Chapter Four
Lowri clutched her arms about herself, but it did no good. Her fingers were numb, her scalp shrinking into her skull with cold, and she was hungry, so very hungry. Had they forgotten their prisoner? Was she to starve to death in this wet tomb?
Angry shouting sounded above, then boots on stairs, coming closer.
The door swung open, and a man strode up to her bearing a lantern and a moss green bundle over his arm.
Lowri blinked against the light, and he slowly came into focus as he loomed over her, saying nothing, just staring, like the black-bearded Allard.
He was younger than her previous tormentors, tall and lean, clean-shaven and with finer features.
Large eyes dominated his face – intent, fierce.
They roamed over her as Allard's had, not in a covetous way, but with disgust. His face twisted into a scowl that held the same Macaulay belligerence as Griffin and Allard. Lowri’s heart thudded against her breastbone, and her hands curled into fists.
The man looked fit to explode with anger, and she feared he might strike her.
When he spoke, his voice was quiet, calm and deep, and more threatening because of it.
‘Lass, you have blood on your face,’ he said.
‘What is it to you?’ she replied.
He shrugged. ‘Not much. But it will attract the rats. Tried to have a nibble, have they?’ His tone might be gentle, but his words were pitiless.
Lowri glared and said nothing, trying to get the measure of the man.
Suddenly, he spat on his fingers and leaned in. Lowri shrank back as he rubbed her temple briskly. She batted away his hand. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘As you like.’ He offered the bundle. ‘Take this plaid. ‘Tis a cold night.’
‘Go to hell,’ she said, backing up against the wall, for his presence was overwhelming, and she wanted to shrink back out of the circle of light from the lantern. Lowri was painfully aware that she was filthy, stinking and dishevelled. How he must be revelling in her degradation.
The man loomed closer. There were dark shadows under his eyes.
‘I am Cullen Macaulay, Griffin’s son,’ he said.
He pointed to her head. ‘Have they hurt you anywhere else, in any way? If they have, you need to tell me.’ His eyes scoured her all over, and there was a suggestion of something vile and dirty in his words. ‘Has Allard touched you, lass?’
‘No.’
‘There’s no shame in saying it. I will make sure he stops. Tell me.’
‘He just comes and stares at me. If I was free of this chain, I would scratch his eyes out for it, yours too.’
‘Aye, Allard has a way of making folk uncomfortable.’ Cullen Macaulay bit his lip so hard, Lowri thought he might draw blood. ‘I am trying to help you, Lowri Strachan, so mind you keep your claws to yourself.’
She hated her name in Cullen Macaulay’s mouth, and his stifled anger was more menacing than Allard’s open hostility.
‘So, I hear you were reiving my father’s cattle.’
‘Caught red-handed,’ she spat. ‘No point in denying it.’
‘Why would a lass want to do that?’
‘Why should I tell you?’
‘Nothing else to do down here but talk to me. Tell me why.’
‘Your father insulted my brother, so I did it as revenge.’
His laugh was laced with bitterness. ‘My father insults everyone. There’s not a laird in all the Marches, he hasn’t crossed. Why risk your life for Peyton Strachan’s bit of wounded pride?’
‘I’ll not explain. You Macaulay vermin would not understand loyalty or love.’ The thought of her brother dammed hot tears behind her eyes. She could not let them fall in front of Cullen Macaulay.
‘There’s not many women who go reiving,’ he said quietly. ‘At least, I think you might be a woman, under all that dirt and hair.’
He smirked, and Lowri longed to punch him. ‘A woman can ride and reive as well as a man,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘Yet you got caught. So maybe not.’ His eyes locked with hers. There was no telling their colour in the half-light, but they were hard, weary eyes. Cullen Macaulay sighed. ‘Believe it or not, I am trying to give you some comfort.’
‘No. You are trying to trick me.’
He bit his lip again. ‘Here, just take the plaid for the night is long and cold.’ His voice had turned flinty.
When Lowri didn’t take it, he rolled his eyes. ‘Take it for the sake of what little honour I have.’ He thrust the plaid at her forcefully. ‘My father didn’t have to use the shackles and throw you down in this hole, for you are but a lass.’
‘I am a lass who will stick a knife in your heart if I get half a chance, and do not ever doubt it.’ She threw the plaid in his face. ‘Keep your false pity. If you want to do me a kindness, take yourself away and leave me in peace.’
