“Ow, Tavish—stop.”
“I’m dancing with you—if we stop, it will seem suspect.”
“You’re stepping on my feet, and we’ve just run over the marquis!”
“Fine.” He whirled her out of the circle to the shadows of the far wall. “What did Hargrave say to you?” he repeated.
Glenna looked up at Tavish towering over her, his expression full of barely restrained fury. She’d hoped to impress him, make him realize how good she would be for him; how, together, they could conquer any problem created by their less than conventional lives.
She wanted him to love her, not Audrey Keane, who had suddenly that night seemed to want to make friends with Glenna.
But the first words he’d said to her were an interrogation pertaining to an old man who perhaps had the power to threaten Tavish’s claim on Glenna’s home. And the repercussions of that were very clear now. A chill twisted up her spine, freezing any heated emotions that wanted release, but also helping her to stand taller and stirring her anger into a manageable simmer.
“Very well. He told me that Iain Douglas is Roscraig’s rightful laird.”
She saw Tavish’s thick, whisker-shadowed throat convulse as he swallowed, and his fingers around her arms gentled. “It’s a lie, Glenna.”
“You’d like me to believe that,” she said as she jerked away from him. “I knew when you first came here that my father would have never claimed something that didn’t belong to him. But I listened to you—you, who has everything in the world to gain by making me think my life was a lie, that my father was a liar.I believed you.”
“Glenna, Hargrave is only telling you what you wish to hear so that he can gain control over you.”
She leaned closer to him, trying to ignore the now familiar scent of him that wanted to soften her with whispered memories of how he had held her in his arms.
“Is he now?” she challenged. “That rather sounds like something you would do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said between her teeth. “You made your intentions for the hold and me clear straightaway, and you have not deviated from your plan. The only reason you’ve shown me any care or attention was to keep me enamored of you until after the king handed down his decision. You manipulated me.”
“I’ve never manipulated you, Glenna. Vaughn Hargrave has ill intent toward you.”
She stared in disbelief at him, huffed a mirthless laugh. “And what exactly have your intentions toward me been, Tavish? Honorable?” She waited a scant moment for a reply that she knew wouldn’t come. “Lord Hargrave recognizes me as the lady of Roscraig. Now, I think I have performed enough for one evening; I must look in on my father.”
She made to move past him, but Tavish grabbed her arm again. “You will return directly to the hall afterward. Go nowhere else, and do not leave this hold.”
Glenna wheeled around and struck him soundly across the cheek, the blow echoing over even the music in the hall and drawing shocked glances from the guests.
“You are neither my husband nor my father,” Glenna said in a loud, clear voice, uncaring who watched, who heard. Let them witness it, these strangers, these people who had been neighbors to Roscraig for years and turned their backs on her father. She hoped they enjoyed every salacious moment.
“And until the king has given his word,you are notthe laird of Roscraig. Dare you to lay your common hand upon me again,Master Cameron, and I shall see you arrested upon the king’s arrival.”
His eyes hardened. “A lady now that you’re no longer in rags, are you? I bought the dress you’re wearing.”
“And I kept Frang Roy from slitting your throat in your sleep,” she parried. “We all make mistakes.”
Glenna turned and took the arm of the marquis who had unabashedly approached to listen to the altercation. The nobleman gallantly escorted her from the hall and even waved to the musicians to once more strike up their lively tune. Once in the dark, cool corridor, Glenna calmly thanked the marquis for his accompaniment and held her head high as she mounted the stairs, as slowly and with as much dignity as possible.
It was only once she rounded the shielding curve of the landing that she allowed herself to pause against the stones with a gasp, the shock of her heartbreak so severe and final that it left her eyes dry; her chest cold and dark and hollow.
Chapter 16
Tavish felt the surreptitious stares burning through his tunic in the wake of Glenna’s bold rejection and departure from the hall, but he didn’t care. Let them look—none of them meant anything to him. There was not one person in the hall now he could call his friend—even Audrey had vanished sometime in the past hour. And so now he was surrounded by vicious strangers, bloodthirsty cannibals, these noblemen and rich merchants.
Welcome to the nobility, Tavish Cameron. Hargrave’s words haunted him, and Tavish felt like a fool.
Hargrave. Tavish had made the wrong choice in rounding up hands to remove the English lord from the feast before seeing that Glenna was out of harm’s way, thinking that Hargrave would surely raise objection. By the time Tavish had returned to the hall, Hargrave had her firmly ensnared in his web, filling her head with the lies that Tavish had hoped were naught but grandiose threats meant to bully Tavish into giving the man what he wanted. He had then departed easily, having already set in motion his dastardly plan for achieving his goal.
Of which Tavish was as of yet unsure. Hargrave didn’t want Roscraig, and he’d been willing to forgive the bulk of the debt of the Tower’s taxes. He’d said he wanted revenge for the wrongs done to him, but how could that be achieved by stealing away with Glenna? She had no connection to Thomas Annesley—had never so much as heard the name when Tavish had arrived at Roscraig.
