Page 107 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
Shameless until the last, Moira stepped forward, a coquettish smile on her face. It sent Callum back in time five years to themoment his life had been changed forever—ruined by that very smile.
She reached him, fluttering her eyelids at him, and placed a hand on his chest. McCarthy made a strangled sound to see his daughter’s true nature, but Callum stood his ground.
“Callum,” she purred. “Ye ken we could be happy together. Now that yer paramour has gone, we can live together. We can take the girls back, and I can be yer lady just as ye always wanted.”
Callum gripped her wrist so hard that she winced, pulling her arm from his chest and meeting her gaze.
“Nae many men have ever turned ye down, Moira. I ken that. But believe me when I tell ye there is only one woman who holds me heart, and she isnae and never has been ye.”
Moira’s pale blue eyes began to burn with a familiar fire as she snatched her hand away. But the twisted snarl of anger he had expected never came.
Instead, there was a small smirk on her face that chilled his blood.
“Well, it is a shame that your sassenach will be dead by now, then,” she spat. “Ye will be alone again, and once she is gone, ye’ll beg to have me back.”
Callum stepped forward, clenching his fists as he glared at Moira.
“What did ye dae?” he demanded, and Moira simply shook her head.
“What I had to, to prove me love for ye.”
Callum turned to McCarthy, but it was clear from the shock on his face that the Laird knew nothing of what Moira had done.
In the silence that followed, the pattering of rain began to thunder against the glass on all sides. Callum glanced at the panes as the rivulets of water began to tumble down in torrents. The rain had finally arrived, and the landscape around them was dark and ominous.
How will I ever find her in this weather?
The panic that gripped him made his chest ache, and with one final glare at Moira, he ran from the room to get the girls.
He was determined not to leave them in McCarthy’s clutches for a moment longer, but when he rounded the corner, he skidded to a halt. Hannah and the girls were running back inside, soaked through, as the maid hugged the girls to her.
Amy and Eilis looked pitiful in their dresses, sodden with the rain, their hair matted to their necks as they looked up at him.Callum’s heart began to beat wildly as he realized he could not take them with him now.
He had one horse, and the rain was coming down in sheets; he could not carry them all the way home like this.
But if I leave now, Moira could try to manipulate her faither against me again.
Amy and Eilis ran to him, clutching at his legs, and he crouched to the floor, encircling them both with his arms and hugging them tightly against his torso.
“My girls, are ye all right?”
“We kenned ye would come for us,” Eilis said. “Where is Lydia?”
“Yer uncle is goin’ to get her back.”
Callum stilled, releasing the girls and pushing them behind him as he rose to his feet, turning to look at McCarthy. The Laird had followed him, but there was no longer any malice in his expression.
Moira was behind him in the dark, watching with a look of pure venom in her eyes.
McCarthy brandished the letters in front of him, his expression grim.
“With yer permission, Laird Murray, I will burn this heinous proof of me daughter’s treachery. I am goin’ to send her away to a convent where she will learn piety and forgiveness and how to live as the proper lady that I raised her to be.”
Moira scoffed, shaking her head. “Ye willnae send me away, Faither.”
“Be silent!” McCarthy barked, and Callum felt a vicious satisfaction when Moira’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Ye think I am in jest?” McCarthy thundered, twisting around to glare at his daughter. “When I heard what Angus Lawson had done to his braither all those years ago, I believed he was justified. I thought he had sullied me only child, betrayed his Laird and everything decent in this world.”
