Page 35 of Strachan (Hostage Brides #2)

Peyton’s body was one big bruise. Bile rose in his throat, and with every jolt of his horse, he wanted to vomit it up. Only rage kept him conscious – a searing need for vengeance against a bitch who had aimed a blade at his heart.

Selby and MacDougall hung back, fearful of the raging, blood-soaked man he had become. But still, it was good to have them at his back. When Moor Cottage came into view, he was surprised to see the faint flicker of light seeping from its windows. So, the bitch was not cowering, and no wonder. The cottage was well-hidden, deep inside ancient woods. It had lurked there, tumbledown, lonely and abandoned, for years.

Peyton dismounted and walked up to the decrepit door, every step making him wince. He pushed it hard, and it slammed open, hitting the wall with a crash. She did not even flinch from where she stood before a table lit by a flickering candle, which sent an eerie light about the dark room. It was a desolate, miserable hole, but fitting for Elene.

‘Ah, so you’ve come at last,’ she said. ‘Walk into the light so that you may glare at me better.’ When he drew close, she winced. ‘You’ve seen better days, Peyton Strachan.’

‘So have you, Elene Sawfield.’

A slight narrowing of her fine eyes was the only sign he had discomforted her. ‘I am no Sawfield. I spit on that old maggot’s name.’

‘How ladylike. Is Lord Sawfield not your husband?’

‘Only because I had no choice, thanks to you.’

She turned around. Peyton’s hand went to his knife. When she turned back, Elene had a bottle in her hand. She placed it on the table. ‘Shall we drink a toast to your poor departed cousin?’ she said.

‘Eaden is not dead. He is in a cart headed for the East March and a noose.’

She giggled. ‘Oh, that is a shame and a mistake. He’s a slimy one. Surely, he will slip straight out of that noose and return to put a knife to your throat.’

‘And then you could take over Clan Strachan.’

Elene shrugged and sat down. She stared at him, unblinking and smiling.

‘What makes you think they’d want a devious bitch like you, Elene?’ he said.

‘What makes you think they want an ignorant peasant like you - a bastard, a low, belly-crawling mongrel?’

‘Because at the end of all this, I will be the last one standing,’ said Peyton.

His threat was clear, but she did not flinch before it. ‘You don’t have it in you to kill a woman. You are not that monstrous.’

‘Are you sure? Perhaps I will take you back and let Bannerman and Glendenning string you up like the witch you are.’

‘Do your worst,’ she said with a defiant tilt of her chin. ‘Sir Henry will find out, and he will take revenge on you for killing me.’

‘Like he did when I killed his son?’ said Peyton.

Elene’s mouth fell open, and her chest heaved. ‘You killed Edmund?’

‘Did I not just say that? Open your ears, woman,’ he hissed as his rage spilt out.

She trembled. ‘Why tell me?’

Peyton shrugged. ‘Because you won’t be telling anyone, Elene.’

The colour drained from her face, but she gathered her courage like a mad dog that is cornered. He almost admired her for it.

‘Tis no matter to me.’ She smirked, and it was unnerving. ‘Edmund was no better than his father, in bed or out of it.’

‘By God, do you have no shame?’ sneered Peyton.

‘No, as it happens, I don’t. Oh, Peyton. You were always so serious. You have won the day. So why not take a drink with me, for old time’s sake?’

‘What is it seasoned with – nightshade, hemlock?’

She did not reply, but her eyes fell from his.

‘Elene, Sir Henry will not return. You must know that.’

‘I do not know that, and nor do you. So sit.’ She took the bottle and poured two glasses.

Peyton sat down opposite Elene. ‘You first,’ he said, pushing one glass at her. She did not take it. ‘Sir Henry has been delayed at court for a long time,’ he said. ‘Could it be that he is out of favour? I wonder that the King can suffer him, for he is such a loathsome man.’

‘I agree,’ said Elene. ‘One has to have a strong stomach to endure Sir Henry’s attentions. And I am not sorry that he is out of favour and will soon be replaced. The English court is a wolf den. When you turn away from it, your enemies stick a knife in your back. They whisper and plot. And kings are fickle. But you would not know that, being low born.’

‘Are you not afraid without your protector?’ he said.

‘Protector!’ She gave a laugh laced with bitterness. ‘I am safer without Sir Henry. If you strip me naked, you will see the marks of his affection.’

Peyton’s lip curled in distaste. ‘I will take your word for it. But now, we come to it. No one in my clan will be safe with you in the world. I know that you will endlessly threaten my sister, my wife and every soul in Fellscarp.’

‘Wife?’

Peyton sighed. ‘There is only one end to this, Elene.’

Her lip trembled. ‘I know how to die with honour, for I am no peasant. It will be hard for you, Peyton, to have that on your conscience because you have a woman’s soft heart.’

He looked her in the eye. ‘It has hardened since last we met.’

‘We are blood, Peyton. We share a father. Am I not as much of a sister to you as that ill-mannered Lowri?’

‘You never felt like a sister to me, Elene. The rumours were lies, and Laird Hew did not sire me.’

‘Calling your own mother a liar. How could you?’

‘I speak from my hardened heart.’

She gulped down her fear. ‘Please, Peyton. You know that I only wanted to take back what was mine. Clan Strachan is my birthright.’

‘You murdered your own father to get your hands on it, woman. And then you murdered your father’s cousin, Gilmour McColl, so that he could not challenge you.’

‘I did not murder that mean old bastard,’ she snapped.

‘No, your brother got a servant to poison him in his own keep, in his sick bed.’

