He took his bloody finger and slowly traced the outline of her lips, thrusting his finger inside her mouth. Maren tasted iron in Drayton’s blood and tried not to retch.
‘You wanted to drink my blood, so here you are,’ he said, staring into her eyes with a strange look of malice mingled with devotion. ‘I give it gladly, Maren, for you know I was always fond of you.’
She jerked free of his hand. ‘What do you want, Drayton?’
His face twisted as though he wrestled with some great dilemma. ‘I wanted to kill you, but now I see you again, so hearty, glowing and buxom, my thoughts turn to more pleasurable matters.’ He stroked Maren’s face like a tender lover and then took her by the throat in a stranglehold. ‘What it would be to have you one last time, lass,’ he said wistfully.
‘Then you will have to kill me, for I will never let that happen,’ she cried. ‘I do not want you, Drayton, and I never did.’
He sighed and ran his other hand through his black hair. ‘I know. Yet you put a spell on me, witch, and I will not lift until I see the light fade from your eyes. They are your father’s eyes, you know. How I relished watching the light dim in his.’
‘What did you do? Where is my father?’
‘I gave him a painful end after I forced him to write you a letter. The once mighty Baron is lying with a slit throat at Crawdean Abbey, his shocked eyes open to the sky.’ Drayton shrugged. ‘Or maybe pecked out by crows by now, as if it matters. It seems the old man had slowed in his dotage, though I will own he held out for the longest time under torture. You should never have sent that frail old bastard after me. His death is your doing, witch.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t bother denying it. You will only stoke my anger.’ The pad of Drayton’s thumb dug into her windpipe. ‘I sent the lad with a message, and when he returned to say there was no trace of you, I asked around Inverness. I got word you had sailed to Durness, and then I knew you had gone squealing to your father. It must have been hard to swallow your disdain for the old man and beg for help. How that must have stuck in your craw, lass.’
Maren’s heartbeat was thudding against her breastbone. Her father was dead, and she was alone in a half-deserted castle, at the mercy of a monster who would stifle any scream she tried to utter. Drayton was vain. She must stoke his vanity, let him talk of his triumphs and cruelties. That way, she could buy some time to think.
‘How did he find you?’ she croaked.
He shook her hard. ‘So you admit it? You sent him to execute me.’
‘Why not?’ she spat. ‘You threatened me.’
At this, Drayton smiled and relaxed his hold on her throat. ‘Aye. And I admire your fighting spirit,’ he said with a bitter twist of a smile.
‘How did he find you, Drayton? I thought you kept yourself well hidden.’
‘No doubt your father still has folk loyal to him hereabouts, so he must have set one of his bloodhounds to sniff me out. Someone must have flapped their lips. When I find out who, then I will end them too.’
‘So will you kill the whole world just to get your way, Drayton?’
‘To get my way with you, aye. For that, I would scorch the world to ashes. Do you see the love you inspire in me, lass? Does it flatter you, such devotion?’
‘Not in the least.’ The air was returning to Maren’s lungs, and she could think again.
‘Oh, were you more flattered by the attentions of a certain Captain Lawson?’ he snarled. ‘What a poor fool he is. You care so little for him that you do not even ask after his fate.’
‘What fate?’ she gasped.
‘Your Captain Lawson was not the most discreet of men when he was in France. It seems he was in the habit of whispering tales of his derring-do to his favourite mistress – one of many he kept there over the years. Did you think you were special, Maren?’ Drayton smirked in triumph.
‘Not for a moment,’ she said steadily. ‘I had no love for him, just friendship.’
Because he could not wound her with Lawson’s infidelity, Drayton’s smirk collapsed, and his face changed to gloating cruelty.
‘When I cornered him, he said he’d tupped you, many a time.'
‘Then it seems he is a liar in everything he says.’
‘Said.’
‘What did you do, Drayton? Tell me.’
‘Sent him to the bottom of the briny with a knife in his back. And spare your tears, lass, for the man was no friend to you, and a fool, to boot. Some years back, that same bitch of a mistress passed information on to the authorities. The English captured your captain, and threatened him with a nice, snug noose. So he sang his song and sacrificed his friends rather than dance at the end of a rope.’
