Page 14 of My Scot, My Surrender
Bogan continued to address Finlay. “He arrived last night, and must’ve heard news of the wedding. He’s coming with his men now.”
“Shite,” Evan growled as he and Finlay went to their horses and swung up into the saddles. Gavin crossed himself and closed his eyes, muttering a prayer before doing the same. The tension in the stable yard snapped tight as the rest of the men mounted, fast.
Behind her, Sorcha felt the ground tremble with Ares’s hoof falls. Brandt appeared beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.
“Stay close to me,” he said, his tone composed. She wanted to feel the same level of quiet dignity, but her body rebelled. What was bloody wrong with her? Hadn’t she bested Craig in a sword fight the day before? And he certainly hadn’t curbed his blows. When it came to battle, Sorcha was skilled and able, though the impotent rage she felt now was debilitating. Malvern held the power and the means to destroy her family, and his despicable first knight, Coxley, was more than happy to carry out his orders.
At that moment, a handful of armored men on horseback turned into the stable yard. They were dressed for war, it seemed. Sorcha held her breath as Lord Malvern turned in, pushing through his men and coming to the fore. He had not changed since the last she’d seen him, months ago.
The marquess was straight-backed and tall, thickly built, and fox-faced. His mouth was constantly drawn, as though perpetually disappointed in something, as it was right then. Malvern’s glare cut around the stable yard until it landed upon Sorcha. His watery blue eyes froze her with a pointed look of ownership that made her flesh crawl. His thin nostrils flared and then his eyes shot to the man standing at her side. Brandt was unnaturally quiet as every last sound in the courtyard perished. None of the Maclaren men moved. Not one horse nickered.
Until the marquess drew his sword from a saddle sheath and pointed it straight at Brandt. “I demand satisfaction. Raise your sword, upstart, and prepare to pay for your presumptuous mistake.”
Chapter Five
A ripple of agitation shivered through Ares, and Brandt hushed him with a soft sound. His horse could sense the threat hanging in the air just as keenly as every other man and animal present.
And woman.
Beside him, he could feel Sorcha bristling, her jaw fused shut and her eyes sparking with frustration. Lord Malvern was not a man to be taken lightly, not with several of his men surrounding him and a dozen more out front of the inn. They outnumbered the Maclaren men two to one, and there was something else present. Some sense of forced obeisance surrounding not just Sorcha, but her brothers as well. Malvern commanded this stable yard and all those within it. That much was clear.
Even as he struggled to understand why her dauntless brothers would bow down to someone like Malvern, Brandt stepped forward, Ares’s reins still in hand. “You’ll have to seek satisfaction elsewhere, Lord Malvern, for I’ve made no mistake, and I’ve no wish to fight,” he said to him.
Malvern’s eyes narrowed. “You know me.”
“I knowofyou.”
He could read men the same way he could horses, and Brandt had known from the first time he’d encountered Malvern in London at White’s, years back, that he was a master of deceit. A man like Malvern didn’t play fair at anything, and he wouldn’t fight fair, either.
The marquess shifted his sword, pointing it at Sorcha. The fact that he would ever align the tip of his sword with a woman infuriated Brandt. That it was Sorcha he’d taken aim at, enraged him.
“Then perhaps you do not know that this woman is to bemywife, as dictated by the king himself.”
“You’ll do well to lower your sword,” Brandt said, reining in a flash of irritation. “And she is no longer a maiden, but a married woman.”
“Aye, Lord Malvern, ’tis so,” Gavin said from his saddle, his hand clasped around the cross resting against his chest. “Lady Pierce’s reputation was at stake. ’Twas nothing to be done but see them wed.”
The somber words hung thickly in the air between them like a cloud.
“LadyPierce?” An animalistic growl ripped from Malvern’s throat as he sliced the sword through the air before returning it to its sheath. “You inbred fools. Do you have any idea what punishment Maclaren will suffer for such a betrayal?”
Sorcha sucked in an audible breath and lurched forward. “It wasn’t his fault—”
“Silence!” the marquess seethed. “I will not listen to the words of a maimed harlot.”
Sorcha drew back, as if she’d been slapped, and the desire to tear Malvern limb from limb shook Brandt to his core. Finlay and Evan directed their horses between him and Malvern before Brandt could charge forward.
“Calm yerself, Malvern,” Finlay said in a bizarrely placating voice. “Ye’ll be compensated, I vow it.”
To this, Finlay received a contemptuous scoff from the marquess. “Compensation,” he repeated. “What Iwantis the alliance I was bequeathed by the bloody King of England, you cock-brained idiot.”
A collective hush fell over the stable yard. Maclaren men eyed one another as Sorcha’s brother tightened his posture in his saddle. Brandt expected him to reach for his sword and swing at Malvern’s head for the insult. But, other than the slight hitch of his blocky chin, Finlay remained motionless. He said nothing in his own defense, though his jaw clenched tight with anger and his fingers whitened against the reins. Brandt frowned as a peculiar sense of dread trickled into him.
“The marriage will be annulled,” Malvern announced. “Immediately. Coxley, fetch the magistrate.”
A hulking knight behind Malvern turned to follow the order.Coxley.A chime of recognition strummed at the back of Brandt’s mind. Coxley had been Malvern’s colonel during the war, and his deeds on the battlefield had chilled Brandt to the bone when he’d first heard of them. Coxley had slain many a soldier, but it was his penchant for disemboweling his enemies with perverse fervor that other Englishmen had remembered.
Brandt pushed the sickening images away. He would not be intimidated by Malvern’s man. Nor would he pay attention to the unnatural cowardice the Maclaren men were displaying.
