Highland Conquest by Alyson McLayne

Author:Alyson McLayne [McLayne, Alyson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2017-12-12T05:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Amber stared at the closed door, in shock that he’d left but also feeling like her heart had broken into a hundred pieces. The sock she held in her hand fell to the floor as she moved forward slowly. Were his men still here? Had he given up on her and their plan to catch Murray?

Maybe there had never been a plan. Maybe he’d enlisted Callum into getting her into a compromising position just so he could tup her, and now that it was proving difficult, he’d decided to end the ruse. But that would make both him and Callum dishonorable, and she would bet her life, had bet her life, on the opposite.

She heard a sound behind her, a soft thump, and relief washed through her. Lachlan must have walked around the cottage and come in the back door, maybe to talk to the guard out back. She thought she’d slid the bar across, but she must have forgotten.

When she turned and saw the man standing by the alcove that held her second bed—now leaning on its side against the wall, a black gap where the mattress had been—she froze in disbelief. She was almost unable to comprehend what she was seeing—a much thinner, haggard, and dirty-looking Machar Murray, his arrow notched and bow drawn, pointed at her.

He’s here, she thought before terror surged through her and she opened her mouth to scream.

“Not one word, witch, or I’ll shoot you through the heart and then shoot Lachlan MacKay when he runs through the door.”

Her teeth snapped together—so hard she thought she might have broken them. Panic engulfed her, more for Lachlan than for herself, and her breath came in short bursts through her nose. Desperate tears pricked her eyes and she prayed Lachlan had left for good.

“I’d hoped to snare the two of you together,” he said. “Catch him when he was tupping you. Maybe I’d tie up the both of you and then let him watch me swive you too.”

“That’s not called swiving. It’s called rape,” she whispered hoarsely.

He shrugged, not bothered by her words.

“He and the other one think they’re so smart, surrounding the cottage, waiting for me, but they ne’er counted on your wee bolt-hole, did they?”

She moaned, part fear, part regret, and clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from bursting into tears. She didn’t dare put Lachlan in any more danger than she already had.

How had Murray known about her escape route? No one but her knew it existed. Dug out by her grandfather when he’d built the cottage, the tunnel started behind the low, built-in cupboards that made up the base of the smaller bed and ran all the way to the goats’ shed. A lever allowed her to release the lock that kept the bed and mattress in place. Once she was in the tunnel, she could reposition the trap door and lock it behind her.

She’d agonized over telling Lachlan, but her father and grandmother had sworn her to secrecy, saying someday the tunnel would save her life.

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