"I have exercised my right as laird to exact justice between the clans."
"I don't care how you justify it to yourself. What you are doing determines what kind of man you are."
His sigh was loud and long. "Your opinion of me and my clan does not matter, English."
"I never thought it would." But his words had hurt her and it was all she could do to keep that out of her voice. Her opinion should matter. His would matter to her.
Horror filled her at the recognition of that appalling truth. She should not care.
"Yet you expressed it."
She shrugged, or tried to with his heavy hand still on her shoulder. "It matters to me."
"I see."
"I doubt it."
"If you are about to insult me again, I warn you… dinna do it." His quiet tone was more lethal than if he had shouted the warning.
Her mouth snapped shut.
He growled. "I do not like talking to your back. Turn around."
"No."
But he was already picking her up to do it himself.
She cried out as she was lifted off her seat completely. "Do not drop me. You shouldn't be moving so much. Don't you notice how rough the sea is? We could capsize." She nodded, wishing she could appeal to a sense of reason she feared he did not have.
The man thought he was indestructible.
"The water is near smooth as glass."
"You jest. I know you do, but this is no laughing matter."
"I am not jesting." He held her close against his chest, his eyes filled with a dark intensity she could not interpret. "No harm will come to you at my hand, English."
She wanted to scoff, but she couldn't. Because Heaven help her, she did believe him. What did that say for his plans for Cait then?
She did not realize she'd asked the question aloud until he answered it.
"It is Drustan's responsibility to convince Cait she wants to be kept."
"And if he can't?" Emily asked, trying to read the level of Lachlan's sincerity in his gaze.
A small smile played at one corner of his mouth. "He can. He is a Balmoral."
"That doesn't make him a magician," she whispered, once again falling under the spell this man seemed to cast every time he turned his whole attention on her.
He set her down on the bench beside Cait, but this time so Emily faced where he had taken Ulf's seat at the oars. The other soldier now stood in the bow of the boat, turned away from them all, his body stiff with rage.
Lachlan took up the oars and began to row in perfect unison with the others. "He is man enough to make his mate want him… to bed her without hurting her or the bairn she carries."
Emily couldn't believe Lachlan had said such a thing to her and Cait's loud gasp said she didn't appreciate his candidness either. "If he's thinking I'll submit, he's wrong," she said, her tone as mean as any of the warriors had been.
Drustan gave a low chuckle that sounded diabolical to Emily's ears. "Aye, you'll submit, lass, and like it."
Cait made a strangled sound and lurched forward. Emily turned her head just in time to see Cait's mouth closing on the back shoulder of the man taunting her. Drustan didn't react any more than Lachlan had when Emily had bit him.
"I see you've taught your heathen English ways to the Sinclair lass," Lachlan drawled, inexplicable amusement in his voice.
"I am not a heathen," Emily spluttered.
Drustan made quick work of breaking Cait's hold on his skin. Then he pulled her into his lap, whispered something about teaching her better things to do with her mouth and kissed her.
It wasn't a brutal kiss even though Cait tried to bite him again. He simply laughed and kissed the corner of her mouth, her eyes and her temple before returning to her lips. Emily looked away, unwilling to witness such a scene, but couldn't help peeking again and saw that her friend's struggles had ceased.
She was afraid Drustan had hurt her after all, but Cait was kissing him back, her body turned toward his, not writhing to get away. Emily could not look away. She had never seen anything like it. Surely it was the sort of intimacy that should be saved for the bedchamber, but none of the other soldiers seemed in the least embarrassed by it.
Cait wasn't embarrassed either. She was too busy to notice anyone else, Emily was thinking.
What would it be like to be kissed in such a manner?
Would she like it? Surely that sort of thing happened in the marriage bed, but it was not Talorc's face that came to her mind when she tried to imagine it. No, the face in her disturbing fantasy was of another Highland laird, a man who went looking for revenge with his face painted blue and riding a horse that could be mistaken for a dragon.
Chapter 5
After long minutes, the warrior finally lifted his mouth from Cait's. She was panting and had the most astonished expression on her face… but she did not look angry any longer. Or even a little bit frightened.
"You will want me when I take you," Drustan promised in a voice that made Emily feel funny and crave such words for herself. Only not from him.
It was wicked… some kind of Highland sorcery she did not understand. She was not the heathen around here… it was the Balmoral wizards who could turn a woman's thoughts to mush.
Using the corner of his plaid, Drustan gently wiped away the blue paint that had been smeared on Cait's face from the kiss. "I will not harm you. Never doubt me again."
Cait turned her face away, but Drustan gently pressed it into his chest, cradling her close as if she were a precious treasure.
For some reason, the action brought tears to Emily's eyes.
"You will apologize now," Lachlan said, drawing her attention bade to him.
"For what?" she asked, making a valiant effort to meet his wolflike gaze.
Those eyes were so uncanny, she knew she would see them in her dreams.
As usual, when the stubborn warrior did not want to answer, he didn't. He merely stared at her. Well, she could be stubborn, too. She pressed her lips together, determined not to speak. She had nothing to apologize for. Just because Cait appeared to enjoy Drustan's kisses didn't mean Lachlan had been right in the form of revenge he had chosen.
The silence between them stretched on and on, broken only by the sound of the oars slashing through the water and the waves breaking around them.
"I will win," Lachlan promised quietly, then dismissed her as surely as if he'd turned away.
Inexplicably hurt by his rejection, she focused on the view out the side of the boat. It was no more comforting than it had been the first time she'd looked. The island they were obviously headed toward didn't seem to be getting any closer and the water stretched in an expanse of dark swells around them.
Drustan untied Cait and helped her back to her seat beside Emily before taking up his oars again.
Without the anger to bolster her courage, it deserted her and horrible images of the boat tipping to one side or huge crashing waves washing over it and taking her and Cait overboard tormented Emily's brain.
"Are you going to tolerate the insult of the English wench?" Ulf demanded in a furious tone, interrupting her waking nightmare.
"She will apologize," Lachlan drawled with utter certainty.
"No, I won't." She muttered the defiance without thought and was surprised she could force the words out of her tight throat afterward.
Lachlan growled low in his chest, the sound so far from human, it made her shiver and added to the sense of doom taking over her senses. Her gaze flew to his and she wished it hadn't. His eyes were even less human than usual with the gold almost overtaking the brown of his irises. She just knew that meant he was well and truly annoyed with her.