Marian tried to count them.
Two dozen men. How on earth am I going to fight all of them?
He glared at her for a quick second before drawing a blade in one swift, fluid motion.
“Excuse me! I… I…” Marian stammered just as thunder cracked overhead, drowning the sound of her suddenly tiny voice.
The man advanced slowly on his horse, holding his gleaming sword. He seemed less of a man and more like some furious god of storms as he observed her.
Marian had precisely three seconds to decide whether he was going to kill her or merely terrify her into leaving.
“Excuse me,” she tried again.
But he spoke over her sharply in a language she’d never heard before. The words were fast and harsh, landing against her untrained ears like a slap.
“Cò iad sibh?” His voice rolled like the storm overhead, sharp, dangerous, and entirely incomprehensible to Marian. “Dè tha sibh a’ dèanamh air mo fhearann?”
Beside her, Lilly made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a whimper.
Marian lifted her chin, meeting the stranger’s furious dark eyes despite the sword still gleaming in his hand.
She had not traveled three weeks from London, survived her mother’s coldness, and endured her uncle’s conditional affection just to be chased off her own property by an angry Highlander.
“I do not speak your language,” she replied in a much louder voice.
He frowned, seeming to realize she understood nothing of the words he said.
“Ah, English,” he said, like a curse, his thick accent bending his words. “Who the hell are ye,” he demanded, “and what are ye doin’ on me land?”
CHAPTER TWO
“Ibeg your pardon?”
The courtyard fell silent as soon as the words left her mouth.
Marian glared at the furious Highlander as if he’d just insulted her at a London tea table. It did not matter that he had a sword in his hand or that he was merely a few feet away from her. She was a gently bred English lady, and no one could speak to her in such a manner. Especially not on her land.
Who does he think he is?
The Highlander stared down at her from atop his horse. He furrowed his brow, somehow managing to deepen the creases that ran alongside the ghastly scar on his forehead.
For a second, his expression shifted from fury to curiosity, but his frown returned as quickly as it had faded once he realized she was waiting for him to repeat himself.
“Ye heard me, lass,” he said finally, his voice low and dangerous. “What are ye doin’ on me land?”
Lass? The nerve of this man!
Marian scoffed. “Yourland?”
She had traveled a long way with a singular hope that she would find her inheritance and make a home of it.
Glen Carrick was supposed to be empty, waiting for her. And yet, now she stood in front of the castle, arguing ownership with an ill-tempered Highlander in the rain.
She slipped a hand into the fold of her skirt, her fingers closing around the folded paper she had tucked there earlier.
“What is she doin’?” one of his men asked.
The Highlander tightened his grip on his sword, aiming it toward her. “Show yer hand,” he ordered her, as if she were one of his subjects.
