She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off once more. “This is my castle, my land. I will see it safe.” A soldier moved forward to restrain him, but Colin shook him off with a gruff twist of his shoulders. “He cannot see me hanged without proof, and there cannot be proof when I am innocent.”
Brianna stepped closer to him and suppressed the urge to wrap her arms around his solid body. She turned aside, refusing to see his battered face, refusing to let the image of his arms bound behind his back bring tears to her eyes. She would have herself appear as brave as him.
“You don’t understand the power of his influence,” she whispered.
“And ye don’t understand how hard I’ve worked to get this land.”
Her gaze snapped toward Colin’s hard stare. Her heartbeat pounded in her temples. “What?”
“I’ve worked too damn hard to get this land to see it stripped from me.” His eyes narrowed down at her. “Ye werena as easy to win over as I thought ye’d be.”
Her corset strained against her indrawn breath. “Easy to win over?”
He widened his stance and the manacles clinked together. “The rumors all indicated ye’d be hard to sway toward marriage, but I knew if I approached ye looking for work, ye wouldna turn me away.” A cocky grin lifted his lips. A grin that did not reach his eyes. No emotion did.
She shook her head emphatically. “That’s not true. You came across Bernard. You helped me.”
“Bernard was a fortunate encounter. Had it not been for him, I may not have found employment with ye.”
The blade of his words twisted in her belly.
Fortunate encounter? She did not know how to reply to such a heartless statement.
Though he had spoken in low tones, the eyes of the soldiers fixed on her, witnessing her shame. Witnessing the tears burning hot in her eyes. She would not cry. She would not cry.
A telltale warmth burned against her lids, but she blinked them back.
“You wooed me,” she said quietly. Why must everyone stare at them? Why must every ear strain to hear what they said?
“No.” His gaze was unyielding. “I seduced ye.”
Her heart stung beneath the slice of his words. “You are saying these things to protect me.” The excuse felt feeble sliding off her tongue.
He looked above her head, no longer meeting her gaze. “I am saying these things because they are true, a confession should we never meet again. I have never cared for you, Brianna. I never will.”
She staggered back, hating the weakness of her wretched heart, of her trembling knees.
Yet he did not look her in the eyes. He did not mean what he said.
And then his eyes locked on hers, as hard and cold as chips of emerald. “You were coin and title. An impossible conquest no other man could claim.”
Her uncle stepped between them and shoved Colin back. “That’s enough.”
The soldiers closed around Colin, but she could still see the glow of his rich russet hair and the hard lines of his face through the press of bodies. She waited for a subtle grin, a playful wink perhaps to let her know she was in on his scheme. The men turned him from her, his fierce expression never smoothing. His gaze never returning to her.
The pleading in her heart warred with her stubborn mind. She wanted to approach her uncle to beg for Colin’s release. He was innocent, and she could see it proven with her own confession.
A hand gripped her arm. Not with the malice of an enemy, but the warning of a friend.
“Be still, my lady.”
Jonathan.
She did not reply, nor did she turn to him. She could not.
Instead, she watched Colin roughly hauled away in a clatter of chains dragging against the cobblestones. Past the Edzell guards who stood by with red faces, past Magda who covered her mouth with both hands, past Thomas who kept his head bent in reverent prayer, past her uncle’s men.
The courtyard cleared of her uncle and his guards, and time slowed to nothing. The clinking of saddles and clopping of horses sailed over the castle walls, yet still the remaining people within Edzell remained frozen in place. A door slammed.
A key grated against aging steel. Hollow jostling sounds accompanied the crunch of a wheel turning over gravel. Brianna listened, waiting for all sounds to disappear.
She blinked her eyes open and found herself the center of everyone’s attention. Her back screamed with the force of her proud stance, a pathetic defense to the harsh words they had all witnessed.
“Bring me Alec,” she ordered. She would have her doubts quelled and her questions answered.
The men looked at each other, their discomfort evident.
“Alec is no longer here,” Jonathan spoke from behind her. “I’m sorry my lady.”
Brianna crumbled inside. Without Alec, there would be only doubt and assumption. Without Alec to prove otherwise, Colin’s words held a note of truth.
• • •
Brianna slumped against the large chair in the solar. She was dry-eyed and would remain thus. Tears were not warranted for the things Colin said.
They were lies. All of them.
Lies.
He merely sought to protect her in his own stubborn way.
A little voice in her mind argued the coincidence of his ‘lies’ matching her own suspicions, but she drowned it beneath a sea of excuses. He sought to save her, to ensure she wouldn’t follow him. His own safety in forfeit of hers.
“My lady?”
Brianna lifted her head to find Magda in the doorway.
“Forgive me,” she said. “You have a visitor. He said you would want to see him.”
Hope shone through her dark thoughts. Had Alec returned? Was perhaps little George come with good news?
Her heart pounded to life.
“Please send him in.”
Magda stepped aside, and Brianna’s visitor entered the room. His leather boots were soundless against the floor, his fine clothing rumpled, the fashionable sword flapping at his side. “Greetings, cousin.”
Her stomach clenched around nothing.
