"Merely hopeful."
"I'm your enemy by blood and inclination. Ye cannae imagine I'll ever accept you as a suitor after you stole me away from everyone and everything I've ever loved."
"So if I'd courted ye in a more conventional manner, you might have accepted me?"
He waited for more insults. Instead, a troubled frown shadowed her features. "My father would never consent to a union between his daughter and a Mackinnon."
Callum noticed that she didn't say that in no circumstances would she look on him with favor. Interesting. But he was smart enough not to point out the betraying slip. This was the first hint that there might be a chink in the unassailable wall of her hatred. He didn't want her spying the gap and stopping it up.
His voice lowered into seriousness. "I ken ye hate what I've done to you. I ken you feel ye owe me nae obedience or cooperation. But I hope as ye come to know me and my people, you'll change your mind. Because come hell or high water, Mhairi Drummond, I mean to make ye my wife and bring an end to the strife in the glens. So fight all ye like, hate m
e all ye like, in the end it makes nae difference. You're to wed Black Callum Mackinnon and bear his bairns. That, my bonny, is your destiny."
Chapter 7
Why the devil did I no’ kill him when I had the chance? Why could I no’ take the knife and thrust it into that black, evil heart?
Numb with self-disgust, Mhairi let the Mackinnon take her arm and lead her from the room. His room. That had been a disagreeable surprise.
All of Achnasheen would think he'd already joined her in that big, luxurious bed, where she'd snatched a few hours of sleep once the maids left her alone. Word would get back to Bruard. The Drummonds and the Mackinnons might be enemies, but that didn't stop gossip flowing through the glens like a river in spate.
She cringed at the thought of the world dismissing her as yet another loose-moraled hussy who surrendered her chastity to a lying, fair-faced man. Because however much she might burn to slit him from gullet to belly, she had to admit that Black Callum was a handsome fellow.
More self-disgust. What a big talker she was. She'd had the opportunity to slice the arrogance out of him, and she'd failed miserably. It wasn’t fear that stopped her. She recognized that the likely outcome of murdering the Laird of Achnasheen would be her own death. No, not fear, but a disastrous failure of will.
If he'd offered her one hint of aggression, tried to seize the knife off her, she’d have stabbed him with glee. But when he smiled at her as if she showed him a pretty toy instead of the sharp end of a dirk, she found it impossible to proceed.
Now she was as much his prisoner as ever.
She’d had her chance to get away. She didn't imagine she'd get another. More, she’d have no chance of defending herself against him. Any potential weapons would now disappear from her room.
"Stop torturing yourself, lassie," the Mackinnon said as they descended into the great hall where it seemed like hundreds of people crowded around long trestle tables groaning with food. The air was smoky with candles, and bright Mackinnon banners draped from the shadowy ceiling as if to mark a great victory.
"No, that's your job, is it no’?" she sniped.
"I've tried to treat ye with respect, as befits the woman I intend to make my bride. You're in the best bedroom in the castle, ye have servants, you're wearing silks. No’ many prisoners receive such care."
"But nevertheless I'm a prisoner. We both know it."
"I hope you'll soon view your visit in a different light, Mistress Drummond."
"Visit implies I can leave at will."
"Once I’m sure you won’t stray, I'll allow ye more freedom."
She bit back a contemptuous snort. As if that would ever happen. "That's nae freedom at all. Ye do a gey lot of hoping, Mackinnon."
"Aye, I suppose I do."
He stopped on a lower step and turned to face her. For once, their eyes were on a level. She read regret and compassion in those dark depths. But that offered no reassurance. Because while he might be a reluctant jailer, he had no intention of letting her go. Those eyes also expressed intelligence and determination and always, always a barely masked masculine interest.
Mhairi fought the urge to shrink from him. She refused to cower, although right now a crippling premonition of ultimate failure made her want to howl and rage like a madwoman.
"I'm sorry it has to be this way, Mhairi."
"It only has to be this way because you've decreed it so."
"Perhaps." He studied her as if she offered him the key to hidden treasure. "Do ye truly find me so unpalatable as a husband?"