Traitor or Temptress

Lorne was struck dumb to find her dream of meeting Iain Monroe again made flesh. His eyes were on her face, evaluating her with a light so intense it sapped her strength. Looking up to meet his incredible silver gaze, she saw he was exactly as she remembered. His features were stamped with implacable authority and granite determination, and there was a dark arrogance about him. His blue-black hair was rough and tousled, and the features not covered by his short beard were sharply defined, his mouth having acquired a bitter line.

‘The lassie’s name is Lorne McBryde, Iain,’ John told him. ‘Ye canna have forgotten the wee girl who betrayed ye brother’s whereabouts to the Galbraiths of Kinlochalen.’

Only the collective breathing of the men in the room and the crackle of the fire could be heard above the silence the memory of that day evoked in each and every one of them—in Lorne, too. It was all around her and inside her, still alive, not quiet as it had been when she had lived at Astley Priory. She saw Iain’s body stiffen as he pinned his rapier gaze on her face. She met his hard, discerning stare and forced herself to return his assessment with a measuring look of her own, but he emanated a wrath so forceful that she felt fear begin to uncurl inside her.

‘I know who she is,’ Iain hissed. ‘Get her out of my sight.’

John was always ready to do Iain’s bidding, but this was one order he would not obey. ‘Nay, not when Andrew an’ me have gone to the trouble of bringing her here. We’ve waited too long to let an opportunity to entrap Edgar McBryde slip by.’

Astounded, Iain glared at his friend. ‘Are you mad? You abducted her?’

John nodded, unperturbed by Iain’s anger. ‘How else do ye think she got here? When we stopped to sup at the inn on the Edinburgh road, I couldn’t believe me good fortune when I saw the McBryde lassie come in. Seven years may have gone by, but I wouldna mistake that face—or that hair.’

‘Was she alone?’ Iain asked sharply, his eyes alert.

‘Aye—more’s the pity—apart from a maidservant and the coach driver and a couple o’ grooms, that is.’

‘Who did you expect might be travelling with me?’ Lorne snapped, speaking for the first time since Iain Monroe had entered the room.

‘Yer father—Edgar McBryde,’ John growled.

Lorne stared at him in bewilderment. ‘But—my father is in France.’

‘Not any longer. ’Tis a known fact that he’s returned to Scotland—to organise a network o’Jacobite sympathisers in the Highlands, I suspect,’ he told her, his lips twisting with scorn.

Lorne’s eyes shifted to Iain. ‘Is this true?’

‘It’s true,’ he clarified coldly.

Lorne paled. When her father had escaped to France seven years ago, the wrench of leaving his beloved Highlands had been almost too painful for him to bear. She had always known he would not remain in exile and that one day he would return, despite the shadow of the noose hanging over him. And now he had, endangering his own life and others. She was longing to plead her own cause, to tell Iain Monroe, who was looking at her with cold contempt, of all the suffocating horror she had endured since that day in Kinlochalen—if only he would listen.

But he refused to listen. Even now, after seven years, any words she said would not pierce through the armour he had built around himself. As she started to speak, he held up his hand in warning, his expression stern and unyielding. ‘Be quiet. I want no pretty speeches from a McBryde,’ he hissed fiercely through clenched teeth, the glitter in his eyes as hard and cold as steel as they imprisoned hers.

Now Iain hated the flaunting abundance of her golden hair, the beautiful face, and in particular those green eyes that looked at him with an urgent pleading. They disturbed him, evoking an unreasoned disorder of distant anger and pain. Someone else had looked at him like this long ago, a child who had begged him to listen to her, a child he had shoved away as he would now she was a woman grown. He recalled how she had clung on to his reins, and how brutal he had been when he had prised her small fingers off the leather straps, his huge hands capable of snapping each one of them in two. His jaw hardened and he coldly rejected the memory.

‘I know, remember? I know I had a brother I adored, a brother your people slaughtered as they would an animal on a butcher’s slab. I saw what those savages did to him.’

‘I know,’ Lorne whispered brokenly. ‘I saw him, too.’

These simple words, innocently spoken, were enough to bring Iain’s wrath to boiling point. Grasping her shoulders, he brought her close, thrusting his rage-filled face close to hers until only a hand’s-breadth distance separated their noses.

