Page 2 of To Serve a Laird
James looked surprised, then he smiled, a dark, evil expression that made Claire shiver with dread. She could not believe what she was hearing. Her own father was actuallysellingher! She thought it had all been a ruse to scare her, after all, could a father really sell their daughter away like that?
“Make me an offer,” he replied.
The man named a sum, and James Tewsbury shook his head, then suggested a higher one. The fat man laughed at him, and her father shrugged and turned to walk away, but the tubby man grabbed his arm to turn him around. They faced each other for a moment, then the fat man mentioned a higher sum.
Claire would always remember the next few horrific moments with sickening clarity. The two men haggled back and forth for some time until they reached a price that was acceptable to both of them, then they shook hands on the deal. That was when Claire realised that she had just been bought like a thing—a piece of property.
“No!” she cried, and every pair of eyes in the tavern turned to look at her.
However, she had no time to say anything else, for just then a deep, husky voice, louder than everyone else’s, cut through the air.
“I will pay you double,” it said.
Claire turned to see the source of the sound, and her mouth fell open in astonishment.
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The owner of the voice was the tallest, broadest, most fearsome man she had ever seen. Claire looked into a pair of ice-blue eyes that were set in a hard, angular, but very handsome face, over which there was a mass of thick, wavy black hair. However, she had no time to admire him, even if she had felt inclined to do so. Now was the time to fight for her freedom. She was afraid, yes, but above her fear was a bitter hatred and searing rage.
“I am not a commodity to be bought and sold,” she yelled. “You cannot treat me like a thing, an object! I am a human being and I will not be your slave!”
Her father grabbed Claire’s arm and turned her to face him. His eyes were blazing with fury. “You are whatever I say you are,” he said, his voice low, but throbbing with rage. “You will go and do a decent day’s work instead of sitting around the house all day with your nose buried in a book.”
“At least I do not spend my time drinking and gambling,” Claire retorted, all fear gone.
A moment later, however, she cowered back as her father let out a roar and raised his arm to strike her, but the blow neverlanded. The tall stranger’s big hand shot out and grabbed James Tewsbury’s wrist in a punishing grip.
Claire’s father yelped and turned around to face the stranger, who said nothing, but glared at him so fiercely that he cringed backwards, trying fruitlessly to escape the big man’s grasp.
There was a split second when Claire could have made a dash for freedom, but when she saw the man’s sheer strength, she decided against it. There was no chance of escape, but it gratified her to see how he had rendered her father helpless, a whimpering, pathetic creature who was trapped in his captor’s grip.
Claire watched as the man slowly let go of her father’s arm, and for a moment, she thought James Tewsbury was going to run away. However, she knew him to be far too greedy; he would go nowhere unless he was paid.
As soon as he was free, Tewsbury screwed up his face in pain and began to rub his wrist to ease the agony. Claire smiled in satisfaction, then caught the stranger’s eye as he flicked a glance at her. To her surprise, he looked concerned, but as he turned to her father again, she decided that she must be imagining things. It was obvious that this man had no tenderness in his heart at all.
“C-can you pay me now?” Claire’s father asked, still rubbing his pained flesh.
Claire saw tears of anguish in his eyes and was filled with dark glee. She had loved her father once, but this ruined creature in front of her was no longer her father, and she hated him with every fibre of her being.
“How much do you want?” the stranger asked.
James Tewsbury named the sum, which Claire was sure was more than double what the fat man had asked him to pay, but she said nothing, and the stranger took a few gold sovereigns from a leather pouch. He counted them out on the bar top and looked at Claire’s father.
“Thank you,” he said.
James Tewsbury’s eyes were still shining, but this time it was with greed, and he smiled with unholy satisfaction as he swept the coins from the counter with one hand and stuffed them into his pocket. He tossed a careless glance at his daughter.
“Goodbye, Claire,” he said, before he went to order more ale.
She looked after him, shocked by his utter indifference, but the tall stranger grasped her arm and began to lead her away. His hold was firm, but not brutal, like the grip he had used on her father.
As the big man turned her towards the door, Claire caught sight of her books—or what was left of them—lying on the floor, and panicked.
“My books,” she cried. “I cannot leave without them. Please let me fetch them!” She looked up imploringly into his blue eyes, but they were as cold as the North Sea on a winter day.
He shook his head. “They are ruined,” he said. “Useless.”
“Books are never useless.”
