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Darkness had already fallen when Lyndsay awoke. Consciousness came with a start and a gasp of breath, and then a panicked look around as she became oriented to where she was. Her throat was dry, and she still ached all over. The last thing she remembered was being at the feet of the Highland brute, completely at his mercy. Fear trembled through her, and she whimpered as she felt her body sighing with deep relief when she realized that the fastenings of her clothes were still intact. If he intended to steal her virtue, then he hadn’t done so yet, which meant she still had time to try and escape.

She gingerly slipped off the bed, taking care not to make the floorboards creak in case the sound gave her away. She had no idea where Douglas had gone or when he was coming back. At first, she dared to hope that they might have left her alone in this house that was more like a tomb, but then she heard the singing coming from outside.

Moonlight poured in through the window, and an amber glow spread across the bottom of the window. Her eyes adjusted to allow her to see in darkness, for she assumed that Douglas had not left her a candle to light her way through the darkness. She walked toward the window and kept her body pressed tightly against the wall, only daring to peek around the window in case any of them should see her. It was impossible to make out any details about things that were not around the fire, but she could see the Highlanders clustered together, drinking the bottles of wine that had been stored in the cellar. The sound of their song rose through the air and reached her eyes, and it made her sick. How dare they sing about triumph when they had caused so much pain and destruction. It was almost too much for Lyndsay to bear, and although many people had lost their lives, she kept coming back to Liza and how her gentle ambition had been cut short by these men, who apparently were ready to go to war with the entire country.

Lyndsay didn’t understand how they could justify killing so many innocent people for crimes that hadn’t even been committed. There didn’t seem to be any reasoning with them, and given how Douglas had destroyed the desk, she was surprised the house was even still standing. If he put his mind to it, she was sure that he could have punched through the walls and the foundations and let everything turn into rubble, such was the power held within his body.

Just the thought of seeing him again made her tremble. She turned and gathered the blanket up in her arms, wondering if she might be able to use it to descend down the side of the house. When she returned to the window, she quickly dismissed the idea, though, because she doubted she could climb down the side of the building without any of the Highlanders seeing her. And when she looked at the blanket, she didn’t think it was long enough to reach the ground anyway. The drop was a long one, and it would likely kill.

It didn’t escape her that she might well be better off dead considering she knew what the Highlanders were capable of, but she wasn’t prepared to give up her life just yet. As the sole survivor (that she knew of, and it wasn’t a strange assumption to make), she felt a certain responsibility to cling to life for as long as she could as a way of defiance. It was a small victory to endure, but a victory nonetheless.

When she abandoned the thought of escaping via the window, she then tried the door. She clasped her hands around the doorknob and turned, but the door was fastened. She rattled it and shook it and kicked it so fiercely that sweat poured down the side of her face before she gave up and staggered back to the bed. She sank into a sitting position and then placed her head in her hands, trying to think of a way to free herself from this fate. There had to be a way out, there just had to be, but it wasn’t coming to her mind. She wondered if things would have been different had she been a boy. She cursed her weak frame for being unable to fight off the attackers, but then she had an idea.

She knew that eventually Douglas would come back, so all she had to do was wait for him.

She gathered the blanket in her arms again. She may not be able to use it to escape down the house, but there were other uses. She wrapped it in her hands until it was taut and then waited behind the door, letting the moments pass until she finally heard heavy footsteps approach.

Lyndsay’s heart was in her mouth as she heard Douglas coming toward the door. She knew it was him despite being unable to see him, for she couldn’t imagine anyone else having footsteps that were that heavy. The key slid in and turned, and then the door opened. His huge body entered the room, and she swallowed her fear once again. The darkness was her ally. He shut the door behind him and made his way to the bed. This was her moment.

She leaped at him like a wild cat and pulled the blanket over his head, trying to catch his neck. He grimaced and coughed and let out a low curse as Lyndsay struggled with all her might to hold on, hoping that she might be able to bring this giant to his knees. However, he lifted his hand and grabbed the blanket. He held it tight and pulled it up, and her along with it. She felt her feet leaving the ground and knew that she was at his mercy once again. With a mighty heave, he threw her around and forced her to land on the bed. The mattress creaked under the impact of even her slight frame, and the breath was driven from her lungs.

The first opportunity she had, she drew her legs into her body and pressed herself against the wall against which the bed was pressed. Her throat grew tight again at the sight of this man who seemed to grow an inch every time she saw him. His body was framed in the moonlight. His fists were clenched, and she feared what he had in store for her.