‘Then I pray his image never leaves you—that you never forget the part you played in bringing about his death, Lorne McBryde. What did you see?’ Iain demanded, his eyes burning with the fever of unspeakable agony. ‘Tell me.’

‘Please,’ Lorne breathed, uttering the word as she would a plea for absolution, raised out of a vast sea of despair that threatened to drown her every time she revived the memory of that day.

Iain’s fingers bit cruelly into her flesh and he went on, ignoring her plea. ‘Did you see how those butchers dragged him down the glen so that his youthful body was torn and bleeding, before thrusting a dagger into his heart to finish him off? Did you?’

Scalding tears rose to Lorne’s eyes. ‘No—you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. David—’

‘Silence,’ Iain roared, flinging her away from him with such force that she fell to the floor.

Shocked by his violent outburst, Lorne stared at him. ‘Please—will you at least listen to me before you condemn me and cast me out?’

Iain’s face tightened as he glared down at her, his eyes pinned on hers. Her whole heart and soul seemed to scream at him through those eyes, which gazed hard into his, but he felt no weakening. When he spoke his voice was ominously soft. ‘If you ever speak his name to me again, just one more time, I will make your life hell. I could strangle you for your treachery—and if you hadn’t been a child at the time, I would have done it then.’

Looking into those glacial, murderous eyes that showed no mercy, Lorne fully believed he would carry out his threat. She realised it was useless trying to explain what had really happened. What did it matter anyway? David Monroe was dead and nothing she could say would bring him back. His brother’s hatred and contempt and the injustice of it all gave her back some of her courage. Clearly everything about her and her family infuriated him, making vengeance blaze inside him every time he was reminded of that day. Propping herself up on her hand, she glared up at him.

‘Or condemned me to the gallows—as you did my father.’

‘My only regret is that he didn’t hang beside Galbraith.’ Stepping back, he looked at John. ‘Take her back to the inn,’ he bit out. ‘The very sight of her sickens me. I don’t want her here.’

‘Yes,’ Lorne said, getting to her feet and brushing herself down. ‘I demand you return me to my maidservant at once. Nothing can be achieved by keeping me here. If you refuse, you will be called upon by the Privy Council to answer for abducting me. You can count on that.’

‘Nay,’ John said, stepping forward. That Iain would release her stirred his anger. ‘I say she stays—and so does every man here. The McBrydes and the Galbraiths have cost us and our neighbours dear in the past. Think, Iain,’ he said fiercely, fired up by old grievances he would not let die. ‘Take yer mind back to when the Highland Host came sweeping down to the Lowlands like scourings from a dung heap, called up by the King’s Ministers in the hope that their wild and arrogant presence would persuade us to accept Episcopacy with all its religious obligations—when authority seemed to sanction thieving and blackmail.’

‘For God’s sake, John—that was twenty years ago.’

‘Aye—and no’ forgotten—and I’ll never allow myself ta forget. Nor is it forgotten that it was the Galbraiths and the McBrydes who descended on Norwood when they were returning to the hills like a swarm o’locusts—terrorising women and children and stealing everything they could carry and any stock they could drive. Do I have to remind ye that I was born in the Highlands and it was the McBrydes and the Galbraiths who wiped out my entire kin folk?’ John went on bitterly, ‘I welcome any punitive measure, however savage, that can be used against them.

‘Edgar McBryde has yet to pay for that crime—and now we have the bait we need to trap him. Give me one good reason why we shouldna? The Government knows he’s back in Scotland and seem to be in no hurry to send in the redcoats to hunt him down. It’s unlikely he’ll calmly surrender himself in return for his daughter’s release, but of one thing ye can be sure. When he learns she’s our prisoner, not wishing any harm to befall his lassie, he’ll come looking for her all right.’

Lorne stared at John Ferguson in stupefaction. Her heart had constricted painfully as she had listened to the crimes listed against her family, but she could not believe that they intended to use her in their retaliation.

‘You’re mad. My father will never yield to a bunch of thieving kidnappers. What you are doing is criminal. By abducting me you have stepped outside the law, and it is almost certain that it is the law my brothers will use against you.’

