Amanda Scott (4 page)

“I did hear that you’d died last summer,” she said. “In a tragic fall.”

“I told you how it was. God spared me because He has further use for me.”

“But He cannot have sent you to abduct me. Why did you?”

“I dislike ingratitude,” he said, his eyes glittering so that she trembled again, beginning to think he
was
mad. “I was told that you sought rescue from an unwanted marriage,” he added. “If my informant misled me, I’ll hang him.”

He made the threat so casually that she could not believe he meant it.

“If I say that he misinformed you, will you take me home?”

Instead of answering, he roared, “Fin Wylie, come hither to me!”

One of the three other men wheeled his horse and galloped it toward them. Reining in hard enough to make the animal rear, he faced his leader. “Aye, master?”

“Did you not tell me the lady Adela was unhappy with her father’s choice of a husband for her and wanted the wedding stopped?”

“I did, my lord.”

“She says you lie.”

“Nay, master!” The man’s face lost color, but he did not look at Adela.

Much as she would have liked to deny having called him a liar, she feared that to do so would further anger her captor. Still, the henchman’s visible terror reinforced her earlier assessment of his master’s mental state, and she feared he really would hang the poor fellow if she insisted he had lied.

The master said to the man, “I warrant her ladyship would like to hear how you came to know her thoughts, Fin Wylie.”

“ ’Twas the messages, my lord, two o’ them, both the same and meant for Sir Hugo Robison. But ye ken that, sir, since ye set us to watch for such messages. Ye ken, too, what we learned—
and
that the matter were gey urgent.”

“So did those messages lie, lass?”

She wanted to tell him he should refer to her properly, not be so familiar. She was certain that, in the same situation, Sorcha or Isobel would have said he should, because neither had ever lacked courage. But Adela’s courage had deserted her.

She would not call Sorcha a liar, though, even if her messages to Sir Hugo
had
caused the whole horrifying situation.

With forced calm, she said, “I did not send those messages.”

He slapped her face so hard that she bit the inside of her lip and tasted blood. Equal amounts of shock and cold terror swept through her.

“When I ask you a question, you will answer it,” he said harshly. “When I give you a command, you will obey it—instantly. In other words, you will do exactly as I say, when I say. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, licking blood from her lip.

“Do you understand me?” he repeated.

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.” When his eyes narrowed, she remembered what he had told her to call him earlier and swiftly corrected herself. “Yes, my lord.”

“Good lass,” he said, patting her shoulder and sending cold tremors through her. “I’m sure we shall get on splendidly.”

Tears pricked her eyes, but she told herself he could not get away with what he had done. The Highlands teemed with her father’s allies, not to mention those of his even more powerful son-in-law, Hector Reaganach Maclean, and Hector’s twin brother, Lachlan Lubanach, Lord High Admiral of the Isles.

Someone would come for her soon—surely.

As if he had heard her thoughts, he said in that same unnaturally casual tone, “Lest you hope for rescue, you should know that if anyone comes for you, I will kill you after I’ve killed them. And lest you think they can defeat me, I assure you they cannot. Whatever allies they may collect, my support will always be stronger.”

His eyes gleamed, and she knew he wanted her to ask the question and knew just as surely that he would force her to ask it if she did not do so voluntarily.

“Who is stronger than the allies of the Lord of the Isles?” she asked quietly.

“God is. I told you, He snatched me from death. I am His warrior, so my cause is just. He will forgive all I do in His name, so I will prevail in all I do.”

“Faith, then what is your cause?”

“I seek vengeance for a wrong done to His holy Kirk. So you see, lass, with God on my side, your very life depends on me. You would do well to remember that, because I’ll severely punish any disobedience.”

Adela fought to find words but could think of none.

He said quietly, “Highland women who boast of their independent natures could learn much from Frenchwomen,
who are properly submissive to their men. But I mean to turn you into a good woman, so heed my lessons well, because if you put me to any trouble, I’ll cut off your head and send it to your father in a sack.”

Adela stared at him in horror, scarcely aware of a dizzying blackness until it overpowered her and she swooned at his feet.

Sorcha gaped at the frowning Sir Hugo in dismay. “But you said you’d received my message!” she exclaimed. “Surely, it was you who took h—”

Suddenly aware of their very large, very interested audience, she stopped, flushing hotly.

“I who took what?” Sir Hugo demanded, still frowning.

“Perhaps we should find a quieter place to talk,” she said belatedly.

Sidony, who had been listening with visibly rising alarm, said in bewilderment, “Faith, sir, do you mean to say that Adela is not with you?”

“No, of course she is not. What could make you think such a thing?”

“Why, we thought you were the one who carried her off from the kirk, of course,” Sidony said, wholly oblivious to the rapidly quieting crowd around them.

Sorcha groaned but fixed her fierce gaze on Sir Hugo. If Sidony had spoken unwisely, the fault was his.

“Carried her off?” His frown deepening, he said,
“Faith, my lady, do you think me such a villain that I would abduct a woman from her own wedding?”

“Do not snap at my sister,” Sorcha said, angry enough now that she no longer cared a rap about their audience. “It is not her fault if she believes that, sir. It is no great leap to believe a villain capable of allowing an innocent young woman and her family to think he means to marry her, then of letting a lesser man lure her from him, might change his mind yet again and snatch her from the altar. In any event,” she added, tossing her head, “if you know naught of the matter, we are wasting our time talking to you.”

With that, she turned her back on him and would have left him standing with his mouth agape had he been content to allow it. However, the man dared to lay his great hands on her—one of them, anyway—and to spin her around with a snap to face him again.

“I do not understand your fury with me, Lady Sorcha,” he said sternly. “Your sister and I had no formal understanding.”

