“If ye had bothered to dress yerself ere walking the halls, ye might hae had a thick hose betwixt yer flesh and the rope.”
“I am dressed,” Scarlett snapped irritably.
He looked down at her dress skeptically and again Scarlett wondered at it. Even without her denim jacket on top of it, there was nothing wrong with what she was wearing but he was looking at her like she was making a dozen fashion faux pas. He certainly didn’t look like he could have been a fashion editor for anything more haute couture than the Highlands edition of Field and Stream or Kilts Weekly.
“You’re a fine one to talk about fashion with you and your men dressed all matchy-matchy like some Highland marching band. I can’t wait to see you pull out the bagpipes.”
“Cease yer senseless havering, lass.”
“Look, last chance, Laird or whatever your name is,” Scarlett warned darkly. “Let me go now or I will make sure you get the book thrown at you hard.”
“Mayhap yer more ill than I thought,” he said, frowning in confusion and scratching at his whiskered jaw as he studied her. “Why would anyone throw something so dear as books at me?”
Surely that absurd, cantankerous man was going to drive her bat-shit crazy! Scarlett gnashed her teeth. “The authorities. Do you understand that word or do I need to spell it out for you? You will be arrested for this, you know.”
Her kidnapper only rolled his eyes dismissively. “My cousin is the Earl of Bothwell, lass, mine uncle the Warden of Middle March. My own father, the Lord High Chamberlain. I assure ye, lass, I willnae find myself in shackles o’er something so minor as this.”
Since when was kidnapping ‘minor’? “You think a little name dropping is going to scare me?” Scarlett asked boldly. “I can name drop, too. I’ll go straight to the top even. I know the Queen!”
Well, met, more than knew but the insouciance of the man was beginning to terrify her more than the situation. He didn’t seem to care that what he was doing was a crime. The worst kinds of psychopaths were the ones who thought themselves above the law or a law onto themselves. Unfortunately, she knew all too well how dangerous the crazies could be.
And her threat didn’t seem to give him pause at all, instead his steely gaze narrowed on her. “Which one?”
Which one? Scarlett shook her head incomprehensively. How many queens did he think were on this freakin’ island? “The Queen of England, of course.”
If possible, his look became even more glacial. “Are you a spy then?”
“What? No!” Scarlett frowned, still shaking her head as if the motion might deny the absurdity of the entire conversation. “Why would you even ask that?”
“No one in Scotland would admit to an association with the Queen given the discord between our countries.”
That discombobulating statement was too mind-numbing for Scarlett to even begin to try to decipher. “Put it this way, if I were a spy would I be so dumb as to admit it?”
He lifted a brow and shrugged as if he questioned her ability to even produce a logical thought. Fair enough. Scarlett felt the same of him. It was as if this Laird guy had been hiding under a rock and had no clue what was going on in the world or how it worked. “I would appreciate it if you would please just leave me alone.”
“Unguarded?”
“Have someone else guard me then,” she insisted, flicking her fingers toward Rhys. “Like that other guy. The nice one.”
“Ye think he will be sweet-talked into letting ye go? He willnae.”
“No, I just think he won’t drive me as crazy as you do.”
4
James Hepburn signaled to two of his men to stand guard over his captive, leaving them with stern warnings not to be swayed by her frail appearance.
As he had been.
Tall but thin as a rail, James would never have considered that such a waifish lass might ever have him at her mercy but surprisingly she had. Shaking out his hand once more at the memory of the horrendous pain she had produced with just a turn of his digits, James crossed the castle yard to where his half-brother was supervising the securing of the captured reivers who would become his prisoners that day.
Sod it all. He hated to detain them so. Most of them were just family men looking to secure food and supplies for their families. Crofters with fields to be harvested. Letting them go, however, would be a mistake. A signal to the Lindsays and the Hepburn’s other rival clans that his lands and goods were theirs for the taking.
That would be unacceptable. So ransomed they would be to their laird, assuming that the Lindsay would be willing to pay a fair price for them.
As for the woman, James didn’t know what to make of her.
“What vexes ye, Laird?” Rhys asked with a provoking grin as he neared. “The wee lassie giving ye more pain?”
“Dinnae call me that.” James curled his lip not only at the name but at being baited to respond as he had been a thousand times before. “She pains me naught but for the throbbing of my skull when speaking wi’ her. She is an impossible harridan, refusing to answer my questions fairly. Evading the truth and talking nonsense. Now, she asks for ye to stand guard over her.”
“Me?” his brother questioned with a wicked laugh. “Why me?”
“Yer the nice one.”
Rhys threw
