Lachlan’s stomach turned over as the sound of flesh striking flesh reached his ears. He didn’t care that he was more or less unarmed and not in his own castle. He walked quickly towards the commotion, rounded the next corner, and then stopped dead.
Muira was lying in a huddle on the floor. A man was leaning over her quaking figure, looking ready to haul her roughly to her feet.
“Touch her again and I’ll kill you.”
Lachlan was just as shocked by the words as they flew out of his mouth as it appeared the couple were, he hadn’t thought them, they’d just-burst into existence.
Muira recovered first, she scrambled to feet and limped to Lachlan’s side, throwing herself, sobbing against his chest.
“D-don’t let him hurt m-me!” she begged, clinging to him desperately. Speechless, Lachlan’s arms closed tight about her trembling body… just as the commotion brought a little gathering of new spectators.
“What the hell is going on here?” Ewan roared, looking from Tavish, to his sister, (clad only in her nightdress,) to the man in whose arms she was draped.
“That’s-that’s just what I’d like to know, Ewan!” Tavish jumped in. “What are you doing with my fiancée, MacRae?”
“What am I-” Lachlan choked, and then he froze, taking a moment to glance at the hostile hated-filled faces that were staring at him. He tried to jump away from Muira, as if she was actually burning him, but she cling ever tighter to his body.
“MacRae! I demand an answer!” Tavish yelled loudly, glancing in feigned horror at the other members of his clan, while saving a smug smirk for Lachlan himself.
“You bastard,” Lachlan hissed under his breath. He was dead.
“Muira, come away,” Ewan spat, grabbing his sister by the arm and yanking her out of Lachlan’s arms.
Lachlan waited for Muira to say something, anything, to explain the matter; no one was going to listen to him if he tried to tell the truth, no one would believe him, but surely they’d believe her! She seemed completely dazed now though however, and limply let her brother pass her into the arms of a dark haired young woman without objection. He watched Ewan take in his sister’s black eye and bloody lip… and then the man launched himself at other Scot, knocking him to the ground.
Lachlan fought back as well as he was able, but it was hardly a fair fight. Tavish leapt into the fray, and then also another, younger, man who looked remarkably similar to Ewan. Lachlan caught someone square on the jaw, but then a boot landed a kick in the centre of his gut and he doubled over. He heard a woman scream, and then everything went black…
..ooOOoo..
“Here now, let me just-”
Muira winced as Cait dapped at her lip. “It’s fine, really,” she mumbled, pushing her friend’s hand away.
“It is not fine!” Cait wailed, tears welling up in her eyes. “I never should have left you alone with that MacRae man loose in the castle!”
“It’s not your fault, Cait,” Muira said quickly, a guilty weight settling in the pit of her stomach.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t set anyone straight about what had really gone on in the corridor. Perhaps it was because she feared no one would believe her if she told them that Lachlan had saved her from being raped by her fiancé?
She had fainted, after watching her brothers and Tavish beat Lachlan unconscious, and when she’d come around again had listened silently, piecing together what everyone thought had happened to her. They thought that it had been Lachlan who had beat and tried to rape her; while she was unconscious they had found the bruises Tavish had left on her body that morning.
“I want to sleep,” Muira murmured, lying down on the bed that she was sitting in and rolling away from Cait. She just needed to work out what she was going to do next.
“Your brothers will want to speak to you first, Muira,” Cait said quietly. Muira simply sighed heavily and nodded.
As if Cait had conjured them out of the air, there was an almost immediate knock at the door. Ewan walked in, followed by his and Muira’s younger brother, James.
“I’ll just go and-” whatever Cait was going to go and do Muira didn’t quite catch it. Her friend jumped up from the seat beside Muira’s bed and scurried out of the room, a harsh scowl from Ewan following her as she went.
“It wasn’t Cait’s fault, Ewan,” Muira repeated for her brother to hear.
He shrugged his shoulders wearily. “I can’t help but think that if only she hadn’t left you-”
“Then he would have-hurt both of us,” Muira said carefully, which earned a start from her brother that he quickly tried to hide.