‘No, they won’t,’ Iain said coldly. ‘You forget that the Highlanders recognise no law but their own. Must I remind you that your father is outlawed and adrift in a hostile land? John’s right. His pride will be well seared by us taking you prisoner. He’ll come—bringing a large contingent of Highlanders with him. He will try and rescue you with force, which is his way of doing things.’

‘Then I advise you to be wary. He may have a trick or two up his sleeve that might surprise even you, Iain Monroe,’ Lorne taunted, too furious to quail before the contempt tightening his face.

Iain lifted his black brows in glacial challenge. ‘We are a match for the McBrydes. There isn’t a man in this room who didn’t lose a friend or a brother that night on the moor above Kinlochalen and swore an oath—an oath that has brought you here tonight. Nine men and my brother set out from Oban—only John survived, which may explain to you his hatred for the McBrydes. When I buried my murdered brother I swore an oath of my own. Edgar McBryde may have escaped the justices once, but now he is back in Scotland he will not do so again. I shall have my vengeance upon the McBrydes. I swear it before God.’

Holding herself proudly erect, Lorne looked at the men surrounding her, gentlemen and servants alike, refusing to cower before them. Tension stretched taut in the room. Never had she witnessed so much hostility at first hand. These men were as hungry for vengeance as Iain Monroe, and they would not be satisfied until they had her father’s blood—and her own, perhaps, if the hatred gleaming unpleasantly in their eyes was an indication of how they felt.

‘Well—now you’ve captured me, why don’t you dispose of me to save you the trouble of keeping me?’ she suggested steadily to Iain, her eyes challenging his own, realising that she had been insane to try appealing to this heartless, arrogant beast. ‘It would be better than your injustice. All I ask is that you get it over with quickly. So what is it to be? Will you shoot me or would you rather take me outside and hang me from the highest tree?’

‘None of those things,’ Iain replied, feeling a reluctant admiration for this headstrong young woman, who faced him fearlessly and with more courage than most men. The force of her personality blazed through her eyes. It leapt out at him like a warrior band of Highlanders brandishing swords. ‘As for hanging you from the highest tree, I lack the appetite for harming women. In any case, you are more valuable to me alive than dead. While my friends might well enjoy the sight, it wouldn’t please the authorities quite so much. I’ve no wish to have a regiment of redcoats descending on my home.’

‘They will do that anyway when you release me and I issue a complaint against you to the authorities. What do you propose to do with me in the meantime?’ Lorne asked, her head coming up in an arrogant pose.

Iain’s gaze raked her before meeting the open contempt in the green eyes staring defiantly into his. ‘I don’t know yet,’ he replied in answer to her question. ‘I’ll sleep on it.’

At that moment a tall fair-haired man with a good-humoured face entered the hall and came to stand beside Iain. His eyes were a brilliant, lucent blue, and he stared at Lorne with undisguised amazement, completely transfixed. ‘’Struth! Who is this bonny wee lass? And what’s she doing here?’

‘Allow me to introduce you to Lorne McBryde, Hugh,’ Iain muttered angrily to his friend, Sir Hugh Glover of Dunlivet Castle, where the hunting party had spent the previous night enjoying his hospitality. ‘As to what she’s doing here, you must ask John. I’m going to bed.’ He turned to his young manservant who, unlike the rest, was gazing at Lorne with undisguised admiration. Iain gave him a sardonic look, but did not rebuke the youth. ‘Make our guest comfortable, Archie. I’ll bed down with the horses.’ He turned back to Lorne. ‘Is there anything you need?’ Immediately he regretted asking when she plunked her hands on her small waist and cast an imperious eye round the room, wrinkling her pert nose with distaste.

‘A brush and shovel, perhaps—or a mop and bucket and a basin to wash in and a bed to sleep on would not go amiss. And some privacy,’ she retorted, glaring at the circle of hostile faces.

Iain’s firm lips, almost hidden behind his black beard, twisted with a wry smirk. ‘Don’t be concerned. You have a pretty face and may have a body to rival that of Venus hidden beneath the layers of petticoats and skirts, but there isn’t a man in this room who would touch you as he would a lover, Lorne McBryde. I assure you that the emotions you stir in every one of us are of a different kind. I apologise if the accommodation is not to your liking, but it is only temporary. Most of the men will bed down in here, but there’s a chamber through there…’ he indicated ‘…that will offer privacy.’ Turning abruptly, he walked towards the door where he paused, looking back. ‘Providing you don’t try to escape, no harm will come to you. Sleep well. You will have plenty of time to reflect on your predicament.’

