Aidan leaned forward. “What is it they had heard?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
Malcolm looked toward Thomas, no doubt hoping his friend had been paying closer attention. “Legends?”
“Aye, legends they’d heard growing up,” Thomas added. “Some kind of wealth?”
“A wealthy man…?” Malcolm never had a good memory. “Living here? Mayhap he had died and left the wealth behind.”
“And have ye ever found any such a thing?” Aidan asked, his gaze sweeping across all of them. They shook their heads. “A legend with no truth to it is no legend at all.”
Talorc dropped down to eye level with the chieftain, almost in his face. “Their leader? Olaf? He seemed the most disappointed, walking away with no money. And no Ethne.”
As one, they turned to her with mixed expressions of confusion and curiosity. She clasped her hands, trying to appear disinterested. They didn’t know she’d come across him before or about his humiliating treatment of her.
“They said something about a treasure.” Talorc gave a little laugh. “Mayhap Ethne is a treasure now?”
“Oh, ho.” Thomas shifted closer. “He may have wanted our Ethne, but we dinna need to give her to him.”
“Why ever not?” the fingerless man asked. His tone became teasing when he added, “He wanted her so much he was willing to fight us for her. Our little treasure, Ethne.”
“Enough!”
Aidan’s bellow silenced their belittling discussion, but not their scrutiny of her. She’d always thought Thomas was a good man, but even his eyes were searching her now. When the chieftain tunneled his thick fingers beneath her hair to cup her neck, she tried not to flinch.
“What say ye, Ethne?” His eyes were bright on her. “Did ye want the man to have at ye?”
Ethne’s face heated with embarrassment. As if she’d want someone so disgusting to come anywhere near her. She shook her head—adamantly—and used the opportunity to pull away from Aidan’s disgusting touch. Finally, out of his filthy reach, she faced him. “I didna want him to come near me.”
“He wanted more than to come near ye!” Talorc guffawed at his own joke.
Others joined in much to her dismay, but Malcolm and Thomas, thankfully, did not.
Aidan merely studied her with that stoic expression, as if discerning what was in her mind.
“Nay.” His voice was surprisingly quiet and the ribald comments stopped. “Ethne never wants to be touched by a man.”
He was correct, but she merely held his gaze, wishing this discussion of her would cease. She knew how men touched women. Brutal. Like animals. What woman ever sought such treatment? Not ever her!
When Aidan reached a hand toward her again, she clamped her teeth tight. With no choice but to return to her earlier spot beside him, she prepared herself for his unwanted touching.
But Aidan pressed her. “Did ye not find the man handsome?”
Her body tight, she raised her shoulders in a stiff motion. What was it he was looking for?
Knowing the man was determined to keep touching her didn’t halt the tremor that passed through her body when his hand landed on her shoulder and he urged her closer, to lean back against him.
“He desired ye greatly.”
The low timbre of his voice sickened her. The others watched as if unable to stop, as if held by some morbid curiosity. Malcolm sat up straighter, too. She didn’t dare take a breath.
“If we had decided to give ye to him, that he could take ye—” Malcolm moved closer, his eyes intent on her— “would ye not have been an obedient sister?”
His betrayal squeezed her throat tight and her mouth went dry. How little Malcolm held to the values they had been raised with. Women were not to be handed off to a group of men as a show of thanks. They were to be protected and valued.
Oh, Malcolm!
“The taking is easier if ye submit, Ethne,” Aidan said.
She jerked her head toward the old man, her ears ringing with the words that showed how little they valued her.