“Well, regardless,” Ewan sighed, her sat down in the seat Cait had jut vacated while James leant on the edge of the bed not knowing where to look. “Father’s talking to Tavish,” he said, as if this was a good thing.
“What?” Muira choked, sitting up quickly.
“It’s okay-it’s okay,” Ewan shushed her gently, taking his sister’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “He’ll still marry you.” Muira felt the bottom drop out of her world. No! She had thought- “Tavish-” Ewan cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, Tavish does want father to increase your dowry,” he frowned, but gave his shoulders a helpless shrug. “He is within his rights to do so I suppose. Uncle said he’d help. He says it’s his fault for letting a MacRae inside Castle Cameron in the first place,” he growled.
“Where is Lachlan?” she asked fearfully.
“He won’t hurt you again!” James piped in vehemently. “He can’t.”
“He-can’t?” Muira gasped, her blood turning cold, her heart almost stopping. She looked frantically from one brother’s face to the other. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “You haven’t-he’s not-”
“He’s not dead yet, no,” Ewan spat. “Uncle Douglas wouldn’t let us rip him limb from limb, he said we’d perform the execution properly tomorrow morning, said that we wouldn’t lower ourselves to behaving in the manner of the MacRaes.”
“Execution?” The word fell from Muira’s numb lips. “You can’t kill him!” she cried.
Ewan and James exchanged a puzzled look. “Why the hell not?” James blurted, which earned him a harsh glare from Ewan.
“Muira-” he began, but she interrupted.
“What if there’s a baby?” she whispered quietly. She couldn’t bear to look at Ewan’s face after she had said this; he looked crushed, and guilty, and as if for the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do.
“Muira, what are you saying?” he asked gently.
“For God’s Sake, Ewan, don’t make her say it,” James barked at his older brother. “He must have-have done it this afternoon when he found Muira out by the roadside, and gone back for seconds this evening. We were lucky Tavish caught him!”
Muira gave a small, dumb nod, but she was for once grateful for the rash nature of her younger sibling. She didn’t know how she would have answered Ewan’s question. She wasn’t even sure from where her own lie had sprung! She just knew that she couldn’t let Lachlan die, and that she would do anything to escape from Tavish… and the shadow of a very dangerous plan had started to take form in her mind.
“I knew Uncle Douglas should have let us finish him off there and then!” James, a completely headstrong sixteen-year-old, was spitting.
“No!” Muira cried again. Weren’t they listening to her? “I don’t-I don’t want him dead!”
“Why not?” James railed.
“What do you want, Muira?” Ewan asked, much more in control of himself than their brother.
“I want-” she took a very deep breath. “I want to marry him.”
Muira didn’t think that anything else she could have said would have produced such a completely stunned reaction from her two brothers. They positively gawped at her.
“You’re not serious?” Ewan finally mustered the self-composure to splutter.
“Of course she’s not serious!” James answered for her. “She’s clearly ta
ken a knock to the head.” He pointed to her bruises. “See, obviously not in her right state of mind.”
Muira glared at James, and waved his hand away. “I’m completely serious,” she argued. “I want to marry Lachlan MacRae!”
..ooOOoo..
Lachlan groaned. He peered around the dark cell he’d been thrown into some hours earlier as well as he was able, which really wasn’t very well at all, given the fact that it was almost pitch dark, and that both of his eyes were so bloody and swollen he could barely see out of them anyway. He wondered why he was still alive. He couldn’t believe that the Cameron’s meant to let him live. He just wondered how long they would draw out their torture.
You’re innocent you fool! A voice whispered in his head. Lachlan didn’t know whether to nurse that flicker of hope or extinguish it. He’d thought that Muira would have explained things long ago. From what he could judge of the passing of time it had to be near dawn. What was keeping her? And then he started to consider that the Camerons had never really needed a reason to kill a MacRae in the past…
The echo of footsteps in the hall was Lachlan’s first clue that something was about to change. These footsteps were followed by low voices and then the groan of a lock and whine of hinges as his cell door was opened. He winced as light hit him, then squinted up from his position on the floor and made out the form of Ewan Cameron. Muira’s brother. Was that good or bad, Lachlan wondered?