‘Nought to do with me. Robert was his own man.’

Peyton leant forward. ‘Robert was an arrogant, pitiless worm of a man.’

‘Don’t you dare talk of my brother,’ she shouted in a snake’s hiss, spittle flying. ‘Keep his name from your filthy mouth.’

‘His name is tarnished beyond redemption. The man rots at the bottom of the river, poisoning the fish. It was all folly and pride, this grab for power, this cruelty you two visited on your clansman and others.’

‘Did I not face cruelty?’ she cried. ‘Aye, it shaped me as it shaped you. Men, using me, hurting me, treating me as an object to be bartered with. Even my own father tried to sell me in marriage to men I loathed.’ She flinched like a martyr going to the stake, but Peyton was not fooled.

‘You’ve willingly sold yourself, many times over, to get your own way, Elene.’

‘Are you hurt because I didn’t sell myself to you? Is your manhood pricked because your kiss did not make me weak at the knees?’

‘I was blind to who you were back then, but you’ve no power to hurt me now.’

She scoffed and waved a hand at him. ‘You could never afford me anyway.’

Silence fell between them, and Peyton longed to escape her malice.

‘Tell me something, Peyton,’ she said lightly. ‘Does a high-born lady face God for her sins in the same way as a peasant? Do you think I will be judged for the murder of one of God’s own?’

‘God’s own?’

‘Aye, the good Father Luggan. He should not have chosen sides and spied for you.’ She leant over the table, the better to see his pain, and Peyton wanted to slam her face into it.

‘You lie,’ he snarled.

‘Not this time. That one burns, doesn’t it?’

His breath came fast. Peyton tried to control his rage as his hand went to his knife. ‘You could not.’

‘I could, and I did.’

‘He was an innocent man. He never did anything to you. Why kill him?’

‘You killed him the moment you set him as your friend and sent him about the West March to suck up all the gossip.’

Tears came to his eyes. ‘Did Eaden do it for you?’

She just smiled, for she knew it mattered to him. Peyton banged his fist down on the table so hard that it bounced off the floor, and Elene flinched away from his towering rage.

‘You should not have murdered a good man,’ he hissed.

She came back at him like the cornered bitch. ‘He danced so prettily at the end of that rope. Such a strong neck on him. It took him an age to die. You can find him swinging in the wind on Crichton Moor.’

A storm raged in his heart, sweeping away honour and decency. Peyton had always protected women. It was a deep urge within him, but suddenly, he felt murderous. ‘I’ll see you in hell for this, Elene.’

‘Save your preaching and get to the point. What are you going to do with me? Lock me up, kill me or something else.’ She giggled and put her fingers to her lips in false modesty. ‘Your blood is up, and there is a more pleasant way I can make amends?’

How could she think he would want her? Had her spite finally curdled to madness? ‘Do you think I could bear to touch you, Elene? You are vile.’

‘Since when were you so fastidious? I hear your mistress has opened her legs to half the West March.’

He shook his head. ‘God help me. If Father Luggan were here now, he would tell me to forgive your sins.’

‘But his tongue is swollen and black, so he cannot,’ she spat. ‘I have wounded you, and you have wounded me, so we are even. And you must know. It was never personal. I always liked you, Peyton.’

‘Spare me.’

‘It was Robert who made me wound you. He was so jealous of any handsome man around. He was so cruel, as was my father.’

‘You are a liar. All this carnage and evil comes from you, not your brother or Laird Hew.’

She laughed prettily. ‘You are such a hard one, aren’t you, Peyton. But you have always been honourable. I saw that in you, even from an early age. Why not set me upon a horse, and I will return to England?’

‘To Sawfield Manor and your husband’s rotting corpse?’

The colour drained from her face.

‘I’ve been there, Elene. They don’t want you back. In fact, you are a dead woman if you ever set foot there again.’

‘Then I will just disappear, and you will never see me again. I have little appetite to set foot in this midden again.’

‘No. I like to know where my enemies are.’

‘Oh, so you will lock me up and use me ill. Any other man would be torture, but with you, I won’t mind too much.’ Her slender fingers caressed his arm. ‘We might reconcile in time.’

‘An eternity would not be enough for me to forgive your villainy.’

‘You drove me to do what I did. I never had any quarrel with you, Peyton. Such a brave fighter, so strong and steadfast. It was only when you had the gall to take over Clan Strachan that I turned against you.’

‘Because I took your brother’s place. Or was it to be your place, at the head of Clan Strachan?

‘No. We would have ruled together. Robert and I shared everything.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ said Peyton.

She blinked rapidly, a sign of his arrow hitting its mark. So the rumours were most likely true. Peyton stared at the glass of amber liquid in front of him. ‘Father Luggan once gave me some advice. He said, ‘You have to slither on your belly with the snakes to triumph in the politics of the Marches.’ I did not believe him. I never thought I would get to such a dark place.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘There must be an end to all this strife, once and for all. But he would want me to grant you some mercy.’

Elene stood up, expecting to leave, but Peyton remained seated as he pushed a glass of whisky towards her. She considered the glass, and her gaze flicked to his. ‘I don’t want it,’ she said.

‘I insist. Drink this, and then another, and then another. Several glasses should be enough to end your miserable path through this world, Elene.’

Her eyes welled. ‘I am but a woman - small, weak and defenceless.’ Her eyes pleaded with him. ‘Peyton, please. I am afraid to die.’

‘Then you’d best get it over with.’

Her lip curled in disdain, and tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I thought you were an honourable man,’ she spat. ‘So did I, once’ said Peyton.