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‘How dare you speak to me like that in my own hall.’
‘Come now, McDougall, let us be direct. It has been but a few weeks since I gave two of your curs a thrashing when they were caught on my land. Do you not recall my sending them back to you?’
‘Aye, and they were sorely used by your men.’
‘Not like this,’ he said pointing towards Murray. ‘And they were alive, weren’t they? I did not stretch their necks. This is an isolated piece of foolishness. My son was trying to prove his manhood. Let me take the skin off his back for this slight to you and make you many head of cattle richer.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because if you hang him, the outcome will be less profitable for you, and you have my word on that.’
‘Is that a threat, Campbell?’
‘No it’s a promise, you reap what you sow Angus, just remember that.’
Ailsa could feel Duncan’s temper sliding away from him. She had to do something.
‘Please Laird, we ask that you be merciful on this occasion. A favour to our clan and one that will be repaid a thousand times over, I can assure you. Murray acted recklessly as all young men do to prove their manhood, as you would have done in the past I am sure,’ she finished, smiling warmly.
‘Ah Lady Ailsa, the voice of reason,’ he replied, trying to scramble back from the brink of a violent end on the point of Duncan’s sword, it not today then one day. ‘Your devotion to this wretch does you credit, as does your kind heart, it was the reason my brother Hamish always thought so highly of you.’
‘You flatter me, sir, for I am sure he would barely remember me.’
‘Ask him yourself as he arrived last night from Edinburgh. Ah, here he is now.’
Ailsa caught sight of Duncan’s face, turned to stone, as his hand moved slowly to the hilt of his sword. She turned and there was Duncan’s old rival for her affections, Hamish McDougall.
As he swept into the hall she swallowed hard and pasted a bright smile on her face, pretending with all her heart that she was happy to see him. Despite having been close childhood friends, she had not seen Hamish for many years, the last occasion having been when he had declared his undying love for her, begging her to run away with him. She had been newly married to Duncan at the time, whose powerful clan, the Campbells, had overthrown hers, the MacLeods. There may have been an element of coercion involved in her nuptials but Ailsa had already fallen in love with her Campbell husband and so she had rejected Hamish and the life of sin he had offered.
There was no chance he would have forgotten that insult to his pride and was now sure to be spiteful. So Murray’s life or death might turn, not on Duncan and his threats of retaliation, but on her ability to charm her old admirer.
Hamish strutted arrogantly into the room, dismissing Duncan with a glare and fixing his gaze on her. She assumed the woman walking in behind him was his wife. Plain would be a fair description of her. The heiress who had been unlucky enough to catch his eye was whey-faced, short and stout, and when she tottered after her elegant husband, together, they reminded Ailsa of a duck waddling after a swan. Ailsa felt sorry for the woman for Hamish had probably wed her to get his hands on her considerable dowry and she looked miserable.
‘My wife Elspeth,’ he said to Ailsa with a dismissive toss of the head as his eyes roamed all over her body.
Strikingly handsome in his youth, Hamish had not aged particularly well. His face had the doughy pallor of years of soft living and there was a slightly seedy air to his once fine features. He was heavier than he once had been and had the sly look of a well-fed weasel as he turned his jaded eye from her to Duncan.
‘So, you are here to plead the cause of this dog, Campbell. Why bother yourself? He didn’t spring from your loins, he’s just a worthless bastard.’
‘He is our son in all but name and my wife has a fondness for him.’
‘Aye, she always did have a soft spot for lost causes. Ailsa, have you not learnt by now that you shouldn’t give your heart to the undeserving?’ It was clear that now Hamish finally had the upper hand he was damn well going to use it.
‘I would ask that you free him, Hamish, though he may be a terrible scoundrel, as a mark of our friendship all these years,’ said Ailsa sweetly.
‘I have not seen you for many of those years, thanks to the enmity of your husband. And I would enjoy seeing that whelp dance on the end of a rope.’ He looked at Murray with utter contempt and no pity.
‘And I would enjoy seeing you skewered on the end of my sword, you slimy whoreson,’ snarled Murray.
‘I said quiet you fool,’ bellowed Duncan, his eyes blazing.
Ailsa had warned Duncan to be calm but she could tell he longed to tear Hamish’s head from his shoulders. Hamish was unperturbed and took Ailsa’s hand in his. It was a liberty, but one she endured for Murray’s sake.
‘I am quite within my rights to hang him for his thievery.’ It was an iron threat delivered in a patronising voice of silk.
‘You sayyoumay hang him?’ snarled Duncan. ‘I thought Angus was Laird here or am I mistaken?’
Anger reddened Hamish’s face and he looked fit to explode. Vanity was the defining part of his character, any slight to it would make him vicious.
