Page 4 of My Scot, My Surrender
This was a man of uncommon restraint…reminding her of the kinds of predators that sat in wait for prey to get dangerously close. He had not been flustered when he’d fought off Craig and his cousins. Even now, he did not seem agitated. His stoicism in the wake of her brother’s anger worried her more than if he’d decided to rail and scream.
“No, I am not married,” he said finally, and with a pointed glance at Sorcha, added, “nor do I intend to be.”
Three pairs of matching gazes swiveled toward him. “Ye’ve ruined our sister, a lady,” Finlay said again. Contrary to his tone before, now he spoke slowly and loudly as though making a proclamation to the remaining crowd, and the hint of melodrama made Sorcha frown. She’d half expected Finlay to decapitate the man in blind rage, but he suddenly seemed rapt with Gavin’s sanctimonious idea of marriage. “Ye’ll do right by her, ye ken?”
Christ’s swinging bagpipes, was this truly happening? Sorcha felt faint.
A muscle leaped in the man’s jaw. “Your sister kissedme.”
“Ye lying sack of—” Evan looked ready to murder him with his bare hands, but he was saved from that end as the local constable approached with two burly men in tow. The situation was quickly explained, and Sorcha panicked when she saw the constable nodding in unison with her brothers and cousin, who still insisted the only solution was a wedding.
Why in the blazes was the fool agreeing? She had to do something.
“No,” she said, shoving her way to the constable. “I kissed him. It was my doing.”
“Nae, Cousin,” Gavin said, also a hair too loud and dramatic. “The Sassenach kens better. Ye’re naught but a lass, and he’s a grown man. He took undue advantage when he just as well could have pushed ye away.”
“He did not take anything that wasn’t willingly given,” she said, flushing hard.
Her brothers scowled at her, but neither of them relented. They exchanged glances as Finlay set his jaw. “He will marry ye, and that’s the end of it.”
Sorcha made one last effort, her voice laced with panic. “Are the three of ye cracked? Cannae ye see he doesnae want to?”
“Perhaps some time in a cell will change his mind,” Evan suggested with a dark look. The constable nodded and stepped forward.
The stranger did nothing as a pair of irons were clamped around his wrists, though she felt the weight of his inscrutable gaze the entire time until he was led away. A massive brute of a horse with a patchwork of scars along its flanks clopped along after him. No wonder the man hadn’t flinched at her scars, if he kept a horse like that.
Guilt leached through her. An innocent man was in shackles because of her…one who had come to her aid in a brawl. And one who hadn’t looked at her as if she were the victim of a killing gone wrong. Instead, he’d responded to her kiss as if she were any other woman, unscarred and desirable.
Sorcha pressed a finger to her still throbbing lips, a plan once again forming in her head as she faced her brother. “I need to go to the seamstress—”
“Dunnae even start, Sorcha,” Finlay muttered. “Ye’ve done enough.”
“It’s for Mama,” she said, the lie burning her tongue. “Fabric for dresses. The shop is just over yonder. You will see me the whole time.”
He narrowed his eyes at her as if he knew she was lying, but nodded with thinned lips. “To the shop and back. I’ll wait here.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sorcha, five minutes or I come after ye.”
“It will take more than five minutes to sort through Mama’s order, Finlay,” she said in a patient tone, hoping that her underlying desperation would be hidden. “’Twill be at least ten.”
When he agreed with a scowl, she hurried away, toward the lane of shops that cut through the village, feeling his eyes on her until the door to the seamstress’s swung shut behind her. Greeting the sewing girls who had seen Sorcha many times before, and ignoring the way their eyes always flared at the sight of her marred face, she hastened through the shop to the back door, and then turned toward the village prison. Evan, Gavin, the constable, and his two men were in deep conversation outside, arguing about the best course of action. She slipped inside and released a pent-up breath, relieved there was no one in the entrance hall. Sorcha glanced at the thick processing ledger resting on a nearby desk.
Mr. Brandt Montgomery Pierce of Worthington Abbey, Essex, England.
He had a distinguished name. He wasn’t a titled lord, but he was evidently a man of some means. The fit of his clothing had been tailored for his powerful shoulders and those long, muscular legs. She’d gotten enough of an eyeful of his bunching muscles when he’d thrown Craig’s cousin arse over heels. Sorcha pocketed the iron keys that lay on a hook near the desk and made her way down the narrow, darkened hallway.
The first two cells were empty.
“Come to gloat?” a low voice drawled.
Sorcha whirled and peered into the third cell, obscured with shadow. She pressed closer to the bars, her hands going around the rough iron, and gasped as long, ungloved fingers captured hers with leashed masculine force. An unexpected thrill shot up her arms, along with unwanted impressions of those lean-fingered hands roaming all over her body.
“Release me,” she whispered, cheeks scalding.
At first, it seemed as if he wasn’t going to, and she looked down; his shins were close enough for a swift kick through the bars. But then his grip went slack, and she stepped away, catching her breath. Sorcha wanted to run from the accusatory press of his eyes.
“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“And yet it did, Lady Maclaren.”
