“Would ye rather she suffer the lash? She can do that now and be on her way back to Fletcher immediately after. Is that what ye wish?”
For a moment, Caitrin considered it. Her freedom might be worth a few lashes. “How many?” slipped out before she could clamp her lips together.
MacGregor’s gaze cut to her, steely and assessing. “Ten.”
She shook her head. She might be able to withstand one, or two, or even three. But not ten.
“Caitrin!” Fletcher’s exclamation warned her to keep her mouth closed. “Ye willna whip her, nor will ye confine her.”
Her father spoke in a tone she’d never heard from him before. His voice conveyed anger, but cold, steely anger, and it made her shiver. Here was the laird in him she so rarely saw, confronting another laird. But she also saw the redness creeping up his neck.
MacGregor merely raised an eyebrow.
Fletcher’s demands carried no weight. She prayed her father didn’t try to push MacGregor too far.
“I had hoped we could arrange an alliance to our benefit, but I see that isna possible.”
“If ye wish to secure the future of yer clan, it is. Caitrin must learn the limits of her responsibility—and authority—as lady of this clan. Consider this an easy lesson.”
Caitrin could see how close to eruption her father had come, one he might not be able to withstand in his condition, and one that would certainly make this situation worse. She had to prevent that. “Very well, I agree to yer terms of confinement.” She stood and moved to the door before Fletcher could object. “Will ye have me escorted, or may I find my own way?”
MacGregor’s smirk irritated her, but she dared not make matters worse. The tension in the chamber set her teeth on edge.
“Malcolm awaits outside. He will escort ye and arrange the guard on yer door. Dinna think to disobey me in this, or ye may yet face the lash.” With a nod clearly meant to dismiss her and her father, MacGregor returned his attention to his desk. Caitrin left the chamber and joined Malcolm in the hall as quickly as she could, tapping her toe until her father followed her out and closed the door behind him.
“What did ye do, lass?”
“Nothing, Da,” she answered, glancing at Malcolm.
No’ yet. And nothing I can tell ye here.
She squared her shoulders and met her father’s concerned gaze with a determined expression. “Now do ye believe me?”
Fletcher’s jaw clenched.
****
After he heard about Caitrin’s misadventure and confinement, Jamie spent the day pacing and coming up with a dozen different courses of action, none of which changed the fact that he had caused Caitrin’s trouble. If he had not wished for proof, she would not have been in Alasdair’s private solar.
She would not have been caught.
He’d passed by her chamber several times. Each time the guard present outside her door watched him with a critical eye. But there was no indication Alasdair had disturbed her, which gave Jamie a small measure of comfort. Then a serving girl, one he hadn’t seen before, came out of her chamber and Jamie’s heart nearly stopped.
He knew the comb she wore in her hair. He had carved it for his sister.
The guard must’ve seen him react to the lass. He shifted his weight, eyeing Jamie, then glancing to the serving girl’s retreating back as she made her way down the hall.
“Who…who is she?” Jamie managed to ask, fighting the urge to run after her and grab her arm, to demand how she came by something that had belonged to his murdered sister.
But the guard had a hand on his weapon. “Why do ye want to ken the name of a serving lass?”
“Never mind.” Jamie gathered his wits and proceeded at a sedate pace down the hall in the same direction as the girl. He could feel the guard’s eyes boring into his back and suspected he debated the relative merits of deserting his post to go chasing after him, or staying at his post on Caitrin’s door.
“Halt!”
The command didn’t surprise him. Jamie stopped and turned to face the guard, hands at his sides, palms out, open, his stance easy, doing everything he could with his body to allay the guard’s suspicions. “Aye? Is there a problem?”
“I asked ye why ye wanted her name.”
