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.
Chapter Two
Archie showed Lorne into the small chamber where she was to sleep, bringing her a candle, a blanket and a straw mattress to sleep on. When she rejected his offer of a bowl of game stew he left her, feeling the warmth of her smile when she thanked him for his kindness. Despite knowing who she was, he considered her to be the fairest maid he had ever seen—and the bravest, for anyone who had the courage to withstand his master—whose presence on the field of battle struck terror into the hearts of his enemies—was brave indeed.
When Archie had left her, and feeling the cold, Lorne took to the mattress and wrapped her cloak about her beneath the blanket, curling her body into a tight ball. The men were in good spirits now she had left them, and as she listened to the low rumble of their laughter penetrating the thick stone walls of her chamber, never had she felt so isolated, miserable and alone. Would her brothers come to her rescue when they learned what had befallen her? Mrs. Shelly would be out of her mind with worry, wondering what had become of her. No doubt she would go on to Edinburgh to meet James tomorrow when she didn’t appear.
Chafed and bruised and exhausted by fear and rage, she closed her eyes tight, recovering from the physical effects of her abduction, but not from the shock of it. In a fairly uneventful life at Astley Priory, no one had purposely hurt her, and tonight’s events made her feel ill and frightened. When she had mentioned David Monroe, his brother had looked close into her eyes, and just for a moment something had stirred in their silver depths. It was gone in the blink of an eye, but she did not want to see it again.
Iain was preparing to bed down with his horse when Hugh came striding across the moonlit, cobbled yard in search of him. The two men were close friends, and there was a buoyant, sprightly manner between them that was the result of long association. Their families had always been close. Like the Monroes, the Glovers were ardent Protestants and had acquired army distinction at home and abroad on behalf of governments of their own religious persuasion.