Morag crinkled up her face, glancing over her shoulder without letting go of her hold on the wall. “Is that my Stuart?”
Janet used one hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare. “Yep. And that looks like Euan with him too.” She winced when she heard Stuart’s cursing. “Wonder what’s got him so upset?”
Morag’s eyes widened. “You do no’ suppose we are under attack?”
Janet wasn’t given the opportunity to answer. Twenty mounted men came to an abrupt halt at the wall just then, all of them staring straight up at the women from below ground. They looked distinctly uncomfortable, Janet thought, which seemed a bit odd. But then again, Stuart was cursing loud enough to wake the dead. That would make anybody uncomfortable.
“What are you bellowing over now?” Morag screeched, her nostrils flaring as she glanced defiantly down toward her husband.
Stuart didn’t answer that. He didn’t bother. Janet thought his face looked red enough to start a campfire off of. “Get,” he said distinctly, spacing out his words evenly, “down from there now.”
Morag chose that moment to contradict him. “No,” she sniffed. “I will no’.”
A tic began to work in Stuart’s jaw which Janet found curious. He really seemed to be overreacting to the situation if indeed she and Morag’s excursion up the wall was what had set him off.
“Morag!” he bellowed. “Running away will do ye no’ a bit of good. I will find ye every time. And punish ye just as I will when I get my hands on ye!”
Morag rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, like I’ll come down now,” she said dryly, “knowin’ you plan to punish me and all.” She sighed. “I mean really Stuart, you—” She broke off as she glanced toward Janet. Confused, she threw her a baffled look before doing the same to her husband. “Wait one moment. What do you mean aboot running away, Stuart? I was no’ running away. We were but climbing the wall to get a look at the beach on the other side.”
A few muffled laughs rose up from the soldiers on horseback, inducing Janet to wince. Geez but she couldn’t blame them. She knew for a fact Morag was telling the truth, but climbing a wall to look at the beach? It truly did sound like a lie, and a weak one at that.
“Climbing a wall tae look at the bluidy beach?” Stuart laughed mirthlessly. “How lackwitted do ye think I am, woman?”
When Morag opened her mouth to speak, Janet forestalled her by coming to her defense. She was afraid that, as angry as her best friend was, she might have chosen to actually answer Stuart’s question thereby getting herself into hotter waters with him. “It’s the truth,” she said with a nod, gazing down at her brother-in-law. “She wasn’t running away. We were just bored and we wanted to—”
“Enough.”
That one word, uttered quietly yet icily from Euan was enough to send a shiver up Janet’s spine. She flicked her gaze down toward her husband, swallowing roughly when she realized how angry he was. But there was more than anger in his expression. There was something else. Something that looked remarkably like…pain.
Oh no! she thought in a flash of realization, Euan actually believed that Morag had been trying to run away. And worse yet, Janet now understood that he believed her to be guilty of the same crime. Her eyes rounding, she implored her husband to listen. “You don’t really think I was trying to run from you do you?”
He said nothing. Merely stared at her.
“Do you?” she asked shrilly.
Euan was wearing his mask again, Janet noted with more than a little trepidation. His black gaze was boring holes into her, the line of his jaw stubborn and unbending. Her eyes widened nervously.
After what felt like an eternity, Euan broke his harsh gaze from hers and threw a command at one of his men. “Get her down from there,” he said with seeming indifference. “And lock her in my bedchamber.”
Chapter Thirteen
Janet’s cheeks pinkened with mingled anger and embarrassment as Euan’s man Niall escorted her back to her sleeping chamber. Her only consolation was that the gruff warrior looked as though he felt sorry for her. In fact, just before he locked her inside he turned to her and mumbled sheepishly, “for the record, milady, I do no’ think ye were tryin’ tae escape.”
And then he was gone, leaving Janet alone to stew. She was angry. Very angry. But also quite frightened. The final look Euan had thrown her way before galloping off had been laced with promises of retribution. She could only wonder at his punishment.
One side of her, the indignant half, wanted to stay right where she was and await his arrival so she could rage at him for treating her like this, for not believing her when she’d told him the truth. But the other side of her, the pragmatic half, wanted to bolt. Janet had no clue as to how her husband planned to punish her for her alleged sin, but she conceded rather gloomily that none of the scenarios she was coming up with in her mind boded well.
Janet paced back and forth in the bedchamber, uncertain as to what she should do, what she should say, when Euan finally saw fit to make an appearance. Just then the door came crashing open, causing Janet to whirl around on her heel and dart her eyes nervously toward her husband.
He looked angry. Very, very angry. For some reason or another she wasn’t afraid of him any longer though. For some reason or another rather than cowering as most would have and she probably should have, she found her eyes narrowing acidly and her lips pinching together. “Go away,” she seethed, turning around, giving him her back. “I have nothing to say to you.”
It took Euan five long strides to reach her. When he did, he whirled her around to face him. “I’m certain ye are verra angry with me,” he gritted out, his nostrils flaring, “for putting a stop tae your grand plan. But ye will do as I bid ye regardless.”
That was too much. She thumped him on a steely arm, not that the big ogre so much as flinched from it. “This is ridiculous!” she screeched, raising her voice to him for the first time since they’d met. “I wasn’t trying to run,” she fumed out, “and I resent the fact that you don’t believe me!”
His nostrils were still flaring as he searched her gaze. He looked like he wanted to believe her but was afraid to hope. And then the vulnerability in his eyes was quickly masked and the steel replaced it. “Take your clothes off,” he ordered her.
Janet’s eyes widened. Her chin went up a notch. “No.”
