She cannae believe she’s been dismissed so summarily,he thought, biting back a smile. This thought was followed by another, significantly more intimate.
She thought I was goin’ to kiss her.
Would she have reacted well? He doubted it. She had been very clear on her rules, and he guessed that she was the type of person who did not easily break a rule, not even when it conflicted with her own desire.
He could respect that.
“I daenae…” she began again, rallying, and he held up a finger to silence her.
“Nay.”
Her nostrils flared. “It’s nae fair for ye to…”
“Enough,” his voice rang out, hard and clear. She stopped talking. “Ye are in me castle, lassie. Ye are under me orders. There is only one laird in these lands, and it’s me.Me. Whatever I say, ye do. Willingly. Do ye understand? If I express a desire to see ye dance, ye had better be leapin’ into the air before I draw in me next breath, aye?”
She pressed her lips together, the very image of poorly restrained fury. Stalking past him, head held high, she strode out of the room and onto the landing.
“Ye ken,Laird MacCulloch,” she said, just before he could close the door in her face. “I am startin’ to think ye are just as bad a man as what ye would have us all believe. I am startin’ to believe that yearea monster.”
He tilted his head. Was that a threat? Did she expect him to leap to the defense of his own reputation and insist that he was a good man, deep down, after all?
She was destined to have a very disappointing stay in Keep MacCulloch, if that was the case.
He leaned forward again, grinning wolfishly at her.
“Oh, ye think so?”
“Aye, I do,” she shot back, lifting her chin.
“Good.”
He slammed the door shut before she could say another word.
CHAPTER 8
It tookher at least fifteen minutes to find the Feast Hall, which was where Megan had been told that breakfast would be served.
Her room, right at the bottom of the tower as she’d been told, was warm and comfortable and well-decorated. Rugs were covering the cold stone flags, and tapestries hung on the walls, which made her think that Ryder’s spartan, bare room was done that way out of choice.
She could still see the room in her head when she closed her eyes—a blank canvas of a room, with only the blackened stones of the hearth and the crumpled bedsheets to show that it was lived in at all.
Enough,she scolded herself, hearing voices and setting off at a trot toward the Feast Hall.Daenae think about his room.
She didn’t want to think about Ryder at all. He was infuriating, annoying, insufferable, and all the other synonyms she couldthink of. She did not like him. She didnot. He had kicked her unceremoniously out of the room and closed the door behind her. It hadhurt, and not just a plain sort of outraged hurt.
He hadn’t even hesitated. Did he not want her there at all?
She folded her arms tightly, the corners of her mouth tugging down.
He made me feel small and silly and so very unwanted. Like a younger sister, the one nobody thinks about.
She sighed, closing her eyes.
Ye shouldnae have called him a monster to his own sister,chirped a small and annoying voice at the back of her mind.He is only tryin’ to keep her safe, and ye ken that.
She gritted her teeth against the logical voice and forced herself to step into the Feast Hall.
Like all dining halls in Keeps of this size, the room was colossal. The ceiling swooped away; the walls shot off to either side. Huge windows let in constant drafts, so that the hem of Megan’s grass-stained skirt shivered as she walked.