“Peace, Hugo,” Sir Michael said. “Pray, tell us plainly what you mean, Lady Sorcha. Are we to understand that someone abducted your sister from her wedding?”

“Aye, sir, four men. And if their leader was not Sir Hugo—”

“It certainly was not,” that gentleman declared.

“Well, it should have been,” she retorted, turning on him again. Striving to keep her voice down, she said, “Adela talked of you for weeks after her return from Orkney last summer, making it plain that you had encouraged her to think you cared for her. Believing that, it was natural for me to assume you would want to know
about the plan for her to marry so that you could do something!”

“So I could stop the ceremony, you mean. Of all the—”

“I thought you cared,” Sorcha cried, oblivious of their audience again. “I did all I could do to help you and to keep poor Adela from marrying just to be marrying and moving away from Chalamine. I expected you to rush to her aid. Instead, you ignored my messages. She said you were mutton-headed and thought of no one but yourself, but I thought she was trying to keep us from teasing her. I never thought she meant it. But she did, because you are all she said you are, and now your selfish, arrogant indifference has ruined her!”

“Don’t talk twaddle,” he snapped. “There was no understanding between us, and since I was fully involved in preparations for today’s ceremony—”

“A very important occasion, to be sure,” Sorcha said, forcing her voice down again. “Nevertheless, I’m certain others could have arranged it all perfectly well without you, had you only told them you had pressing personal business to attend.”

“But I didn’t!” His eyes flashed blue fire. “Even if I’d had any, once it became clear that not every Islesman supported Ranald’s decision to install Donald as Lord of the Isles, I gave them my word I’d support him. My word,” he added grimly, “is as good as Ranald’s own, my lady. I assure you that when my duty is clear, even important personal matters must await its performance.”

“What of your duty to Adela?”

“Do you mean to tell me that Lady Adela herself expected me to rescue her?” he interjected, looking sternly into her eyes.

Sorcha flushed and would have looked away had she not feared he would dare to think less of her if she failed to meet that gimlet glare of his.

Stiffly, she said, “Adela would not have admitted such a thing, nor would she say it now, but since everyone at the kirk believed you and your men had abducted her and that she cared for you, no one followed them. Heaven knows where she is now and what may have happened to her! Surely, you must see that at the least you ought to have replied to my message if you could not come for her. Thanks to your failure to act, she is ruined now and no respectable man will want her.”

“Don’t be foolish. If her ruination is anyone’s fault, it is your own, my lass, for meddling in a matter that was no concern of yours.”

“How dare you!” Slapping him as hard as she could, she snapped, “I am
not
your lass, you conceited jackanapes! You should think shame to yourself for trying to cast your blame on someone else, but I doubt you have any shame in you. Indeed, I begin to understand at last why Adela, who is ever the soul of propriety, cast a basin of holy water in your face!”

A
mid a sea of gasps and chuckles, Sorcha heard a cry of dismay that sounded like Cristina and hastily stifled laughter that might have come from anyone. But she was too angry to care. The man was an insufferable lout and deserved to be smacked—often. She put her chin in the air and turned away with exaggerated dignity but not without catching a glimpse of Sir Hugo’s face.

He was furious.

Accustomed to a father who was as likely as not to lash out in anger at an impertinent daughter, she thought perhaps Sir Hugo was even furious enough to strike back. But if he believed so strongly in honor, perhaps he also believed in chivalry. In any event, he could hardly strike her in front of such a vast crowd.

It occurred to her that she had been unfair to berate him so publicly, but he deserved that, as well. Her father
looked angry, too, she noted as she took the first steps of her departure from the unexpected battlefield. But Macleod had been angry with her often before and would be angry again in the future. She had survived it before and would survive it now.

As she moved away, Sir Hugo said in a tone cold enough to freeze her blood in her veins, “It is to be hoped, Lady Sorcha, that before you are much older, your father will teach you better manners.”

“You may be sure that I will, sir,” Macleod said in a voice that promised dire consequences for her impulsive behavior. “We will talk, daughter, and more, when the ceremonies are over. I promise you we will.”

Sorcha did not reply to either of them, assuring herself that she was not afraid of Sir Hugo and didn’t care a whit what Macleod did to her.

But Sir Hugo wasn’t finished.

Speaking loudly enough for his words to carry to everyone there, he said, “If you were my daughter, I’d take a stout switch to your backside until you howled your apologies. You’d take your meals standing for a sennight, lass, believe me.”

Pretending she had not heard, Sorcha stalked away, so intent upon retaining her dignity that she paid no heed to where she was going or to any of a number of people who tried to speak to her.

“Sorcha, wait! Hold up, you gormless bairn. If I run after you, I’m likely to drop my babe right here!”

Recognizing Isobel’s voice and realizing that, of all her sisters, she was the least likely to end her pursuit willingly, Sorcha stopped but did not turn.

“Noddy,” Isobel said fondly when she joined her.
“You’ve been stalking about in a circle. Look ahead. In a minute, you’d have stormed right into his grace’s procession. Do you want to explain your behavior to him or to Ranald of the Isles?”

Silently cursing her bad luck, Sorcha saw that Isobel was right. Doubtless, members of the royal procession had already seen her and wondered why she was leaving the chapel grounds just as the ceremony was to begin. Worse, as a Councilor of the Isles, her father was about to join them, and despite her earlier bravado, she did not want to anger him again.

“Dearling, I know you’d like to disappear,” Isobel said. “But you’ll have to wait until after the ceremony—aye, and the feasting that follows it. Then, unless you can persuade someone to give you space in another boat to Lochbuie, you’ll have to travel with Father. So you’d better not anger him more today.”