by Lucy Monroe
It was not right.
She surged to her feet and spun to face Lachlan. He stood at the front of the boat, his stance arrogant and commanding, while the other soldiers manned the oars. His rugged masculine appeal mocked her, for it masked a black heart she would never have guessed at.
The pain of having believed him to be something he wasn't mixed with her fear for her friend and exploded in a deluge of angry words. "You are nothing but a lying savage. Do you hear me?"
"I believe they hear you in England, lass," one of the soldiers said. He was the only blond one among them and up to now he hadn't spoken.
She glared at him before turning her frown on Lachlan once again. He looked unaffected by her outburst. She didn't care if her words impacted him, or not. She was going to have her say and that was that.
"And Drustan is a thief. No… he is worse than a thief," she said with relish. "For he intends not only to steal that which does not belong to him, but to hurt an innocent woman in the process. And most likely her unborn child. You're all a bunch of cowards, too, taking your revenge on a woman rather than facing your opponents in honest combat."
Several grunts of annoyance met that statement, but she ignored them. She had one last thing to say to the man watching her so impassively.
"You may be more learned than the other Highland lairds, Lachlan, but to my way of thinking, you are the most ignorant, not to mention heartless man I have ever met here or in England."
Then she sat back down with a flounce that rocked the boat, reminding her just where she was and making her stomach chum.
Cait was staring at her like she'd lost her mind. "Are you wanting them to throw you out of the boat then?"
Still too angry to heed her words, she said, "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they did, considering the wicked plans they have for you."
Ulf grabbed her shoulders as if prepared to do just that and she bit back a scream. She would not let them see her fear, but inside her heart raced with terror at what he would do.
"Let her go!" The whiplash of Lachlan's voice had immediate impact.
Ulf released her instantly, but snarled, "It is no more than she deserves for casting such slurs on the Balmoral clan."
"Not the whole clan, just the warriors here." Unlike some of the Highlanders she had met, she did not judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few degenerates.
She didn't guess they liked that opinion either when fury-filled silence greeted the airing of it. A large wave crashed against the bow, sending sea spray over all of them. Now, on top of her anger, she had to deal with the fear that the ocean was going to swallow their boat.
Her nails dug into her palms and she prayed drowning wasn't as horrible a death as she had always feared.
The strangest expression crossed Cait's face. "I've enjoyed knowing you, Emily."
Coming on the heels of her anxious thoughts, the words were not in the least welcome. Emily sucked in a breath and tried to calm herself. It didn't work. The boat road a high swell and the bow came out of the water before hitting it again with a jar. She gasped and then bit her lower lip to keep from making another noise.
Movement behind her rocked the boat from side to side and she wondered who could be so daft that they were moving about at a time like this, but she refused to turn to see. She would rather be surprised by her fate if Lachlan had changed his mind and decided to have her tossed overboard.
A big hand landed on her shoulder. Lachlan had come for her himself.
"I don't know how to swim," she blurted out and then practically bit her tongue through, chagrined to have shown such weakness.
"That would hardly matter if I were the man you believed me to be, would it?"
He was right and she knew deep inside he would never throw her overboard, or was she only deceiving herself? She refused to face him. "You have aided in the abduction of a woman with the intent to harm her."
"I have exercised my right as laird to exact justice between the clans."
"I don't care how you justify it to yourself. What you are doing determines what kind of man you are."
His sigh was loud and long. "Your opinion of me and my clan does not matter, English."
"I never thought it would." But his words had hurt her and it was all she could do to keep that out of her voice. Her opinion should matter. His would matter to her.
Horror filled her at the recognition of that appalling truth. She should not care.
"Yet you expressed it."
She shrugged, or tried to with his heavy hand still on her shoulder. "It matters to me."
"I see."
"I doubt it."
"If you are about to insult me again, I warn you… dinna do it." His quiet tone was more lethal than if he had shouted the warning.
Her mouth snapped shut.
He growled. "I do not like talking to your back. Turn around."
"No."
But he was already picking her up to do it himself.
She cried out as she was lifted off her seat completely. "Do not drop me. You shouldn't be moving so much. Don't you notice how rough the sea is? We could capsize." She nodded, wishing she could appeal to a sense of reason she feared he did not have.
The man thought he was indestructible.
"The water is near smooth as glass."
"You jest. I know you do, but this is no laughing matter."
"I am not jesting." He held her close against his chest, his eyes filled with a dark intensity she could not interpret. "No harm will come to you at my hand, English."
She wanted to scoff, but she couldn't. Because Heaven help her, she did believe him. What did that say for his plans for Cait then?
She did not realize she'd asked the question aloud until he answered it.
"It is Drustan's responsibility to convince Cait she wants to be kept."
"And if he can't?" Emily asked, trying to read the level of Lachlan's sincerity in his gaze.
A small smile played at one corner of his mouth. "He can. He is a Balmoral."
"That doesn't make him a magician," she whispered, once again falling under the spell this man seemed to cast every time he turned his whole attention on her.
