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16
Archie McTavish had decided not to interrogate the prisoners for a few days as part of his intimidation tactics. He would starve them and let them stew for a while until they were so desperate for food that they would spill whatever information they had in order to be fed. He hated the messy instruments of torture and only used them as a last resort since the sight of blood and cries of pain sickened him. However, he needed to know if there were any other rebels in the area, where they were, and their number. He did not want his men to be fighting more running battles like the ones they had done the previous night.
Keira had had a restless, sleepless night fretting and worrying about Murdoch, wondering if the rebels were mistreating him. Of course, they were now apparently on the same side, but Murdoch still had many questions to answer before the rebels would trust him. He had been Captain of the Guard before he had been one of them, and for all they knew this could be some devious strategy to spy on them.
Now, however, the laird, in his turn, was about to be subjected to an interrogation—by his daughter.
When Keira stormed into the dining room after lying awake tossing and turning for hours, she was raging. She found her father and Adaira eating breakfast, her father with gusto, Adaira merely pushing food around her plate, looking pale and miserable.
They both looked up with surprise at her noisy entry, then the laird glared at her from under his brows.
“Good morning, Daughter,” he growled. “You don’t look pleased to see us.”
“On the contrary, Father,” Keira replied, smiling at Adaira, who smiled back. “I am very pleased to see Adaira, who is my friend as well as being my family. However, you—” she pointed to him and curled her lip in disgust—“are a piece of something I would rather scrape off my shoe, and I am ashamed to be your daughter.”
The laird sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, frowning fiercely. “I see your manners have deserted you,” he remarked drily. “What do you want, Keira?”
“Two things,” Keira replied, before going around to her father’s chair, where she looked down at him with contempt. “Where is the earl I am supposed to be marrying? And why did you arrest Murdoch Holmes?”
“Ah, the first is easy.” Her father treated her to a smug smile, which made Keira want to smash her fist into his nose. “He confessed to being one of the rebels. In fact, he said he was the leader. Thomson and McCall told me after they arrested him. What is your second question?”
Of course, she had known the answer to the question about Murdoch, but she needed to assure her father that she was not involved in the matter.
“Where is the Earl of Champling?” Keira growled. “Am I not permitted to meet my betrothed?”
The laird looked at her for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed uproariously.
“There is no earl!” he told her, after a few moments, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “He is a figment of my imagination, and no one knew that he did not exist until last night. I invented him, and I kept the secret to myself until it was time for the trap to be sprung. There is no earl, and the booty in his wagons is nothing more than pieces of wood and old farm tools. The earl is not dead; he was never born. And you, my daughter, will never be a countess.”
He chuckled, but Keira ignored his last remark. She had never wanted to be a countess. She was astounded, and she sat down heavily on a chair before her legs gave way.
“Why did you do this?” she demanded, but even as she asked, she knew the answer.
“Because it was the only way to rid myself of those bandits!” the laird snarled as he thumped his fist on the table. “I could not care less who they kill, but I am tired of my wealth being plundered by these criminals.” Then he smiled smugly at Keira. “And it worked, did it not? The day after tomorrow, I will begin to question them to find out where they have taken all the other goods they have stolen from me.”
“Why the day after tomorrow?” Adaira asked suddenly. “Why not now?”
“Because after a few days of starvation, they will tell me anything I want to know,” he answered, smiling as he swallowed another mouthful of ale.
Keira could feel her cheeks reddening with fury, and at that moment, she knew that if she had a sword in her hand, she would cheerfully have sliced her father’s head off.
“Monster.” Her voice was a throbbing snarl. “You are a child of the devil.”
Adaira stood up beside Keira, her dark eyes glowing with rage. “I curse you,” she said viciously. “And I curse the day I married you.” She turned and gave Keira a little push. “Come, Sister, there is a very bad smell in here. It is the smell of evil.”
She gave Laird Archie McTavish a venomous backward glance before they both walked out.
The laird sat alone for a while, then he stood up and swept every dish and cup from the floor so that they landed on the floor and splintered with a satisfying smash. He knew it would take the servants many hours to clear up the mess, but he was the laird, and he cared nothing about that. They all worked for him, after all.
His wife and his daughter were out of his control, and that made him as mad as a charging bull, but he had ways of reining them in again, and he looked forward to doing just that. Exercising his power over others was one of his favorite pastimes.
* * *
The rebels in the dungeons were eyeing Murdoch uncertainly. None of them spoke to him, so he sat in miserable silence while the men talked and even laughed amongst themselves. Even in a grim place like a jail, there was solace in companionship, but he was excluded. None of them even wanted to look in his direction.
There was not even the comfort of food and drink since they had been given neither a scrap of bread nor a sip of water since they arrived. There were six men crowded into Murdoch’s cell, and none of them smelled very good, but that was the least of his worries. His biggest problem was survival since he had no idea if or when the rebels were going to turn on him.
He was curled in the corner of the cell the next day, his stomach rumbling with hunger and his throat burning with thirst, when he heard a familiar voice calling his name.
