Page 14 of Captured by a Laird
“None?” Anger surged through David’s veins. Lady Alison was beautiful, but she was a poor manager of her household or they would not have run out of food so quickly. Her ineptitude was not, however, what made him furious.
He sent men to fetch their wagon of supplies from outside the gate. Soon after, he watched the two girls fall on their meal of dried beef and stale bread as if it were a grand feast.
Why in the hell did Lady Alison not submit sooner? If she had half the sense God gave her, she should have seen that holding out was hopeless. Instead, she let her household, including her wee daughters, go hungry out of pure stubbornness.
***
Alison dreamed someone had tucked her in, something no one had done since she was a child. In her dream, she felt safe. The feeling left her the instant she opened her eyes. For a long moment, she lay still, unable to pinpoint the source of her anxiety.
She bolted upright. The Beast of Wedderburn had been in this very room. The last thing she remembered was him standing over her, his hard green eyes drilling into her…and then he had touched her.
She ran her hands over her body, but she felt no blood, no injury. Her clothes were all in one piece. She looked around the room and saw only Flora, who was staring at nothing. Panic surged through Alison’s limbs.
Her daughters were gone. That vile man had taken her precious little girls.
“What has he done with them?” she shouted at Flora, but the old woman just looked at her with glazed eyes.
Alison leapt out of bed, and her vision went black. She held onto the bedpost to keep from falling and forced herself to take slow breaths until she could see again. Then she went to find her children.
Not fully trusting her legs, she kept one hand against the wall as she went down the circular stairs. The rumble of male voices echoed up the stairwell from the hall, but she heard no screams. She felt guilty for sleeping through the violence that must have occurred in the wake of the castle’s fall and grief for those she had not been able to protect. Had she been spared because of her noble status?
Or was her turn yet to come?
She steeled herself to find broken furniture and debauchery in her hall. The need to save her children gave her the courage to continue down the stairs on wobbly legs. When she reached the bottom, she surveyed the hall through the low, arched doorway. Her home was filled with scores of men she did not know, rough warriors with weapons tied to their backs and belts, but they were sitting at the long trestle tables in an orderly fashion that seemed so incongruous as to be bizarre.
She drew in a deep breath and stepped inside the hall. Silence fell over the cavernous room as every one of the Hume warriors turned to look at her.
When she saw Wedderburn in the laird’s chair at the high table with her daughters trapped on either side of him, a blind rage took hold of her. She tore across the room and stood before the high table, clenching her hands.
“Touch one hair on my daughters’ heads, and I’ll murder ye, I swear it.”
Wedderburn showed no reaction beyond a slight lift of one eyebrow. After a long pause, he spoke in a mild tone.
“That’s the second time ye threatened to kill me. I suggest ye not do it again,” he said. “As for your daughters, all I’m doing is feeding them.”
“Feeding them?” With the blood pounding in her ears, she was not certain she had heard him correctly.
She shifted her gaze to her daughters. They were stuffing bread and dried beef into their mouths with both hands, as if they feared she would tell them they could not have it.
“Aye, feeding them,” Wedderburn said, drawing her attention back to him, “something you neglected to do.”
“Ineglected?” she said. “How dare you. If they’re hungry, ’tis because ye cut off our supplies.”
“It tastes good, Mama,” Beatrix interrupted, speaking around the food in her mouth. “Ye must have some.”
The smell of the bread made her suddenly lightheaded, and stars sparked across her vision. She gripped the table to steady herself, determined not to show weakness in front of this man again.
The next moment, she found herself leaning backward and staring up into Wedderburn’s hard, handsome face. She blinked several times, attempting to clear her vision. Had Wedderburn truly bounded over the table and swept her into his arms? The heat and strength of the body encircling hers told her she had not imagined it.
For a fleeting moment, his brows were drawn together in what looked like concern. Then his eyes darkened with an intensity that stole her breath away. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she had the wild notion that this stranger was going to kiss her right here in the hall in front of his men and her entire household.
***
David lost himself in fathomless violet eyes. Her body felt deliciously soft and compliant in his arms, and he sank into her, pulled as if by a lodestone to her red lips. But before he reached them, he felt her stiffen in his arms.
“Remove your hands from me,” she said, and pushed at him.
He never forgot himself like this. He was always in control. This lass was dangerous.