Robert.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The solar that had once felt so large to Brianna was now too small. Too few feet separated her from Robert, and the desk before her was a sorry shield.
A smile pulled his face into an arrogant smirk. “Brianna Lindsay.” He spoke her name in a sing-song tone. Mocking. He meant to intimidate.
“It’s MacKinnon,” she said. “Brianna MacKinnon.”
He approached, his gaze locked on her.
His fists wrapped around the arms of the chair, locking her against the hard wood. She did not struggle against her entrapment. It was what he would want.
He squatted in front of her. The relaxed position did nothing to quell the unease tightening in her stomach.
“You will not be Brianna MacKinnon for long.”
Her heart snagged against her ribcage.
Before she could respond, he released her wrist and roughly tightened his fingers around a fistful of her hair. Had she not been holding her breath, she might have cried out.
“Your barbarian will soon hang.” He leaned closer and his leather boots creaked. His lips moved next to her ear. “When you are a widow, I will see you well cared for.”
Her lungs burned for air.
The heat of his slimy tongue trailed across her neck and the breath shuddered from her chest.
The odor of his greased hair met her nostrils and curdled her stomach. She tried to force her face from his, to turn her nose away.
Robert shrieked suddenly and his body jerked backward. A thin hand clutched the top of his head, clawed fingers gripping his dark hair.
“You will respect my mistress,” Magda cried. “Do you understand?” A tug on his hair punctuated her question.
Brianna wrenched open the bottom drawer and prayed the earl’s old dagger would still be there. With her attention fixed on Robert, her fingers blindly patted the smooth wood.
He wri
thed against Magda’s grasp in an attempt to free himself.
Cold metal met Brianna’s fingertips. A blade. She wrapped her hand around the hilt and ran to her nurse’s defense.
Robert cocked his fist. Before he could land a blow on Magda, Brianna pressed the dagger to his neck.
“I have no fear of using this,” she warned. Her hand shook with the force of her emotions. The fear, the hurt, the anger, the vehemence.
Robert’s fist dropped and he went still beneath the threat of the blade.
“Magda, please advise the servants downstairs of our visitor’s arrival.” By servants, she knew Magda would realize she meant guards. Or at least she hoped.
Hesitation crossed her nurse’s withered face. “My lady—”
“Please do as I ask.” Brianna nodded to Magda. “You may release him now.”
The older woman’s hand opened and Robert jerked upright, his back locked straight. His dark hair jutted in all directions like a peacock with a broken tail.
The tap of Magda’s shoes against the floor clicked from the room and echoed down the hall, her pace brisk.
Brianna waited for the footsteps to fade. “I should kill you.” She lifted the hilt of the dagger. A simple push of the blade and it would sink into his neck.
He stared down at the weapon through lowered lids. “You would hang beside that barbarian for murder?”
She’d rather hang than have Robert’s hand upon her. “You know he did not kill my father.”
“I don’t care if he did or not. I only know he stole my wealth.”
The same greedy gaze now slid over her body in a way that left her bare, as if his eyes had stripped her of clothing. “I know he stole you.”
“He rescued me,” she said. “From you.”
The heat of Robert’s glare pummeled her and tense silence shot through the room. “You were ‘rescued’ by a landless vagabond.”
“Landless?” The word slipped out before she could stop it.
His eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t know?” The sour expression on his face gave way to laughter. “And to think Father always praised your intelligence.”
“Colin is the firstborn son of Laird MacKinnon.”
Robert ducked back from the blade and maintained an arm’s-length distance from her. “You know those Highland barbarians don’t follow the laws of God.”
She left the dagger raised between them, but did not pursue him. What he said was true. In the Highlands, the current laird chose his successor. Birth order was considered for tanaiste, but was not ultimately the deciding factor.
A cruel grin spread over Robert’s lips. “Your husband’s own father did not deem him worthy to run the land of his birth, and yet you’ve given him free reign of Edzell.”
Blood rushed loudly in Brianna’s ears. “You’re lying.”
The staggered pounding of dozens of footsteps sounded from the hall.
He shrugged. “Believe what you want—what I’m saying is the truth.”
Guards poured through the door two at a time until the room crowded with armed men.
Robert ignored them. “He used you. And for all your knowledge and learning, you fell for it like a common, over-flattered courtier.”
Brianna’s stomach dropped.
Jonathan stepped from the ring of soldiers and grabbed Robert by the shirt. “You will be escorted out now.” Jonathan’s hand went to the hilt of the sword that now hung between his shoulder blades, the same as Colin and Alec. “Or I can drag you.”
Robert’s hands raised, palm up, and Jonathan released his shirt.
Robert may have surrendered, but he’d hit his mark in Brianna’s doubt, and the spark in his eye told her he knew it.
• • •
Blades of grass tickled Brianna’s ankles. She’d walked the length of the garden twice over, yet her mind still churned. All the while Thomas followed at her side, quiet in his support. Her fingers skimmed the sculpted detail making up the final panel of the Cardinal Virtues imbedded in the high wall. Justitia. Justice.
The carving of a balanced scale was rough beneath her fingertips. Jagged.
