Page 109 of Highlanders for the Holidays
Chapter 13
The dungeon was sodark that Lily could not see the rats, but she heard them skittering before her feet as she paced her tiny cell. Rodents were less likely to bite if you kept moving. She had learned that useful lesson when her grown idiot brothers locked her in the cellar, hoping to make her cry and scream, the last time she was fool enough to visit them.
At each turn, she cursed someone. First she cursed the Spaniard for giving her up so easily. As soon as a dozen Highland warriors brandishing huge swords boarded his ship, he pointed to where she was hiding behind a barrel on the deck.
Next she cursed the Lord of the Isles, the great chieftain of chieftains, for sending the men to catch her, and she cursed both him and the men for locking her in this filthy cell.
Then it was Roderick’s turn, and that was a long list. She must have walked half a mile back and forth, back and forth, as she cursed him for each wrong he’d done her.
Lastly, she cursed herself for wishing Roderick had been there when the men caught her. Somehow, she did not think she would have ended up in the dungeon if he had been. Like a fool, she had even called for him when they carried her into the cell, though he was nowhere in sight.
She came to an abrupt halt as something else occurred to her.Good God,what had she done? Or rather, failed to do.
Now was just a fine time to realize she had never prepared that tincture to prevent conceiving a child from her night of sin with Roderick. How could she have forgotten? Even if she were not locked in this godforsaken dungeon without her bag of herbs, it was far too late now.
She started pacing again, but faster, spinning around again and again in the cramped space. But she could not outrun her thoughts. The reason she had not taken the tincture was painfully clear to her now. Deep down, she wanted a child.
She wantedhischild.
A door creaked somewhere above her. When she heard footsteps on the stairs that led down to her cell, she finally stopped her pacing.
She squinted against the sudden torchlight that shone through the iron grate of her cell.
“Lily?”
Relief flooded through her at the sound of Roderick’s voice, and she chastised herself for it. He had fooled her with false kindness.
She had not let anyone hurt her in a long, long time. No matter what, she would not let the Highlander past her defenses again.
* * *
Roderick’s heartlurched when he saw Lily in the torchlight through the iron grate. She looked much like when he first met her—tired and dirty and dressed in lad’s clothes—and utterly pathetic. Thinking she would be more amenable to what he had to say while behind bars, he resisted the urge to unlock the door at once and pull her into his arms.
He leaned against the grate and folded his arms. “I’ve made a deal with my chieftain to get ye out of there.”
“I’m not marrying you,” she snapped before he could get out another word. “If that’s the agreement you’ve made, you can tell him I’d rather remain in his dungeon until I rot.”
Roderick sighed inwardly. Her brief imprisonment had not cooled her temper.
“I’ve managed to persuade Alexander to let me take ye to my grandmother’s.” That had been no easy task after Lily’s attempt to defy him by running off. “You’ll stay with her for the winter.”
“And after the winter?” Lily maintained her defiant stance, but he could tell by the tilt of her head that she was willing to listen now.
“If my grandmother determines ye don’t have the gift to be our clan’s next seer—”
“I don’t.”
“Then you’ll be free to return to London in the spring with the blessing of the Lord of the Isles.”
“You’ll understand if I don’t have much faith in the old woman’s ability to see into the future, as it was her prediction that got me into this trouble,” she said. “What if she still says I am the one she foretold?”
“She won’t.”
“But if she does?” Lily persisted.
“Then you’ll have to wed me,” he said, “or return to this dungeon until ye rot.”
“And what happens to you if I choose the dungeon?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
