Page 70 of Her Highlander's Darkest Temptation
“Protect her! Protect the healers!” Ranald warriors were already moving to do just that, but it was too late. Their enemies were already moving, and far closer to their prize than Donall was to defending it.
Half a dozen mercenaries got between Lydia and the small door through which she and Evelyn and Maisie had emerged from the keep proper, cutting off their escape. The women moved to protect their patient. Donall was gratified to see that Lydia was holding a dagger in her hand, in the manner he’d taught her, but that did nothing to quell the nigh-overwhelming surge of fear.
Too far. He was too far away. “Lydia…!”
She avoided one attempt to grab her, dancing away from her fellows as she realized the truth of the men’s aims. It was a noble effort to protect the others, but it also left her far too vulnerable, and she was outnumbered even with Evelyn and Maisie at her side.
Lydia cut at one man, avoided another… and then the inevitable happened. Donall lunged forward attempting to cut his way through the chaos of battle, but it was too late. One man got behind her and struck Lydia hard in the back of the head with the pommel of his sword.
Lydia staggered and collapsed like a puppet with all its strings cut at once. Another man caught her and threw her over his shoulder, while a half-dozen others formed a guard around him in what was clearly a well-practiced move.
“Lydia! Lydia!” The words tore free from his throat in a roar of frustration. ‘Someone stop them! Stop them!”
His men tried, but they were fighting on too many fronts, and the numbers separating them from Lydia’s captors were too great. The small knot of men carrying Lydia reached the postern gate. Two men engaged the guards, while the rest of them pushed their way through with brute force.
Then they were gone, taking Lydia with them, just as the horn sounded to signal a retreat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Pain.
That was the first thing Lydia was aware of. Her head was throbbing in a manner that suggested she’d taken a blow, and her shoulders were in an uncomfortable position. She was also lying on something hard and uneven, with stones pressing uncomfortably against her frame.
What happened?
Then her memory came flooding back, and Lydia bit her lip to stifle a gasp. The attack on Ranald Keep. Attackers breaching the gates. Her foray into the battlefield with Evelyn and Maisie, to bring the wounded to safety. Someone had called out… something… and then enemy soldiers had attacked her.
She’d tried to fight them off, tried to lead them away when she realized they were after her, not Maisie or Evelyn. Then… pain. Pain and blackness.
I must have been taken prisoner.
“You can stop pretending, girl. I know you’re awake.” The voice was painfully familiar.
Lydia winced, but opened her eyes and rolled awkwardly into a sitting position.The bindings pinning her hands and arms behind her made movement difficult. “Hello, Uncle Cedric.”
Cedric Wycliffe was a tall man, a head taller than Lydia even when both were standing, and lean as the hunting hounds he bred for royal foxhunts. Here in the Highlands, he’d apparently foregone his usual tailored silks and velvets for sturdy breeches and a mailed surcoat, but the forbidding scowl on his face was one Lydia knew almost better than she knew her own expressions. She’d rarely, if ever, seen him without it.
At her greeting, his expression grew even more thunderous. “You would dare to address me so cavalierly, after what you have done? Disgracing our family name, and dishonoring your obligations as a member of the Wycliffe family… had I any other heirs, you would be disowned and horsewhipped through the streets as an example of what the fate of unrepentant slatterns and shameless thankless young women should be.”
The words cut deep, and Lydia bit her tongue to stifle her first response.
I might have preferred that.
Instead, she forced herself to remain quiet as her uncle continued speaking. “It was bad enough that you should flee from your duties and the man I chose as your husband. But then, to give yourself to a Highland ruffian.”
Boldness and anger at his hypocrisy loosened Lydia’s tongue. “Is not Laird Cameron also a Highlander?”
Cedric Wycliffe - for she refused to think of the man before her as her uncle any longer - made a noise of disgust. “Listen to you. You have even begun to sound like these heathens.”
“Even so, what could it matter who you ally with. La-Lord Ranald is…”
“Lord Cameron is a man with wealth, a passable army at his back, and a vast network of useful connections, as well as a fair amount of ambition, enough that even the royal court recognizes that he is a man to be reckoned with. Your ‘Lord Ranald...” Cedric spat the words like a curse, “has little territory, fewer allies, and is far from favored by the crown. In fact, his clan is in shambles after his rebellious actions landed him in the king’s gaol as punishment. Compared to Lord Cameron, he is friendless pauper attempting to hold a title he has neither the strength, wealth, ambition, nor even intelligence to maintain.”
“He is a good man. And kin by marriage to the Stewarts.”
“The Stewarts. Rebellious upstarts. They are tolerated, nothing more.” Lord Wycliffe spat the words. “As well as being kin to brigands.”
“He is an honorable man.”
