All the fight seemed to go out of Lowri Strachan. Her shoulders sagged, and she swallowed hard. ‘Please. I will beg you, if I have to. I’ll do anything. I will get on my knees and kiss your feet, as long as you don’t hurt them.’
‘I like the sound of you on your knees, lass,’ said Allard with a leer, and Cullen imagined his fist hitting Allard’s mouth, sending his teeth down his throat.
Allard extended his filthy boot. ‘Here you go, lass. Show me some obedience at last.’
The lass knelt in the muck of the stable at his feet. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she sacrificed her pride for the sake of her friends. Just as Lowri leaned down, Cullen scooped her up by her arm.
‘Leave her be. You don’t have to beggar her pride.’
‘As her brother beggared mine and that of Clan Macaulay,’ shouted Griffin. ‘I wanted a union, for Macaulay blood to mix with Strachan blood, and so it shall be.’ Griffin grabbed hold of Lowri’s face with a rough hand. ‘If you want to avoid being sent to the colonies or hanged, all three of you, then I will have that union. You will marry my son, obey him in all things, lie with him and produce an heir. Only then will I release your friends from their prison.’
‘Marriage? Have you gone mad?’ said Cullen, tearing his father’s hands from Lowri.
‘I’d rather die than lie with a Macaulay rat,’ spat Lowri.
Allard was equally stunned.‘I’ll not have her. She is nought but a criminal.’
Lowri shouted back, ‘How many cattle have you reived, you hypocrite? Many’s the time you stole from us. Is it not our way of life in the Marches to take a bit here and there? Has it not been for generations? Don’t we all turn a blind eye to a bit of reiving?’
Allard jabbed a finger at the lass. ‘She admits her crime with no shame. She is a thieving harlot, a dangerous menace. Let the magistrate punish this witch.’
Lowri blanched. To be accused of witchcraft was a death sentence in Scotland.
Cullen had had enough. ‘Choose your words carefully, Allard.’
Suddenly, Lowri’s legs buckled, and Cullen took hold of her. ‘I…I didn’t hurt anyone. I am no witch. I only tried to take back what was stolen from my clan. I am guilty of many things, many wrongdoings, but...please, I am no witch.’
‘The lass is clearly a fool, but no witch.’
‘Aye, she is. She dresses like a man and rides around in the dead of night with male companions,’ shouted Allard. ‘God alone knows how she has sinned with those lads. Even a stay at a convent did not bring her to God. They cast her out for dealings with the Devil. She is rumoured to have fornicated with her cousin, Black Eaden, and was he not just hanged for his villainy?’ Allard looked triumphantly at his father, whipping himself into a frenzy with his lies.
‘No. You are lying. None of that is true,’ cried Lowri.
‘Shut your mouth,’ shouted Allard. ‘Look at you. Dressed in braies like a man, wild and feral, not fit to be seen.’
‘I have been locked in a wet hole for days, how do you expect me to look?’
Cullen thought she looked a good deal bonnier than she should after her rough treatment - all full lips and fiery brown eyes. And her braies followed the curve of a very shapely bottom. Nothing was lacking up top either, the swell of fulsome breasts heaving against her shirt in agitation. Was he a monster to be stirred by her loveliness while she was being tormented?
Allard warmed to his condemnation, like a priest at the pulpit. ‘I see before me a woman fallen into sin, lax of morals, ungodly, showing no penitence for her crime. There are too many of these creatures, these uppity women, swarming like a pestilence around our towns, inns and docks. Her character is beyond redemption, and I’ll not have the shame of an unfit wife, folk whispering behind their hands like they do with my cousin Seamus’s bride. I’ll not take this baggage as a wife.’
‘Yet you have lusted over her these last days,’ snapped Griffin. ‘Send her to my bed, and I’ll punish the lass,’ you said. ‘I’ll show her the meaning of obedience,’ you said.’
‘Aye, for she is bonnie enough for tupping, but nought else,’ growled Allard.
Lowri’s shudder of revulsion was not lost on Cullen, and he couldn’t blame her for it. ‘It seems the lass thinks Allard is a worse fate than hanging, and I’m inclined to agree,’ he said.
‘She’ll do as she is told or suffer the consequences, son.’
‘I’ll not have this loathsome oaf as a husband,’ said Lowri.
‘So, you condemn your friends to death on account of your pride,’ said Griffin.
‘Might I speak?’ said Cullen, glaring at the others. ‘Can we forget this madness and send her back to her brother? The lass will learn her lesson, and the lads got a beating, so justice is done.’
‘No,’ whined Griffin petulantly. ‘I want a marriage, and I shall have one this very night. I have already sent for the priest, and the matter is done. And if Allard does not want her, and she finds him so loathsome, we will get another Macaulay to wed her.’
‘Who?’
