‘Say your piece and go.’ Lowri’s words stuck in her throat like sand. They came out weak, tainted with fear. Her gaze darted to Griffin’s companion and fixed there.
Griffin sighed. ‘We are not the best of friends, are we, lass? How are you enjoying Macaulay hospitality?
‘About as much as I am enjoying looking at your gargoyle’s face, Laird Macaulay.’
‘Hah, how you wound me. Alas, we cannot all be blessed with beauty like you. Much good it will do you.’
Lowri turned aside. She would not be baited by his threats.
‘Are you not curious as to your fate, Lowri Strachan?’ said Griffin.
‘Do your worst, but please, I beg you, spare me the tedium of your company.’
‘Not too keen on me, eh? What about Allard? Like him any better?’ said Griffin with a leering grin, pushing forward the burly man at his side.
Allard’s surly, black-bearded face was as unwelcome as it was familiar. Since her imprisonment, he had come several times a day to stand before her, saying nothing, just staring. Then he would leave with one word – ‘soon’.
If he meant to intimidate her, it was working, for Lowri’s heart thudded in her chest whenever she heard footsteps outside her prison.
Griffin leant down before her, just beyond striking distance. ‘What a bonnie lass you are, under all that dirt, though it pains me to admit that anything of Strachan blood could be appealing.’
‘Aye, but she takes after her brother in her character, as nasty a bitch as ever I’ve seen,’ said the Allard fellow. It was the most she had ever heard him utter. His lip curled as he looked her over. ‘She needs a good beating to bring her to heel.’
‘Ah, but that would be such a waste. Why spoil those looks with bruises?’ Griffin snarled. ‘Your brother should have leapt at the chance to marry a Macaulay lass and make an alliance with me. I brought the bonniest ones to Fellscarp for his pleasure, but he looked down his nose at them and strung them along, and all the while he was already wed to that blonde slut, Cecily.’
‘You paraded your daughters and nieces before him like cattle at market, as he told it. How can you have so little shame?’
‘Shame! Think of his shame, when his sister is hanged for reiving. Think of his shame, when they haul you up in the town square before a baying crowd, feet kicking, eyes popping.’
‘Peyton will kill you for this, if it takes his last breath,’ hissed Lowri.
‘Aye, he can try. Or maybe, we will despatch you quietly, so that he never knows your fate and spends the rest of his life wondering – was it kind and painless, your ending, or hideousand slow? That might be a better payment for his humiliating me.’
‘You humiliate yourself,’ spat Lowri. ‘And if you think you can hurt my brother through me, in this cowardly way, you are mistaken.’
‘And hurt him, I will. Your brother played me as a fool, stringing me along.’
‘Peyton goes his own way, and he wed Cecily because he loves her. And you are a fool to think he would take a Macaulay as a wife. My brother would die before he joined with one of you miserable, belly-crawling rats.’
‘Well, let’s see if you feel the same, shall we? A few more days down here with real Macaulay rats will make you see sense.’
‘Do your worst, and get it over with,’ snapped Lowri.
‘You insolent bitch,’ snarled Allard, coming forward with his hand raised to slap her, but Griffin held him back.
‘Hold, my son. Plenty of time to play with your little toy when I have what I want.’
So, the hulking Allard was Griffin’s son. Of course. He had the same small-eyed, rodent features.
‘And what do you want – to ransom me, hold threats over Peyton’s head until he pays up?’ said Lowri.
‘No. Coin is not what I am after.’
‘You think to ambush Peyton when he comes for me. He would not be so foolish as to walk into a Macaulay trap.’
‘Come for you? Why would he do that, when he doesn’t know I have you? Peyton Strachan is not banging on my door because he doesn’t know you went reiving that night, lass. Those twowhelps you were with told me everything. You raided against your brother’s orders. The three of you came alone.’
‘They would never say…’
