Chapter Seven #2
“I thought she was, but then Jasper…” Laria inhaled, letting out a shaky breath before she continued, “sliced her throat and rolled her into the hole.” She looked up into the trees overhead, but memories of the nightmare pushed a tear out over her lower lid.
“Ginny woke and scampered away. The men gave chase but let her go after Jasper fired at her with his pistol and missed.” Laria wiped at the tear.
“I…I couldn’t do anything. If they’d found me, I’d have ended up in that hole, too.
” After Jasper and perhaps all four assaulted her first.
“And ye think Iain ordered this atrocity?”
“Why else would they do it? She had no jewels on her, no gold except her wedding band. Jasper and his men weren’t out to rob her. She was obviously drugged before she left Tuath Tower. Once they reached the moor, they were told to finish the job of killing her and bury her and her dog.”
“Do ye know where they dug the hole?”
She nodded, but he still looked like he was deciding if she were delusional.
“The next night, my grandmother asked me where her husband was. She asked in front of Iain and then dropped her soup down the front of her gown, saying she could no longer feed herself. After she went up to bed, Iain said that he would look into sending her to the convent as well.”
“He didn’t admit what had happened to his mother?”
“I did not ask.” Her face heated with shame.
“I still had my grandmother to protect. If I’d challenged him, he could have locked me up and taken her right away.
So I didn’t.” She shook her head. “I know he already wanted me gone because of my burns.” She’d worked her gloves back on inside the cave, but Cyrus had surely noticed them.
Cyrus pushed off the rock and paced before her. “Iain still might not have known what happened. The men could have been ordered by someone else. Jasper Whitt, perhaps.”
She rolled her eyes, but the man wasn’t looking at her.
He paced in powerful strides, like a large predator in a cage, his hands forming fists by his sides.
She remembered only too well how talented those hands were upon her flesh, how they’d pulled as much pleasure out of her as she’d pulled from him.
Laria dragged her gaze from his fingers to the chiseled features of his handsome face.
The hardness there was such a contrast to the smiles he’d displayed at the masquerade—and after, as they rolled around her bed.
“Jasper does nothing without orders from Iain,” she said.
“’Tis a good thing neither Jasper nor Iain found you still alive, tied to the bed. ”
Cyrus stopped before her. She was mesmerized by the dangerous grace in him and didn’t back up, just stared. His hands rested with restrained power on her shoulders. The weight of them made her heart beat faster, like a hare caught by a wolf, her feet rooted to the forest floor.
“Why would Iain ask ye to kill me? He just signed a peace accord with me.” His gaze held hers as if he wished to bore into her mind. “Married my sister? Offered us every hospitality?”
“I…I’ve been trying to figure out his strategy,” she said. “He hides behind a mask of decency. Always has.”
Cyrus bent closer to her. “Did he order ye to persuade me to accompany ye to yer old room? Drug me with something in the wine? Fok me like a siren luring me to my death? Tie me to the bed and slice my throat?”
Here was the anger against her. Cyrus Mackinnon hated her for what she’d done to him.
Laria couldn’t breathe past the tightness in her chest. His gaze pierced her like a dozen daggers.
It took her a moment to pull in enough breath to speak.
“I was…ordered to get you alone and vulnerable and then kill you. The night together first was a kindness before you died. A condemned man’s last meal.
” She hadn’t counted on that night being the most incredible carnal experience she’d ever known.
She’d married Malcolm Ross when she was eighteen. He’d been the same age and as awkward and virginal as she. They’d figured out the basics, but before she could get with child or reach a climax under his burgeoning skill, he’d been lost at sea.
Cyrus huffed. “If I’d been a poor lover, a selfish man who cared not for yer pleasure, would ye have sliced my throat, left me tied helplessly to a bed, naked with a limp cock for everyone to find?”
She didn’t blink as she stared back, her expression hardening. “If you’d been a brutal fiend, yes, it would have made my task easier.”
Cyrus cursed under his breath and dropped his hands from her shoulders. Surely he must see the truth in her eyes. “I knew ye were a bloody siren, seducing me to my death,” he said.
He was punishing her with words. She knew that, but that didn’t mean they didn’t hurt.
Her cheeks felt hot. “Is your life worth more than Leah’s and her mother’s?
” she asked. “More than my harmless grandmother’s, or Oscar’s, who gave five decades of service to Tuath Tower?
Or Bonnie’s, whose only sin is losing her hair and gaining wrinkles?
Bernice’s, because her spine bends oddly? ”
His brows gathered, not answering.
“Because killing you would have provided food and shelter for our whole group of misfits for the winter.” She reached up, her finger scoring lightly on his throat.
She could barely feel the scabbed line where she’d rested her blade.
“But because I wasn’t strong enough to slice your throat, Iain is sending his henchmen to brutalize us.
If he’s feeling kind, he’ll just make certain we starve or freeze to death this winter. ”