The subservient tone pierced Tavish’s brain like splinters. It seemed like someone else’s hand that reached out and wrapped fingers around Glenna Douglas’s scrawny bicep; someone else’s rage that yanked her from the stool, leaving it to topple sideways with a clatter; someone else that pulled her behind him from the kitchen and into the rain while she shrieked.
“Let go of me!”
She resisted with what little strength she possessed, jerking at her arm, digging her heels into the soft courtyard. But Tavish plucked her up as if she were naught but a weed and pulled her into the wide entry hall, splashing through puddles that were already forming from the downpour outside.
“Let go!”
He reached the bottom of the stairs to the east tower and swung her around in front of him before pushing her up the first two risers and at last setting her free. He began mounting the steps, prompting her to retreat up them backward, even though she continued to glare at him defiantly.
“My mother,” he said, as deliberately as he ascended each step, “is not your servant.”
She nearly stumbled but caught herself and backed up the stairs more quickly as he neared her.
“You don’thaveany servants,” Tavish clarified. “Nor have you any food. Nor crops. Nor livestock. Whether ’twas you or your da, someone’s run Roscraig nearly into its grave, and so any courtesy I would have shown you for your stewardship of my home doesn’t exist. You’ve no right to be here at all.”
She lashed out at him with her fists, her claws. He shouted as he raised a hand to his face, and then his other to ward off the next blow. She turned and stumbled up the stairs as if she would escape him, but Tavish was quicker, seizing her bony wrist and whipping her around to press her against the stones of the stairwell.
“Turn me loose, you bastard!” she screamed up at him, her hands flailing, her knees and feet churning into his body. “You common filth! Thief!”
Tavish managed to capture both of her wrists in what he knew must be a crushing grip, and then he seized Glenna Douglas’s chin and jaw, effectively stifling the flow of vitriol from her mouth.
“Shut up,” he growled, nearly nose to nose with her as the thunder crashed beyond the stone walls. Their torsos pressed together, and he fancied he could feel her heartbeat trill within her shallow frame, like that of a captured bird. “You gather your things, and the things of your father, and you both be gone from my house.My house,” he emphasized. “As soon as the rain stops. If you are so inclined to work for your keep, you may have one of the cottages in the village.Princess,” he added with hissing scorn.
He released her jaw and yanked his hand back as she tried to bite him with an outraged shriek. She stumbled sideways and then backward up the stairs glaring at him, her eyes fiery but dry. When she was out of his reach, she stopped, her mouth twisting in a sneer.
“I’ll not be your villager,” she spat. “You’re a common bastard, and you always will be. Words on a page don’t make you noble.”
“On the next dry day,” Tavish repeated. “I don’t want to see sign of you before then, lest I lose my temper and teach you a lesson on how to mind the laird of the hold.”
“You keep your filthy, beggar hands away from me.” She lifted her chin as she turned and left him on the stairs.
Tavish touched his mouth and looked down at the blood on his fingertips. The mad woman had busted his lip. He turned to go back down the stairs and saw Mam waiting at the bottom with a laden tray in her hands and a look of disappointment on her face.
She raised an eyebrow at his pointed glance at the food and drink on the tray. “Nae a word, Tavish Cameron. I’m yer mam and I’ll cuff ye as well, laird or nay.”
Tavish gritted his teeth as he walked past his mother toward the barbican. He could just see the first of the ship hands carrying crates and barrels into the courtyard.
If he’d had any doubt of Glenna Douglas’s nobility before today, her behavior confirmed it without a doubt. She was utterly useless to him. Whatever difficulties she and her father had created for themselves were only Tavish’s problems inasmuch as the Douglases had so outrageously mismanaged Roscraig, and it would be he who must rebuild the derelict hold and village.
The sooner she was gone from his house and out of his way, the better.
Chapter 5
Glenna flung herself across the foot of her father’s bed, her body shaking, her throat choked with gasps. Her arm throbbed where Tavish Cameron had gripped her. She knew that her flesh was so spare now, dark bruises would testify to his touch.
She felt as though she were either going mad or in the malevolent whirlwind of a never-ending nightmare. Everything in her life was being systematically destroyed. The village was gone, the hold was in poverty. What would happen to her after Iain Douglas drew his last breath?
The chamber door gave its familiar, tired creak, and Glenna whipped her head around.
Harriet Cameron stood in the doorway holding a tray in her hands. “I wanted to bring it before it went cold.”
Glenna froze for a moment, her pride warring with her aching, lonely heart. This woman was the mother of the monster who was stealing her home. But she had also prepared her own food for Glenna to eat, and her efforts seemed without rancor.
“Might I come in, milady?”
Glenna didn’t trust herself to speak—indeed, she had no idea what she should say to the woman were she to open her mouth, and so she only nodded dumbly.
Harriet entered and briskly crossed the floor, affording Glenna time to straighten from the bed and swipe at her eyes while the woman slid the tray onto the bedside table, jostling the pathetic bowl and rag that had lived there for what seemed like weeks now. Then Harriet faced the sunken countenance of Iain Douglas and gave a quick bob.
