“He and his brother cut down no less than three of our men—James, Hugh and Gannon.”
Ogilvie frowned. “And Hayes?” he asked.
“Chasing down the Mackenzie brother before he reaches Kinloch to dispatch their army in our direction, laird,” Gregor replied.
Laird Ogilvie looked most displeased and somewhat more rushed. He stepped forward, walking toward me. “Unhand her,” he said to Gregor, who—finally—released his hold on me, taking a step back. Ogilvie circled me, his eyes on my body, but it was Wilkie he spoke to. “She is most definitelynotyours, Mackenzie. She is entirelymine. And I intend to wed her immediately.”
“Wed her?” asked Campbell, amused. “Bed her, aye, and share her around. Hospitable host that you are, Ogilvie.”
Ogilvie ignored the comment. To Gregor, he said, “Fetch the minister and order him to meet me in my private chambers. Immediately.” To Dougal: “Have Mackenzie taken to the cells. I’ll figure out what to do with him later.” And to Campbell, he said, “’Tis some urgent business I must attend to, Campbell. Eat and drink at your leisure, and I’ll return to you shortly. I have a ceremony to participate in and a marriage to consummate.”
The noise in the room ballooned in a curious swell, the warriors at the table guffawing and murmuring. Campbell, it had to be said, looked mildly intrigued by the urgency in Ogilvie’s manner, but he let it lie; maybe he thought Ogilvie’s haste was inspired by his desire to exact revenge on Wilkie, a sentiment Campbell would undoubtedly well relate to.
I gasped for breath, panic seeping into my lungs and my heart, darkening my world as though a cloud had passed over an invisible sun. I looked at Wilkie, but his eyes were locked on Ogilvie.
And Ogilvie met his glare, as he sidled up behind me. “She’s mine,” he repeated to Wilkie triumphantly. As though to illustrate his point, he placed two fingers softly between my legs, to my most vulnerable place, which was bare under my tunic.
I jumped and fled from him—now that I was newly unrestrained—and ran to Wilkie. It was a desperate attempt, surrounded as we were, but I went to his bound wrists, now bloodied from the tight, rubbing constriction, and I attempted to untie the hard leather cord.
But before I could even begin to unbind Wilkie’s wrists, I was grabbed from behind and constrained in a punishing embrace. By Ogilvie himself, and I could feel the hardness of him pressed up against the risingfabric of my tunic. I struggled and I sobbed with fear and frustration.
And Wilkie reacted.
He growled, enraged, and rammed his shoulder into Ogilvie, who was so jarred by the force of impact that he released his grasp on me. But I was barely released before my arms were imprisoned again, this time by two guards who had closed in on the escalating conflict. Wilkie had felled Ogilvie and managed to kick him once in the ribs with his arms still bound behind him, before he was attacked on all sides by no less than seven guards. They wrestled him to the cold stone floor, beating him with their fists and their clubs. They’d kill him.
I screamed, losing all sense of myself. “Don’t hurt him!Please!I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.Please stop hurting him!” The cries rose from my throat, racking my body with the force of my anguish. “I’ll do it. Leave him! Take me to the chambers.”
Ogilvie was dragged up by a number of guards until he was back on his feet. He was agitated and irate. The guards held Wilkie securely and looked at their laird, as though waiting for his response to my desperate pleas. Laird Ogilvie—and in fact most in the large room—were contemplating me, as though taken aback by the force of my obvious devotion to Wilkie’s well-being. This detail appeared to anger Ogilvie even further. “Bring him with us,” he ordered savagely. “Cut off his shirt. And have Mumford accompany us.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose in prickling, dire alarm. I knew who Mumford was; I’d heard him discussed, in passing, several times during my years serving Ogilvie’s table. A trusted man. Loyal. Fierce.A skilled weapon maker. And uncannily well versed in the ways and methods of torture.
Wilkie’s shirt was shredded by the guards’ knives and thrown in scraps to the floor. There was blood on his face, and his hair was wild. He looked dazed and unsteady, but when he saw me his eyes slowly regained their focus.
The agony! The sight of him, bloodied and beaten, still so very captivating even in our shared defeat. His chest and arms were strained and muscled, slick with blood and sweat, his stomach tight and coiled where my fingers had lightly soothed him, once upon a time.
I couldn’t soothe him now. But I would do anything I could to save him. Would Ogilvie let Wilkie go if I gave myself willingly?
“Roses.” My beautiful bloodied warrior was speaking to me, and the sound of his roughened voice reached between us, reconnecting all that was sacred to me, calming me and strengthening a final resolve. It was difficult to hear him amid the confusion and the commotion of the room, as we were clinched, surrounded and being moved toward a far door. “You mustnotconsent to it, lass. No matter what happens. Promise me this.”
I wanted to promise him anything he asked of me. But I could not consent to his torture or his death. I could not watch them kill him while I stood aside and let it happen.
We were taken to Laird Ogilvie’s private chambers, a room I remembered well. The minister was already in his place. And, chillingly, three hooded guards stood along one wall. The largest, middle guard held a long sinister-looking black whip. Mumford.
Wilkie was led to a wooden stool that had been placed in front of Mumford. Wilkie was ordered to sit and they bound his ankles and tied them to the legs of the stool, fumbling slightly with the ties, which seemed like an odd detail here in this darkest hour.
“Begin,” Ogilvie said gruffly to the minister. The minister, a small, white-bearded man, looked highly uncomfortable with the scenario, and his eyes kept darting to Mumford, then back to his open Bible, which he clutched as though the salvation it promised had never been so urgently desired as here and now.
“Our Holy Father, we ask—” began the minister.
“Get straight to the vows, Minister,” Ogilvie interrupted, with forced patience.
The wide-eyed minister began again. “Of course.” He cleared his throat, not once but several times. “Do you, Laird Errol Ogilvie, take this lass to be your lawfully wedded wife, in—”
“I do.”
The minister looked uneasily at Mumford, at Wilkie, then at me. He cleared his throat, then continued. “Do you— What’s the lass’s name? I must have her full name to make the union official.”
“Roses Stuart,” Ogilvie said.
