Page 35 of When the Laird Claims
Angus took a quick step back; at least he still possessed a small amount of common sense then.
“The English bastard that I am huntin’ has threatened my sister’s honor—the sister of the Laird. Ye would have me here, belly up to the English? He threatens not only that, but the honor of all of clan MacLeon! He abused our hospitality and came in here, leavin’ a mess in his wake and runnin’ away, tailtucked! I willnae allow that to stand, and shame on any of ye who disagree with me!” Arran was shouting now. He was sorely tempted to run Angus through just to make an example of him, but he wasattemptingto keep his temper under control.
“Aye, and that is why we have given our men freely to defend our clan. But it doesnae even seem like it’s about that anymore! It is about yer wench!” Angus continued, throwing his hands around as he spoke.
Arran’s fist collided with the old man’s jaw. Angus nearly spun in place a whole rotation from the force of the impact, and then staggered and fell to his knees, bracing his arm on the table that he nearly knocked over with his fall. If there was one thing that every man in this room understood perfectly, it was violence.
The councilmen gasped and scattered backward, retreating to a safer distance. A few bolder ones only took a step back, their wide eyes betraying their fear. No one moved to help Angus up.
“Victoria is mine,” Arran snarled, hand still clenched. “While she is here, she is under my explicit protection. Mine. And ye all will do well to remember it.”
16
Hold your nerve. Do not back down.
Victoria might not have been a great warrior, or any sort of fighter at all, but a sense of terrible repetition had halted her on the way back to her room. A feeling that if she ran from these men, it would be worse for her. A sense that if she did not stand up to them, and stand up for herself, then she was just repeating recent history, allowing herself to be mistreated.
Now, she trembled against the wall at the turn of the corridor, but even if she shook, she would face those men with all the strength and dignity that Charles had tried to take from her. It sounded like they had not won in the study with Arran, and they would not win out here with her either.
Perhaps Arran would be mad at her for not returning to her room, or even for the fact that she had just eavesdropped shamelessly for the second time this afternoon—but she would deal with that part later.
I really must learn how to fight properly. But, for now, my voice will have to be enough.
The best way to handle a slight as grave as the one that she had just overheard? She would simply kill them with kindness. She would make it impossible for them to hate her, and that was that. She would ensure that no matter what, they were going to regret being so cruel to her.
Her nerves surged as she heard the men withdrawing from the study, their footsteps moving slowly in her direction. Before she could talk herself out of it, she stepped out of her eavesdropping spot and slowly, head up and shoulders back, walked to meet them.
An older man led the retreat. He was nursing his jaw, flexing it open and closed gently as he noticed her standing there.
Victoria dipped into a very polite curtsy. “Gentlemen, I wish to express my sincere gratitude for opening your clan to me. I cannot thank you enough for your kindness and for helping me during this difficult period of my life. Permitting me a safe haven, when I thought none existed.”
She kept her head bowed as she heard the men in the back grumbling guiltily to one another and muttering a response that she could not decipher. Angus seemed to be taking the longest to figure out how he wished to react, and she demurely lifted her eyes to speak to them once more.
“I am but one person, and perhaps that seems like nothing worth saving, but it means the world to me. I escaped a terrible fate because of the likes of you, and I shall never forget the noble and brave men of clan MacLeon, I promise you that,” Victoria finished, as she steeled herself and made the bold decision to show these men the mess of healing wounds on her wrists. “Not all men, in my experience, have been so kind, nor so noble.”
She only needed to remember that there was a version of herself that existed before Charles had gotten his hooks into her, and that was what she needed to find again: her old self, the confident version of herself. Violence was not the only way of winning a battle, and she certainly had no issues showing them that.
As the men passed, each of them muttered their own responses that she did not bother cataloguing. She knew that she had gotten her point across well enough. That was all that truly mattered.
When the last of the men had left the hallway that she stood in, she finally raised her head with a sense of triumph, only to find that Arran was standing in the open doorway to his study, smiling at her. He could not help but chuckle, and perhaps she was mistaken, but he almost sounded proud of her.
“Ye have found a way to turn the brutes into humans,” Arran complimented with another shake of his head, and nodded her back into the study.
“I think that the reaction from your men only further proves that my plan is the best possible course of action for all of us moving forward,” Victoria said as soon as the door to the study was closed.
Arran lingered near the door for another few moments, seeming to listen to ensure that none of the men were on their way back toward them before moving to sit on the edge of his desk once more.
Victoria found that she was rather glad that he had not returned to his seat, because she liked being near to him.
“I willnae keep puttin’ ye at risk when we daenae ken what that man is capable of,” Arran protested.
“With respect, you are not putting me at risk; I am choosing this myself,” Victoria said, feeling emboldened. “My plan will work, and I think that you know it will work. I think you know it is our only option; you just have not accepted it yet.”
That rather reminds me of something.A shudder ran down her spine, thinking of how her plan might end: with Charles in chains or taking his last breath? Was there even an option, really?
“Ye cannae lure him here,” Arran insisted. “Nay, I forbid it.”
Victoria frowned, a prickle of suspicion running along the nape of her neck. “Why not? As far as I am concerned, it is the bestpossible solution. So, please do enlighten me as to why I am wrong.”
