Page 4 of Lady’s Choice (Isles/Templars #4)
Amid a sea of gasps and chuckles, Sorcha heard a cry of dismay that sounded like Cristina and hastily stifled laughter that might have come from anyone. But she was too angry to care. The man was an insufferable lout and deserved to be smacked—often. She put her chin in the air and turned away with exaggerated dignity but not without catching a glimpse of Sir Hugo’s face.
He was furious.
Accustomed to a father who was as likely as not to lash out in anger at an impertinent daughter, she thought perhaps Sir Hugo was even furious enough to strike back. But if he believed so strongly in honor, perhaps he also believed in chivalry. In any event, he could hardly strike her in front of such a vast crowd.
It occurred to her that she had been unfair to berate him so publicly, but he deserved that, as well. Her father looked angry, too, she noted as she took the first steps of her departure from the unexpected battlefield. But Macleod had been angry with her often before and would be angry again in the future. She had survived it before and would survive it now.
As she moved away, Sir Hugo said in a tone cold enough to freeze her blood in her veins, “It is to be hoped, Lady Sorcha, that before you are much older, your father will teach you better manners.”
“You may be sure that I will, sir,” Macleod said in a voice that promised dire consequences for her impulsive behavior. “We will talk, daughter, and more, when the ceremonies are over. I promise you we will.”
Sorcha did not reply to either of them, assuring herself that she was not afraid of Sir Hugo and didn’t care a whit what Macleod did to her.
But Sir Hugo wasn’t finished.
Speaking loudly enough for his words to carry to everyone there, he said, “If you were my daughter, I’d take a stout switch to your backside until you howled your apologies. You’d take your meals standing for a sennight, lass, believe me.”
Pretending she had not heard, Sorcha stalked away, so intent upon retaining her dignity that she paid no heed to where she was going or to any of a number of people who tried to speak to her.
“Sorcha, wait! Hold up, you gormless bairn. If I run after you, I’m likely to drop my babe right here!”
Recognizing Isobel’s voice and realizing that, of all her sisters, she was the least likely to end her pursuit willingly, Sorcha stopped but did not turn.
“Noddy,” Isobel said fondly when she joined her. “You’ve been stalking about in a circle. Look ahead. In a minute, you’d have stormed right into his grace’s procession. Do you want to explain your behavior to him or to Ranald of the Isles?”
Silently cursing her bad luck, Sorcha saw that Isobel was right. Doubtless, members of the royal procession had already seen her and wondered why she was leaving the chapel grounds just as the ceremony was to begin. Worse, as a Councilor of the Isles, her father was about to join them, and despite her earlier bravado, she did not want to anger him again.
“Dearling, I know you’d like to disappear,” Isobel said. “But you’ll have to wait until after the ceremony—aye, and the feasting that follows it. Then, unless you can persuade someone to give you space in another boat to Lochbuie, you’ll have to travel with Father. So you’d better not anger him more today.”
Sorcha stood still and listened, but when Isobel said no more, she drew a long breath and faced her. “I should not have struck him,” she admitted. “But he made me so furious that I didn’t even think before I did it. I hope I have not made trouble for you, Isobel. I know well that he is your husband’s best friend.”
“Faith, don’t bother your head about that,” Isobel said with a warm chuckle. “I’ve wanted to smack Hugo more times than I can count. He is the greatest tease I know, and he can behave so arrogantly that sometimes my palms just itch.”
“Still…” Sorcha hesitated, not wanting to say more.
“Come, walk a little away from here with me,” Isobel said. “We can say I was feeling indisposed.”
“I shouldn’t wonder at it if you were,” Sorcha said, worried that hurrying after her might have endangered Isobel or her bairn.
“I’m quite fit,” Isobel assured her. “Moreover, I told Michael I was coming to rescue you and not to fly into a panic if someone told him I was unwell.”
“He’s probably angry with me, too,” Sorcha said.
“Not a bit. He is married to me, remember. He is well acquainted with the Macleod temper, although he doesn’t see much of it these days. His temperament is so mild that I find it easy just to tell him when aught displeases me. But Hugo is not Michael. Did you really think he wanted Adela?”
“Didn’t you?”
“For a time, perhaps,” Isobel admitted. “When we were all together at Orkney, he was certainly interested enough to flirt with her, and I suspect she had a tenderness for him, too. But I’ve seen enough of him now to know he flirts with any woman who is not a hag, an idiot, or in her dotage. I’m afraid he meant nothing by it.”
