The Highlander's Defiant Captive (The Lairds Most Likely 4)

Heat sizzled through her and left her gasping. The contact was over in a second, but she felt as if he'd branded her skin. Dazed she stared up at him, too overcome to pull free.

"On my soul, ye will be safe from now on."

"It's only a few bruises," she said in a shaky voice. The pinches had hurt, but the vicious spite behind them had been the worst of it.

"My people have harmed ye." His voice was stern. "It willnae happen again."

He took her arm in an immovable grip that nonetheless conveyed care and led her out of the rose garden and back into the great hall. The women were at work, preparing for tonight’s feast. Around the walls, a few men-at-arms took their leisure with cards or dice.

The Mackinnon stopped in the doorway and surveyed the bustling crowd. He didn't demand his clan's attention, but with astonishing swiftness, all eyes focused on where he stood with Mhairi.

The hush that descended over the hall vibrated with tension. Mhairi caught Flossie’s eye and shook her head to ind

icate that she didn’t know what was about to happen.

"Sheena and Brigid, come here," Black Callum said in a quiet voice.

Mhairi watched as every person in that vast room stiffened with wariness.

The two girls edged forward until they stood before the Mackinnon. Brigid looked pale and afraid. Sheena maintained her usual cockiness, although her bravado seemed contrived. She cast a narrow-eyed glance at Mhairi, before her attention fixed on the laird.

"I honored ye two girls when I chose you to serve my lady."

Mhairi wanted to protest at his description of her as his lady, but like everyone else present, she was struck silent by the power emanating from him. This was indeed the great Laird of Achnasheen. At last she had no difficulty understanding how he'd pushed through his unpopular plan to establish peace with the Drummonds.

"Aye, Mackinnon," Brigid muttered, shifting under that cold stare. Sheena remained still, but Mhairi sensed that she wasn't nearly so calm as she pretended.

"Instead of doing the clan proud, the two of ye have shamed me and shamed the name of Mackinnon. Ye have injured the woman I'm to marry, the woman who will preside over this glen at my side and bear the next chieftain of the clan. A woman who has done ye no harm and who deserves your kindness, even if I hadnae entrusted ye with the duty of serving her faithfully. I can barely bring myself to look at the two of ye."

As Brigid burst into a storm of tears, Sheena’s quick glance at Mhairi burned with hatred. "Mackinnon, she’s a Drummond," Brigid howled.

The austerity marking the Mackinnon's features deepened. "Only until we’re wed. And who she is doesnae matter when she is a guest in my house and deserving of my clan’s hospitality."

Sheena's hands curled at her sides. "A tale-telling, sniveling weakling isnae the woman for ye, Mackinnon," she was reckless enough to say.

A shocked murmur rippled through the crowd at Sheena’s brazen insolence. The gaze the Mackinnon settled on Sheena was so freezing that Mhairi felt a moment's sympathy. And how would this public chastisement affect her escape plans? She didn't like Sheena, but without the little hussy’s help, she’d never leave Achnasheen.

"Hold your wheesht. Mistress Drummond didnae tell me of your malice. I had to find out for myself. I wish to heaven she had, because then I could have saved her from ye that first night."

"We willnae do it again, Mackinnon," Brigid said thickly, wiping her nose with one trembling hand.

The Mackinnon's glare sparked another burst of weeping. "No, ye will no’. You're going back to your father's house. I dinnae want to see your face until I send for you."

"But that will shame Da, if ye send me away in disgrace," Brigid whimpered.

"Aye, well, ye should have thought of that before. It’s a disgrace ye deserve. I want ye out of Achnasheen within the hour."

"But night will fall in a couple of hours."

"I willnae have ye under my roof."

Mhairi saw the girl wanted to go on protesting, but another inimical dark stare left her weeping silently.

The Mackinnon turned those implacable eyes on Sheena, who wasn't looking nearly so defiant. "I cannae send ye back to your father, Sheena, because you have no close kin in the glen. I'm inclined to banish ye from my lands."

"No…" Sheena said, turning as white as snow.

Mhairi muffled a horrified sound. In the Highlands, a woman was defenseless without her clan’s protection. If she was lucky, she might find strangers to take her in, and set her to the most menial work in return for a roof over her head. If she was unlucky, she suffered the fate of vulnerable women everywhere. Death or ravishment, and if she survived that, life as a harlot in Glasgow or Edinburgh afterward.