Cullen leaned on the doorjamb, his face bearing an expression of utter hatred. Allard leapt away from Lowri as if she were on fire. He glared at Cullen and then rushed out, pushing past him.
‘My father should have curbed Allard long ago. Come, lass.’ Cullen beckoned with a flick of his hand, and Lowri longed to slap the arrogance out of him. But instead, she followed. What else could she do?
Lowri struggled to keep up with Cullen’s long strides across the yard. The day was grey with the threat of rain, and folk stared from their dwellings but said nothing. The stables were deserted. A pool of Donnan’s blood had dried brown on the ground where he had been beaten. Cullen saddled two horses without a word to her, but she could not be silent.
Lowri gasped, ‘What about my friends?’
Cullen rounded on her. ‘There is nothing I can do for your friends. I do not know where my father holds them. But he’ll not kill them until he gets what he wants.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you like. But if you try to run back to your brother telling your tale, and he goes after my father, those lads will die, and it will be on your conscience.’
‘Then what am I to do?’
‘Just now, you are to do as you are told. If you had done that before and obeyed your brother’s commands, you wouldn’t be stuck with me now, would you?’
Lowri winced at how Cullen used her own words against her, but she fought back. ‘I chose you over Allard because I thought you might have a scrap of honour.’
‘I wish with all my heart, I had not been chosen, and as to honour, do not go looking for that in me. You will only be disappointed. Now get on that horse. We are leaving.’
‘You are a coward, running away from my brother’s wrath,’ said Lowri.
Cullen went very still. ‘You are my wife, so you should be worrying about my wrath, not your brother’s.’
Chapter Nine
The sky grew as leaden as the silence between them as Lowri rode behind Cullen. Scarcross had quickly dissolved into the trees at her back, and every stride of her horse took her further from safety and Fellscarp. After hours of riding, any familiar landscape was left behind, and she found herself on a rough track through a forest of towering, mossy pines spilling down a steep hillside. Out to the south, she could just make out a grey ribbon of the Solway Firth lurking beyond farmland. She spotted small villages dotted here and there. But the huddles of cottage roofs were growing few and far between. She was being led into the wild with an unpredictable stranger. She was alone, with only her wits to guard her against Cullen. It grew colder as the day wore on, and so did he.
Her unwanted husband has spoken not one word to her since their departure. Cullen offered her his back, and she preferred it that way. Her head began to loll with tiredness. She dearly longed to stop, to still her heart that had been galloping since her capture, to close her eyes, just for a moment, and feel safe. But most of all, Lowri wished she did not hate herself so much for believing a Macaulay lie.
‘I did not know my father was going to go back on his word.’ Cullen’s voice jerked her wide awake. Her horse had come level with his. There was still anger in his eyes. ‘I told you, he is ruthless,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you had no part in this.’
‘As you like.’
‘And you’ve no need to talk to me, Cullen, for we have nothing worth saying to each other.’ Lowri turned away.
‘So, are you going to spend the rest of our married life ignoring me?’
‘As I see it, you are ignoring me.’
‘I suppose, I was, lass. I’ve a fair temper on me, and I was waiting for it to cool.’ His grey eyes met hers and held some honesty as he said, ‘I am angry that I let my father slide my head into this noose.’ His face twisted in contempt, whether for her, his marriage or his father, Lowri could not tell.
Cullen gazed out at the rolling hills, and Lowri took the chance to get the measure of him. She had not really looked at him before, as his anger and her peril had prevented her from doing so. In the cold light of day, she had to own that he was not unappealing in looks. Cullen was tall and bulked with muscle, in a lean kind of way, not a big lumbering oaf like his brother, Allard. The wind caught his hair and blew it about his face. It was thick, an ordinary brown, but that face was not without beauty, especially his eyes, which were grey and bright with intelligence. He looked nothing like his father – his eyes were wide and clear, not small and rodent-like. His lips were full and sensuous, not a sneering gash in his face, and they were framed by stubble that had a hint of red in it. Unlike his black-haired brother, Cullen was no lump of ignorant muscle. He spoke with authority, but not cruelty. He had not hurt her, save for when he had snatched her virginity away, and he had not revelled in her degradation, so he must have a scrap of conscience. Maybe he could be worked upon. That was something to give her hope, surely?
Cullen frowned at her scrutiny. He must do that often, for there was a line between his brows. ‘Tell me something, Lowri,are you sitting there thinking, ‘I can take my chance and run, when he drops his guard?’
‘No.’
‘You think my father will just release those two useless lads, and then you can go running back to Peyton. Well, think again. He wants your belly swollen with a Macaulay heir before he does that, otherwise, where is his revenge? When he sets a trap, it does not fail. There is a reason that I haven’t been home in years.’
‘But you and I agreed to consummate the marriage just that once, to make it stand.’
‘Just once? Did we?’ He frowned. ‘I don’t recall it.’
‘Are you saying I have to suffer that mauling again?’ she cried.