Sorcha grimaced. “Then I’m glad I smacked him hard.”
“Aye, sure, but you’d better keep out of his path for a while. He acts for Michael in much the same way that Hector acts for the Lord Admiral of the Isles, so he is accustomed to acting instinctively and decisively. He is not a man who counts cost, Sorcha. You test him further only at your peril.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” Sorcha said, ignoring the little shiver she had felt at Isobel’s words. “Indeed, I doubt I shall see him again until I visit you someday at Roslin. Even then, surely, I’ll have to suffer his presence only in company.”
Isobel grinned. “You’ll not get off that easily, dearling. He and Michael will stay at Lochbuie for nearly a sennight before they return to Roslin. Thus, they will be there whilst you and Sidony enjoy your visit with us.”
“May the devil fly away with the man! How can I keep my temper if I must be in his company for so long a time?”
“Easily,” Isobel said, still grinning. “Recall that your host will be Hector Reaganach. You would be wiser not to anger him, as I can well attest, having lived with him and Cristina as long as I did. You and Hugo would both do well to behave yourselves whilst you are Hector’s guests.”
“I forgot about Hector,” Sorcha admitted, adding a moment later, “Mercy, I forgot about Cristina, too. She is bound to scold me as fiercely as Father will.”
Isobel shook her head. “You should have thought of that earlier, but I know how it is when one loses one’s temper. Just give thanks that Adela did not witness that scene with Hugo. She gives much fiercer scolds than Cristina does.”
“Aye, but I wish she were here, though,” Sorcha said.
“So do I,” Isobel said, putting an arm around her.
“You’d better not do that unless you want me to burst into tears,” Sorcha said. “Where can she be, Isobel? I cannot think of anyone but Sir Hugo who had reason to take her. Who could have done it, and where is she?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. “You’d better go on without me,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this, lest they think I’m wishing I had not smacked that dreadful man.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Aye, and you should be with your husband to watch the ceremony. One Macleod sister stirring gossip is enough for one day.”
Very well, I’ll go,” Isobel said. “But don’t miss the ceremony. There won’t be another like it for years.”
She went on ahead, but Sorcha soon followed, because the horns were sounding, calling everyone to assemble who wanted to witness the inauguration of the new Lord of the Isles. She joined Isobel, Sorcha, Hector, and Cristina, and Sir Michael soon found them all and stood beside his wife.
Sorcha feared for a moment that Sir Hugo would join them, too, but then saw him standing by Ranald of the Isles, apparently to help supervise the proceedings.
The processional was a grand affair in itself. It included not only Donald of Isla, his mother the princess Margaret Stewart, and the various bishops, abbots, and priests who would take part in the ceremony, but also every member of the Council of the Isles and a great many Brehons, the hereditary judges of the Isles.
The only important cleric Sorcha knew would not be there was the wicked Green Abbot of the Holy Isle. As a proven enemy of the Lord of the Isles, he was under close guard on the sacred isle. Lord Ranald had seen to it, according to Macleod, to ensure that the abbot could not prevent or disrupt Donald’s installation.
Donald had dressed all in white, although other nobles in the procession wore the splendid velvet doublets, puffed hose, and black velvet robes of the royal court. Still others wore more traditional Highland garb, including kilted plaids and saffron shirts, and many carried swords. Hector Reaganach carried Lady Axe, Clan Gillean’s legendary battle-axe, in her sling on his back. But no one appeared to be in a bellicose mood.
Pipes skirled and drums beat a tempo for the procession. Then all fell silent, and the prayers and blessings began. Sorcha began to fear that every cleric there meant to speak, but at last, Ranald stepped forward and spread his arms wide.
“To all who bear witness as Donald of Isla accepts his destiny today, I say this,” he said. “All here know that his grace our lord father, John the Good of Isla, named Donald to be his lawful successor. And all know I have given my word that it shall be so. Therefore, let any who retain doubt or disloyalty step forward now to speak of it, or forsake it forever and swear fealty to Donald on this day of days.”
Sorcha heard the same murmuring that she had heard when the priest had demanded that anyone who objected to Adela’s marriage speak or forever keep silent. With a shiver, she realized she half expected to see masked riders bearing down on them again.
