Lochlan could feel his blood starting to boil. Granted Braden was a bit rambunctious when it came to women, but even his scandalous brother knew when to draw the line of propriety.
Most of the time, anyway.
It wasn’t Fergus’s or Davis’s place to reprimand Braden. That was for Lochlan to do.
“I left Braden in there to get the women out,” Lochlan explained.
About half the men snorted in disgust.
Treig came forward. Only half an inch shorter than Lochlan, the older man’s light gray eyes burned in anger. “I’ve spent the better part of a decade guarding my daughters from that randy brother of yours, and now you expect me to believe he’s not in there, right now, lining the women up to choose one or more to warm his bed? Whose notty-pated decision was it to send him in there in the first place?”
The word “mine” faltered on Lochlan’s tongue. No need to make the matter any worse than it already was. None of his men were ready to listen to reason.
Silently, Lochlan cursed his brother’s raging hormones and good looks. Better he should have had a brother who looked like a warted troll than one who was forever being pursued by the fairer sex.
The men began shouting at him again.
Lochlan held his hands up to silence them.
Seeking to allay their fears, he explained Braden’s plan as best he could, and prayed for them to listen.
“Braden went inside the kirk to bring Maggie out. She’s the only woman he’s after, the rest are safe.”
Bitter, cruel laughter broke out.
“What kind of fools do you take us for?” Davis asked. “None of us would have Maggie on her best day. Now why would your brother be after her when he could have the best looking among them, including my wife?”
The cold-hearted statement brought a sudden echoing silence to the hall.
All eyes turned slowly to Maggie’s four brothers who had come inside with the others. Stephen, Ian, Duncan and Jamie looked as if they were ready to kill each man standing in the room.
“And just what do you be meaning by that, Davis MacDowd?” Jamie asked in a low, lethal tone.
Davis stammered as he regarded the four angry brothers united in defense of their baby sister. “I didn’t mean much. It’s just you know yourself that no man here has ever courted her.”
The words only served to make the brothers’ faces even redder, their bodies more tense as they regarded the men around them.
“And what’s wrong with my little sister?” Duncan took up the challenge.
Fergus was stupid enough to answer. “First, she’s not much to look at. And second, she’s off in the head. Look what she’s gone and done with the women! Not to mention, she attacked me in the kirk when I went to see my wife.”
The words set off total chaos in the hall as the four brothers growled in rage, then attacked their clansmen.
Lochlan joined the fray, trying to bring peace to his men. Curses and shouts rang through the hall, along with the sounds of fists striking flesh, and breaking furniture.
Never in his life had he seen such a melee.
The urge to cross the room and remove his sword from the mantel was strong, but he didn’t truly want to hurt any of them. He did, however, want them to exercise a little restraint.
As Lochlan struggled to pull the brothers from the fray, five men set upon him at once. Before Lochlan could extract himself from their beefy hands, they seized him and set him down hard in a chair before the hearth.
“What are you doing?” Lochlan asked as three of the men held him in place while two others grabbed ropes.
The answer was plain. They were tying him up and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
After a few more minutes, Maggie’s four brothers were seated next to him, with the five of them trussed up like birds for the slaughter.
Cursing them all, Lochlan struggled against the ropes which bound him to the chair. If he ever got out of this, they would pay dearly for their actions.
