She remembered her manners and turned to Seamus. “Will ye please find the steward and see where the Sutherlands can sleep?” She and the MacKay guards with her father were home, but the Sutherlands were not.
Anders shook his head. “We’ll be in the corridor outside yer chamber.”
Seamus’s eyes widened. “The MacKay will never allow that.”
“If he objects, we’ll bed down in the great hall. All Mariota will have to do is scream and we’ll be moments away.”
How long would it take Alber to assault her and claim she was now his, or get his hands around her throat and kill her? “I’ll lock my door,” she promised as they reached the door to the keep. Her father met them inside.
“Daughter, get ye to yer chamber. I only want to see ye out of it at meals, and if anything happens, I’ll have meals brought to ye.”
“And Alber? Is he also confined?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
He met her challenge with a frown. “’Tis naught of yer concern.”
“’Tis every bit my concern,” she replied, aghast. He still refused to understand. “Who more than me has he threatened?”
“He’s been warned to keep his distance or suffer the consequences, and with yer personal Sutherland guard,” he said and glanced aside at Anders, “he kens better than to try anything.”
“Ah, so ye do acknowledge that he is a danger to me.”
MacKay’s brow drew down. “I willna discuss this,” he growled. “Go to yer chamber.”
Mariota pressed her lips together, fuming. How much did Alber care about consequences? In her experience, he did not care at all. And with good reason. He’d never faced any that she herself had not delivered.
She’d best stay close to Anders and his men, the MacKay men who disposed of Alber after his last attack, Seamus, and groups of women. She could not let Alber get her alone again. Ever. She didn’t want to have to try to escape her chamber the same way she did the last time. The guards would have learned to look for anything hanging out of her window. She had no choice but to obey— for now.
Inside the great hall, her father took Anders to his solar, probably to give him the limits of what he and his men could do here. Two waited nearby to attend her, and the others, she assumed, remained outside taking care of the Sutherland horses and the one she had used when she escaped. She was debating going straight to her chamber or taking pity on the men and staying where she was for some food when her friend Genevra rushed to her.
“Where have ye been? I’ve been so worried. Ye disappeared, and yer da lit out of here with a lot of the men, and now ye areback again. Did that Alber steal ye away? Are ye well? Did he harm ye?”
Mariota hugged her friend to silence her. “I’ve been to Sutherland. Da fetched me back, and though he brought Alber with him among all those men, he promised to keep him away from me. I decided to give him another chance. Da, nay Alber.”
“Ye must tell me all about it!”
“Come upstairs with me. Da wants me to stay in my chamber.”
“Nay! Ye willna, will ye?”
“For a while, until he settles down. No’ for long.”
She led Genevra to her chamber, certain that her chatty friend had not noticed the strange men following them up the stairs. Once she and Genevra entered her chamber, she closed and locked the door behind them. The Sutherlands would have to take turns getting some food, she supposed. As soon as Anders got away from her father, he’d figure out where his men were. Seamus would see them taken care of.
Genevra took a seat by the hearth, then pointed out that no one had lit a fire in it. “’Tis cold in here. We should send for someone to take care of this.”
“I’ll ask the steward to have it lighted while I’m at supper,” Mariota said. The chamber was cool, but Genevra was one of those lasses who never seemed to get warm enough.
“Very well. Tell me what happened to ye.”
Mariota told her what happened the last time Alber accosted her, and why she left, but not how.
“Were ye well treated at Dunrobin?”
“Aye, very well. So well, in fact, that there are five Sutherlands among my guards now.” She didn’t dare mention her interest in Stellan, or that his twin was one of the men who came to MacKay with her, or the news would be all over the clan in moments. Genevra would see Anders soon enough. Thethought nearly made Mariota laugh out loud. She could imagine the comments her friend would make about him and the other Sutherland men. Handsome and strong would only be her first attempt to describe them. Mariota would add kind, courteous, and careful, but that would be only the start of a long list of positive attributes she would use. And that was before she got to describing Stellan. Nay, those attributes, she’d keep to herself.
Genevra shivered and Mariota wrapped one of her shawls around her friend’s shoulders. She couldn’t imagine her friend riding for days and camping overnight in the woods with more than fifty men around her, trying to stay warm by a small campfire. She didn’t know which would get her friend first, the cold or the mortification of sleeping near so many men. Or even one of them. Mariota knew which one she would have preferred, but sadly he had not made the trip with her. Stellan remained behind at Sutherland with his da, in the heir’s rightful place. That thought made her frown. Where was her rightful place at MacKay?
CHAPTER 10