But the murmurs faded to silence when Ranald raised one arm high and cried, “Let Lia Fail, our sacred Footprint Stone of Destiny, be carried forth!”
Four men carried the sacred stone, said to be older even than the mainland Stone of Scone, on which Kings of Scots had been crowned until Edward of England had stolen it and carried it off to England nearly a century earlier. Before Ranald brought the Footprint Stone to Eigg, it had lived at Finlaggan.
They set the stone down reverently, and two priests stepped forward, bearing vials of holy petrel oil with which they lightly oiled it. Even from her rather distant vantage point, Sorcha could see that there were two prints, an outer, very large one, and an inner one the size of a normal man’s foot.
When the priests moved away, Donald stepped forward and placed his bared left foot in the print, wriggling his toes to settle them in the hollows. His foot fit the inner print perfectly, stirring more murmurs, smiles, and nods from his audience.
The Bishop of Argyll handed him a white wand as an emblem of his solemn duty to maintain justice in his realms. Another bishop gave him the Great Sword, one of the two emblems of Clan Donald and the Lordship, to symbolize his position as Guardian of the Isles. After he had turned around three times to his right as a sign of the Trinity, and brandished the Great Sword three times on high, everyone there shouted, “MacDonald, MacDonald, MacDonald!”
Donald of Isla was now formally installed and accepted as Lord of the Isles.
On the day of her abduction, as Adela had come slowly to her senses after her swoon to find herself lying on something soft, hope stirred that her abduction had been only a nightmare. Then a nearby sound made her open her eyes.
Her captor stood a few feet away, watching her. They were in a tent large enough for him to stand upright, and she lay on a pile of furs and blankets that was doubtless his bed. Hope vanished, and a chill swept through her as she recalled what he had said to make her swoon at his feet. The shock she had felt when he pulled off his mask had been bad, but this felt much worse. She had remembered his name.
Something he’d said before her swoon awakened the memory, because at Orkney he had said that one of the things he liked most was teaching a woman her proper role in life. He had also declared himself without sin then, and he’d claimed God’s favor. Although she had been in his presence only minutes then, she had seen his ruthlessness, so the memory provided nothing for her now but renewed terror. She pushed his name away lest she inadvertently anger him by speaking it aloud.
He did not speak, but his stern expression made her say hastily, “I… I was so dizzy. I cannot think what came over me.”
“You’ve had nothing to eat since this morning, if then,” he said. “I warrant you’re just hungry. If you promise to behave, you may come now and eat with us.”
“Oh, I do promise, thank you,” she said, the intensity of the gratitude she felt nearly overwhelming her. If he meant to feed her, at least he did not mean to kill her, and perhaps she could soften his harshness if she did not anger him again.
After they had eaten, to her surprise, instead of retiring, they mounted horses again. She yearned for her own mount, but at least this time, he let her ride pillion.
The intense gratitude she had felt before increased with his decision to go on rather than camp where they had stopped for supper. But her fears increased, too.
Finding herself even so briefly on his bed, alone with him, had brought home to her how dire her situation was. If he decided to rape her, he would, and no one would stop him. Faith, if he decided to kill her, he would, and no one would stop him. Doubtless, he just bided his time. To calm herself, she began to imagine her father and Hector at the head of an army, roaring down on them to rescue her. Then memory of what he had said he would do in such a case stirred a new fear, that any rescue attempt would merely endanger her and the rescuers, as well.
They soon emerged from the woods, and she was astonished to see that they had traveled no distance at all. Straight ahead lay the shore of Loch Hourn.
To her dismay, a galley waited there, and she soon found herself bundled aboard it. Although its oarsmen regarded her curiously, none spoke to her, and instinct warned her that she would displease his lordship if she spoke to them. Dusk turned to darkness as they headed into the Sound of Sleat and turned south.
She lost all sense of time and direction. Having no idea where they went, she held her tongue, remaining biddable and stoic, making no complaint about the weary hours of travel or the icy sea air. They reached landfall by the light of a half-moon.
Two men awaited them with horses, but she saw no sign of habitation and knew she need expect no rescue there. They made camp on the beach, and to her infinite relief, she slept alone in the great tent. When she awoke late Sunday morning, the galley was gone, but the men with the horses remained.
