“Please, sir. He’ll not listen to reason. I wanted to explain why he should let me go but he threatened me if I kept him from sleeping. So, I allowed him to sleep.” She shrugged, willing him to understand her actions. “Now, he has no excuse. He will have to hear me out.”
Duncan sighed dramatically. Slowly, he reached over Tearloch’s tied leg and took the small dagger from that man’s boot, much to Kenna’s surprise. Then he held out his hand, expecting Kenna to surrender hers.
“Say yer piece and come fetch me. I dinnae envy ye yer beatin’,” he said with a smile. Then he reached for her now empty hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If ye spill one drop o’ this mon’s blood, ye’ll be dead before it splats on the ground. Do ye ken?”
She nodded solemnly. “I understand.”
The man straightened and strolled away, ignoring Tearloch’s imaginative threats.
Kenna smiled sweetly at her angry captive, inhaled deeply, and said, “Now?—"
“No.” He turned his head away.
“But you have not?—”
“No!”
“You might just be as stubborn as I.” She folded her arms. “But I doubt it.”
He turned back. “If not mine, then whose skean dhu did Duncan take from ye?”
“I will never tell.” Let him worry.
His eyes narrowed. “Frazier.”
She bit her lips together, and he repeated the name, quite pleased with himself. But now, Frazier would be angry with her. She had hoped to get away before he missed his blade.
“He looked guilty as the devil when he followed ye out to the fire last eve.”
“It was no fault of his.”
He continued to seethe. “If he touched ye, he’s done with me.”
“He just took some thorns out of my foot. He did not know I took it.” She looked down at the hands in her lap. The list of men who disliked her was getting unbearably long.
“Did ye step on them a’ purpose?”
Her mouth dropped open. How could he possibly know that?
“Ye will apologize. Ye will apologize to Duncan and to Big Rabbie too. He’s gone ahead, so ye will seek him out at Lochahearn and make amends.”
“Yes, I will.” She couldn’t look him in the eye. Her fingernails were black under their edges. Agatha would have beaten her for it.
“Ye hurt his feelings trying to bribe him with yer jewelry.”
“I thought he was just angry at me for running away.”
“Nay. He was hurt. Big men hurt easily.”
She wondered if he realized he, too, was a big man.
She had never had such a quiet, painless reprimand in her life. It was quite effective, for never before had she truly been sorry.
“I will apologize.”
“Now go get Duncan.”
Silly man. She wasn’t that sorry.
