Page 82 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Charlotte chanced a quick look at the Laird beside her. The leader of the MacQuarries looked quite livid; there was a vein thumping in his temple and his teeth were grinding visibly.
When they were about fifteen paces from the small delegation of Highlanders, Captain Bolton came to a halt. Edward was jerked to a standstill by his guards.
“Edward! My love, are you hurt?” Charlotte suddenly burst out. She realized that, all things considered, it would not make much difference to her saying the words.
I am doomed anyway, but I can still tarnish my father’s cherished reputation. Every man here can hear how I feel about this Highlander.
“Edward, talk to me, my love!” Charlotte cried.
Every word that she heard spoken from his lips counted now. As soon as the trade was made, she had little hope that she would ever take a free breath whilst her father lived—let alone see Edward or these Highland hills again.
“I’m afraid,” Captain Bolton said, through a mouth twisted and contorted with disgust and rage at the way that his daughter was talking, “that our guest might be a little...groggy. My men were ratherenthusiasticduring our interrogation of him when we found him.”
“Ye bloodybastard, Bolton,” the Laird snarled, “after how I have treated yer own daughter, ye send me back me son in such a state that he cannae talk.” He placed a hand around Charlotte’s upper arm, and she trembled to feel the dormant strength in his grip. She was sure that he would be able to break her arm if he fancied it.
“It’s an improvement if you ask me,” Bolton snapped back. “I couldn’t understand half of what the oaf was grunting about anyway.”
The Laird’s eyes were blazing with hatred. Instead of responding to Captain Bolton’s insult though, he addressed his son.
“Are ye still in one piece, lad?” he called.
Edward took a lurching step towards his father’s voice, but was pulled up short by his guards. He nodded his head wearily.
“Hah!” the Laird roared, shaking Charlotte so that her teeth rattled in her head. “Do ye see that it’ll take more than a bit o’ ticklin’ from yer pack of southern whelps to hurt me lad?!”
Captain Bolton rolled his eyes and let out a long, unimpressed sigh.
“Yes, yes, well done,” he drawled. “If being able to stand up after a soft beating is what passes for an achievement in this backward country then, by all means, why don’t we get your entire rabble applauding? I assume you can train even this lot of louts to clap on command?”
Charlotte had never been more repulsed by her own father.
“Father,” she said, speaking before either the Laird or Captain Bolton could say anything else that might instigate a battle. “Father, can we just make this exchange and be done?”
Captain Bolton’s icy eyes snapped towards his daughter. Charlotte did not see even a shadow of love in their crystalline cobalt depths.
“Yes,” he said, “yes, I suppose that you’re quite right, daughter.”
The Laird pushed Charlotte forward—his anger making him a little rougher than was his wont. Charlotte stumbled out into the strip of no-man’s-land that separated the two waiting armies.
“Your daughter for me son, as agreed,” the Laird spat.
“My prisoner for yours,” the English army Captain replied, his face a contemptuous mask, “just as we agreed, MacAlpein.”
He gestured to the two men who had been holding Edward. The soldiers walked towards the prisoner and unfastened the shackles on his wrists. Then they shoved him roughly forward.
Edward and Charlotte began to walk out into the strip of grass that divided the English and Scottish armies. Edward was a pitiful sight, dragging his leg and limping. As he drew closer, Charlotte saw the crusted blood on his arms and around his barrel of a chest. Her eyes searched for the wound on his bicep that had been inflicted by Hirst’s knife.
I hope that, whatever treatment he has been receiving, it has not infected the cut or opened the stitches.
She frowned. Despite the grime and blood that was smeared over his muscled arms, she was sure that she should have been able to make out the thin, expertly stitched knife cut.
She was only ten strides or so from him now, and she yearned to reach out and touch him, to hear him say her name just one more time.
Then the prisoner, with head bagged, stumbled on a tuft of grass and swore.
Charlotte stopped in her tracks and stared, as if seeing the man for the first time.
“What the—”