Bad. He decided swiftly, from the expression on Ewan’s tired face, definitely bad.
“Muira told me what you did.”
“Thank God,” Lachlan sagged with relief.
Ewan shot him one, very strange, stare and then continued. “She’s also begged us to spare your life.”
“All right,” Lachlan said slowly. Something about this wasn’t sitting quite right… if Muira had told her brother’s how he’d saved her then why was his life still-
“We took some convincing I can assure you,” Ewan growled. “And if you lay so much as a finger on her again I’ll-”
“What-” Lachlan interrupted, his blood suddenly turning to ice his veins. His thoughts turned slowly over in his head. “What exactly did she say, Cameron?” he asked, but Ewan simply scowled, so furiously that Lachlan braced his bruised and broken body for another beating. Ewan somehow managed to restrain himself however.
“I’m here to tell you that there are two ways that you’re walking out of this cell, MacRae,” he spat, as if every single word was offensive to him. Lachlan knew better than to interrupt. “As a dead man,” he paused, “or as my sister fiancé.”
“What?” Lachlan choked.
Ewan ignored him. “Now I don’t know how my sister can stomach the thought of letting you within a hundred feet of her, but luckily for you, apparently she can.” He smiled nastily. “If that changes, I’ve told her to let me know immediately.”
“I didn’t touch-” Lachlan began furiously, but Ewan once again continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Our Laird has given his reluctant blessing to the union. He knows how highly you’re regarded by your own Laird and doesn’t want to provoke outright war between our two clans,” Ewan snorted.
“Cameron! I’m telling you-”
“And I’m telling you!” Ewan snarled, actually acknowledging Lachlan for the first time in several minutes. “Two ways, MacRae,” he spat, holding up two fingers and then pointed towards the door. “Now tell me, which way is it going to be?”
There had, of course, been only one answer that Lachlan could give – he’d known it, Ewan had known it, Muira must have known it too.
What the hell was the woman playing at? Lachlan fumed. He was still in his cell. Ewan had told him that the dingy, dark space was to be his permanent residence until he and Muira exchanged their vows. Lachlan hadn’t been told when that was going to be. A corner of his mind still wondered if this was all part of some elaborate plot of the Camerons to torment him. He couldn’t believe that it was real! That the pretty little thing he’d plucked off the roadside could be this cold and calculating!
Lachlan’s only hope of salvation appeared to him to be to somehow get word back to his own clan, but that seemed to be an impossible feat…
..ooOOoo..
He’d said yes. Muira couldn’t believe that he’d said yes! She couldn’t believe that she was getting away with this lie. She wouldn’t-couldn’t get away with it forever, however. She felt almost constantly sick, because there was one person who knew for a fact that she had spun the most deceitful tale, and another who knew that at least half of it was lies: Lachlan and Tavish.
She knew Tavish. She knew how he might try and take revenge, but Lachlan? He was a complete mystery, a virtual stranger, and she had just orchestrated to bind herself to him eternally! Why had she done that? What had possessed her, because he’d been kind to her, because he’d bound her ankle, and saved her from Tavish?
What must he be thinking? Muira worried. He would be furious. He had every right to be furious, but how would Lachlan’s fury present itself? He was a MacRae. She hadn’t even let herself consider how many difficulties that would create, but now that she paused to think, all she had ever heard about the MacRae’s was that they were violent and brutish… and she was going to marry one?
“Muira?” Cait’s hesitant voice broke through her reflections. She glanced up at her friend, from where she was sitting by the fire in her room, and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Your aunt wants to fit you for your dress now.”
“My dress?” Muira frowned. She had a dress that was all but finished. It had been the dress she should have worn to marry Tavish… it had been beautiful, but she had assumed that it would no longer be suitable.
“Your wedding dress,” Cait nodded sadly.
“But-” Muira blushed and looked down at her lap. “My wedding dress is white,” she whispered. Cait nodded her head again, still looking miserable. “It’s a different dress, isn’t it?” Muira sighed regretfully, and then she made herself force a smile. “Well, maybe you’ll be able to use the old one?”