He set her down on the bench beside Cait, but this time so Emily faced where he had taken Ulf's seat at the oars. The other soldier now stood in the bow of the boat, turned away from them all, his body stiff with rage.
Lachlan took up the oars and began to row in perfect unison with the others. "He is man enough to make his mate want him… to bed her without hurting her or the bairn she carries."
Emily couldn't believe Lachlan had said such a thing to her and Cait's loud gasp said she didn't appreciate his candidness either. "If he's thinking I'll submit, he's wrong," she said, her tone as mean as any of the warriors had been.
Drustan gave a low chuckle that sounded diabolical to Emily's ears. "Aye, you'll submit, lass, and like it."
Cait made a strangled sound and lurched forward. Emily turned her head just in time to see Cait's mouth closing on the back shoulder of the man taunting her. Drustan didn't react any more than Lachlan had when Emily had bit him.
"I see you've taught your heathen English ways to the Sinclair lass," Lachlan drawled, inexplicable amusement in his voice.
"I am not a heathen," Emily spluttered.
Drustan made quick work of breaking Cait's hold on his skin. Then he pulled her into his lap, whispered something about teaching her better things to do with her mouth and kissed her.
It wasn't a brutal kiss even though Cait tried to bite him again. He simply laughed and kissed the corner of her mouth, her eyes and her temple before returning to her lips. Emily looked away, unwilling to witness such a scene, but couldn't help peeking again and saw that her friend's struggles had ceased.
She was afraid Drustan had hurt her after all, but Cait was kissing him back, her body turned toward his, not writhing to get away. Emily could not look away. She had never seen anything like it. Surely it w
as the sort of intimacy that should be saved for the bedchamber, but none of the other soldiers seemed in the least embarrassed by it.
Cait wasn't embarrassed either. She was too busy to notice anyone else, Emily was thinking.
What would it be like to be kissed in such a manner?
Would she like it? Surely that sort of thing happened in the marriage bed, but it was not Talorc's face that came to her mind when she tried to imagine it. No, the face in her disturbing fantasy was of another Highland laird, a man who went looking for revenge with his face painted blue and riding a horse that could be mistaken for a dragon.
Chapter 5
After long minutes, the warrior finally lifted his mouth from Cait's. She was panting and had the most astonished expression on her face… but she did not look angry any longer. Or even a little bit frightened.
"You will want me when I take you," Drustan promised in a voice that made Emily feel funny and crave such words for herself. Only not from him.
It was wicked… some kind of Highland sorcery she did not understand. She was not the heathen around here… it was the Balmoral wizards who could turn a woman's thoughts to mush.
Using the corner of his plaid, Drustan gently wiped away the blue paint that had been smeared on Cait's face from the kiss. "I will not harm you. Never doubt me again."
Cait turned her face away, but Drustan gently pressed it into his chest, cradling her close as if she were a precious treasure.
For some reason, the action brought tears to Emily's eyes.
"You will apologize now," Lachlan said, drawing her attention bade to him.
"For what?" she asked, making a valiant effort to meet his wolflike gaze.
Those eyes were so uncanny, she knew she would see them in her dreams.
As usual, when the stubborn warrior did not want to answer, he didn't. He merely stared at her. Well, she could be stubborn, too. She pressed her lips together, determined not to speak. She had nothing to apologize for. Just because Cait appeared to enjoy Drustan's kisses didn't mean Lachlan had been right in the form of revenge he had chosen.
The silence between them stretched on and on, broken only by the sound of the oars slashing through the water and the waves breaking around them.
"I will win," Lachlan promised quietly, then dismissed her as surely as if he'd turned away.
Inexplicably hurt by his rejection, she focused on the view out the side of the boat. It was no more comforting than it had been the first time she'd looked. The island they were obviously headed toward didn't seem to be getting any closer and the water stretched in an expanse of dark swells around them.
Drustan untied Cait and helped her back to her seat beside Emily before taking up his oars again.
Without the anger to bolster her courage, it deserted her and horrible images of the boat tipping to one side or huge crashing waves washing over it and taking her and Cait overboard tormented Emily's brain.
"Are you going to tolerate the insult of the English wench?" Ulf demanded in a furious tone, interrupting her waking nightmare.
"She will apologize," Lachlan drawled with utter certainty.
"No, I won't." She muttered the defiance without thought and was surprised she could force the words out of her tight throat afterward.
Lachlan growled low in his chest, the sound so far from human, it made her shiver and added to the sense of doom taking over her senses. Her gaze flew to his and she wished it hadn't. His eyes were even less human than usual with the gold almost overtaking the brown of his irises. She just knew that meant he was well and truly annoyed with her.
If she wasn't past the age of believing in monsters like dragons and werewolves, she'd think he was one. An atavistic chill skittered down her spine and it was all she could do not to whimper in fright.
"Are you admitting she is right then? That you are weak and a coward to take your revenge on women instead of men?"
Lachlan stood and faced the angry soldier, his own body vibrating with deadly tension. "You dare to challenge me?"
"I am not the one challenging you. She did and you do nothing to punish the insolence."