They made a late start and camped at dusk several miles east of a village one of them called Kinlocheil. Adela thought it sounded familiar but still had no idea where she was. She was exhausted, if not from riding pillion all day with his lordship then from the constant effort not to draw his ire, and from trying to deal with waves of unpredictable emotions that assaulted her.
If he offered food or water, she experienced the strange deep gratitude of the day before. Twice she was almost tempted to hug him for his kindness. And both times the impulse stirred, she felt repulsed, as if her own soul were betraying her. Was it her soul? Was he right in believing that God favored him? What if he was?
If he looked at her, she wondered how she had irritated him. If he did not, she feared he was vexed. The slightest change in his tone stirred worry, and the possibilities grew more terrifying with each mile they rode away from Glenelg.
On Monday, more riders joined their group, and it became apparent that her father’s army would soon have to be a large one if he were to prevail. She knew that he and anyone else who might search for her would presently be on the Isle of Eigg at the installation of the second Lord of the Isles. As a Councilor of the Isles, Macleod could not absent himself from so important an occasion. One moment, she hoped he had sent someone after her, the next that he had not.
Too often her fearsome captor eyed her speculatively, making her skin crawl, reminding her of the threat he had made, and of other things he might do. And reminding her, too, that he expected her absolute obedience.
The installation ceremony had been impressive, but Sorcha was glad that it was over and that the crowd was moving with alacrity to the great tent for the feast. Hoping to keep out of her father’s way, she let them sweep her along with them, taking care to avoid Sir Hugo Robison, too.
She trusted Isobel’s judgment and wanted no further quarrel with the man.
Engrossed in her thoughts and hoping no one would try to engage her in conversation, she paid little heed to those around her except to be certain that neither Macleod nor anyone else who might think he had the authority to scold her was nearby. She paid no attention at all to what people were saying until she heard her father’s name mentioned.
“One of Macleod’s daughters, she is,” declared a female voice.
“Shameless,” said another. “Her father ought to put her across his knee, just as that handsome young man suggested.”
“Aye, well, they’re a wild lot, all seven of them,” said a third voice.
“Surely, not all!” exclaimed the first.
“Well, until now, I’d have said Lady Adela was the exception, but you heard the scandal about her wedding. Sakes, I heard about that yesterday. But then to have her own sister—if that was she—shouting the details to all and sundry, well!”
“You know,” said the first thoughtfully, “I wonder if those men meaning to camp near Kinlocheil yesterday might have been the lady Adela’s abductors. A cousin we met on our way here told us about them and said a beautiful woman rode pillion with them. But I’m sure he said they numbered a dozen or more—accoutered as noblemen, too. Moreover, they were making for Edinburgh.”
“If they were noblemen, mayhap it was she,” her confidante said. “The Macleod sisters ken their worth as well as anyone, so if someone carried off Adela from her wedding, I’ll wager she kens him fine.”
Much as Sorcha would have liked to defend Adela or at least tell the three harridans what she thought of them for gossiping when they did not know anything about the matter, she held her tongue. Having recognized the one who’d mentioned the riders, she was tempted to go to her and demand more details but decided she might talk more freely to Macleod. Considering their opinion of her, she would be lucky if the woman would speak to her at all. So, much as she had hoped to delay the interview she had coming with her father, she could put it off no longer.
They had to find Adela.
Sir Hugo Robison had long since acquired the ability to set aside personal matters to devote his attention to duty. While engaged with Donald’s installation ceremony, he had easily shut his mind to the scene that had preceded it.
However, as soon as Ranald and the new MacDonald of the Isles had retired to the great tent Ranald’s men had erected and secured for the feast, Hugo looked around for the lass who had slapped him. When he did not see her, he indulged in a whimsical image of her father taking her off by an ear to give her a good skelping.
She certainly deserved one, he told himself, then realized he was smiling in thought of her fiery temper and the wee dimple that revealed itself below the left corner of her mouth as she berated him. Few girls would have the nerve to slap him, knowing who he was and the vast power his masters, the Sinclairs, wielded.
But if she had thought about that at all before striking him, she had believed the power they wielded would protect her as well as one of his closer kinsmen. She knew, after all, that her sister had married the younger brother of the Prince of Orkney—or Earl of Orkney, if one went by Henry’s Scottish title and not his Norse one, which was next highest to that of the Norse King. She ought to have realized, though, that a family connection would hardly protect her if she deserved skelping.