Brianna drew in a deep breath and let it slowly blow out between her lips. Her frenzied heartbeat ebbed. For now.
She needed to separate her own emotions from the facts. “Colin is innocent of the charges which he stands accused,” she said. “But I do not know how to see him released.”
Thomas’s eyes followed her fingers as she traced the skillfully etched lines in the stone. “Will any of the surrounding lairds come to your aid?”
“He’s a Highlander.” She looked up at him and found his brow puckered with worry. It was an expression all too common among her people since Colin had been taken. Already two days had passed, and all letters begging for assistance had been ignored.
Frustration pulled at her squared shoulders.
Alec was still missing, and no one could give her any information on his whereabouts.
Brianna stared up at the cloudless blue sky and became lost in its endlessness. “While the other lairds like Colin, they do not trust him. My uncle, however, has great power and influence among them. He would sway the hand of any who sought to help.”
She looked back to the carved panel once more and let her hand fall away. “The court may not have proof to declare him guilty, yet I have no proof to vouch for his innocence.”
Thomas clasped his hands behind his back. “Is he to be tried with the local Parliament? I may know someone who can help.”
She shook her head. “I still haven’t found where he will be tried, nor even where he’s being held.”
The letters from the local Parliament indicated Colin had not been declared a criminal with them. If her uncle planned to take Colin to Edinburgh to have him tried at the courts there, Brianna would have almost no influence.
She would not receive a response from Edinburgh for several days. Was he already en route there for his trial?
“He didn’t mean it,” Thomas said softly.
The eyes of the world seemed to settle on her, even though only she and Thomas stood in the quiet garden. She crossed her arms over her chest in a pathetic attempt to still the painful squeeze of her heart. “What?”
“He didn’t mean what he said. It was a tactic to keep you safe. To keep you from placing yourself in danger to save him.” Sympathy lined his eyes.
“Do not give me your pity.”
“It is not pity I offer you, my lady. Only the truth. He wishes your safety no matter the cost—”
“Stop this.” The words hissed from her tight throat. She gripped her skirt in her fists. “You overstep your role, Thomas. Leave me.” Her voice was thick. Weak. She sounded as fragile as she felt.
Colin had confirmed her earlier suspicions with his public confession. He had come to Edzell to seek her hand.
Even in his admission, he had not been completely honest. He held no family wealth. He held no promise of land. He held only a name, and she now bore its weight.
She had suspected him many times of using her for her title and lands, but he had reassured. Comforted.
Seduced.
Her face scrunched against the tear of pain.
Whether Thomas stayed or left, Brianna did not know. She was beyond the point of caring. All that mattered was the aching void in her breast where her heart had once been.
There was no way to save him.
There was no way to save herself.
• • •
Colin’s cage was narrow, surrounded by walls that excreted the stench of fear and death. Aged mortar crumbled between stones, taunting him with the promise of what lay beyond. Trickles of water ran between the cracks and stained the wall with black slime. The sun shone brightly outside. Ethereal proof poured gold from a crevice and cut through the darkness like a noble blade of hope.
A door slammed in the distance, its echo loud in the harsh quiet. Colin shifted to a crouch from where he sat on the cold floor. His back groaned
in protest and stiffened against the simple motion.
Footsteps.
Not the heavy, determined footsteps of a guard. No, they were the slow, steady shuffles of a man of great girth.
Shuffle, shuffle. Tap.
A man of great girth who used a cane to support his weight.
Colin rose to his feet, thighs burning with his measured movement in an effort to keep the manacles from announcing his preparation. He would not have Lindsay knowing he rose to greet him.
Nor would he face the bastard sitting down.
Shuffle, shuffle. Tap.
Colin eased forward and stopped inches away from the grated bars, its steel long since rusted with neglect.
Shuffle, shuffle. Tap.
A haunting light blossomed at his left and grew brighter with jerky sways and dips. Colin’s head lifted with the pride of a MacKinnon.
Shuffle, shuffle.
The light of a candle burst into view and sliced through Colin’s eyes. Five days of darkness rendered the weak flame as brilliant as the sun. He narrowed his gaze in an effort to shield his instinctive wince.
Lindsay’s stomach appeared before the rest of him. He lowered his cane.
Tap.
“You stand proud within your cage, barbarian.”
Colin held his shoulders pulled back, his head lifted. “I stand proud with an innocence ye are well aware of.”
“Innocence is subjective.” Lindsay’s gaze gleamed beneath the wavering shadows of candlelight.
Colin’s eyes now welcomed the light and the ability to study his surroundings. He glanced over Lindsay’s shoulder toward the vacated cell across from his, taking in the empty food trencher, the overturned cup. The filthy rushes spattered with dark stains.
Blood.
Colin exhaled through his nose, as if the act could expunge his nostrils of the odor clinging to the damp air.
“When will my trial take place?” He cast a look at his own trencher. The sour aftertaste of pasty gruel still lingered in the back of his throat. “Or will you see me starved to death before then?”
Lindsay leaned on his cane and a high-pitched whistle eased from his overworked chest. “I offer you something more important than a trial. I offer you a choice.”
Possession of a Highlander Page 21