Page 20 of Kidnapped By a Highland Shadow

Still, she was Malcolm’s daughter, after all. She could feel the same rage boiling up inside her.

Shouldn’t she have a say in her own wedding, her own future? She was not permitted to pick the man she married or even have an opinion on whether or not she would marry him, and now she had no say in when she would be married or when her betrothal celebration would be?

It was too much.

Pippia stood abruptly, so suddenly that her chair toppled backward, landing with a screech and crash on the stone floor below.

Alasdair, who apparently hadn’t been paying any attention at all to the conversation, jumped in sudden panic, and his hand flew to the dirk at his belt. Malcolm’s face hardened, sensing a battle.

He and his daughter stared each other down for a long moment. Pippia’s mind whirled madly, trying to think of some argument, some words to express the unfairness of it all.

There was nothing.

At least, nothing Malcolm McTavie would care about. So Pippia turned and ran. She ran out of the study, ignoring her father’s angry demands to stop, now, immediately. She quickly lost him in the crowd in the courtyard, and then Pippia was out of the gates and running full pelt toward the woods.

Pippia’s knives were right where she had left them. Gordon had taken all the other weapons safely back to the keep, as always, but Pippia’s knives were stowed away in the hollow tree near their practice. She’d learned to keep them safe after Evan or her father had taken away her knives as a punishment for various misdemeanors in her childhood. More than one favorite knife had disappeared, never to be seen again.

She pulled out the familiar, worn leather pouch and unrolled it, running her fingers over the carefully cleaned and sharpened knives within. They were all there, her most precious possessions. Pippia let herself sink to the boggy ground, clutching the leather pouch to her chest.

What if Alasdair found her knives? Would he laugh and shake his head and let her go on her way? Pippia doubted it. He seemed like the kind of man who liked a dutiful wife, who cooked and cleaned, hosting feasts for his numerous friends without a word of complaint, hoisting endless babes on her hip and perpetually pregnant.

Pippia shuddered.

To distract herself from this unpleasant view of her future, Pippia stood and angled herself in front of the target, still hanging from a branch where Gordon had left it. This was a further aiming point than before, but Pippia was sure she could make it.

She gripped the blade of her favorite knife between two fingers of her left hand. Gordon didn’t seem to mind that Pippia favored her left hand, unlike her other tutors, who had insistently forced Pippia’s pens into her right hand. In fact, Gordon claimed that using her left hand would give her a tremendous advantage. She took aim and let the knife fly.

It thudded perfectly into the center of the target, and Pippia allowed herself a brief, congratulatory smile.

She let loose a second knife, then a third. She was reaching for a fourth knife when that familiar, unpleasant feeling prickled down Pippia’s spine. She’d felt this nasty sensation in the courtyard earlier when she was playing with the children.

Pippia paused, lowering her knife, and turned around in a circle, scanning the forest around her. There was no one there.

It’s my imagination, she told herself firmly. I’ve had a terrible day and the prospect of worse days to come. It’s no wonder I’m jumping at shadows.

With that in mind, Pippia whirled suddenly, giving herself no time to focus on the target, and let her knife fly.

In the split second that the knife left her hand, Pippia realized that a man, a stranger, stood there. What was more, he stood between her and the target toward which her knife was speeding.

Pippia opened her mouth to cry out as if the man had any chance at all of saving himself. Even more quickly, however, the man moved. He didn’t move out of the way of the knife, as a sensible man would, but he brought his two hands up together as if he were praying. There was a loud slap, which echoed around the forest.

Pippia’s jaw dropped. The stranger had caught her knife between the flats of his palms. The point was mere inches away from his nose, and he had not flinched.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Pippia burst out.

The man blinked. “What?”

“You heard me. What kind of fool stands between a person throwing a knife and her target? Eh? You would not have done that if I were a man.”

“I…”

Pippia waited for his reply, hands on hips, irrational anger and relief swirling within her. For an instant, she’d truly believed that the man was dead, and she would have murdered him, intentionally or not.

He was a tall man, broad and well built, wearing a McTavie tartan kilt and a rough cloak around his shoulders. He was clearly a warrior, but Pippia did not recognize him. He had a strong jaw and close-cropped red hair, which was beginning to grow out in exuberant curls. He seemed younger than the other warriors Pippia knew, although that could just be because of his lack of beard.

Pippia doubted that he was unable to grow a beard and wondered why he chose not to grow one. For many warriors, growing a beard was a rite of passage, signaling the growth of a boy to a man.

Not, of course, that anyone would doubt that a man stood before her. Pippia felt her cheeks heating up. She extended her hand.

“Let me see,” she demanded.

He blinked stupidly at her. “What?”

“Your hand. You must have cut it, or burned it, or something. Let me see.”

The man stared at her as if he didn’t understand plain English, giving Pippia the opportunity to notice that he had long golden eyelashes, glinting red in the weak sunlight. She had a sudden vision of herself running a fingertip over those eyelashes, and Pippia gave herself a mental shake.

Now was not the time, for heaven’s sake!