In truth, he doubted that she cared a rap about who his connections were, or had spared a thought for her own, before she struck.
She was a beauty, too, more arresting in her own way than her sisters—the three he had met, anyway. And unlike most young women, who behaved coyly and affected shyness when meeting him, she had looked at him directly, albeit angrily.
Famished now, he strode toward the great tent, smiling again as he recalled how her dimple had peeped at him, the way her chin had come up, and how the curling amber-gold tendrils escaping her coif had gleamed in the sunlight. He even admired the way her wide-set, dark-lashed eyes had sparked flames at him and the whiteness of her teeth when she bared them at him. And, too, there was the tempting fullness of her rosy lips, lips clearly intended for kissing.
Knowing she was to stay at Lochbuie while he and Michael did, he thought it might be amusing to try to alter her opinion of him. He decided, though, that if she tried slapping him again, he would not leave it to Macleod to teach her manners.
“Hugo, I want a word with you.”
Hearing in his cousin’s voice the stern note rarely directed at himself, he stopped instantly and turned to wait for him.
Frowning, Sir Michael Sinclair glanced about at the crowd swarming to get its midday meal. He waited until a group of men passed them to enter the tent, then said quietly, “We’ll delay our dinner a few minutes more. I would know more about that incident before the ceremony.”
“You saw it,” Hugo said. “You know as much as I do.”
“You had nothing to do with that young woman’s abduction.”
Although Michael made it a statement and not a question, Hugo knew he would not have mentioned it had he not harbored at least small doubts. The knowledge stirred new irritation, but he kept his tone mild as he said, “You know I did not.”
Michael held his gaze for a long moment before he said, “I hope so. Are you certain you gave Lady Adela no cause to think you wanted to marry her?”
“Don’t be daft,” Hugo said, but he felt heat in his cheeks as he said it.
Michael’s gaze sharpened. “None at all?”
“Of course not.” Hugo met that sharp gaze and gave his answer firmly, with no intention of sharing the niggling doubt that had just flitted through his mind—certainly not until he’d had time to give it more thought.
Accordingly, he was silent until Michael nodded and said, “That is all I wanted to know. If Macleod requests our help, we’ll give it.”
“Aye, sure,” Hugo said as they continued toward the tent together.
When they had taken their places at the men’s end of the high table, he saw that neither Lady Sorcha nor Isobel was present. He found then that his appetite was no longer as keen as it had been.
He bore his part in nearby conversation as needed, but his mind was no longer on the festivities. When Isobel entered the tent at last, with her sister Cristina and Hector Reaganach—the latter looking grim enough to remind Hugo that men had good reason to call him Hector the Ferocious—he hoped Hector’s mood was due to annoyance with Lady Sorcha rather than with the man she had slapped.
Even more than he wanted to avoid Michael’s displeasure did he want to avoid that of the powerful warrior who carried his family’s legendary battle-axe with him everywhere he went. Unfortunately, though, he could think of only one way Lady Sorcha Macleod could have come to believe he had wanted to marry her sister. That was if Adela herself had led her to believe it.
Conversation ebbed and flowed around him as he tried to recall what he knew about Lady Adela. Besides her golden beauty, his strongest memory was the haughty way she had dismissed his casual flirting at Orkney. He recalled, too, that when he had responded to that dismissal as he always did to such setbacks, she had cast a basinful of holy water in his face.
Michael had witnessed that incident, too, but evidently did not recall what Hugo had said to her or what she spat at him as she doused him. In truth, the topic of marriage had raised its head, but only in that she’d said she would never marry him.
Clearly, she had told her sisters about the holy water, but he could recall nothing about her to suggest that she might lie to them. How else, though, could they have come to believe he would want to rescue her from an unwanted marriage?
He had continued to flirt with her when they made two of the party that had departed Orkney with Henry for Castle Sinclair in Caithness. But that had not altered her thinking, because she had stubbornly continued to spurn his advances. The thought that she might make him a suitable bride when and if he had time to marry had certainly entered his head. But until now he had not imagined for an instant that it had entered hers. Such thoughts were not supposed to enter gently bred young women’s heads, although in truth, he supposed they occasionally did.