“What do you want with me?” she asked.

Douglas waited a few moments to answer, moments that were filled with dread. Fear filled her heart, and the only recourse she had left was to scream. She opened the mouth, but he moved with incredible speed, and a huge hand was clamped upon her mouth, silencing her, suffocating her breath.

“Dinnae make a sound, otherwise I’ll kill ye,” he said.

He took his hand away, and Lyndsay nodded her agreement, unsure why he was so adamant that she should remain quiet but not willing to argue with him.

“I told ye I was nae gaeing tae harm ye. I am a man of my word, despite what ye may think,” Douglas said.

He took his top off. Lyndsay shuddered and tried to tear her gaze away from him, but she found it difficult. There was a part of her—the part of her that was a woman before anything else—that was drawn to his physique. It was masculine in all the right ways, with hard angles and a bed of hair that ran down his torso. His biceps bulged, and his forearms were strong, leading to large hands. There was something innately primal about him and the effect he had on her, but the guilt that came afterward was bitter to swallow. Here was a man that she should have feared completely and hated utterly, yet there was a part of him that was inescapably handsome, and perhaps that scared her more than anything.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“I’m getting ready for bed,” he said.

“What about… Are there any others left? Am I the only one? What of my father?”

So far, she had heard nothing about her father and assumed that if they had captured him, they would have made a lot of noise about it. She held out hope that he survived until she asked the question. The look on Douglas’s face told her everything she needed to know, and she was overwhelmed with sorrow.

“No…no, it can’t be right. It can’t be,” she gasped. If her father had died, then she truly had lost everything. Anger swelled inside her. She looked up at Douglas and hissed at him, “You’re a monster! I can’t believe you killed him. What did he ever do to you? What did any of us ever do?” she asked, the volume of her voice creeping up to a point where he had to glare at her to make her stop, reminding her that he wanted her to be quiet.

“Ye took our land. Ye killed our kin. Ye are nae free of blame,” Douglas spat.

“But that wasn’t us,” Lyndsay said in a small voice.

“Maybe nae, but it could be. And I would nae be sae quick tae think highly of yer da. Can ye say for certain he didnae dae anything in his youth?”

“I can. My father was a nobleman, and if you killed him, then you are…you are nothing more than a brute!” Tears filled her eyes, and her voice trembled with emotion.

“Aye, that I may be, lass, and I dinnae expect anything but hatred from ye, but ye might like tae know what yer da said tae us before he died.”

“What was that?” she asked defiantly, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

Douglas paused for a moment before he replied. “He tried tae give us yer life in exchange for his. He was willing tae trade ye like any other good, sae I would nae be tae quick tae think of him as noble.”

Lyndsay had been ready to rebuke him and rail against him and curse him a thousand times over, but when he revealed this morsel of information, all the wind was taken out of her sails. Her head dipped, and all she could muster was a small “Oh.” Her first instinct was to believe that this man was lying, before she asked herself why he would lie. It wasn’t as though he needed to torture her more, and sadly it did track with the way her father behaved. He was always ready to look for an opportunity, and he had basically traded her once already for a small fortune to Baron Adams. It didn’t surprise her that he would have tried to do the same to save his own skin, but it did leave her feeling disheartened.

She began to wonder if all men had evil in their hearts. It didn’t seem to matter whether they were English or Scottish. She was caught in the middle of them and ended up being the one who was hurt. After being so cruelly treated by her father, she resigned herself to the fact that her life was over. She might as well let this man do as he wished because she had no say in anything that happened in her life. It was a grim feeling of acceptance that entered her heart. There was nothing more she could do to fight against him now, and the one man she thought would be her champion had instead tried to use her as a bargaining chip. If she wasn’t worth anything to her own father, then what was the point of trying to pretend that she had any dignity at all?

She sighed. “Do what you want with me, brute. I am at your mercy now. I hope you feel proud that you have managed to overpower such a weak young woman. I’m sure you will sing many songs about this day,” she said bitterly, hating the feeling of revulsion that crawled over her skin, but she supposed it was going to be a constant companion to her life now, for however long that lasted. She watched as Douglas stripped off the rest of his clothing, and she stared at every aspect of his manhood. It was the first time she had ever seen a naked man before, and it made her skin grow warm.