“Do ye ken me?” he demanded.
She nodded dutifully, her mind turning, as it often did, to where she would go if she ever managed to flee her home. The problem was that she had nowhere to go, no one to call on for aid, no one who cared for her. When she was younger, she had daydreamed of meeting a man and falling in love. He would take her away in her silly fantasies, but she knew better now. No man ever saw her; they all looked through her. Of course they did. Her father had been right that she strove to appear the simpleton to escape as much notice as possible from her family. She rarely received new gowns, and she rarely washed the ones of quality that she did have. Her hair was usually knotted, her face dirty, and she had perfected a blank stare, as if she did not have a thought in her head. It had served her well with her brothers, sister, and mother. They were still cruel to her, but her ruse had blunted the sharp, sometimes physical, edge of their cruelty.
“Ye will marry the Earl of Ulster,” her father pronounced.
Her breath caught in her throat. Surely, her father did not intend to kill the earl’s wife!
She kept her voice calm and cautious. “Ye said the earl was married.”
“When she dies, ye foolish lass,” her father snarled.
“But I dunnae ken the earl, and he dunnae ken me. Ye said yerself, I’m plain.” She knew she was no great beauty, but she also knew her father liked to make her feel ugly. Honestly, she was unsure if a man would think her pleasant to look at if she took care with her appearance.
“Ye will find a way to enthrall the earl in spite of that. And ye will do so strongly enough that he will wish to have ye as his mistress. Ye will let him join with ye then, until ye are with child, and when his wife dies, ye will compel the man to marry ye.”
Heat singed her cheeks, her neck, her chest. “Ye would make me a whore?”
“Aye,” he replied, matter-of-fact. “I would make my own mother a whore to get what I want.”
All her silly dreams of girlhood flooded her mind once more—her lost hopes, her fantasies. In that moment, her anger exploded and fear fled. “Nay,” she said, tilting up her chin. “I’ll nae do it.”
Her father brought his hand up in a flash and gripped her chin in an iron hold. He jerked her face so close to his that she could see the cracks in his yellowed front teeth. “Ye will do as I bid, or I will have the healer, Maria, killed slowly and painfully. I ken ye have formed a friendship with her.”
Marsaili sucked in a sharp breath. Maria was her only friend. She was the one person who had shown kindness to Marsaili. She did not want to do as her father ordered, but she was certain that he’d kill Maria as he’d threatened. However, if Marsaili agreed, she’d be relinquishing all hope of happiness—unless the earl actually proved to be a kind man, one she might even fall in love with, which was doubtful. Regardless, the idea of luring him, of tricking him, disgusted her. She could not refuse, though. Maria’s life was more important to Marsaili than her own happiness.
“I will try,” was all she said.
Her father released her immediately. “Excellent choice. Now off with ye to make yerself presentable before our guests arrive.”
“Callum Grant, halt, damn ye! I demand ye halt!” Edina Gordon screamed at Callum’s back as he strode outside, toward his horse and away from the stable, where he had just discovered his intended wife naked in the stable hand’s arms.
For a moment, he considered simply mounting his destrier, continuing on his journey to the Gathering at the Campbell hold—he’d been ordered to attend for his father, the Grant laird—and dealing with breaking his vow to wed Edina after the Gathering. The idea of letting her fret over what he might reveal, what he might say until he returned to speak with her appealed to him, but he recognized the dishonorable thought and came to a stop.
He was angry, but only because he’d almost allowed himself to be wed to a woman he had never cared for and who had been claimed in body by another man. She would have brought betrayal to their marriage that would have been difficult at best.
Edina hurried toward him, tugging the laces of her bodice together. She stopped in front of him, cheeks flushed from her tumble in the hay with the stable hand. “It’s nae what ye think.”
For some reason, that amused him. “Is it nae?” He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve nae joined with a woman myself, given I’ve been promised to wed ye since I was ten summers, but I’m fairly certain what I just saw ye and the stable hand doing in the hay was a joining.”
Her gray eyes narrowed as her mouth puckered. “Dunnae stand there and lie to me, Callum Grant. Ye are a laird’s son, and a fine-looking one at that. Ye kinnae tell me ye have been true to me. I’ve seen the lasses flirting with ye.”
“Aye,” he agreed, “they flirted. But my father made a vow to yer da that I’d wed ye when ye were eighteen summers, and as much as I did nae wish to take ye to wife, our clans had an alliance, and I intended to honor it.”
She gasped. “Ye still have to honor it! I may be with child!”
“Then marry the stable hand,” Callum said calmly. “Ye two seem to like each other verra much.” How any man could have been enticed into Edina Gordon’s arms perplexed Callum. She was lovely enough, but it was surface deep.
“I kinnae marry a lowly stable hand!” she bellowed.
“A man’s station in life dunnae determine his quality,” Callum said through clenched teeth. He hated that so many people, including his own parents, thought that it did.
Edina clenched her hands into fists. She had a spitefulness about her and a jealous tendency to be cruel to anyone she thought might be prettier than she was. He’d asked his father more than once over the years to break their promise to wed, but his father had refused every time, reminding Callum that their alliance with the Gordon clan only existed because of the impending marriage. Callum gave a quick thanks to God that Edina’s mother had insisted she reach eighteen summers before they wed. If not for that request, he would already be well and shackled to a woman without honor.
“I’ll tell ye, as I have before, that my father’s warriors are the reason yer family is still in possession of Urquhart Castle.” Edina gave him a haughty smile. “If it were nae for them, the MacDonald clan would have taken the castle from yer father shortly after it was granted to him by King David. We both ken the MacDonald laird has a much greater force than yer father does. So ye kinnae renounce our upcoming union,” Edina said smugly. “Ye will marry me, and ye will keep what ye saw a secret. And if I should have a bairn, ye will raise it as yer own.”
Callum felt as if his blood were boiling. He had known for a long time that Edina was a spoiled lass, but he had misjudged the depth of her lack of character. It was true that the Lord of the Isles did have many more men at his disposal than Callum’s father had. It was also true that Callum’s clan had desperately needed an ally to help them defend Urquhart against sieges by the MacDonald clan because their laird had wanted to advance his holdings farther north.
“Ye dunnae ken me Edina, and ye did nae ever. I am nae a man to be told what to do. I’ll nae shame ye by telling all that ye gave yerself to another man, but I’ll nae marry ye. Ye may consider our promise to be wed broken.”
