“’Tis damned insulting.”
“Aye, ’tis,” Darach agreed with him. The Menzies were more cautious with their decades-long enemies, the Grants. They’d waited to pounce on Ravenglade till the Buchanans had set foot in it—a clan they weren’t afraid of. “Ye’re no’ to blame though,” Darach told him. “They arena’ afraid of many.”
“Will they be afraid of ye?”
Finally turning to him, Darach smiled. “Let’s find oot.”
His eyes caught Janet coming toward them and his smile vanished. He held up his palm to stop her advance. “Go back inside, Janet. I’ll handle this.”
She didn’t break stride but slapped his hand out of her path and peered over the wall. “Why is Roddie back so soon? He agreed to give me time.”
The effort it took her not to sound frightened pricked Darach in his heart. He knew her air of cool detachment was practiced and not genuine. She was afraid that Roddie Menzie had come to get her. She didn’t love the chief and she didn’t want to be forced to spend her life with him.
“He came at m’ invitation.”
She blinked and looked up at him. He thought he saw a speck of moisture in her eyes. “Why would ye do that?”
“When would ye have me begin in riddin’ us of them? In another pair of weeks?” Darach asked. When she opened her mouth to answer, he cut her off. “I’ll make certain ye dinna’ have to marry him, Janet. Will ye trust me?”
“When did ye invite them?”
He sighed. Hell, she was infuriating. “I left a letter in their camp after I counted them.”
She didn’t know what to say to that and remained quiet, which Darach found quite to his liking.
He readied his bow and pulled an arrow from the quiver tied to his back. Tied to the bow was a rolled up parchment, one he’d written this afternoon.
“May I read what ye penned to him before ye send it?”
He shook his head while nocking the arrow to the bowstring. He closed one eye and took aim at the ground just before Roddie Menzie’s horse.
“Am I not entitled to know the contents of yer correspondence, since part of it includes me?”
He watched the arrow sail high on the wind, the bowstring trembling in his hand. He followed its descent and waited until it landed an inch from where he’d aimed. Only after Menzie’s men hurried to retrieve it did he turn to pin her with an irritated look.
She met his coolest glare and matched it. “I want to know what ye discussed about me,” she demanded while the sun’s rays fell over her golden mane, one strand blown across her cheeks by the wind.
She plagued him, she and her spicy mouth. He found her strength of heart equal to those who lived in Camlochlin and more alluring than he would admit. He’d had to battle his memory of her the first time he left her. He’d had to fight and resist giving in to the hole she’d put in his heart. For months he didn’t love or laugh, but lived in the misery of missing a lass he should hate. He’d had to win, else Janet Buchanan would have become the standard by which he measured all women.
Hell, he couldn’t love her. He was certain he could resist. But all the signs pointed to him succumbing to the strength of love, damn it.
“Ye’ll know soon enough” was all he said and then he turned back to the Menzies. He wanted—nae, he needed—to get on with things and return to Skye as soon as he could.
He waited a moment while Menzie had his missive read to him. He watched, hoping for a green flag, but expecting a red one. Thankfully, Janet remained quiet, waiting with him, though she didn’t know what for.
Menzie shouted to one of his men, the flag bearer.
Red.
“What does that mean?” Janet asked him, breathless against the hushed silence of the afternoon.
“It means he doesna’ except m’ terms.” He looked at her when she tugged on his sleeve, determined to have her answers. “It means we renegotiate.”
“What were yer terms?” she asked.
He glanced at her brother before giving in. “That he give up his claims on ye and on m’ cousin’s castle and I dinna’ kill him.”
Was that a smile he saw on her bonny face? It was like the sun bursting through the clouds. “Did ye truly think he might consent?”
