‘We need every sword we have, if this goes awry,’ whined Griffin. ‘Scarcross is your birthright. It must be protected.
‘Not mine, Allard’s. I am your bastard, not a true son, nor have you ever treated me like one.’
Griffin rose and bellowed, ‘If you had ever behaved like one, I would have. But, no. You insist on defying me at every turn, carousing and whoring and brawling your way through life.’
‘Aye, just like my father.’
‘Even now, all I get is defiance. You never yield an inch, do you?’
‘In that, I take after my mother.’ Mentioning his mother was like putting a spark to gunpowder. The dogs whimpered and tucked their tails between their legs, and Mabel got up and quickly scurried out.
Griffin bellowed like an angry bull. ‘I will not have her name mentioned in my house. She was a blight on my soul, riven with madness and spite, and you have that taint in you, lad. Her malice runs through you like a black river.’
‘Careful, old man, lest that malice turns on you,’ snarled Cullen.
Cullen rushed from the hall before he did murder, but Griffin’s words followed him. ‘I will do as I please with that lass. Make your choice, stand by Clan Macaulay, or I will never see you again.’
Cullen’s mind raced, his every breath heavy with impotent rage. This could only end with blood being shed. Would some of it be Lowri Strachan’s? She would face a brutal reckoning at his father’s hands. He despised the pity that twisted his gut, for he held no love for the Strachans. When last they were allies, the Macaulays had been dragged into a fight against the Glendennings and Bannermans. The Strachans and Macaulays had been humiliated and defeated, and that resentment still burned bright.
But that young lass was not part of that fight, and when Cullen had first seen her in her miserable prison, he had seen himself, mirrored in her eyes – an animal in a trap.
Someone needed to take her part, and why not him? It would irritate his father, enrage Allard, which was always gratifying,and maybe he could avert a disastrous clan feud, which, in the unforgiving Marches, could last for generations.
His father had put him between Lowri Strachan and her doom. And Cullen could not shake the nagging feeling that there was more to his father’s plotting than blind revenge.
Chapter Five
Lowri jerked awake at the sound of boots on the stairs. Morning light streamed in through the bars. She drew strength from it, but still, Lowri wrapped the plaid around her like a shield and braced for what was to come. The door to her prison squealed open, and Cullen Macaulay rushed in. His eyes roamed to the plaid and stayed there, so she ripped it off her shoulders and flung it at him.
He smiled at that and then came closer and crouched down, meeting her eye. She could read nothing in his steady gaze, save curiosity. No anger, no gloating or cruelty, just fathomless grey depths. Lowri watched as his fingers worked the key in the shackles around her ankle and prised them open. When his fingers brushed her flesh, she recoiled. If he was offended by that, he didn’t show it.
‘There’s to be a reckoning today,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
He did not reply, just stared at her, and so all manner of horrors ran through Lowri’s mind. Were they going to drag her deep into the woods and hang her? It would be a degrading and painfully slow death, with the Macaulays watching.
‘Am I to die today?’ she blurted out, her voice wobbling.
‘Not if I can help it,’ muttered Cullen. Then he gave her a steely look. ‘You need to be clever about this, lass. Do as you are told and stay on my father’s good side.’
‘He doesn’t have a good side.’
Cullen rose, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up. To Lowri’s shame, her stiff legs would not support her, and she stumbled. She would have fallen save for his strong arm holding her up. How she hated him for that.
‘Let go of me. I can walk by myself,’ she said.
‘No, else you’ll end up on your arse.’ Cullen took her forearm and snaked the other around her waist and propelled her forward in a steely grip, up the dank stairs of her prison and out into the sunshine.
Cold, fresh air washed over her, like water, and Lowri sucked in the smell of grass and trees and wood smoke. Blinking in the dawn light, she was dragged through a huddle of low buildings towards an imposing tower house of grey stone. There were few folk around, the place having barely stirred, and the few faces she saw were not friendly. The woods behind the house whispered in the wind, and sheep bleated from the hills. Life had been going on while she was mouldering in a hole in the ground like a corpse. Lowri’s relief at being free was washed away in a flood of anger.
She risked a glimpse at her captor. The man with his arm around her was tall and lean, but broad-shouldered. She squirmed against his grip, but it was unbreakable. Veins stood out in his muscular forearm with the effort of restraining her. Eventually, Cullen took his hand from her waist and ran his fingers through his hair in an agitated way. It was brown and unremarkable save for where the sun caught blonde streaks in it.
‘Don’t fight me, lass. I am on your side,’ he said.
‘No, you are not,’ she replied.
‘Have it your own way.’ Cullen muttered a curse as he bundled her towards one of the low outbuildings. She smelled manure and heard a horse whinny. Cullen thrust her inside, and a reckless hope stirred. She was in a stable. Perhaps they were going to put her on a horse and send her back home. Oh, but hope was a kind of torture she would not succumb to, and judging by the grim look on Cullen Macaulay’s face, she would be a fool to do so.
