Adam bristled. “She’s not yours. Rhiannon is already spoken for.”
Ian shook his head, locking eyes in a deadly stare. “Ye’re right about one thing—she is spoken for. She’s my wife, and I’ll no’ let ye have her.”
“Your…wife!” Adam went nearly purple in the face, spittle flying as he said it.
The man seated on the horse beside him, who Ian took to be the very one who thought he’d spoken for Rhiannon, glared daggers at essentially everything and everyone.
Adam stared over Ian’s head, likely toward the battlements where Rhiannon was standing, not that Ian had looked. He still couldn’t. But he could feel her presence there, and that was enough to scare the wits out of him.
“How dare you marry my betrothed,” the other man said.
“How dare you buy her from her brother,” Ian retorted. “Did anyone never teach ye that people should not be bought and sold?”
“Buy? That is not how it works,” the man seethed. “We had a contract, an agreement.” He over-pronounced each T as if Ian didn’t understand the language.
Ian shrugged because he didn’t give a damn. “That was how it worked for ye. Adam owed ye a debt; ye tried to take payment in the form of his sister.”
“How dare you call me Adam!” his brother-by-marriage shouted in outrage.
Ian was growing bored with this ridiculous back and forth. This was not a negotiation, but more like a few green lads pissing on each other in the bailey after lessons. “Is that no’ your name?”
“No heathen should dare say it.”
“If ye’re referring to me as the heathen, then I just did.” Ian couldn’t help goading him, and he got great satisfaction from the fury pouring from Adam.
“I ought to beat you for speaking to me with such insolence,” Adam hissed.
“Come down off your horse. I’d be happy to let ye try.” Ian held his hands to the side, challenging the idiot to do that. What he wouldn’t give to let him have a few swipes and then pummel his idiotic arse into the ground.
“The insolence!”
Ian rolled his eyes and glanced at Noah, who seemed to be enjoying the show.
“Are ye willing to negotiate?” Ian asked. “Or shall we fight? The choice is yours, but I willna offer it more than once.”
“We do not negotiate with heathens.”
“A fight, then.”
“To the death!” Rhiannon’s brother pulled his sword, and his friend beside him did the same.
“If ye say so.” Ian shook his head and looked at Noah who held a similar expression. They headed back to their horses. “This is no’ going to be a fair fight.”
“No,” Noah said.
“I dinna want to kill her brother. Everyone else is fair game.”
“What do ye intend to do with him?” Noah and Ian mounted their horses, gazes on the men who’d come to fight.
“I think, take him prisoner for now. Perhaps I’ll let my wife decide what we do with him. We could always take him back to Orkney, and he’d have no way to escape unless he stole a ship, which seems unlikely.”
Noah chuckled. “The man would go mad.”
“Perhaps it will cure him of what ails him.”
“Gambling problem?”
“Aye. Can ye imagine gambling away one of our sisters?”
