Page 106 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
That was McCarthy’s voice. His dark gaze was on his daughter, the sword that had been pointed so surely at Callum’s chest lowering by degrees as he waited for an answer.
“There is notruth,” Moira said, her voice shrill and angry. “There is nothing to be said. These children are my own kin, and they should be with their mother.”
There was a long, ominous silence as Callum turned to McCarthy.
“Dae ye wish to ken the truth or listen to yer daughter’s deceit for the rest of yer life?”
“Take them outside, please,” McCarthy said to Hannah. The maid stepped forward and gently took the girls’ hands.
“We dinnae want to stay, Uncle Callum!” Eilis said desperately. “We want to go home and be with ye. We want Lydia as our maither!”
Moira’s face twisted as Hannah hastily tugged the girls out of the room. Eilis and Amy both looked back at him as they followed the maid, and Callum’s heart clenched at the tears in their eyes.
As the door snapped shut behind them, he turned back to McCarthy.
Moira’s lips pursed as she crossed her arms over her chest, looking like a petulant child in the face of her accuser.
Her mouth twisted into a cruel grimace, and she sniffed, raising her eyebrows at Callum in challenge.
She kens I’ve won. At last. I might finally have me revenge on this demon.
“He’s lying, Faither,” Moira insisted. “He would say anythin’ to get those girls back. He hasnae seen them in four years!”
“And who is the reason for that?” Callum thundered. The force of his rage was a shock, even to him, as it reverberated around the room.
The other guards had their swords drawn, watching their master. A word from McCarthy and Callum would have a real fight on his hands. He watched the Laird, expecting him to give the order, but McCarthy’s gaze was still on Moira as she fidgeted in place.
Finally, after a moment’s deliberation, McCarthy sheathed his sword and turned to Callum.
“I am a reasonable man, Laird Murray. I wouldnae have got very far in me position if I took everythin’ at the word of me peers—even if me only daughter is the one to tell the tale. What proof dae ye hold? And by God ye better tell me the truth if ye value yer skin.”
Callum sheathed his sword too, raising his hands defensively and making eye contact with the guards to show he meant them no harm.
Then he reached inside his inner pocket and withdrew the letters that Alexander had found for him.
“I thought me braither might have burned these, but I believe, even before his death, he kenned that he needed to keep evidence of this woman’s lies.”
Moira stepped forward, her body trembling with rage as Callum handed them over to McCarthy.
The Laird frowned at the small packet. It was tied in a dark green velvet ribbon, and he loosened it, his brow furrowing still further as he opened the first letter.
Slowly, his face turned ashen pale as he read the lines inside. Moira did not move, her cheeks coloring as her father read every line of the lust and desire she had hidden for so long.
Callum had not read more than a few lines to prove they were authentic, but even he had been shocked by the language Moira could use in the throes of her need.
It sickened him that his brother had loved someone who could speak so of another man.
McCarthy’s hand was shaking by the time he looked at his daughter, the letter held loosely between his fingers.
“Ye have lied to me face,” he said, brandishing them furiously. “This, this is what ye are guilty of! Ye had me believe he threw ye out for nothin’. The only reason I didnae start a war was out of respect for the dead. The late Laird did nothin’ to ye. He forced ye out because ye were tryin’ to seduce his own braither?”
“Callum wanted me,” Moira stated firmly. “We love each other.”
Callum scoffed, taking a menacing step toward her.
“Moira, if ye were nae so cruel, I would believe ye mad. I never would have laid a hand on ye, whether me braither was alive or dead. I dinnae want ye, I never have.”
McCarthy was frozen now, rifling through the letters, his color returning as his cheekbones became stained with red at the words his daughter used.
