Page 123 of Bride of Mist
“Do it,” she begged. “Hurry.”
When he stubbornly clamped his jaw shut, refusing to honor such a strange request, she was forced to take matters into her own hands.
Rearing back her arm, she cracked him across the face with a ringing slap that echoed in the cave.
“Don’t you dare mention that maidservant’s name again,” she snarled. “She betrayed me. She betrayedyou.”
“God’s eyes,” he cried in surprise, cradling his offended cheek. “What are ye talkin’ about? What maidservant?”
Feiyan scowled. “Who do you think?” She jabbed him in the gut, not too hard, just enough to get a decent cough out of him. “Merraid doesn’t love you, you know,” she sneered. “In fact, she hates you.”
Dougal looked sick and confused as he clutched his belly. “What the devil has gotten—”
“She intends to turn you o’er to your murderous brother.”
“Merraid?” he squeaked.
“She means to see you hang.”
“What?”
Finally prompted to action by Feiyan’s accusations, Merraid rushed forward and wrapped desperate fingers around the bars of the grate.
“’Tisn’t true, Dougal. Don’t listen to her,” she pleaded.
Dougal’s brows rose. “Merraid?” He blinked in astonishment, probably wondering how the maidservant had materialized so quickly.
“She’s lyin’,” Merraid told him, “I swear.”
“Merraid!” he beamed, suddenly realizing Merraid could help them. “Och, lass, ye’re just in time.”
Merraid shot Feiyan a smoldering glare. “Just in time to save ye from this wench’s connivin’, ’twould seem.”
Feiyan sniffed, crossed her arms, and leaned back against the wall.
Dougal glanced at Feiyan. It took him a moment to catch on, but he finally gave her a subtle wink to let her know he understood her game.
He stepped forward to meet Merraid. He gripped the iron bars of the grate, letting the tip of his finger touch Merraid’s.
The gesture wasn’t lost on Merraid, whose eyes slipped briefly to the point where their fingers met. The soft sigh she released would have driven anyone but Feiyan into a jealous rage.
But Feiyan wasn’t the jealous sort. Especially of a lovestruck young lass whose burgeoning affections were as changeable as the wind.
“’Tisn’t true, is it?” Dougal murmured to the lass, furrowing his brows in concern. “Ye don’t want to see me hang?”
Feiyan twitched back a smile at his tactics. She and Dougalweregood partners. And Merraid was about to be wrapped around that finger of his.
“Och, m’laird,” Merraid gushed, giving him the title he’d not yet earned, “not in a hundred years. ’Twould break my heart.”
“Then will ye help me?”
“’Tis what I came to do, before…” She gave Feiyan another withering look.
“She means naught to me,” Dougal muttered dismissively. “I was only plyin’ her for information.”
Feiyan stiffened. She might not be the jealous sort. But he didn’t have to lay his lies on with such conviction.
Merraid’s face brightened. “Och. Aye. O’ course.”
