Page 44 of Falling for Her Highland Steward
“Come with me.” Michael held out a hand to each of them. “Stephen, I have ordered the cook to make your favorite supper tonight—venison pie!”
The little boy looked at him, but now his eyes were distrustful and hostile. He was about to reply, but at that moment, there was a rustling in the trees, and Caillen stepped out.
He was smiling grimly as he produced another dagger much the same size and shape as Michael’s. “It seems that we both lied.” His voice was dangerously calm.
Michael whipped out the dagger, and this time he held it to Erin’s throat, the point just below her ear. “Now what do you say, Cal?” he gloated. “How does it feel to have the woman you love taken away from you?”
Caillen stood very still for a moment, then abruptly looked to his left. Michael instinctively jerked his head sideways, too, searching for whatever Caillen had seen. He took his eyes off his hostages for a split second, but it was long enough for Caillen to bat the dagger out of his hand so that it landed on the ground, where Caillen trapped it with his foot.
Michael pushed Erin over with a savage punch to her stomach, then ran away as if the hounds of hell were after him. Caillen bent down to tend to her, his heart beating wildly as he looked into her face, which was screwed up with pain.
“Mama! Mama!” Stephen wailed as he knelt down beside her.
Erin opened her eyes and reached up to cup her son’s face, trying to smile. “I am fine, darling boy,” she assured him. “Lie down beside me and talk to me. Tell me about your new puppy.” She made a shooing motion to Caillen to send him away, then folded her arm around her son.
The first arrow landed a few feet in front of Michael as he ran across the open field like a startled deer. He changed direction, but the archer followed his movement, and this time, the arrow was even closer.
“Stop!” Caillen shouted, but before he had finished speaking, another arrow sailed through the air and buried itself in Michael’s right shoulder. He staggered for a moment, then fell facedown on the grass, screaming.
When Caillen knelt down beside him, he could see that the only thing stopping Michael from bleeding to death was the embedded arrow. For a moment, he was torn between condemning his erstwhile friend to a slow death or saving his life, but he was not a murderer.
“We have tae get help,” he said to his father.
Malcolm was looking stunned. “I must be out o’ practice,” he said, annoyed. “I didnae mean tae hurt him sae bad.”
“Stay wi’ him, Da,” he ordered. “I will dae my best tae save him.”
Erin had finally managed to sit up, but only with great difficulty. However, as soon as Stephen heard Michael’s scream, he wanted to run and investigate, and it was all Erin could do to stop him. She stumbled to her feet to see Caillen running toward her, his face grim.
“Is he badly hurt?” she asked fearfully.
“He has a shoulder wound, but I do not think it will be fatal if we find help quickly.” He was mounting his horse as he spoke. “Go back to Da’s house with Stephen. He must never go inside Michael’s place again.”
A few weeks later...
Michael recovered slowly, but he was astounded to know that he had been summoned to court to stand trial for the kidnapping of Erin and Caillen and for threatening to kill Erin and Stephen. He was even more surprised to find that there were plenty of witnesses who would testify on their behalf. Judge Bearnaird Cullen took a very dim view of men who threatened the lives of women and children.
“I despise creatures like you,” he said contemptuously, looking at Michael as if he were dirt that he had just scraped off his shoe. “You are not fit to walk among decent people. I sentence you to twelve years of hard labor. Get out of my sight.”
“No!” Michael yelled. “I have hurt no one! This is wrong!” He was dragged out of the court pleading and protesting, but it availed him nothing. Erin, Caillen, and Stephen never saw him again. Five years into his sentence, he died of typhus and was buried in the prison in an unmarked grave. His house and everything he owned was divided between his siblings’ families, and after a while, no one even remembered him.
20
The mourning period had ended, and Erin had been dithering for so long that she realized it was bordering on cruelty to make Logan Grieve wait any longer for her answer to his proposal. Accordingly, she invited him to dinner one evening in order to put him out of his misery. She had made it her business to find all the information she could about him, and it seemed that he was a pleasant man, if not an exciting one. He was also wealthy, and Erin could not lie to herself. She needed his money to help her to save her estate. She was not pleased with herself, but she had to face reality.
Logan Grieve arrived with a huge smile on his handsome face and an equally huge bunch of hothouse roses in a very deep shade of crimson.
“Red roses for love,” he said fondly. “How are you, my sweetheart?”
“I am well, as you see,” she replied, smiling. “What beautiful flowers.”
Logan bent to kiss her, but Erin buried her face in the roses, inhaling deeply.
“Sit down,” she invited, indicating a chair by the fire. He did so, and she poured them both a glass of Madeira wine before sinking into a chair.
“Last time I was here, you were bemoaning the fact that the wine cellar was becoming depleted,” Logan remarked. “Are they growing again?”
Erin smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “You make the wine sound like a crop of rye!”
