Page 31 of The Highlander’s Auctioned Hellion (Auctioned Highland Brides #4)

McCarthy drew his sword, his gray beard quivering as Eilis and Amy both cried out with joy.

That joy was short-lived, however, as their mother grabbed them and pulled them to her side.

Eilis struggled against Moira’s grasp as Callum looked at the guards on the edge of the room.

There was one who had been standing just behind the door whom Callum had not seen. He was several feet smaller than him and half his size, the sword in his fingers trembling.

“I willnae kill ye if ye dinnae dae anythin’ stupid,” Callum said to him.

“What are you waiting for? Kill him!” Moira screamed at the guard, and Amy and Eilis both cried out in protest.

The guard looked to Moira as if she had lost her mind, and did not move. Callum stepped forward, removing the sword from his hand and taking it for himself.

“Ye should be careful with this, lad. It’s sharp.”

The guard was trembling so violently that his lip was quivering, and in the next instant, he ran from the room.

Callum turned back to face McCarthy. The Laird was no coward, standing firm in front of him, sword raised and pointed at Callum’s chest.

“Ye shouldnae have come here, Laird Murray, ye arenae welcome, and I will have ye killed if ye try to take these girls.”

Callum scoffed. “Ye will try to have me killed, McCarthy. I dinnae think ye will be successful, nae one has managed it yet.”

“Ye are nae able to fight off me entire castle guard,” McCarthy snapped.

“Well, I’d be willin’ to give it a try after the bravery of that one. Let’s see which of us is right,” Callum growled. “Ye have taken somethin’ that belongs to me, and I intend to take it back.”

“These children are mine! ” Moira spat, and Callum finally turned his attention toward her.

“And what claim did ye have to them when ye walked out overnight and didnae even say goodbye to them? Ye left them in the care of a castle full of servants.”

“I was grievin’ me?—”

“Spare me. Ye nay more cared for Angus than ye dae anythin’ else if it isnae servin’ ye. Dinnae expect me to believe ye were in love—he told ye he had found out the truth and to save yer own skin ye left. I have proof of that.”

Amy and Eilis were staring up at him, their little mouths open in shock.

Whatever man Callum knew himself to be, he would not slander their mother in front of the girls. Glancing to the back of the room, he saw Lydia’s maid standing near the wall.

What is the damned woman’s name?

“Hannah, is it?” he asked, and she nodded, looking terrified. “Take the girls outside to play, would ye? I have business here.”

He turned his attention back to Eilis and Amy.

“It’s all right, girls, ye go outside with Hannah. Dinnae go far and I’ll be with ye soon.”

Amy and Eilis exchanged a glance as Moira’s hands tightened on their shoulders.

“This is nae yer castle, ye cannae give commands,” she snarled.

“What truth?”

That was McCarthy’s voice. His dark gaze was on his daughter, the sword that had been pointed so surely at Callum’s chest lowering by degrees as he waited for an answer.

“There is no truth ,” Moira said, her voice shrill and angry. “There is nothing to be said. These children are my own kin, and they should be with their mother.”

There was a long, ominous silence as Callum turned to McCarthy.

“Dae ye wish to ken the truth or listen to yer daughter’s deceit for the rest of yer life?”

“Take them outside, please,” McCarthy said to Hannah. The maid stepped forward and gently took the girls’ hands.

“We dinnae want to stay, Uncle Callum!” Eilis said desperately. “We want to go home and be with ye. We want Lydia as our maither!”

Moira’s face twisted as Hannah hastily tugged the girls out of the room. Eilis and Amy both looked back at him as they followed the maid, and Callum’s heart clenched at the tears in their eyes.

As the door snapped shut behind them, he turned back to McCarthy.

Moira’s lips pursed as she crossed her arms over her chest, looking like a petulant child in the face of her accuser.

Her mouth twisted into a cruel grimace, and she sniffed, raising her eyebrows at Callum in challenge.

She kens I’ve won. At last. I might finally have me revenge on this demon.

“He’s lying, Faither,” Moira insisted. “He would say anythin’ to get those girls back. He hasnae seen them in four years!”

“And who is the reason for that?” Callum thundered. The force of his rage was a shock, even to him, as it reverberated around the room.

The other guards had their swords drawn, watching their master. A word from McCarthy and Callum would have a real fight on his hands. He watched the Laird, expecting him to give the order, but McCarthy’s gaze was still on Moira as she fidgeted in place.

Finally, after a moment’s deliberation, McCarthy sheathed his sword and turned to Callum.

“I am a reasonable man, Laird Murray. I wouldnae have got very far in me position if I took everythin’ at the word of me peers—even if me only daughter is the one to tell the tale. What proof dae ye hold? And by God ye better tell me the truth if ye value yer skin.”

Callum sheathed his sword too, raising his hands defensively and making eye contact with the guards to show he meant them no harm.

Then he reached inside his inner pocket and withdrew the letters that Alexander had found for him.

“I thought me braither might have burned these, but I believe, even before his death, he kenned that he needed to keep evidence of this woman’s lies.”

Moira stepped forward, her body trembling with rage as Callum handed them over to McCarthy.

The Laird frowned at the small packet. It was tied in a dark green velvet ribbon, and he loosened it, his brow furrowing still further as he opened the first letter.

Slowly, his face turned ashen pale as he read the lines inside. Moira did not move, her cheeks coloring as her father read every line of the lust and desire she had hidden for so long.

Callum had not read more than a few lines to prove they were authentic, but even he had been shocked by the language Moira could use in the throes of her need.

It sickened him that his brother had loved someone who could speak so of another man.

McCarthy’s hand was shaking by the time he looked at his daughter, the letter held loosely between his fingers.