The boat swayed and a scream locked in Emily's throat, making her jaw ache with the effort it took to hold it back. She shut her eyes tight, trying to block out the reality of her surroundings, but the sounds of wind on the water would not let her.
"Perhaps he thinks forcing her to endure your company is punishment enough," Cait taunted.
There was a scuffle above Emily and the boat swayed in alarming dips first to one side and then to the other. She sank further and further into the fear swirling through her. Her eyes flew open, her despairing gaze searching out the strongest person on the boat… Lachlan.
He stood above her, holding Ulf, as if stopping him from going for Emily's throat.
Her hand flew to protect it in a totally futile gesture.
Ulf's eyes spit angry recriminations at his leader. "I won't tolerate such insults, even if you will."
"You will tolerate whatever I tell you to tolerate." The tone of Lachlan's voice was the meanest she'd heard it yet.
"You would choose your enemy over your brother?"
Ulf was Lachlan's brother? Emily supposed there was a slight family resemblance, but they seemed so different.
"Balmoral warriors do not prey on women."
"She insulted us all!" he yelled, jerking his head toward Emily.
"She is English, and therefore ignorant of our ways. She will learn."
A tiny part of her mind was offended by the pronouncement, but she was too preoccupied with the prospect of dying at sea to work up any real anger.
The summer sun had not quite set when they reached the Balmorals' island.
Emily was breathing shallowly, her fingers curled like talons around the edge of the wooden slab she and Cait sat on. Her usually resilient nature had been eclipsed by the ongoing torture of crossing the roughened waters and doing it sitting across from Ulf, who glared at her like he hated her.
Lachlan had traded places with his brother moments after their brief scuffle and she'd spent the rest of the trip being glowered at by the angry soldier. She'd wanted to turn around, to face Drustan's back, but her fear of the water had complete hold again. Moving even an inch had been beyond her… and continued to be.
The sight of land so close was so welcome, tears sprang into her eyes, but she could not utter a word.
The brown-eyed soldier with the red hair, whom Emily had heard Lachlan refer to as Angus, jumped out to pull the boat to the shore while Ulf and the blond soldier went to tend to the horses. It took less than fifteen minutes to bring both the boat and horses ashore. Drustan lifted Cait to dry land and turned to do the same for Emily.
"Come." He put his hand out.
She stared at it. He expected her to stand, she knew he did, but for the last hour or more, her only grip on safety had been her tight hold on the bench beneath her. She willed her fingers to let go, but they did not move.
"What is the matter?" Lachlan asked Drustan.
"The English lass is being stubborn about getting out of the boat."
Lachlan turned to her, his frown fierce. "Do not try my patience."
"You don't have any," she muttered.
"If that were true, I would not be waiting for my apology."
She didn't respond to that bit of arrogance. She couldn't. She was too busy trying to make her fingers obey her.
"Come here," he barked, his gaze searing her.
Her body jerked and her fingers finally unbent from the seat. She shot to her feet, grateful for his brusqueness, but with no intention of telling him so.
Drustan's hand was still outstretched, but she ignored it, swaying toward Lachlan. He reached into the boat and grabbed her by the waist with both hands, then lifted her as if she weighed nothing. He set her on the ground, frustrated anger emanating off of him in waves that buffeted her overwrought emotions as powerfully as the water had crashed against the boat's
bow.
She turned away and her attention was caught by the horses. They appeared no worse for their journey across the channel. She wished she could say the same. In order to return to the Sinclair holding, she would have to go back the same way. Sick at the thought, she barely stopped herself from praying she would remain captive until the end of her days.
"How far to your holding?" she asked Lachlan without looking at him.
She got no answer and sighed. "I am sorry for being difficult about getting out of the boat."
When she received no reply to that either, she looked back to see if Lachlan was still behind her.
He was, a strange expression in his gold-rimmed eyes. "You're wasted on Talorc, English."
She shook her head, not knowing what he meant.
"Aye, you are."
Cait made a sound of distress, but when Emily's gaze found her, she could see no reason for her friend's upset.
"My home is there," Lachlan said, drawing her attention back to him.
He was pointing and Emily followed the direction of his finger with her eyes, then gasped at what she saw. A sheer cliff rose fifty feet in the air and on top of the cliff was a huge stone castle that looked worthy of a king.
"It's massive," Cait whispered, her voice filled with awe as she came to stand beside Emily. "My brother's forces will never make it inside."
Emily had to agree. She didn't think the king of England would have much luck in a siege against the Balmorals.
"What we have we hold," Drustan said arrogantly, laying a proprietary hand on Cait's shoulder.
"Except Susannah," Cait pointed out.
"Rest assured, whatever mistake led to her mating with Magnus will not be repeated with you."
"I should hope not. I have no desire to mate with my brother's blacksmith," Cait said teasingly.
Drustan did not smile at the joke. If she hadn't thought it improbable, Emily would have said he looked severely offended by the remark. But even a too-serious Highlander had to realize Cait's words could have been nothing but a jest.