‘Alright, but are you not going to ask after your companions, Donnan and Rory?’
Lowri leant towards him, chains rattling. ‘I have asked, and each time I do, your father and brother, Allard, they…’
‘Half-brother,’ he spat. ‘Allard is my half-brother. I’ll not claim full blood with him. Go on.’
‘They torment me with tales of my friends’ suffering and give me no way to make amends, to spare them. Where are they?’
‘I don’t know, but not in a good place, if they’ve crossed my father. Maybe you should think of their fate and bend to his will. Or do you want them to die for the sake of your brother’s pride and yours?’
‘Of course, not.’
‘My father took you because he was angry and nursing injured pride, but when he calms down, he will find a way to wriggle out of this mistake and find a use for you. So, Lowri Strachan, best to give him what he wants and get it over with.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I don’t yet know, but I do know this. Whatever he has in store, you won’t like it, and you won’t have a choice. That has been my experience of my father.’
Cullen’s jaw worked, but his voice held softness as he said, ‘Sleep well, lass, and use the plaid. There’s no virtue in being a stubborn little fool. I will do my best for you.’
***
Cullen stormed up the stone steps and out into the gathering dusk, gulping down the cold, clean air.
It was a relief to be out of the fetid, pressing darkness of the hole.
Sleet stung his face and sent icy fingers down his neck.
It did nothing to cool his fiery Macaulay temper.
That his father could be foolhardy enough to mortally cross a man like Peyton Strachan was no surprise.
Pride was everything to Griffin Macaulay, and he often lashed out when he felt slighted, with little thought for consequences.
But to imprison the sister of a brawler like Strachan, well, he may as well have stood before the man and asked to be beaten to a pulp.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Cullen had long since acknowledged that he had only the merest scrap of honour, but it was enough to prevent him from throwing a slip of a lass into that damp and filthy place.
The hole was Scarcross’s dungeon, a place to hold unruly or disobedient clansmen awaiting a whipping, or enemies, awaiting worse.
He’d spent many an hour down there when he’d been on the wrong side of his father’s temper.
After several days in that hole, it was a credit to her resilience that the lass was not a wailing heap at his feet.
And she had courage to stand up for herself.
But when he had mentioned her companions in crime, her demeanour had changed from angry to the verge of tears.
He could see the effort it took her to hold them back.
So that was the lever that would make her biddable.
His father had told him to pull it, to twist her loyalty to suit his ends.
Cullen owed no loyalty to the Strachans, so he had done it, and now he felt tainted by his father’s cruelty.
Lowri Strachan was hard to pity, for she was so defiant, spitting her poison at him.
But he could not deny she had a wild kind of beauty, despite the filth on her and the man’s clothing she wore.
And her eyes were hard to look away from – huge in her face and bright with anger in the lantern’s light.
Lovely she may be, but Cullen cursed her very existence as he burst into the main hall of Scarcross.
The place barely merited the word, for it was small and draughty with a guttering fire and little softness, save a threadbare rug and a couple of shaggy curs dozing before it.
They rose and whimpered, tucking in their tails, sensing his wrath.
His father’s second wife, Mabel, was seated by the fire with Allard and Griffin, and gave him a small smile.
Cullen had often pitied her in his youth, for she seemed a little odd.
Saggy-breasted and slack-bellied from endless childbearing, she bore a blank, bovine expression signifying neither happiness nor sadness, and she was given to staring into space for hours at a time until someone spoke to her.
Then she would awaken and murmur a response.
She had been a wealthy woman and was not the bonniest, so Griffin had only married for her money and land, not carnal pleasure.
Since doing so, he veered between indifference and contempt.
Aged beyond her years, Mabel was almost invisible to his father save when he climbed into her bed to sire yet another bairn.
Had Mabel given him a son, he might have been kinder, but all she had managed so far were disappointing daughters.
His father cried, ‘Ah, Cullen. Did you have a good look at our prisoner? Softened her up, have you?’
‘I did your dirty work for you.’
‘See anything you like?’ smirked Griffin.
He recalled Lowri Strachan. The lass was all darkness – black hair, dark eyes. He had not made out their colour, for he had been drawn to her mouth, which was plump-lipped and wide. ‘She’s as bonnie as I’ve seen, but that’s hardly the point.’
Allard rose, scowling. ‘She’s not for the likes of you.’