Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 32223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Catriona smiles.
“You make her happy, too.”
I frown. “She’s told you about us?”
My daughter laughs. “No, but I know her better than she thinks, and I can tell. She was far happier about your ‘purely political’ wedding than anyone could possibly fake.”
I smile wryly, shaking my head. “I know it’s… odd.”
Catriona shakes her head. “It’s not.” She smiles. “Iona’s always felt like family to me, and I never felt that with Darcy.”
“Darcy never was family,” I growl.
“But Iona is.”
“Aye,” I say quietly.
“You’re going after her?”
“Aye, as soon as—”
“Lord McDougall!” a grim-faced guardsman comes dashing into the room. “We’ve freed the horses.”
“You!” Behind me, out on the terrace, Tor’s voice booms at the guard he’s been talking to. “Go, now! And remember to bring my commands to Bjorn Falkanskiold. Go now!”
The man whirls and dashes away for the stables, and I nod grimly at my friends as they storm after him.
“Dad?”
I turn back to Catriona and the grim, fierce look in her eyes.
“Get our family back,” she says with fire in her voice. “My friend, and your wife. And kill the bastards who took her.”
I grin as I pull her into a fierce embrace.
“You’re very much my daughter, aren’t you?”
“Always,” she whispers fiercely, hugging me back before she pulls away with a grin.
“Even when you fall in love with my best friend.”
Chapter 14
Iona
“To think you’d be capable of betraying your own bloody family like that.”
Lord Campbell, my grandfather—the same grandfather who held a blade to my throat and dragged me down a rope ladder to a horse, where I was trussed up and carted off like a bag of grain all the way to the shore, where I’m being kidnapped against my will—sneers at me. Beneath us, the big boat rocks on the waves, surging with the tides as we sail on. We’ve been at sea for hours, and through the windows of the captain’s cabin I’m captive in, I can see it’s growing light out with the dawn.
I stare at Lord Campbell, my eyes narrowing.
“My family?” I grit my teeth, shaking my head. “You are not my family. Darcy is not my fam—”
I gasp as the slap comes hard across my cheek, making me wince as Lord Campbell strikes me.
“You bite your tongue, girl.”
I laugh bitterly. “Ahh, it’s so good to be back with family,” I spit out, sneering at him.
“She’s the only mother you’ll ever have, you know,” Lord Campbell growls.
“Good,” I snap. “One like her is enough for a few lifetimes.”
His face darkens as he shakes his head.
“Where are you taking me?”
“France,” he growls. “To your family, where you belong.”
“The McDougall’s are my family.”
He growls under his breath. “Pretending to be one of them all these years doesn’t make you one of them.” His eyes narrow as his lips curl into a cruel smile. “Neither does being his whore.”
I hiss, lunging for him, but I’m tied to the chair. My grandfather just chuckles, shaking his head.
“I invite you to keep struggling if you insist, lass.” He smiles. “It’s a long way to Normandy.”
Fury roars through me, and I narrow my eyes at him. “Why? Honestly, why go through the trouble of bring me to a ‘home’ I neither know nor want, when it’s clear you don’t want me there either?”
Lord Campbell takes a deep breath, sighing as he paces the slowly pitching floor for a moment. He stops, a smile creeping over his face as he turns to me and shrugs.
“Ahh, smarter than she looks.” He chuckles as he spreads his arms wide. “You’ve caught me. I don’t want you to stay. But I know damn well that Lord McDougall wants you to stay back there, with him.” His smile widens. “Oh, he wants you back there, I’m sure of it. So badly that he may even pay, and handsomely.”
My jaw drops as I slowly shake my head, a bitter laugh tumbling from my lips.
“A ransom. That’s your big grand gesture of ‘taking me back home’ to ‘my family.’ You just want to sell me back to Lachlan.”
Lord Campbell chuckles deeply. “Coin does make the world go around, lass. And you’ll fetch a good many of them from him.”
I shake my head, looking away.
“He’ll come for me.”
He snorts.
“Perhaps, but he’ll be too late. It’s a fast ship, lass. And we made it… difficult for your dear Lachlan to even make it to the coast, let alone find a ship we didn’t sabotage.”
I shake my head. “He will come for me, and when he does—”
“When he does come for his whore,” Lord Campbell spits at me. “As I said, he’ll be too late—”
A pounding on the cabin door yanks his head away, and he snarls.
“What is it!”
“My lord!”
The door swings open, and two men of the crew charge in, glance at me lecherously before turning to Lord Campbell.
“There’s a ship, sire. On the horizon and coming fast.”