Page 7 of The Merciless Laird
"Laird Gunnarsson." Her father's voice shifted into something careful and formal. "Ye arrived ahead of time."
"Aye." The warrior, Gunnarsson, said it without inflection. "Fortunate, as it turns out."
Matilda turned around and looked at him fully.
He was already looking at her.
"Gunnarsson," she said.
"Aye."
"Ivar Gunnarsson."
"That's generally what Gunnarsson means."
"Ye're the Raven of Mull."
"I've been called worse." Something moved at the corner of his mouth. "And ye're Matilda MacInnes. Which means we've already met, which saves time."
She stared at him. He looked back at her with those black eyes that gave nothing away and the faint ghost of amusement that she was already finding deeply irritating.
"Faither." She turned back. "Ye kenned he was arrivin’?"
"Matilda."
"Because the timing is suspicious."
"Matilda." Her father's voice dropped. "Listen tae me. There isnae time."
He took her hands and she felt it then, the tremble in his fingers, barely there, the thing he was working very hard to hide. Whatever he was about to say was frightening him. "The men who attacked taenight. They werenae brigands."
She went still. "Who were they?"
Her father exhaled. "They were Callum MacDougall's men."
The courtyard didn't change. The torches kept burning. The name landed the way it always landed, and the impact was that she was left with the acute feeling that a door was swinging open onto something she'd spent eight years keeping shut.
"He's come back," Her voice came out perfectly steady. She was proud of that.
"He wants tae stop the marriage." Her father's grip tightened on her hands. "If he takes ye before the Pact binds ye tae Mull, he believes he can force ye tae become his."
"I ken what he believes." She pulled her hands back gently. "I ken exactly what he believes."
Behind her, she heard Ivar Gunnarsson say, very quietly, "Who is Callum MacDougall?"
Her father looked at her. Asking permission, she realized. Waiting to see how much she wanted said aloud, here, in a smoky courtyard full of guards.
"A laird from Lorne," she said, without turning around. "We have a history."
"What kind of history?"
"The kind that's none of yer concern."
She felt rather than saw him decide not to push it. Which surprised her slightly. Her father turned to Ivar then, his voice dropping into the register he used for things that couldn't be unsaid.
"MacDougall's intent is clear. He means tae take her before the Pact is sealed. Which means she cannae stay here. The gates willnae hold against another coordinated assault, he's already proven he has the men and the plannin’ fer it. If she's still within these walls by dawn, he'll come again."
"Then we leave taenight," Ivar said.