To his chagrin, he realized the only reason he had continued to assume she would accept him was that he had heard nothing to suggest she had developed an interest in anyone else. Nor, until Lady Sorcha’s messenger found him, did he suspect that any other man had taken interest in Adela. He had simply assumed that when he wanted her, she would be available. He had assumed, as well, that her father would leap at the chance to welcome such a splendid bridegroom for her.
Hugo winced at such plain evidence of his own arrogance, deciding that the lass had been right to call him conceited. Still, he was sure that nothing he had said or done ought to have led her sisters to believe he intended anything beyond flirting. If Adela had declared anything else to them, she ought not to have done so. And even if she did think he meant marriage, her most unladylike sister Sorcha ought never to have sent messages to him as she had, let alone dared to slap him.
His thoughts were spinning in circles. If he was guiltless, then why, he asked himself, did he find it so hard to stop thinking about what the young vixen had said?
He saw her come into the tent at last, but to his surprise, she walked straight to her father. When she bent close to speak into his ear, Macleod looked no happier to see her than one might expect. Indeed, he began scolding her roundly, without regard for the interested men around him. Hugo told himself she deserved to hear whatever Macleod said, and ruthlessly suppressed an inexplicable urge to defend her.
“Please, sir, just talk to her,” Sorcha said quietly. “It was Lady Clendenen’s friend, Lady Gowrie. I’m sure those men her cousin saw must be the abductors. Heaven knows what they may be doing to Adela whilst we linger here!”
“Ye ken naught o’ the matter,” Macleod said, getting to his feet. “What’s more, I ha’ heard enough o’ your prattle for one day. Ye’ll come wi’ me now or I’ll make ye rue what ye did to Sir Hugo right here, afore everyone.”
Taking her by an arm, he gave her no choice, for she dared not resist him. Her cheeks flamed when more than one chuckle accompanied their departure, but she told herself she did not care. She had to make him understand.
Outside, she tried again. “Please, sir, you cannot mean to abandon Adela. You cannot simply ignore what they did.”
“Why not?” he demanded. “Ye made a fine fool o’ yourself, sending out the Lord kens how many messages to Sir Hugo, and ye’ve seen what came o’ that. Every man for miles about learned o’ them, and everyone believed ’twas Sir Hugo that scooped her up to his saddlebow. Now they’ll ken that we all stood by and watched villains abduct me daughter. But Sir Hugo were right about one thing.”
She wasn’t going to ask him what that was, but he grabbed her by both arms and put his face close to hers. “He were right to say the fault be yours alone, Sorcha Macleod. Whatever Adela’s fate be now, she can thank ye for it and no other.”
“Then I’ll find her,” Sorcha said, stifling dismay. “If it is my fault, as you all say, then I’ll put it right. You’ll see, I will!”
“Ye’ll do nae such daft thing,” he said, giving her a shake. “I forbid it. Nor will ye be making mischief at Lochbuie, for I’m sending ye home. I’d meant to send one boat in any event, because I’ve a duty to get word to Ardelve o’ what we learned today. I’ll send both wi’ ye, though, and go to Lochbuie wi’ Hector Reaganach. Since I promised two boats for his grace’s flotilla when he goes to swear fealty to the King, me lads can return to Lochbuie and collect me after they’ve seen ye home safe.”
“You can’t! Oh, Father, you mustn’t. What will people think? Not just of me, for I don’t care about that, but about poor Adela! You cannot abandon her when she did nothing to deserve what happened except have a sister who is a fool.”
“Ye’re a fool right enough, but how do I ken any such thing about Adela? If she encouraged one man, she might well ha’ encouraged a dozen. She just stood there, did she know? I didna hear a single cry for help from the wicked lass.”
“Because doubtless she, too, thought it was Sir Hugo.”
“Then ’twas wickedness, and she’s come by her just deserts. Ardelve went home a gey sorrowful man without her. Ye’ve yourself to thank for that, too.”
“I doubt he was that sorrowful,” she said. “He showed little joy in his marriage. And without joy, how could there be sorrow?”
“By heaven, almost d’ye persuade me to follow Robison’s advice at once,” Macleod snapped. “Get ye to yon boat, lass, afore I do take a strap to ye.”
Sorcha knew she had pushed him as far as she dared. In general, his threats to his daughters were empty, but she had learned that if she pushed him too far, he would retaliate, and she had no wish to suffer what would amount to public punishment. Just the thought that Sir Hugo might make one of the audience was enough to make her beg her father’s pardon and offer no further argument.