Highland Hellion (Highland Weddings #3)(21)
A thick finger appeared in front of her in response. She forced her feet to move, recalling Marcus’s words that choosing one’s battles was wisest. If there was no clear path to victory, better to bide your time and wait for better circumstances.
She’d be ready when they arrived.
*
“Ye should have told me who yer sire was.”
Katherine wasn’t expecting Rolfe.
She turned and found him standing behind her in the chamber. His men were outside in the hallway.
Waiting to bar the door.
She couldn’t stop the shiver that went down her spine in response.
He contemplated her for a long moment, looking as though it bothered him to see her upset.
“Why?” she asked. “So you could celebrate your victory sooner?”
“I would have risked taking ye back to Marcus.”
His expression implied that he was serious, but she only saw what she longed for. “I doubt that.”
His jaw tightened as she questioned his word. Katherine stared straight at him, making it clear she wasn’t going to shirk from his displeasure.
“I would no’ have risked ye being given back to the Earl of Morton,” Rolfe said softly.
“It is ever so simple to apologize once deeds are done.” She’d meant to cut him with her words, but all she did was send another chill across her skin as she recognized how dire her circumstances were. She had spent years having nightmares about the Earl of Morton and the way he viewed her as a thing to be traded for what he wished.
It is better than being burned at the stake…
She held tight to that thought, yet it was difficult to accept that as a blessing. She turned her back on Rolfe, needing to maintain some sort of poise.
“Ye know why I did no’ take ye back to Marcus.” Rolfe wasn’t willing to be dismissed. “He allowed ye to act foolishly.”
“No more so than you.” She turned back to face him.
Rolfe shook his head, his expression serious. “Yer fate at the hands of the Gordons would have been horrible, but over soon. The repercussions of it, well, they would have claimed lives for years. Marcus could no’ have let it pass, no’ when ye were under his personal protection. It’s becoming clearer why he trained ye. The man is no fool, and he knows the English have few friends in the Highlands. There would have been a feud.”
He started for the door but stopped before crossing the threshold. “If ye can nae think of the men who would fight to avenge ye, then ye are still a child, Katherine.”
He sent her a hard look before he let his men close the chamber door.
He was right.
She detested the facts and the harsher side of Fate for not making her see the truth in some easier fashion. But life had never taught her any lessons the easy way.
Today was no exception.
*
The crack of the whip was a sound every Gordon knew.
As Colum grew older, whippings had become more frequent. Tyree watched as Diocail took his punishment first. The damned bastard had boldly jerked his shirt off and walked up to the stake without waiting to be ordered to it. He was holding on to it, his back crisscrossed with red stripes.
Somehow, he’d managed to transform a punishment into a reason to gain respect.
Colum sat in his chair, which had been moved outside for the spectacle.
He needed to die…
Laird or not, it was time for Colum Gordon to join the son he couldn’t seem to forget. The Gordons needed a strong laird, and Tyree planned to be that man.
“Fifty.”
Diocail let go of the stake and turned to face the men watching. His face was red, but he growled before striding off as though nothing pained him. The blood dripping down his back should have made a liar of him, but the men who watched him leave all wore expressions of respect for his stamina.
An idea started to form in Tyree’s head. Fortune favored the bold, and the Lord helped those who helped themselves. So maybe it was time to plan Colum’s death and make certain Diocail was the one blamed for it. Without a clear successor, the matter of choosing the next laird would come down to a vote, and the Gordons would not vote for a murderer.
Yes, it was time to plan his future.
Which would begin with Colum’s death.
*
“Ye’re no’ pleased with me.”
Rolfe considered his father and nodded. “The Earl of Morton is a bastard. Ye know it. I would no’ have brought the lass here if I’d thought ye’d be doing business with him.”
Inside his father’s study, Rolfe could speak his mind. His father eyed him, torn between admiring Rolfe’s courage and being annoyed with his son for questioning him.
It was a look Rolfe saw more often than not.
“Look around ye.” His father opened his fingers and fanned them around the room. “Ye have a fine inheritance, and make no mistake, it came from yer kin making choices with their business sense.” His father tapped the top of his desk with his forefinger. “But that is no’ what is eating at ye, boy.”
Rolfe stiffened, earning a chuckle from his sire.
“That’s what I thought,” William McTavish declared. “Ye’ve got a whiff of her in yer nostrils.”
“Father—”
“Do nae deny it.” William snorted at him with a grin. “Truth be told, she stirred me member as well. What with her in naught but a shirt so that every man among us might glimpse those tempting tits.”