As for Elizabet... He glanced into the woods.
Her fate would be determined by the brigand who had stolen her. God’s truth, the Scotsman could keep her or kill her, it mattered not which, just so that she never returned.
And to make certain, Tomas intended to remain in Scotia long enough to make sure the slut’s daughter never returned. Her dowry was his now, every last jewel, every last coin. Her stupid bitch of a mother must havespread her legs for every man who had passed through Henry’s court.
Tomas had even had her once, and if he recalled aright, she had charged him double what she’d charged his friend. Apparently, she hadn’t liked him any more than her daughter seemed to, though she had been far too greedy to turn him away. Well, the joke was on her, because he was going to have his money back and then some!
His only regret was that he couldn’t return to Margaret the golden crucifix that Elizabet wore—the one he had so stupidly given her mother in an attempt to win her favors. More than that, he’d love to gift her with Elizabet’s unruly tongue on a platter as proof of her demise.
Elizabet was a termagant if ever Tomas had known one, stubborn and defiant every moment she breathed. His sister had developed a particular dislike for her. Tomas had, as well. She had treated him with the cool disdain with which her whore of a mother had treated him—but he didn’t have the least desire to bed Elizabet. God’s teeth, she was like to be no better than her mother was.
How dared she think herself too good for him? Her damned dowry was all he coveted.
As for the old man... He wouldn’t live forever, and though his seed had been fruitful and he had multiplied his heirs, neither were they invulnerable, not a one of them. One by one they would find their own demise, and in the end it would be Tomas and Margaret once more.
Just the two of them.
John stirred, moaning, and Tomas unsheathed his knife to be ready, anger surging through him.
No one would stand in his way.
The youth opened his eyes, looking dazed for aninstant, and then comprehension seemed to dawn as he spied Tomas with the knife.
“Elizabet!” he rasped, and tried to rise.
Tomas slammed his head back on the ground. John’s eyes crossed at the force of the impact. With a hand at his forehead, Tomas held the youth down and smiled at him.
He waited until awareness returned to his expression.
“She’s dead,” he said with relish, and savored John’s reaction.
“Nay,” the boy croaked, horror entering his eyes. He swallowed, and Tomas watched the bob of his throat with great attention.
Tomas despised the way Elizabet seemed to coddle him at every turn, putting him before everyone, though the fool could not have led a buzzard to a bloody carcass.
It amazed him. The cretin didn’t appear afraid, though he damned well should have been.
But he couldn’t know Tomas’s intent.
“Ahh, Christ!” he sobbed. “Are ye certain, Tomas?”
So he loved her, the moron.
Too bad.
He might have been one who could understand and not condemn Tomas’s affections for Margaret. “Aye,” he replied with a keen sense of victory. “And so are you.”
And having said that, he sliced the blade across John’s throat as swiftly as the serpent strikes and then hurriedly cut the bulging leather pouch from his belt.
That done, he stepped away to await the others’ return.
He couldn’t be more pleased with the turn of events.
CHAPTER 5
“I’m going to scream!”
“Like ye havena already?”