Cait snorted, but looked cheered by Muira’s attempt to brighten up. “As if I’d ever have occasion to wear it,” she said wistfully.
Muira rolled her eyes behind her friend’s back, and then followed her through the castle to her aunt’s sitting room. Across one of the chairs was an old velvet dress. Green in colour, and beginning to show hints its age. Muira’s heart sank. She knew that it was the very least of her worries, but she had wanted to look like a princess on her wedding day.
“Ah Muira,” Lady Cameron said, her old eyes awash with sadness when she looked over at her beloved niece.
Muira felt her guilt redouble under the worried, motherly gaze. She was hurting the people she loved the most, and just because she was too much of a coward to endure a life with Tavish – a life that she had chosen! It was such a terrible mess.
“Just step up on this stool would you dear?” Lady Cameron nodded towards a stool that had been placed in the centre of the room. “Bessie could have fixed this-but well-I wanted to do this for you myself,” she said softly, picking up the dress and gently tugging it over Muira’s head. “Cait, would you fetch my pins?”
“Thank you, Aunt,” Muira murmured quietly, unable to fully express with words how grateful she was, how sorry she was, they’d all hate her they ever found out the truth, and Muria didn’t think that she would be able to bear that!
..ooOOoo..
The very next morning, Lachlan was granted all of ten minutes to wash his face and don a clean shirt, before being dragged by Ewan to the little chapel inside Castle Cameron. For the first time, as he stood there, at the front of the aisle waiting for his bride to arrive, Lachan really began to believe that this was all real. That these people were seriously going to force him to marry this girl, and for-for what?
He took a deep breath, wincing at the pain it cause his bruised ribs, and scowled at the altar. Would death have been a more honourable escape t
han this shame? Lachlan wasn’t afraid to die. He had ridden to Castle Cameron fully expecting the worse, but he had still made the journey, because it had been this Laird’s command, and Lachlan believed in duty and honour, and dying for those ideals if it was called for – what he could not do, was lay down his life without a fight for no reason! He was going to get to the bottom of this sham! Although it might be too late by then to do anything about it…
Lachlan cursed the fact he’d spotted the woman by the roadside! He also cursed himself for being so stupid as to leave his room and wander the castle alone. He continued silently cursing in the chapel as he clenched and unclenched his fists, aware that Ewan Cameron’s eyes never one left him, as he considered how many instances might have happened differently to have prevented this strange, twisted fate.
He was surprised when the pipe organ began to play. In most, almost all, other respects the chapel didn’t look like it was about to be the setting for a wedding. There were no flowers, no decorates, and there were only a handful of guest in the bride’s pew (and none, of course, on the groom’s side): the young man who’d given Lachlan at least one of his black eyes was sitting beside a young woman Lachlan also recognised from the night that his life had started to spiral out of control. The Laird and his Lady were also present, and Ewan was standing beside him, making sure he that didn’t so much as breath out of line.
Lachlan refused to turn around and look at his bride as she walked down the aisle towards him, although he heard other people shift and turn to look. He kept his back ridged and his head lifted high. She was going to regret buying Lachlan MacRae like a trinket that had caught her fancy! That was one vow he intended to make and keep…
He kept his eyes averted for as long as was possible, not wanting to see her and… weaken? Was that really a danger? Lachlan didn’t think so, not given the wealth of fury pulsing through his veins. All the same, he had to succumb to curiosity eventually. He kept his jaw titled arrogantly, but glanced down at Muira from out of the corner of his eye.
Lachlan was a little surprised to find her staring back so unashamedly. Her eyes, (green in that instance, the flecks of colour brought out by her dress no doubt, Lachlan frowned, and possibly also by the nasty yellow bruise she was sporting,) were riveted on his face. What a sight they made! Both beaten black and blue, Lachlan nearly laughed at the absurdity of the situation. It was either that or throttle whoever was standing within reach.
A Beautiful Lie (The Camaraes) Page 3
