The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(11)

“Aye,” he said with all the enthusiasm of pulling teeth.

Gordon didn’t hide his surprise. “You never said anything.”

MacKay shrugged indifferently, though Lachlan suspected he was anything but. “It didn’t seem important.”

Lachlan sensed the weak spot and went in for the kill. “So what do you think, Saint? Is Gordon here going to need a few tankards of whisky to stomach f**king his bride, or is he going to be eager to plunge his c**k between her soft, velvety thighs?”

For a moment Lachlan wondered if he’d gone too far. MacKay looked as if he might kill him. But the look was gone so quickly, he could have imagined it.

He hadn’t, though.

“You’re a crude bastard, MacRuairi. I don’t know why the hell Bruce thought you could be a part of this team. You’re poison.”

Lachlan smiled. “That’s exactly why he wanted me.” Silent and deadly. The perfect weapon.

He would have said more, but Lachlan saw the troubled look on Gordon’s face and let the subject drop.

Bella woke with a start. She looked around, seeing the unfamiliar stone walls, and for a moment didn’t know where she was.

Then suddenly the memories returned, and all the despair and heartache of the night before crashed over her in a fresh, heavy wave.

Keep her safe. Please keep my daughter safe.

Buchan wouldn’t hurt her. Not physically at least. Joan was the one good thing that was between them. Her husband’s angry tirades, his jealousy, his irrational suspicions had never spilled over to their daughter.

Buchan cared for the quiet girl with the big, soulful eyes as much as he could care for anyone. Joan bore the mark of her father in her dark hair, blue eyes, and classically shaped features.

Thank God.

Her husband had accused her of many horrible things over the years, but bearing a bastard wasn’t one of them.

Bella had just turned sixteen when she’d had Joan—a child still herself. She could remember sitting up in the big wooden bed, holding her babe, and waiting for her husband to come see the tiny miracle bundled in her arms.

She might have forgiven him everything at that moment. Even the brutal way he’d taken her virginity on the first night of their marriage. At fifteen she’d been too young to bed. But he was like a dog in heat and couldn’t wait to rip off her clothes, to throw her down on the bed, to force her legs apart and plunge his hardened member inside her with no care for her innocence or youth.

To think before they married, she’d thought him so handsome with his dark hair and light eyes. Older, yes, but still in the prime of his manhood. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he’d been a knight for over twenty years. Knighted by King Alexander himself when he was only one-and-twenty. And he was strong, with a warrior’s thick, muscular body.

But she’d come to hate the physical strength that initially had attracted her. Hate the way he could dominate her so completely.

Still, she might have put aside the disappointment of her first year of marriage on the birth of their daughter if he’d shown one smidgen of kindness toward her. If he’d given one word of praise. If he’d looked at her with one hint of affection rather than possession and lust.

Instead he’d taken one look at her and said, “Perhaps I shall keep you with child. You’re as fat as an old cow. No one will want you like this.”

His words had killed any thoughts of happiness. From that moment on, Bella knew exactly what her marriage was: She was his whore and he was her jealous master.

She’d fought back the only way she could, by submitting to his demands with stoic indifference, as was her duty. The more he tried to humiliate her—tried to provoke a response from her—the colder she became, until she stopped feeling anything.

But the hardest part was the jealousy and suspicion. It wasn’t her fault men looked at her. She dressed modestly, even severely. Arranged her hair in unflattering styles. But still he accused her of flirting. Of enticing men with her eyes and her smile.

She stopped going with him to court. Retreated to the background when other men came to visit. Kept her eyes downcast and never smiled. But he saw her efforts as furtive, accusing her then of sneaking off to meet imagined lovers.

No matter what she did, he accused. She grew tired of defending herself, and eventually stopped trying.

She dressed the way she wanted, wore her hair the way she wanted, and talked to other men if she wanted to. She grew deaf to his accusations and learned to live in a prison of suspicion, dreaming of the day she would be free of him.

But she’d never dreamed it would come to this.

She took what solace she could from the situation in the knowledge that no matter how much her husband would hate her for what she’d done, he wouldn’t take it out on their daughter.

She hoped. But what would Joan think when she learned her mother had gone without a word? Buchan could be so cruel and calculating. So vengeful. She feared her husband would try to poison the girl’s mind against her. If only she’d told Joan her plans, she would know she hadn’t intended to leave her.

Bella sat up and shook off the exhaustion that the short nap had done little to alleviate. It was hard to relax when she knew her husband was out there somewhere looking for her. The knot of fear in her stomach that she’d had since leaving Balvenie was her constant companion.

He would be mad with rage. The fact that it had to do with Robert Bruce would make it worse. Her threats to geld him when he slept if he ever hit her again wouldn’t forestall him this time.