And then she would kill him.
Chapter 8
“Pestilent swine! Overbearing ogre! How dare ye do this to me!”
Artan looked down at the furious woman berating him so colorfully and idly wondered if he ought to put the gag back on her. Her fine green eyes sparkled with fury, her smooth cheeks were flushed with the heat of her anger, and her lovely breasts heaved as she spit out insults so quickly she could barely catch her breath. She was glorious and he felt his whole body go rigid with lust. Here was the spirit he had caught the rare glimpse of back at Dunburn. Here was his mate. He hastily bit back a smile, knowing that it would only enrage her more.
Cecily caught the glint of amusement in his eyes and felt bloodthirsty. “Are ye laughing at me?”
“Nay,” he replied.
She did not believe him. “This isnae amusing. Ye will take me back to Dunburn immediately and mayhap, just mayhap, I willnae demand that they hang ye in chains from the walls to be food for the crows.” When he grinned, she kicked him in the shin and felt a sharp pain go right up her leg. “Brute!” she nearly screeched as she hopped around until the pain began to ease. “Ye are made of stone, arenae ye! Jesu, ye have crippled me!” Cecily reached out to rub her sore foot and realized her hands were still wrapped in cloth and her wrists were still tied.
Artan did not think he had ever heard a woman growl like that. It was the kind of noise that could make a whole pack of dogs tuck tail and run. He grunted softly when she hit him on the chest with her bound hands. For a moment he let her pound on him. He felt he deserved the abuse. She had come to their tryst ready to be his lover and had ended up his prisoner. If the same thing had happened to him, he would be very eager to kill someone. When he sensed her weakening, he grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away from him as he struggled to think of the best way to begin his explanations.
Cecily blew aside a lock of hair that was hanging in her face and glared at Artan. She knew hurt was part of the fuel that fed her anger, but she refused to let it show. The man had tricked her in the lowest, most despicable of ways. She had believed in his attention and his kisses and had been willing to risk so much just to be held in his arms for a while. If the depth of the hurt she felt was any indication, she had also allowed him to creep into her heart. She could not believe she had been such a blind, credulous fool.
The way he so effortlessly held her at a distance also told her she had been a fool to think she could hurt him in even the smallest of ways. Her toes hurt and her fists stung, yet he did not look to have suffered even a bruise from her assault. It was utterly humiliating.
No, she thought, what was humiliating was the fact that she had let this man touch her. Even after riding all night she could still feel the touch of his hands on her body and the warmth of his kisses on her mouth. She had allowed him to make her weak and blind with passion, while he had obviously just been waiting for the right moment to bind and gag her and toss her over the back of his horse. Hanging him from the walls of Dunburn was too gentle a punishment, she decided.
“Now, lass, there really is a good reason for what I am doing,” Artan said.
“Ye have obviously taken far too many blows to the head,” she snapped as she continued to glare at him.
Artan ignored that. “I am doing this to keep ye safe.”
“Safe? Safe from what? The tedious chore of having to share a table with Anabel and Sir Fergus?”
“Anabel and Sir Fergus want more than to bore ye at your meal. They are all cheating you and have been for years. Nay long after ye marry that chinless fool Sir Fergus, he intends to make verra sure that ye are nay longer in the way of him, Anabel, and Sir Edmund living grandly off your inheritance.”
“Dinnae be ridiculous. I dinnae have any inheritance.”
“Aye, ye do, although I cannae be sure of what and how much. Whate’er your legacy is, the Donaldsons and your betrothed dinnae want ye to enjoy any of it. Never have.”
“Ye are just trying to justify what ye have done.”
“Nay, I heard them, all of them. Lady Anabel, Sir Edmund, and your betrothed. They have been lying to ye from the verra start. Dunburn and whate’er coin it brings or your father had should all be yours, but they have left everyone, including ye, thinking that Sir Edmund was the heir.”
“Of course he was the heir. He is the closest male relation.”
“It doesnae have to be the male. Your da wasnae a laird. Aye, he has some rich lands, but he still wasnae a laird, wasnae the head of the clan. He could leave his holdings and his coin to ye if he chose. Did ye really think he would leave ye naught?”
Of course she had never thought that. It had been one reason she had been so hurt when she had been told that she was no more than a poor orphan who had to depend upon the kindness of her unkind relations. She had simply thought that her father had not made his intentions clear or had neglected to say what should happen if both he and Colin had died. Cecily felt the tickle of belief and quickly smothered it. She had accepted matters as they were for so long, she did not dare think otherwise. If nothing else, it would mean she had been the greatest of fools.
Just as she had been for Artan, she suddenly thought and scowled at him. Standing in front of her was hard proof of just how big a fool she could be. While that meant he might be telling the truth, that she had been lied to and cheated for years, it also told her that she had to be very careful about heeding anything he said.
“I think he ne’er thought that both he and Colin would die, that is what I think. Everyone kenned that Colin was his heir, but no one said who should take my brother’s place if he too died. I was too young to discuss it all with Da. And there may weel have been something set down that placed Sir Edmund as my guardian if my father died. Aye, probably of Colin as weel.”
“So your father liked and trusted Sir Edmund, did he?”
Cecily felt the urge to kick him for simply asking that question, but then she recalled the injury to her toes when she had kicked him earlier. She had been only a child when she had lost her father, but she felt very sure that he had never liked or trusted his cousin Edmund. Sir Edmund had no morals, and that alone would have disgusted her father. However, he might have had no choice. There were few other close Donaldson kinsmen, and someone, specifically some man, had to be named as guardian to the children in case her father died before they were old enough to care for themselves. Better a bad guardian than none at all.
“I was too young to ken exactly what my father felt about his cousins.”
She was lying, Artan thought and sighed. “The way ye try to ignore the truth is just why I couldnae wait and talk to ye about it or help ye find out the truth for yourself. Once ye were married to Sir Fergus, your life would have been in imminent danger.”
“If I am such a great heiress, why should my life be in danger? The mon willnae wish to kill the fatted calf.”
