Her sire’s words washed over her. ‘He shouldn't have taken the beasts through Black Pass. I told him that redcoats would most likely choose it for an ambush.’
‘I thought you sent him that way.’
‘No. ‘Twas his reckless plan. I overestimated this one, but we can easily find another.’
‘Another?’
‘Aye, we will wait a few weeks to ensure the fool didn’t fill your belly, and then you will re-marry.’
‘No.’
The blow was heavy enough to bruise and knock Maren off her feet but not savage enough to break her jaw. Father wanted her bonnie for the next man he bargained her away to.
‘Say no to me again, Maren. Go on.’
Maren stared up at the ruthless man who had protected and threatened her by turns all her life. She hauled herself to her feet. ‘You can beat me all you like, but I am done with marriage. And I swear that my next husband will get a knife in his heart on his wedding night, and the one after that and the one after that, for I’ll be no man’s slave again.’
His hand coiled to a fist, and Maren braced herself for the blow, but it did not come. Instead, her mercurial father smiled and laughed at her defiance. ‘And I believe you would do it, lass. You have your mother’s courage and her dark temper, Maren.’
‘And my father’s belligerence, too,’ she said, scowling at him.
‘Aye.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Well then. I suppose I don’t want to sacrifice any allies on the edge of your blade, daughter. But know this. If you have no husband, you have no protector, so you are on your own, and if you fall prey to a man’s violence, ‘tis not on my head. So do not skulk back to me like a dog after a bone once you are alone and penniless, for I’ll not have you.’
‘What do you mean, Father?’
‘I mean, if you do not obey me, then ‘tis banishment for you. Go. Get out.’
Maren returned to the misery of the present with a jerk and a little cry. Here she was, a widow at sixteen, with nothing and no one, heading to God knows where. She had done her duty by her father, suffered a husband she did not want or desire, mercifully, not for long.
All men ended as fools and broken corpses for their sins - shot, pulverised, skewered on the end of a sword or swinging from a gibbet, eyes bulging. But she would triumph over all of them. Aye, she would be nimble, hard and clever, and Maren swore to herself in the darkness that if she survived the night, she would be no man’s slave again.
Suddenly the hay lifted, and a pitchfork thrust perilously close to her face.
Chapter Two
Inverness 1722
Bryce Cullan narrowed his eyes at his father, Jasper. Why drag him along on this journey to Crag’s End to inspect a breeding mare to buy when he was quite capable of choosing for himself?
‘You have the better eye, son, and I feel Fergal might try to cheat me into a scandalous price, money-grubbing wretch that he is, for he knows I have long coveted the beast,’ Jasper had said.
Aye, that was the pretence for bringing him to Crag’s End, but as they dismounted and their horses were led away, a sliver of unease overcame Bryce. He didn’t trust his father one inch, for Jasper Cullan could haggle with the best of them and rarely was he bested in life, being wily and clever and possessed of a ruthless determination. So why insist on bringing his son along to bargain?
The laird of Crag’s End, Fergal McMullan, came hobbling out to greet them on gouty legs, wigless and sporting a stained waistcoat which struggled to encompass his considerable girth. ‘Cullan, at last, you are here and with your fine son, too. Greetings to you both. Come inside out of the cold and take your ease by the hearth with a dram before we bargain over the mare, eh.’ His eyes nervously flicked to Bryce and away again.
Jasper Cullan nodded in greeting, towering over Fergal and putting him to shame as he was over six foot with no stoop or bowed legs that often overcame men his age. Jasper had no indolent paunch either, for he was hale, hearty and lean, and though his hair was grey at the temples, his fine-boned face still held a younger man’s beauty. Folk had often remarked that Bryce took his good looks from his father’s line as if his mother’s looks had been nothing at all. Yet she had been reputed to be the beauty of the county when they wed, and his father prostrate with love for her.
Bryce sighed as he followed his father inside the oak-panelled grandeur of the manor house. Mother was long gone, and now there was just father’s company at Penhallion estate, soured of late by his unending tantrum over Bryce’s reluctance to wed and secure an heir. How he longed to be away and get back to the joys of Inverness. She would be waiting, all carnal smiles and tender hands, as she teased his coin from his pockets. It warmed his loins just thinking of sliding into her bed and….
Damn his father to hell.
They had reached the great room, and a lass stood before the hearth, placed there conspicuously, as one might display an ornament for admiration. She wore a fetching sky-blue dress, her light brown hair was elaborately coiffed, and pearl earrings dangling from her earlobes to catch and glimmer in the afternoon light streaming in the windows. The lass was remarkably embellished for a casual day at home in her father’s manor. Instead, she looked as though she were about to depart for a gathering of some sort. But of course, she was not, and Bryce knew an ambush when he saw one.
‘My daughter, Clara, you know, of course,’ gushed Fergal proudly, snapping his fingers at a servant to bring whisky.
‘Of course,’ said Bryce, clinging to his manners and smiling into the lass’s soft blue eyes. ‘A delight to see you again.’
Where had it been, for he could not remember? At market day, a gathering, a horse race? The lass was pretty but infinitely forgettable, and he could not place her at all.
