did it weigh on his mind so much now?
Shaking off this introspection, Sebastien nodded to the guard posted at the door and walked back toward the chamber that he was using on a temporary basis. A form separated from the shadows in the corner of the corridor and he tensed for a moment. Then he recognized the red-haired young woman as Lara’s maid.
“Sir,” she said, nodding her head in an unsuccessful attempt at obeisance. Anger flashed in her dark eyes as she met his gaze, and showed in the set of her chin. Anger?
“What is your name?” He stepped closer, forcing her to look up at him. He was a master at this game.
“Margaret,” she said. No “sir” this time.
Did she not realize the precarious position she was in? He held her life and the lives of everyone in this keep in his hands and could order her death at any moment. Then he noticed that her own hands, clasped tightly before her, trembled slightly. Good. She was worried.
“What do you want, Margaret?”
Before she could speak, an older woman reached her side and then moved to stand in front of her, as if to protect the maid from him. The sound of running followed, and a moment later, his man François rounded the corner and stopped before him.
“Your pardon, sir,” he began, out of breath from hurrying. “I did not realize this one had slipped from the hall.”
François took hold of Margaret’s arm and tugged her away, obviously intent on dragging her back to where Sebastien had ordered all of Lara’s people to stay. Another guard arrived, took hold of the other woman and awaited his orders.
“I would see my lady,” Margaret called out to him, struggling with François and slipping from his grasp. “Sir, I beg you…”
Somehow he knew the cost of her words, and he held up his hand to halt his men. The two women moved closer and Sebastien waited for their explanation.
“I would see my lady,” Margaret repeated.
“You will see her, girl. She will arrive in the hall for the meal in a short time.”
He had not thought that faces could pale as quickly as theirs did then. All of the color in their cheeks drained and they looked at each other in dread.
“Who are you and why are you here against my orders?” he asked, pointing at the older one.
“I am called Gara, sir.” She showed the wisdom of her age and bowed her head to him. “I served the MacDougalls as a healer, sir.” She raised her head and gazed at him, but did not challenge him as the maid had.
A healer? Now he saw their purpose and their mistake.
“The lady needs no healer, Gara. Go back and take this one with you to await Lara’s arrival in the hall.”
Margaret broke free at that moment and ran to him. Slamming her fists ineffectually against his chest, she cried out, “Is it not enough that you have shamed her before her people? Must you now add to her humiliation by forcing her to face them before her blood on that sheet is even dried?”
François reached her before she could say anything else, grabbed her by her hair and forced her to her knees on the floor. Sebastien looked at Gara and knew now what they thought had happened. Startled by Margaret’s words and her vehemence, he first thought to explain, but realized he owed them nothing. He was the victor here, not they.
“Release her,” he ordered. “Go back to the hall now.”
When the maid looked as though she would argue, Gara grabbed her arm and pulled her along the corridor, whispering harshly as they moved.
“I want no other MacDougalls in this tower, François. Not without my orders.”
His men bowed and retraced their path away from him. Alone once more, he turned back to his chamber and entered it. It took no more than a few minutes for him to ready himself for the meal—his only clean surcoat and mail replaced the robe, which had been a gift from the Bruce. A warrior did not have many wardrobe choices and his trunks had not yet caught up to him. His squire, Philippe, fretted over him and then followed him down the corridor and stairs, into the hall and up to the chair set in the middle of the table on the dais.
Sebastien noticed the silence in the room. Then he observed the divide among those present—the few remaining MacDougalls off to one side, restricted to sharing one long table, and his men spread out through the rest of the hall. The MacDougalls watched him with open suspicion, while his men toasted him and his accomplishments openly.
He did not expect it to be a comfortable first night in his newly conquered keep, but he had not anticipated the overt and palpable mood of anger and uncertainty. When a few of his soldiers called out bawdy comments about his bedding of the Maid of Lorne, and the rumbling began to bubble up among the crowd, he knew he had underestimated the situation, after all. From the belligerent expressions on the faces of the MacDougalls he knew that war would break out anew if he brought Lara here now.
Motioning to one of the guards, he gave new orders about visitations to his wife and sent the man off. Then, with a word to Philippe, he climbed the dais and sat at the table that had so recently hosted his enemy.
Security was his first concern, and seeing the keep and those in it under his firm control his first priority. It mattered not to him if some here thought he saved their lady some embarrassment. If it helped gain their compliance, all the better.
Guile over bloodshed.
Without the distraction of his wife in the hall, Sebastien finished his meal quickly and then called his commanders to make plans for holding Dunstaffnage and moving forward with the Bruce’s battle plans to take the west of Scotland.
Her nose itched.
Lara ignored it for as long as she could before opening her eyes to face this new day. Untangling the layers of her cloak from over her arms, she could finally reach up and rub the irritation away. It would not be so easy to rid herself and her clan of the invaders who now held her home and her siblings in their grasp.
Light poured in through the opening in the wall, and she tried to loosen muscles that were stiff from sitting rigidly through the night. After Margaret and Gara’s short but welcomed visit, she’d dragged her father’s chair to the farthest corner of the chamber and fallen asleep there.
She would not lie waiting for him in the bed where he had…they had…And she would not face him in any manner but fully dressed and ready to defend herself from anything else he’d planned. The necessary requirements for him to prove his claim had been made, and she did not intend to share his bed again.
From Margaret, Lara had discovered that her sister and brother were being held, apparently safely for the moment, in a chamber with several of the younger women who had remained in the keep. On Lord Sebastien’s orders, no one had been accosted or harmed.
Pushing off her cloak, Lara stretched out her arms and tried to release the tightness between her shoulders. Looking around the room, she saw so many reminders of her father.
No word of his end had reached her. Neither of the other women had news of it, nor had they heard Sebastien’s soldiers talk of it. Had he died in battle? Had it been at the Bruce’s hands, or at those of the man who had gone on
