Page 89 of The Lyon and the Unicorn
“Doyewant the match, Da?” Shona asked, her eyes bright with moisture.
“Of course he does!” Lady McCallum snapped. “Stop playing the fool, and do yer duty.” She extended a ringed hand that glittered with jewels toward her daughter.
Shona released Clara’s hand, approached her mother, then hesitated, as if her heart warred with her duty. Then she shook her head.
“I-I cannot,” she said. “I don’t love him.”
Her mother scoffed. “What has love to do with—”
“Love iseverything!” Shona said. “I must follow my heart, before it’s too late.”
“What nonsense is this?” Lady McCallum said. Clara’s stomach fluttered with apprehension as she turned her attention from Shona to her.
“Please, Da,” Shona said. “Don’t make me marry him. I’d be so miserable, I—I’ll run away.”
“Ye ungrateful little mare!” Clara’s father-in-law stepped toward Shona, raising his hand to strike, but Lord McCallum caught his sleeve.
“That’s enough, McTavish,” he said. “Ye’ve no right to take a hand to my daughter.”
Shona burst into tears. “Da!” she wailed. “Forgive me, b-but I can’t marry James McTavish. I love another.”
“Whom?” Lord McCallum asked.
“M-Murray,” Shona said, her lip wobbling.
“Sweet Lord, save me!” Lady McCallum cried. “That Campbell boy? But he…he’s a…” She shook her head. “He’s aCampbell!”
“I love him!” Shona said. “I love him, and I”—she glanced about the hall, her cheeks scarlet—“I’dhateit here!”
“Lord McCallum,” Clara’s father-in-law said, “yer daughter’s taken too much whisky. We needn’t be governed by the whims of a lass barely out of the nursery.”
Lord McCallum shook his head. “If she loves the Campbell lad…”
“That’s of no consequence, McCallum. What matters is what my son wants, and James wants Shona. Don’t ye, lad?”
James stared at Shona, resignation in his eyes. Then he opened his mouth to speak.
“No, he doesn’t!” Shona said. “He loves another.”
Laird McTavish’s eyes glowered with raw fury. “Hewhat?”
“He loves another!”
“Who told ye that, lass?”
“I…” Shona glanced at Clara. “I just heard it.”
“Aye, I’ll wager ye did,” Lord McTavish said, and he strode toward Clara. “I might have known, ye little slut! Not satisfied with tainting my family with yer whore’s blood, ye seek to ruin my heir’s marriage. It was a bad day for the clan when ye snared my son. It’s time I taught ye a lesson!”
Clara leaped back, lost her balance, and fell to the floor.
“Aye, that’s where ye should be,” Lord McTavish said. “Crawling in the dirt like yer whore of a mother!”
He fisted his hands. Clara raised her arms to protect herself, but the blow never came. Two hands pulled him back, and Clara glanced up to see her husband, his face red with rage.
“Don’t touch her, Da!” he cried. “She’smywife.”
“She should be beaten raw, like any disobedient, meddlesome woman.”
