Page 7 of When the Laird Claims
“Stay,” the green-eyed man barked. For a moment, there was enough authority in his tone for her to actually consider doing what she was told.
The handsome man was very clearly not used to anyone challenging him. It made her impossibly curious about who he was and why he was actually here.
“Like hell I will!” Victoria attempted to argue, surprised by her vulgarity. “I am not yours. I do not belong to any man!”
Her protest might have had more of an impact if her body had not been so weary that she was struggling to push herself up to where she could at least sit on the horse properly. Meanwhile, the horse itself saw fit to embarrass her a little more as she tried to encourage it to move with a light tap of her heels. It did not budge at all; the beast was not about to obey her and race off to freedom with her.
The man watched her closely, and she could have sworn that there was a hint of a smirk on his face, but the expression was there and gone before she could truly think about it.
“Ah, but ye are, lass. Ye will be mine until I say otherwise.”
“For what purpose?” she gasped, her outrage flushing her skin with a feverish heat.
Oh goodness, what does he mean to do with me?Had she exchanged one brute for a different kind? She had heard—or, rather, read—countless stories of wild barbarians who did not hesitate to take whatever they pleased from the conquered, adding women to their harems, not caring for honor or propriety. Yet, she conceded, none ofthosecharacters would have paused to inspect the injuries on her wrists or bothered to ask if she was cold or hurt.
“To protect,” the man answered, as if that explained anything to her at all.
Still, it was a minor relief that he was not about to carry her off and make violent love to her. Acquaintances of hers would swoon over the notion of being kidnapped by a handsome warrior, and she had been guilty of thinking that once, but the past weeks had changed her idea of what thrilled her.
“Protect me from what?” she huffed as she managed to sit herself partially upright on the man’s massive horse. How was she ever supposed to commandeer such a creature? She could barely sit astride the saddle without feeling dizzy from the distancebetween her and the ground. “I hardly see how trading one captor for another would be protecting me from anything! If you were any kind of gentleman–”
“And where would ye have gotten that idea, lassie?” the man interrupted with a sly grin.
He looked almost sinister, but in a way that she could not easily tear her eyes from. She was at a total loss for words and found herself floundering. The man leaned closer to her, his grip on the reins of the horse tightening. If he thought that he was going to get up here with her… he could not possibly be serious.
“And be careful about insultin’ me, lass, it might nae end well for ye.”
She wanted to berate him for threatening her right back, and yet she could not seem to summon the words. She was trapped, transfixed under that forest-green stare.
“Me Laird!” another kilt-wearing man said in a huff of breath.
What did they feed their men in Scotland for all of them to be as large as they were? The gentlemen she encountered in thetonwere all rather… soft in comparison. In a crowd, she would have been able to spot the Scots above their English heads with ease.
She knew plenty of men who had all done their duty in the militia, training to fight as their country commanded, and even a few who had actually gone on to use that training on variousbattlefields. The spares and expendable sons who, unable to use their position as heirs to charm, had loved to regale her with tales of those glory days when she was trapped in conversation with them. But compared to these warriors? She was rethinking quite a few things.
She ought to be more frightened than she presently was.
That much was for certain.
But all she felt was flustered.
The man did not tear his eyes from her until the last possible moment, with that same ghost of a smirk on his face, as if he knew something important that she was not understanding.
“We cannae find him, me Laird,” the other man said.
The green-eyed warrior’s whole demeanor changed. He straightened his spine, his shoulders squaring as the muscle in his jaw feathered in apparent irritation. “What do ye mean?”
“The Earl, he is nowhere to be found. We are searchin’ the manor once more just to be sure,” the messenger said, easily catching his breath as he spoke.
“Daenae harm any in the place; we’re nae here for them,” the Laird, presumably, answered as he turned toward Victoria once more. “Tell the men to retreat; somethin’ tells me theEarlwill come to us.”
He saidEarlas if it were the filthiest word that he had ever heard in his life.
Victoria thought back to Charles asking the footman to prepare his horse. The cowardhadbeen fleeing, which meant he had wanted her to be tied up and left to the mercy of whoever was invading. If the footman had not disobeyed, and these Scottish warriors had not been so… reasonable, what might have happened to her? For a man who did not want anyone even looking at her, it seemed Charles had been all too willing to just let the attackers have her. Unless he thought they simply would not bother with her.
She wished she could say she was surprised that Charles had taken the coward’s way out, but she was not. It was probably part of some game, some chase, some thrill, where he hoped to return to find her still tied up where he left her, while simultaneously saving his own skin.
He must have taken off in the direction of his hunting lodge.Should she tell the man that? He very clearly did not wish Charles well, but whatever business he had with him was none of her concern.
