“In that case, you’d best be telling your Raider to leave my husband alone. If he is harmed again, I won’t rest until I have every one of your rebel hides in the stocks. And I mean you, too, brother.”
He gaped in disbelief. “You would choose a Sassenach over your own brother?”
“I would not want to, but I won’t have my husband hurt. Now tell me who shot him yesterday.”
He jutted his jaw out defiantly and by the light in his eyes, she could tell he knew the answer, but would sooner die than tell it to her. “It was only a warning. Next time, they won’t miss.”
Callie removed the anger from her tone and tried to appeal to him more calmly. She loved her brother more than anything and the last thing she wanted was to see him hurt for so foolish a cause. “Dermot, please. Why must you be involved in this? If you will give me the names of the ones who raid, I swear to you I won’t turn them in, but I needs speak with them. We must have peace.”
“Peace? Our father would be spinning in the earth to hear you say that. He hated the English, and if you were truly a daughter of his, you would never stand for that man to bed with you. Let alone beg him for it.”
For the first time in her life, Callie wanted to slap her brother. Her palm itched from the want of it. “Give me the name of The Raider.”
“Or what?” he sneered. “Will you tell your precious Sassenach husband that I am one of those who raids?”
She was aghast at the very idea of it. “I have never betrayed you.”
“And you better not.” The cold fury in his blue eyes scared her. She’d never seen him like this before.
“Are you threatening me?”
The look softened ever so subtly. “I would never hurt you, Callie. But I will not betray them. If your husband ever learns I am one of the rebels, he will have me tortured for the rest of the names. Are you willing to see me executed?”
“Of course not.”
“Then get rid of him.”
Oh the lad could be insufferably stubborn. And selfish. How dare he stand there and make such demands. But it was time she let him know her stance on this issue. “I am his wife. If he leaves, I must leave, too.”
“Then let us kill him.”
She shook her head at him. Now he was being completely unreasonable. “Could you honestly do that?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Have you any idea the number of men he has killed? Jamie said he heard the English knights curse his name and relate the horrors that man has wreaked on others. He said your husband was known to cut the throats of sleeping men. It would only be justice to see him dead.”
“I don’t believe that to be justice,” she breathed. “Desperate men do desperate things. You know father’s saying as well as I do. What my husband did, he did for survival. I won’t hold that against him. He was a scared boy.”
“A scared boy who cost many men their lives.” He was so harsh and judgmental and she wondered when he had changed. The Dermot she remembered was a dear lad who was quick to laugh and even quicker to let bygones be bygones. But this half-grown man before her was a stranger to her.
“Sin made mistakes,” she insisted.
“He committed crimes and he should pay for them.”
“You are not his judge.”
Dermot glared at her. “Did you live in England so long that they clouded your mind and won your heart?”
“You know better than that.”
“Do I?”
Och, the lad was making her angrier and angrier. If she didn’t leave soon, they were both going to say things they would regret even more.
“You are selfish, Dermot. You need to be growing up, lad, and learn that sometimes we have to compromise for the peace of others.”
“Compromise? You’re talking about embracing an enemy my father gave his life trying to defeat.”
“Dermot, please. Be reasonable. This is a different world we live in now. We need to?—”
