“Ye would sacrifice yer lads to have yer way?” he asked.
“Why don’t ye go and ask my sons yerself?” Maggie mocked him.
Ewan Hay got up slowly from the chair in which he had been sitting. “What have ye done, ye border vixen?What have ye done?” He came towards her.
Maggie stood her ground. “I have done nothing,” she said sweetly.
“Bhaltair!” Ewan Hay shouted to his captain, and then he dashed from the chamber. “Bhaltair! To me! To me!”
Maggie smiled, pleased at the tone of panic in his voice.
“Have ye sinned, my daughter?” Father Gillies asked. “Should ye make yer confession to me?”
“Nay, I have not sinned,” Maggie replied softly.
“Aye, ye have. ’Tis the sin of pride ye commit, my daughter,” the priest said. “ ’Tis the sin of disobedience ye have committed.”
“If seeing to my sons’ best interests is a sin, good Priest, then I suppose I am guilty as ye have charged,” Maggie told him sweetly.
Father Gillies’s eyes narrowed, and he contemplated the woman before him. “It is neither wise nor good for a woman to be clever,” he warned her.
“I will consider yer words and ponder upon them in my heart,” Maggie replied.
“A good beating will take the defiance from ye,” he responded snappishly. “I shall recommend to my lord Ewan that he apply the rod most strongly to ye from this day forth until yer behavior is corrected. I have advised him before to do this. Now he will.”
Maggie dropped all pretenses at politeness. “The bastard hasn’t got the stones to raise his hand to me, and the day he does will be his last, Priest,and yers. There is no holiness about ye as with my great-uncle. Yer an evil man to encourage the Hay into a bigamous marriage, and to advise him to cruelty towards bairns and women.”
Ewan Hay returned to the hall in the company of Bhaltair. The Hay captain was immediately behind Maggie, pinioning her arms to her side. His breath was foul.
“Now, bitch,” Ewan Hay said, “ye will tell me where ye have secreted yer sons,” and without waiting for an answer he slapped her several times across the cheek.
Gathering up as much spittle as she could within her mouth, Maggie spit fiercely at him. Then she smiled at him defiantly. “Go to hell!”
“I will kill ye if ye do not tell me,” Ewan Hay said through gritted teeth.
“Nay, I will not tell ye,” she said. “My lads are safe where ye cannot get at them. Even if ye kill me, ye will not have Brae Aisir or control the Aisir nam Breug.”
“And Annabelle? Where is she?” he asked.
“I do not know,” Maggie responded, surprised by his query. So her servants had thought to get her little daughter out of the keep too. Bless them! She had been so concerned with Davy and Andrew that she had not considered Annabelle. She had not thought her in danger, but obviously others did think her baby vulnerable.
Ewan Hay saw the surprise that Maggie quickly masked upon her face when he had asked about her daughter. So, he thought, the bitch had more allies within the house than he had previously considered. Then he had a thought. “Let her go, Bhaltair,” he said. “She will indeed go to her grave before she tells us anything.”
Father Gillies came to Ewan’s side and whispered something in his ear.
“Fetch the old laird,” the Hay said, a nasty smile touching his lips.
“My grandsire knows nothing of any of this,” Maggie said as Bhaltair strode from the hall to do his master’s bidding. “Do ye think me foolish enough to involve him?”
“I think ye will very shortly sign the contracts that Father Gillies has laid out upon the high board,” Ewan Hay said coldly. “If ye do not keep yer word to wed me, then I will have Bhaltair slit yer grandfather’s throat, madam. If ye would have the old man’s death on yer conscience, then refuse me one more time.”
God and the Blessed Mother! She had not considered the Hay would use Dugald Kerr against her. But then, a man who would put two little lads in a dank dark cellar chamber would probably do anything to get his way. Maggie pressed her lips together to keep from shrieking at her own stupidity. She was tired of this game he was playing! She wanted him dead. “There will be no coupling until the blessing, which will be in three days’ time,” Maggie said to him. “Ye will give me that courtesy, my lord.”
He nodded as relief poured through him. He had beaten her! He had actually won this battle between them. In a few minutes she would legally be his. He could be gracious enough to wait three more days to bed her. Fingal Stewart had had to wait several months for the privilege of her body. Ewan Hay was no less a gentleman. Three days was not so long to wait. “Everything will be as we have previously agreed upon,” he told her. “I will want the lads brought home, however.”
“Nay,” she said. “I do not trust ye not to harm them.”
“Ye cannot keep them away forever,” Ewan Hay told her. “They are yer heirs.”
