some well-bred, high-sprung horse ready to bolt. ‘Let me introduce ye ta my friends. They’ll not be laughing so heartily when they learn yer identity.’
Reaching out, he snatched away the hood covering Lorne’s head so that the golden treasure of her hair—the thick tresses coiled close to her head—was revealed. It gleamed softly in the golden light. A heavy silence fell inside the room as everyone gazed at it, and Lorne felt their hostility creeping around her. The men who were sitting got to their feet and moved closer, closing ranks around her.
An edge of fear caught at Lorne. The atmosphere had become ugly, the circle of faces masks of hate. Living for many years in her grandmother’s world, Lorne had never had reason to despise anyone, but crouching dishevelled and filthy before this crowd of hostile men who wished her nothing but ill, filled her with a humiliation and hatred she could not even have imagined. Clenching her teeth, she held on to her fury—it was the only thing she had to combat her fear.
‘Behold, Lorne McBryde, me friends,’ John proclaimed. ‘The beautiful spawn of Edgar McBryde—scourge of the Highlands, murderer, arsonist and thief—is reputed to have the most magnificent hair in the whole of Scotland—and I’ll be damned if this isn’t it.’
‘You’ll be damned anyway,’ Lorne spat. ‘My brothers are strong and you would be wise to fear them,’ she threatened, as if the mere mention of her brothers would send a shiver of fear through the stoutest of hearts. ‘When they learn you have taken me, they will slit your throats while you sleep.’
John bent over, thrusting his face close to hers, a snarl turning his mouth. ‘Aye—like rats stealing grain in the dark. I thumb me nose at this carrion ye speak of,’ he scoffed. ‘And where me manners are concerned, I agree they are somewhat lacking—but compared with the brothers McBryde, they are impeccable.’
Lorne was aware of another person entering from outside, but she vented all her anger on her abductor. Her defences manifested themselves in the most unexpected way. Somewhere deep within, a reserve of strength propelled her to her feet and she lunged at him, pushing him hard and sending him staggering before falling on his backside.
Stepping into the fray, Iain caught her arm as, incensed with fury, she was about to inflict further damage on his friend. Instinctively Lorne administered a mighty kick to Iain’s shin and sank her teeth into his hand, relieved when it relinquished its iron hold on her arm.
‘Enough!’ Iain roared, his voice reverberating off the walls of the cavernous hall, experiencing a sharp pain in his leg and hand, where her sharp teeth had punctured his flesh and drawn blood.
Lorne’s whole attention was strained to the sound of the male voice, a voice that sent shivers down her spine. It brought her head jerking up.
Iain was momentarily stunned. He saw a woman with hair the colour of sunlight, and found himself meeting eyes of emerald green set in a face of incredible beauty. After a rewarding and exhausting day with the hunt, he allowed himself a moment to look his fill. A faint smile of admiration tugged at his lips. The sight of her infused passion into his blood and loins. Her skin was creamy white, her lips rosy and moist, and her angular cheekbones gave her dark fringed eyes an attractive slant. She was perfect. She was—
Then he recognised her and he drew himself up, his face convulsed in a spasm of violent rage and disbelief. ‘God help me!’ he uttered, his voice quivering with a murderous fury. ‘What have we here?’
Lorne was struck dumb to find her dream of meeting Iain Monroe again made flesh. His eyes were on her face, evaluating her with a light so intense it sapped her strength. Looking up to meet his incredible silver gaze, she saw he was exactly as she remembered. His features were stamped with implacable authority and granite determination, and there was a dark arrogance about him. His blue-black hair was rough and tousled, and the features not covered by his short beard were sharply defined, his mouth having acquired a bitter line.
‘The lassie’s name is Lorne McBryde, Iain,’ John told him. ‘Ye canna have forgotten the wee girl who betrayed ye brother’s whereabouts to the Galbraiths of Kinlochalen.’
Only the collective breathing of the men in the room and the crackle of the fire could be heard above the silence the memory of that day evoked in each and every one of them—in Lorne, too. It was all around her and inside her, still alive, not quiet as it had been when she had lived at Astley Priory. She saw Iain’s body stiffen as he pinned his rapier gaze on her face. She met his hard, discerning stare and forced herself to return his assessment with a measuring look of her own, but he emanated a wrath so forceful that she felt fear begin to uncurl inside her.
‘I know who she is,’ Iain hissed. ‘Get her out of my sight.’
John was always ready to do Iain’s bidding, but this was one order he would not obey. ‘Nay, not when Andrew an’ me have gone to the trouble of bringing her here. We’ve waited too long to let an opportunity to entrap Edgar McBryde slip by.’
Astounded, Iain glared at his friend. ‘Are you mad? You abducted her?’
John nodded, unperturbed by Iain’s anger. ‘How else do ye think she got here? When we stopped to sup at the inn on the Edinburgh road, I couldn’t believe me good fortune when I saw the McBryde lassie come in. Seven years may have gone by, but I wouldna mistake that face—or that hair.’
‘Was she alone?’ Iain asked sharply, his eyes alert.
‘Aye—more’s the pity—apart from a maidservant and the coach driver and a couple o’ grooms, that is.’
‘Who did you expect might be travelling with me?’ Lorne snapped, speaking for the first time since Iain Monroe had entered the room.
‘Yer father—Edgar McBryde,’ John growled.
Lorne stared at him in bewilderment. ‘But—my father is in France.’
‘Not any longer. ’Tis a known fact that he’s returned to Scotland—to organise a network o’Jacobite sympathisers in the Highlands, I suspect,’ he told her, his lips twisting with scorn.
Lorne’s eyes shifted to Iain. ‘Is this true?’
‘It’s true,’ he clarified coldly.
Lorne paled. When her father had escaped to France seven years ago, the wrench of leaving his beloved Highlands had been almost too painful for him to bear. She had always known he would not remain in exile and that one day he would return, despite the shadow of the noose hanging over him. And now he had, endangering his own life and others. She was longing to plead her own cause, to tell Iain Monroe, who was looking at her with cold contempt, of all the suffocating horror she had endured since that day in Kinlochalen—if only he would listen.
But he refused to listen. Even now, after seven years, any words she said would not pierce through the armour he had built around himself. As she started to speak, he held up his hand in warning, his expression stern and unyielding. ‘Be quiet. I want no pretty speeches from a McBryde,’ he hissed fiercely through clenched teeth, the glitter in his eyes as hard and cold as steel as they imprisoned hers.
Now Iain hated the flaunting abundance of her golden hair, the beautiful face, and in particular those green eyes that looked at him with an urgent pleading. They disturbed him, evoking an unreasoned disorder of distant anger and pain. Someone else had looked at him like this long ago, a child who had begged him to listen to her, a child he had shoved away as he would now she was a woman grown. He recalled how she had clung on to his reins, and how brutal he
