Cait met her gaze with troubled brown eyes. "The babe and I are not physically harmed," her friend replied in the same language. "But I am not all right."
Emily nodded, understanding better than another woman might what it meant to feel her life had been taken out of her control and the best she could do for those she loved still left them vulnerable. "I am sorry."
"Thank you, but you know it is not your fault."
"I insisted on bathing outside the walls… because I was weak."
"We were on Sinclair land. We should have been safe."
"You should not have been with me. If your brother had known you were going, he would have sent more soldiers to guard you… probably older ones, too."
"The boy he sent with you is known to be fierce. Unless he had sent a contingent of his personal guard, like he did to fetch you from the border, we could not have been better protected. Even then, it would have been an uncertain outcome with the Balmoral soldiers."
"They are that fearsome?" Emily asked.
"These ones are."
"It is still my fault we were outside the walls."
"Emily, I would have taken you to see the loch sometime. They would have been waiting then."
"You think they were watching for their opportunity?"
"I am sure of it."
The wind gusted and despite the summer sun, Emily shivered. Cait was wet and she wasn't. She patted her friend's shoulder in commiseration. "You must be awfully cold."
Cait looked surprised by the comment. "Nay."
Her friend certainly wasn't shivering like Emily was and she did not understand it. She'd noticed at the Sinclair keep that they often didn't light a fire in the hall until evening although it was certainly chilly enough for one much earlier in her estimation. There was no doubt about it, the Highlanders were a hardy people.
But even a strong woman like Cait could be broken by the kind of plans Emily suspected Drustan had for her friend.
"Cait…"
"Yes, Emily?"
"What does it mean to keep someone in clan law?"
Cait grimaced. "You mean like Drustan has threatened to keep me?"
It had sounded more like a promise to Emily's ears, but she nodded.
"Between a man and a woman, it means he intends to take her for his mate."
"Drustan is going to marry you?" It was as she feared, but something still did not make sense to her. "But is not Church law the same in Scotland as it is in England? Your king accepted Rome's authority, did he not?"
"The clans are not much bothered by the dictates of Scotland's king."
Talorc certainly had not been. "So you do not have to agree to the marriage for it to be valid?"
"Well, yes, but when a man keeps a woman, he will settle for a clandestine marriage."
"You mean he will take you to his bed without the benefit of the Church's blessing?" Emily demanded, appalled. It was even worse than she had thought.
"Yes."
"That is barbaric."
Cait shrugged, but her eyes belied the relaxed pose.
"Lachlan told me that the Balmorals did not harm women or children." And she had believed him. "But he lied."
"Yes, he lied."
"I did not lie," Lachlan said in Latin, his voice hard.
He'd understood the entire exchange.
Cait flinched and then net shoulders sagged. "I should have guessed. My brother told me the Balmoral laird was more learned than other Highlanders. He considered it a weakness."
"You have learned differently, have you not?" Cait refused to answer Lachlan's taunt and Emily was too furious to say anything at all.
The man was a monster!
Drustan asked for a translation of the conversation and Lachlan gave it to him. Word for word. Despite her anger, Emily blushed to be caught discussing such private things in mixed company. The embarrassment did not last long as fury that Cait could be treated so horribly overtook every consideration, even her fear of the water.
It was not right.
She surged to her feet and spun to face Lachlan. He stood at the front of the boat, his stance arrogant and commanding, while the other soldiers manned the oars. His rugged masculine appeal mocked her, for it masked a black heart she would never have guessed at.
The pain of having believed him to be something he wasn't mixed with her fear for her friend and exploded in a deluge of angry words. "You are nothing but a lying savage. Do you hear me?"
"I believe they hear you in England, lass," one of the soldiers said. He was the only blond one among them and up to now he hadn't spoken.
She glared at him before turning her frown on Lachlan once again. He looked unaffected by her outburst. She didn't care if her words impacted him, or not. She was going to have her say and that was that.
"And Drustan is a thief. No… he is worse than a thief," she said with relish. "For he intends not only to steal that which does not belong to him, but to hurt an innocent woman in the process. And most likely her unborn child. You're all a bunch of cowards, too, taking your revenge on a woman rather than facing your opponents in honest combat."
Several grunts of annoyance met that statement, but she ignored them. She had one last thing to say to the man watching her so impassively.
"You may be more learned than the other Highland lairds, Lachlan, but to my way of thinking, you are the most ignorant, not to mention heartless man I have ever met here or in England."
Then she sat back down with a flounce that rocked the boat, reminding her just where she was and making her stomach chum.
Cait was staring at her like she'd lost her mind. "Are you wanting them to throw you out of the boat then?"
Still too angry to heed her words, she said, "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they did, considering the wicked plans they have for you."
Ulf grabbed her shoulders as if prepared to do just that and she bit back a scream. She would not let them see her fear, but inside her heart raced with terror at what he would do.
"Let her go!" The whiplash of Lachlan's voice had immediate impact.
Ulf released her instantly, but snarled, "It is no more than she deserves for casting such slurs on the Balmoral clan."
"Not the whole clan, just the warriors here." Unlike some of the Highlanders she had met, she did not judge an entire group of people by the actions of a few degenerates.
She didn't guess they liked that opinion either when fury-filled silence greeted the airing of it. A large wave crashed against the bow, sending sea spray over all of them. Now, on top of her anger, she had to deal with the fear that the ocean was going to swallow their boat.
Her nails dug into her palms and she prayed drowning wasn't as horrible a death as she had always feared.
The strangest expression crossed Cait's face. "I've enjoyed knowing you, Emily."
Coming on the heels of her anxious thoughts, the words were not in the least welcome. Emily sucked in a breath and tried to calm herself. It didn't work. The boat road a high swell and the bow came out of the water before hitting it again with a jar. She gasped and then bit her lower lip to keep from making another noise.
Movement behind her rocked the boat from side to side and she wondered who could be so daft that they were moving about at a time like this, but she refused to turn to see. She would rather be surprised by her fate if Lachlan had changed his mind and decided to have her tossed overboard.
A big hand landed on her shoulder. Lachlan had come for her himself.
"I don't know how to swim," she blurted out and then practically bit her tongue through, chagrined to have shown such weakness.
"That would hardly matter if I were the man you believed me to be, would it?"
He was right and she knew deep inside he would never throw her overboard, or was she only deceiving herself? She refused to face him. "You have aided in the abduction of a woman with the intent to harm her."