Page 33 of The Pirate Laird's Hostage

‘I was going to tell you my intentions, but I did not quite know how to put it, and this is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you would go on in that tiresome way women do.’

‘Go on! You are keeping me prisoner, here.’

‘No, it is not like that.’

‘Can I leave then?’

‘No.’

‘Then I am a prisoner, and you are awful. You belong down in the bilge on your ship, sloshing around with the rats and other foul things.’

‘For someone who is completely at my mercy, you are not very polite Morna,’ he said smirking.

‘To think I started to like you, to trust in you. What a fool! You are nothing but a small ignorant, resentful man and the world is full of those.’

‘Look, Morna, you and I started on the wrong foot all those years ago. I have held thoughts of you in my head since then. I would wonder where you were and then when I happened upon your brother Lyall, and he told me you were wed, it hurt to hear it. So, since you turned up on that ship, I found I wanted to know you better.’

‘You are a bad man, a really bad man.’ She shook her head. ‘Why did you even bother to help Ravenna and I, Will? Did you profit from it, for you seem to act only to do that.’

‘I let you go that night because you were a sweet, bonnie little thing and I overheard what those men were going to do to you. And then you spoke up for me when you did not have to, when I had not been especially kind. For that reason, I have a softness towards you and, since you came here to Fitheach, it has deepened. I need to understand my regard for you, and if you go back to your brother, I won’t ever do that.’

‘I need to go home, Will.’

‘To what, a clan war with the Gowans? An English army marches north even as we speak. You think I will let you go back to face that.’

‘What?’

‘Aye, the English are coming to re-take Berwick so your brothers will be going to war and there will be no one at Beharra to protect you.’

‘All the more reason to go home, to be with them, with Ravenna and her bairns.’

‘Ravenna can fend for herself, she is as strong as you are, and Cormac will get her somewhere safe.’

‘So you won’t let me go, and you won’t send word, even if I beg.’

‘I will not. Reconcile yourself to staying here for the foreseeable future.’

‘Then I hate you, William Bain and I wish I had let you die on that field at Bannockburn.’

Bitterness took Will. ‘If you had, you would have continued your journey in that crate and would now be spreading your legs for Wymon Cranstoun,’ he spat.

Morna’s hand came out of nowhere and connected with his jaw with a sickening crack. It was no wild slap, it was a punch, with all the rage of the furies and she really hurt him, including his pride.

Will staggered back. ‘By all that’s holy,’ he said spitting blood out onto the floor, ‘you have a good fist on you, Morna Buchanan. You almost broke my jaw, woman.’

‘Good, I hope you swallow a few of your teeth, you deserve it and much worse for what you are doing.’

Will moved his jaw back and forth gingerly. ‘I am doing it out of my regard for you, believe it or not, as you wish.’

‘I do not. You are keeping me here to amuse yourself,’ she said, and, with that, Morna left him alone with a throbbing jaw and a heart twisted with shame. He almost hated her for making him feel that way.

Chapter Twelve

Morna watched from the shadow of the castle walls as the guards crossed back and forth between the gates. A rider was due in at any moment now. Will sent out a patrol every morning to ensure his lands were safe, to ride the cliff edge and look out for ships coming around the headland. That rider always returned just as the dawn mists lifted.

Her bundle of blankets and food was tied securely and tucked out of sight beneath her skirts, and she was chewing nonchalantly on a piece of hay, to all intents and purposes a bored, young woman watching the world go by.

The clatter of hooves had her alert and watchful.

---