“Ye have lied to me face,” he said, brandishing them furiously.

“This, this is what ye are guilty of! Ye had me believe he threw ye out for nothin’.

The only reason I didnae start a war was out of respect for the dead.

The late Laird did nothin’ to ye. He forced ye out because ye were tryin’ to seduce his own braither? ”

“Callum wanted me,” Moira stated firmly. “We love each other.”

Callum scoffed, taking a menacing step toward her.

“Moira, if ye were nae so cruel, I would believe ye mad. I never would have laid a hand on ye, whether me braither was alive or dead. I dinnae want ye, I never have.”

McCarthy was frozen now, rifling through the letters, his color returning as his cheekbones became stained with red at the words his daughter used.

Shameless until the last, Moira stepped forward, a coquettish smile on her face. It sent Callum back in time five years to the moment his life had been changed forever—ruined by that very smile.

She reached him, fluttering her eyelids at him, and placed a hand on his chest. McCarthy made a strangled sound to see his daughter’s true nature, but Callum stood his ground.

“Callum,” she purred. “Ye ken we could be happy together. Now that yer paramour has gone, we can live together. We can take the girls back, and I can be yer lady just as ye always wanted.”

Callum gripped her wrist so hard that she winced, pulling her arm from his chest and meeting her gaze.

“Nae many men have ever turned ye down, Moira. I ken that. But believe me when I tell ye there is only one woman who holds me heart, and she isnae and never has been ye.”

Moira’s pale blue eyes began to burn with a familiar fire as she snatched her hand away. But the twisted snarl of anger he had expected never came.

Instead, there was a small smirk on her face that chilled his blood.

“Well, it is a shame that your sassenach will be dead by now, then,” she spat. “Ye will be alone again, and once she is gone, ye’ll beg to have me back.”

Callum stepped forward, clenching his fists as he glared at Moira.

“What did ye dae?” he demanded, and Moira simply shook her head.

“What I had to, to prove me love for ye.”

Callum turned to McCarthy, but it was clear from the shock on his face that the Laird knew nothing of what Moira had done.

In the silence that followed, the pattering of rain began to thunder against the glass on all sides. Callum glanced at the panes as the rivulets of water began to tumble down in torrents. The rain had finally arrived, and the landscape around them was dark and ominous.

How will I ever find her in this weather?

The panic that gripped him made his chest ache, and with one final glare at Moira, he ran from the room to get the girls.

He was determined not to leave them in McCarthy’s clutches for a moment longer, but when he rounded the corner, he skidded to a halt. Hannah and the girls were running back inside, soaked through, as the maid hugged the girls to her.

Amy and Eilis looked pitiful in their dresses, sodden with the rain, their hair matted to their necks as they looked up at him. Callum’s heart began to beat wildly as he realized he could not take them with him now.

He had one horse, and the rain was coming down in sheets; he could not carry them all the way home like this.

But if I leave now, Moira could try to manipulate her faither against me again.

Amy and Eilis ran to him, clutching at his legs, and he crouched to the floor, encircling them both with his arms and hugging them tightly against his torso.

“My girls, are ye all right?”

“We kenned ye would come for us,” Eilis said. “Where is Lydia?”

“Yer uncle is goin’ to get her back.”

Callum stilled, releasing the girls and pushing them behind him as he rose to his feet, turning to look at McCarthy. The Laird had followed him, but there was no longer any malice in his expression.

Moira was behind him in the dark, watching with a look of pure venom in her eyes.

McCarthy brandished the letters in front of him, his expression grim.

“With yer permission, Laird Murray, I will burn this heinous proof of me daughter’s treachery. I am goin’ to send her away to a convent where she will learn piety and forgiveness and how to live as the proper lady that I raised her to be.”

Moira scoffed, shaking her head. “Ye willnae send me away, Faither.”

“Be silent!” McCarthy barked, and Callum felt a vicious satisfaction when Moira’s mouth fell open in shock.

“Ye think I am in jest?” McCarthy thundered, twisting around to glare at his daughter. “When I heard what Angus Lawson had done to his braither all those years ago, I believed he was justified. I thought he had sullied me only child, betrayed his Laird and everything decent in this world.”

McCarthy shook his head. “But it was all a lie. Ye have destroyed enough lives, Moira. Ye will nae be given leave to dae nay more. Ye are lucky Laird Murray doesnae run ye through.”

He turned back to Callum, closing his eyes as he shook his head sorrowfully.

“Ye have me word, I will get these girls back to ye. Unharmed. I will send them with an armed guard in me carriage with their maid. I can only pray ye find yer lady in time. I am sorry for the pain me daughter has wrought.”

Callum looked into McCarthy’s dark stare before holding out his hand. McCarthy took it in a grip of iron as the two men shook on their new alliance.

Callum turned to the girls, bending down to give them one final hug farewell.

“We will all be together soon,” he whispered. “I am goin’ to find Lydia and bring her back.”

The girls squeezed him tightly before Callum reluctantly released them, turning back to give McCarthy one final nod before sprinting out into the rain.

“Ye dinnae have much time!”

Callum heard Moira’s triumphant voice on the wind but shut it out, pushing the cruel words out of his mind.

He would be no good to Lydia if he did not focus.

Running through the gates, he sprinted through the deluge toward the trees where he had left Seamus.

The horse gave a snort of greeting as he hurled himself up and into the saddle, pulling on his reins and galloping back toward his castle.

He calculated that Lydia would be several miles away by now. There was nothing to stop whoever Moira had sent after her, killing her in seconds.

Callum could only pray that he was in time.

Callum Lawson doesnae beg, but I would beg her to return to me with every breath I have left.