.’

‘Was she alone?’ Iain asked sharply, his eyes alert.

‘Aye—more’s the pity—apart from a maidservant and the coach driver and a couple o’ grooms, that is.’

‘Who did you expect might be travelling with me?’ Lorne snapped, speaking for the first time since Iain Monroe had entered the room.

‘Yer father—Edgar McBryde,’ John growled.

Lorne stared at him in bewilderment. ‘But—my father is in France.’

‘Not any longer. ’Tis a known fact that he’s returned to Scotland—to organise a network o’Jacobite sympathisers in the Highlands, I suspect,’ he told her, his lips twisting with scorn.

Lorne’s eyes shifted to Iain. ‘Is this true?’

‘It’s true,’ he clarified coldly.

Lorne paled. When her father had escaped to France seven years ago, the wrench of leaving his beloved Highlands had been almost too painful for him to bear. She had always known he would not remain in exile and that one day he would return, despite the shadow of the noose hanging over him. And now he had, endangering his own life and others. She was longing to plead her own cause, to tell Iain Monroe, who was looking at her with cold contempt, of all the suffocating horror she had endured since that day in Kinlochalen—if only he would listen.

But he refused to listen. Even now, after seven years, any words she said would not pierce through the armour he had built around himself. As she started to speak, he held up his hand in warning, his expression stern and unyielding. ‘Be quiet. I want no pretty speeches from a McBryde,’ he hissed fiercely through clenched teeth, the glitter in his eyes as hard and cold as steel as they imprisoned hers.

Now Iain hated the flaunting abundance of her golden hair, the beautiful face, and in particular those green eyes that looked at him with an urgent pleading. They disturbed him, evoking an unreasoned disorder of distant anger and pain. Someone else had looked at him like this long ago, a child who had begged him to listen to her, a child he had shoved away as he would now she was a woman grown. He recalled how she had clung on to his reins, and how brutal he had been when he had prised her small fingers off the leather straps, his huge hands capable of snapping each one of them in two. His jaw hardened and he coldly rejected the memory.

‘I know, remember? I know I had a brother I adored, a brother your people slaughtered as they would an animal on a butcher’s slab. I saw what those savages did to him.’

‘I know,’ Lorne whispered brokenly. ‘I saw him, too.’

These simple words, innocently spoken, were enough to bring Iain’s wrath to boiling point. Grasping her shoulders, he brought her close, thrusting his rage-filled face close to hers until only a hand’s-breadth distance separated their noses.

‘Then I pray his image never leaves you—that you never forget the part you played in bringing about his death, Lorne McBryde. What did you see?’ Iain demanded, his eyes burning with the fever of unspeakable agony. ‘Tell me.’

‘Please,’ Lorne breathed, uttering the word as she would a plea for absolution, raised out of a vast sea of despair that threatened to drown her every time she revived the memory of that day.

Iain’s fingers bit cruelly into her flesh and he went on, ignoring her plea. ‘Did you see how those butchers dragged him down the glen so that his youthful body was torn and bleeding, before thrusting a dagger into his heart to finish him off? Did you?’

Scalding tears rose to Lorne’s eyes. ‘No—you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. David—’

‘Silence,’ Iain roared, flinging her away from him with such force that she fell to the floor.

Shocked by his violent outburst, Lorne stared at him. ‘Please—will you at least listen to me before you condemn me and cast me out?’

Iain’s face tightened as he glared down at her, his eyes pinned on hers. Her whole heart and soul seemed to scream at him through those eyes, which gazed hard into his, but he felt no weakening. When he spoke his voice was ominously soft. ‘If you ever speak his name to me again, just one more time, I will make your life hell. I could strangle you for your treachery—and if you hadn’t been a child at the time, I would have done it then.’

Looking into those glacial, murderous eyes that showed no mercy, Lorne fully believed he would carry out his threat. She realised it was useless trying to explain what had really happened. What did it matter anyway? David Monroe was dead and nothing she could say would bring him back. His brother’s hatred and contempt and the injustice of it all gave her back some of her courage. Clearly everything about her and her family infuriated him, making vengeance blaze inside him every time he was reminded of that day. Propping herself up on her hand, she glared up at him.

‘Or condemned me to the gallows—as you did my father.’

‘My only regret is that he didn’t hang beside Galbraith.’ Stepping back, he looked at John. ‘Take her back to the inn,’ he bit out. ‘The very sight of her sickens me. I don’t want her here.’

‘Yes,’ Lorne said, getting to her feet and brushing herself down. ‘I demand you return me to my maidservant at once. Nothing can be achieved by keeping me here. If you refuse, you will be called upon by the Privy Council to answer for abducting me. You can count on that.’

‘Nay,’ John said, stepping forward. That Iain would release her stirred his anger. ‘I say she stays—and so does every man here. The McBrydes and the Galbraiths have cost us and our neighbours dear in the past. Think, Iain,’ he said fiercely, fired up by old grievances he would not let die. ‘Take yer mind back to when the Highland Host came sweeping down to the Lowlands like scourings from a dung heap, called up by the King’s Ministers in the hope that their wild and arrogant presence would persuade us to accept Episcopacy with all its religious obligations—when authority seemed to sanction thieving and blackmail.’

‘For God’s sake, John—that was twenty years ago.’

‘Aye—and no’ forgotten—and I’ll never allow myself ta forget. Nor is it forgotten that it was the Galbraiths and the McBrydes who descended on Norwood when they were returning to the hills like a swarm o’locusts—terrorising women and children and stealing everything they could carry and any stock they could drive. Do I have to remind ye that I was born in the Highlands and it was the McBrydes and the Galbraiths who wiped out my entire kin folk?’ John went on bitterly, ‘I welcome any punitive measure, however savage, that can be used against them.