Lorne gave him a scalding glare that could have melted an iceberg. ‘And you would do well to consider yours,’ she mocked sarcastically. ‘As your prisoner, I will lead you such a merry dance that you will rue the day you met me.’

He raked her with one last contemptuous glance. ‘You have given me reason to do so already.’

His voice, devoid of hope, was as cold and unyielding as her prison.

Chapter Two

Archie showed Lorne into the small chamber where she was to sleep, bringing her a candle, a blanket and a straw mattress to sleep on. When she rejected his offer of a bowl of game stew he left her, feeling the warmth of her smile when she thanked him for his kindness. Despite knowing who she was, he considered her to be the fairest maid he had ever seen—and the bravest, for anyone who had the courage to withstand his master—whose presence on the field of battle struck terror into the hearts of his enemies—was brave indeed.

When Archie had left her, and feeling the cold, Lorne took to the mattress and wrapped her cloak about her beneath the blanket, curling her body into a tight ball. The men were in good spirits now she had left them, and as she listened to the low rumble of their laughter penetrating the thick stone walls of her chamber, never had she felt so isolated, miserable and alone. Would her brothers come to her rescue when they learned what had befallen her? Mrs. Shelly would be out of her mind with worry, wondering what had become of her. No doubt she would go on to Edinburgh to meet James tomorrow when she didn’t appear.

Chafed and bruised and exhausted by fear and rage, she closed her eyes tight, recovering from the physical effects of her abduction, but not from the shock of it. In a fairly uneventful life at Astley Priory, no one had purposely hurt her, and tonight’s events made her feel ill and frightened. When she had mentioned David Monroe, his brother had looked close into her eyes, and just for a moment something had stirred in their silver depths. It was gone in the blink of an eye, but she did not want to see it again.

Iain was preparing to bed down with his horse when Hugh came striding across the moonlit, cobbled yard in search of him. The two men were close friends, and there was a buoyant, sprightly manner between them that was the result of long association. Their families had always been close. Like the Monroes, the Glovers were ardent Protestants and had acquired army distinction at home and abroad on behalf of governments of their own religious persuasion.

‘You’ve talked to John?’

Hugh could see his friend was greatly troubled. He nodded gravely. ‘I would no more interfere in your business than you would in mine, Iain. But there isn’t a man or woman in these parts who doesn’t remember what happened to your brother and those men escorting him from Oban that night, and it is clear to me that the men in there,’ he said, indicating the castle with a jerk of his head, ‘in particular those who lost friends and kin, want appeasement. I don’t envy you, my friend. But you should return Mistress McBryde to her brothers. Whatever grievance you have with her father, it is inevitable that you will be brought to account for abducting her.’

Iain’s sigh was one of profound frustration. ‘I know that, Hugh. That’s what worries me. But as much as I would like to, I can’t let her go. If I release her, I’ll have a full-scale insurrection on my hands—especially from my own servants, who remember David well and had a fondness for him. They’re good and loyal men. I can’t let them down. Nor do I forget that John Ferguson—my own mother’s cousin—has a creditable knowledge of Highland robbers and murderers. When he was a lad, his entire family was wiped out in one night when the Galbraiths and the McBrydes made a raid on his village to collect old debts. Make no mistake, Hugh, John will go to any lengths to lure Edgar McBryde out of his lair, and if it takes holding his daughter hostage to do it—then so be it.’

‘Then have a care. Do not be over-confident,’ Hugh advised. ‘I have heard of Edgar McBryde, and it is said that he is a difficult man. You must recognise this—and I urge caution.’

‘I’m hoping that when he learns we hold his daughter, he will surrender without a struggle. The last thing I want is for blood to be shed over this.’

‘Then with any luck the redcoats will get to him first.’ Suddenly Hugh grinned, lightening the moment. ‘Still—the wench is a beauty and extremely desirable and no mistake. On reaching Norwood, I don’t reckon much to your chances with so much temptation lodged beneath your roof.’

