When Lowri didn’t take it, he rolled his eyes. ‘Take it for the sake of what little honour I have.’ He thrust the plaid at herforcefully. ‘My father didn’t have to use the shackles and throw you down in this hole, for you are but a lass.’
‘I am a lass who will stick a knife in your heart if I get half a chance, and do not ever doubt it.’ She threw the plaid in his face. ‘Keep your false pity. If you want to do me a kindness, take yourself away and leave me in peace.’
‘Alright, but are you not going to ask after your companions, Donnan and Rory?’
Lowri leant towards him, chains rattling. ‘I have asked, and each time I do, your father and brother, Allard, they…’
‘Half-brother,’ he spat. ‘Allard is my half-brother. I’ll not claim full blood with him. Go on.’
‘They torment me with tales of my friends’ suffering and give me no way to make amends, to spare them. Where are they?’
‘I don’t know, but not in a good place, if they’ve crossed my father. Maybe you should think of their fate and bend to his will. Or do you want them to die for the sake of your brother’s pride and yours?’
‘Of course, not.’
‘My father took you because he was angry and nursing injured pride, but when he calms down, he will find a way to wriggle out of this mistake and find a use for you. So, Lowri Strachan, best to give him what he wants and get it over with.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I don’t yet know, but I do know this. Whatever he has in store, you won’t like it, and you won’t have a choice. That has been my experience of my father.’
Cullen’s jaw worked, but his voice held softness as he said, ‘Sleep well, lass, and use the plaid. There’s no virtue in being a stubborn little fool. I will do my best for you.’
***
Cullen stormed up the stone steps and out into the gathering dusk, gulping down the cold, clean air. It was a relief to be out of the fetid, pressing darkness of the hole. Sleet stung his face and sent icy fingers down his neck. It did nothing to cool his fiery Macaulay temper. That his father could be foolhardy enough to mortally cross a man like Peyton Strachan was no surprise. Pride was everything to Griffin Macaulay, and he often lashed out when he felt slighted, with little thought for consequences. But to imprison the sister of a brawler like Strachan, well, he may as well have stood before the man and asked to be beaten to a pulp.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Cullen had long since acknowledged that he had only the merest scrap of honour, but it was enough to prevent him from throwing a slip of a lass into that damp and filthy place. The hole was Scarcross’s dungeon, a place to hold unruly or disobedient clansmen awaiting a whipping, or enemies, awaiting worse. He’d spent many an hour down there when he’d been on the wrong side of his father’s temper.
After several days in that hole, it was a credit to her resilience that the lass was not a wailing heap at his feet. And she had courage to stand up for herself. But when he had mentioned her companions in crime, her demeanour had changed from angry to the verge of tears. He could see the effort it took her to hold them back. So that was the lever that would make her biddable. His father had told him to pull it, to twist her loyalty to suit his ends. Cullen owed no loyalty to the Strachans, so he had done it, and now he felt tainted by his father’s cruelty.
Lowri Strachan was hard to pity, for she was so defiant, spitting her poison at him. But he could not deny she had a wild kind of beauty, despite the filth on her and the man’s clothing she wore. And her eyes were hard to look away from – huge in her face and bright with anger in the lantern’s light.
Lovely she may be, but Cullen cursed her very existence as he burst into the main hall of Scarcross. The place barely merited the word, for it was small and draughty with a guttering fire and little softness, save a threadbare rug and a couple of shaggy curs dozing before it. They rose and whimpered, tucking in their tails, sensing his wrath.
His father’s second wife, Mabel, was seated by the fire with Allard and Griffin, and gave him a small smile. Cullen had often pitied her in his youth, for she seemed a little odd. Saggy-breasted and slack-bellied from endless childbearing, she bore a blank, bovine expression signifying neither happiness nor sadness, and she was given to staring into space for hours at a time until someone spoke to her. Then she would awaken and murmur a response. She had been a wealthy woman and was not the bonniest, so Griffin had only married for her money and land, not carnal pleasure. Since doing so, he veered between indifference and contempt. Aged beyond her years, Mabel was almost invisible to his father save when he climbed into her bed to sire yet another bairn. Had Mabel given him a son, he might have been kinder, but all she had managed so far were disappointing daughters.
His father cried, ‘Ah, Cullen. Did you have a good look at our prisoner? Softened her up, have you?’
‘I did your dirty work for you.’
‘See anything you like?’ smirked Griffin.
He recalled Lowri Strachan. The lass was all darkness – black hair, dark eyes. He had not made out their colour, for he had been drawn to her mouth, which was plump-lipped and wide. ‘She’s as bonnie as I’ve seen, but that’s hardly the point.’
Allard rose, scowling. ‘She’s not for the likes of you.’
Cullen ignored him. ‘Whatever your plan for that lass, father, you should think twice. Trust me. Lowri Strachan is not going to do anything you want her to do, and her brother will take your head for kidnapping his sister.’
‘Kidnapping! That lass stole from me, her and those two Strachan lads, and she’ll pay for it tomorrow when she will go to the magistrate and be tried and punished for her crime.’
‘You cannot be in earnest. Let it go. If you swallow your pride and send her back to her brother, he will owe you a debt. That is something you can use. Perhaps you can build an alliance in time.’
Griffin stood and bellowed, ‘I don’t want a bloody alliance with that cur. I want him to suffer, as he has made me suffer. I want to ruin what he loves, turn his happiness to bitterness in his throat until it chokes him. I told all and sundry about that marriage to Catherine. Strachan humiliated Clan Macaulay, made me a laughing stock, and I’ll not let it lie, not when his sister has dropped in my lap like a ripe apple falling from a tree.’
‘She didn’t drop into your lap. You stole her. And he’ll come looking for her.’
‘He doesn’t know she’s here,’ said Allard.