‘Edgar McBryde has yet to pay for that crime—and now we have the bait we need to trap him. Give me one good reason why we shouldna? The Government knows he’s back in Scotland and seem to be in no hurry to send in the redcoats to hunt him down. It’s unlikely he’ll calmly surrender himself in return for his daughter’s release, but of one thing ye can be sure. When he learns she’s our prisoner, not wishing any harm to befall his lassie, he’ll come looking for her all right.’

Lorne stared at John Ferguson in stupefaction. Her heart had constricted painfully as she had listened to the crimes listed against her family, but she could not believe that they intended to use her in their retaliation.

‘You’re mad. My father will never yield to a bunch of thieving kidnappers. What you are doing is criminal. By abducting me you have stepped outside the law, and it is almost certain that it is the law my brothers will use against you.’

‘No, they won’t,’ Iain said coldly. ‘You forget that the Highlanders recognise no law but their own. Must I remind you that your father is outlawed and adrift in a hostile land? John’s right. His pride will be well seared by us taking you prisoner. He’ll come—bringing a large contingent of Highlanders with him. He will try and rescue you with force, which is his way of doing things.’

‘Then I advise you to be wary. He may have a trick or two up his sleeve that might surprise even you, Iain Monroe,’ Lorne taunted, too furious to quail before the contempt tightening his face.

Iain lifted his black brows in glacial challenge. ‘We are a match for the McBrydes. There isn’t a man in this room who didn’t lose a friend or a brother that night on the moor above Kinlochalen and swore an oath—an oath that has brought you here tonight. Nine men and my brother set out from Oban—only John survived, which may explain to you his hatred for the McBrydes. When I buried my murdered brother I swore an oath of my own. Edgar McBryde may have escaped the justices once, but now he is back in Scotland he will not do so again. I shall have my vengeance upon the McBrydes. I swear it before God.’

Holding herself proudly erect, Lorne looked at the men surrounding her, gentlemen and servants alike, refusing to cower before them. Tension stretched taut in the room. Never had she witnessed so much hostility at first hand. These men were as hungry for vengeance as Iain Monroe, and they would not be satisfied until they had her father’s blood—and her own, perhaps, if the hatred gleaming unpleasantly in their eyes was an indication of how they felt.

‘Well—now you’ve captured me, why don’t you dispose of me to save you the trouble of keeping me?’ she suggested steadily to Iain, her eyes challenging his own, realising that she had been insane to try appealing to this heartless, arrogant beast. ‘It would be better than your injustice. All I ask is that you get it over with quickly. So what is it to be? Will you shoot me or would you rather take me outside and hang me from the highest tree?’

‘None of those things,’ Iain replied, feeling a reluctant admiration for this headstrong young woman, who faced him fearlessly and with more courage than most men. The force of her personality blazed through her eyes. It leapt out at him like a warrior band of Highlanders brandishing swords. ‘As for hanging you from the highest tree, I lack the appetite for harming women. In any case, you are more valuable to me alive than dead. While my friends might well enjoy the sight, it wouldn’t please the authorities quite so much. I’ve no wish to have a regiment of redcoats descending on my home.’

‘They will do that anyway when you release me and I issue a complaint against you to the authorities. What do you propose to do with me in the meantime?’ Lorne asked, her head coming up in an arrogant pose.

Iain’s gaze raked her before meeting the open contempt in the green eyes staring defiantly into his. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he replied in answer to her question. ‘I’ll sleep on it.’

At that moment a tall fair-haired man with a good-humoured face entered the hall and came to stand beside Iain. His eyes were a brilliant, lucent blue, and he stared at Lorne with undisguised amazement, completely transfixed. ‘’Struth! Who is this bonny wee lass? And what’s she doing here?’

‘Allow me to introduce you to Lorne McBryde, Hugh,’ Iain muttered angrily to his friend, Sir Hugh Glover of Dunlivet Castle, where the hunting party had spent the previous night enjoying his hospitality. ‘As to what she’s doing here, you must ask John. I’m going to bed.’ He turned to his young manservant who, unlike the rest, was gazing at Lorne with undisguised admiration. Iain gave him a sardonic look, but did not rebuke the youth. ‘Make our guest comfortable, Archie. I’ll bed down with the horses.’ He turned back to Lorne. ‘Is there anything you need?’ Immediately he regretted asking when she plunked her hands on her small waist and cast an imperious eye round the room, wrinkling her pert nose with distaste.

‘A brush and shovel, perhaps—or a mop and bucket and a basin to wash in and a bed to sleep on would not go amiss. And some privacy,’ she retorted, glaring at the circle of hostile faces.

Iain’s firm lips, almost hidden behind his black beard, twisted with a wry smirk. ‘Don’t be concerned. You have a pretty face and may have a body to rival that of Venus hidden beneath the layers of petticoats and skirts, but there isn’t a man in this room who would touch you as he would a lover, Lorne McBryde. I assure you that the emotions you stir in every one of us are of a different kind. I apologise if the accommodation is not to your liking, but it is only temporary. Most of the men will bed down in here, but there’s a chamber through there…’ he indicated ‘…that will offer privacy.’ Turning abruptly, he walked towards the door where he paused, looking back. ‘Providing you don’t try to escape, no harm will come to you. Sleep well. You will have plenty of time to reflect on your predicament.’

Lorne gave him a scalding glare that could have melted an iceberg. ‘And you would do well to consider yours,’ she mocked sarcastically. ‘As your prisoner, I will lead you such a merry dance that you will rue the day you met me.’

He raked her with one last contemptuous glance. ‘You have given me reason to do so already.’

His voice, devoid of hope, was as cold and unyielding as her prison.

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