Hugh laughed in the face of his friend’s glower. ‘Unless you lock her away out of sight, I’ll wager that within one week you become so tormented by insatiable desire that it won’t matter a damn to you who sired her,’ he taunted good humouredly before going off to seek his own bed, little knowing that his words, spoken glibly, would come home to roost. Nor did he realise that for a hot-blooded male like Iain Monroe, with the legendary Monroe charm evident in every one of his lazy smiles, and whose handsome looks and blatant virility compelled the attentions of women, it would take less than twenty-four hours.

Looking up at the stars through the hole in the stable roof, his hands behind his head and covered by a single blanket, Iain considered the unexpected turn of events and the disruptive influence the presence of Lorne McBryde would be sure to have on his men.

Like Robert McBryde, Iain had fought in the war against Louis XIV, but whereas Robert had served France, Iain had served William III. He had returned to Scotland on the restoration of peace, and now he was content to indulge in the simple pleasures of hunting and fishing and running his vast estate of Norwood. He was a battle-hardened warrior who thought he was up to dealing with most things life threw at him, but nothing had prepared him for Lorne McBryde.

When he awoke, his rest had done much to soothe and cool his ire. The presence of the aforesaid young woman was very much on his mind. He had an undeniable curiosity to see his hostage in the morning light—to see if she looked as lovely as when he’d first set eyes on her last night, before realising who she was. Her comeliness had been a vision worth remembering.

Was her hair really as shining and golden as it had looked in the candles’ glow? he mused, trying to imagine how it would look unbound, how it would feel to run his fingers through the thick tresses. And were her eyes really that captivating shade of green that made him think of dew-soaked grass? He remembered how soft and creamy her skin was, how angular her cheekbones, which gave her eyes an attractive, feline slant. In contrast to these delicate features her nose was small and pert, and there was a stubborn thrust to her round chin.

His lips broke in a wicked grin, for Lorne McBryde had attributes enough to pleasure a man into eternity. Pity, though, who she was, he thought with a certain amount of regret. Whistling softly, he jauntily made his way to the burn to wash, feeling a strong desire to feast his eyes on his captive once more.

With a thin watery light filtering through the tiny window—a window which was too small and narrow for the object of Iain’s musings to climb through, otherwise she would have attempted to escape—Lorne awoke shortly after dawn. It took a moment for her to convince herself that she wasn’t trapped in some terrible dream, but gradually memories of the previous night’s happenings emerged from the mists of sleep.

Archie appeared in the doorway, feeling shy and a little awkward in the presence of Lorne McBryde, and sorry that she had been subjected to a lack of respect on what had probably been the most fearful night of her life.

‘John has instructed me to ask you if you would like to refresh yourself. There’s a burn close by and enough seclusion to offer you some privacy.’

Gratefully, with a warm smile, she thanked him. With frank, earnest eyes, rust-coloured short-cropped hair and a smattering of freckles over his nose, Archie seemed a pleasant youth—he was also the only one in the party who had shown her kindness. Lorne followed him into the main hall. In jovial spirits, those present fell silent when she appeared. In daylight they looked a rumpled and unkempt lot with grizzled countenances as they sat about eating bannocks and porridge and supping draughts of ale. Their eyes followed her across the hall. Muttered comments were made, and knowing they were anything but complimentary, Lorne raised her head imperiously and met their stares with a cold defiance. Some instinct deep within her drove her to defy these men and she found comfort in this. John was standing by the door.

‘Keep a close eye on her, Archie. Don’t try to escape,’ he said to Lorne.

She glared at him. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘No. Just don’t make me have ta come looking for ye.’

Head held high, Lorne followed Archie outside. She had never been afraid of any man—not even her father—and she refused to be intimidated by these Lowlanders. She was greatly relieved to find there was no sign of her tormentor of the night before among the men milling about in the courtyard. Already a number of the gentlemen and servants and falconers were assembled, saddling their handsome steeds, and several were leaving to begin the day’s hunt.

The chief huntsman holding the hunting horn sat his mount apart, and leashed, lithe and graceful deerhounds strained against their collars in excitement, smelling the air for their quarry, alert and impatient to be off. It was a scene Lorne had become accustomed to during her time at Drumgow, when her father and brothers would often disappear for days on end into the Highlands to hunt the red deer.