your bride is raped or killed by those savages. It won’t be Sinclair and his clan they blame, my lord, but you. And when the news reaches London—and mark my word, it eventually will—not even the most desperate papa will be persuaded to turn his daughter over to your care. Not when you can’t promise to keep her alive until the wedding night.”
After saying his piece, Ian held his breath, waiting for his uncle to once again lash out at him in rage.
But for once the old man actually seemed to be considering his counsel. He pursed his thin lips briefly before saying, “Then we wait for Sinclair’s next move, just as I had planned. Since you seem to have made such a dreadful bungle of it, I shall attend to her parents myself and tell them our hands are tied until we receive a ransom demand from the wretch. Only then can we determine how to proceed.”
Galvanized by a fresh sense of purpose, his uncle retrieved his walking stick from the brass can in the corner and marched from the room. Ian started to follow but before he could turn away from the window, his own gaze was caught and held by themagnificence of the view. Twilight was just beginning to descend from the heavens. The gathering shadows cast a gauzy lavender veil over the topmost peak of the mountain.
Unlike his uncle, Ian sought to avoid that view whenever possible. When he had first come to live at Hepburn Castle, he had been a pale, thin, bookish boy of ten who secretly dreamed of roaming the mountain’s crags and hollows, as wild and free as one of the eagles soaring over its majestic crest. But his uncle had quickly wearied of having a child underfoot and packed him off to school. Most of Ian’s holidays and summers had been spent at the earl’s town house in London in the indifferent care of one butler or another.
When his uncle had summoned him back to Scotland to attend St. Andrews at the age of seventeen, his shoulders had filled out considerably, but he was no less pale and bookish, a fact that made him a tempting target for his more muscular, less cerebral classmates.
A trio of them had been taking turns shoving him around the grassy expanse of St. Salvator’s Quad one chilly autumn afternoon when a voice had called out, “Leave the lad be!”
They had ceased pummeling Ian and turned as one to cast their disbelieving gazes on the young man standing in the shadow of the stone arch just belowthe clock tower. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but his robes were shabby and far too short for his long legs. His rich brown hair was poorly trimmed and falling half in his eyes. Light green eyes narrowed in unmistakable warning.
The leader of Ian’s tormentors—a hulking boy named Bartimus with tree trunks for calves and no discernible neck—snorted, plainly delighted to have found a new target for their bullying. “Or you’ll what, Highlander? Force us to eat some haggis? Blow us to death with your bagpipes?”
As Bartimus and his cronies came swaggering toward him, a lazy smile curved the stranger’s lips. Oddly enough, it made him look more ferocious instead of less. “I don’t think there’ll be any need for the bagpipes, laddies. From what I’ve seen, the three o’ ye are quite capable o’ blowin’ each other without my help.”
Their disbelief turning to outrage, the boys exchanged a glance, then charged the newcomer as one. Ian started after them, not sure what he was going to do but refusing to let a stranger take a beating on his behalf. He’d taken only a handful of steps when the first crunch of fist on bone sounded, followed by a high-pitched yelp.
He stumbled to a halt, his mouth falling open.
It wasn’t the stranger taking the beating, but his attackers. And it wasn’t being done with the refinedrules Ian had witnessed while visiting Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon in London, but with a ruthless efficiency that combined joyful abandon with brute force. By the time he was through with them, they were no longer
After saying his piece, Ian held his breath, waiting for his uncle to once again lash out at him in rage.
But for once the old man actually seemed to be considering his counsel. He pursed his thin lips briefly before saying, “Then we wait for Sinclair’s next move, just as I had planned. Since you seem to have made such a dreadful bungle of it, I shall attend to her parents myself and tell them our hands are tied until we receive a ransom demand from the wretch. Only then can we determine how to proceed.”
Galvanized by a fresh sense of purpose, his uncle retrieved his walking stick from the brass can in the corner and marched from the room. Ian started to follow but before he could turn away from the window, his own gaze was caught and held by themagnificence of the view. Twilight was just beginning to descend from the heavens. The gathering shadows cast a gauzy lavender veil over the topmost peak of the mountain.
Unlike his uncle, Ian sought to avoid that view whenever possible. When he had first come to live at Hepburn Castle, he had been a pale, thin, bookish boy of ten who secretly dreamed of roaming the mountain’s crags and hollows, as wild and free as one of the eagles soaring over its majestic crest. But his uncle had quickly wearied of having a child underfoot and packed him off to school. Most of Ian’s holidays and summers had been spent at the earl’s town house in London in the indifferent care of one butler or another.
When his uncle had summoned him back to Scotland to attend St. Andrews at the age of seventeen, his shoulders had filled out considerably, but he was no less pale and bookish, a fact that made him a tempting target for his more muscular, less cerebral classmates.
A trio of them had been taking turns shoving him around the grassy expanse of St. Salvator’s Quad one chilly autumn afternoon when a voice had called out, “Leave the lad be!”
They had ceased pummeling Ian and turned as one to cast their disbelieving gazes on the young man standing in the shadow of the stone arch just belowthe clock tower. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but his robes were shabby and far too short for his long legs. His rich brown hair was poorly trimmed and falling half in his eyes. Light green eyes narrowed in unmistakable warning.
The leader of Ian’s tormentors—a hulking boy named Bartimus with tree trunks for calves and no discernible neck—snorted, plainly delighted to have found a new target for their bullying. “Or you’ll what, Highlander? Force us to eat some haggis? Blow us to death with your bagpipes?”
As Bartimus and his cronies came swaggering toward him, a lazy smile curved the stranger’s lips. Oddly enough, it made him look more ferocious instead of less. “I don’t think there’ll be any need for the bagpipes, laddies. From what I’ve seen, the three o’ ye are quite capable o’ blowin’ each other without my help.”
Their disbelief turning to outrage, the boys exchanged a glance, then charged the newcomer as one. Ian started after them, not sure what he was going to do but refusing to let a stranger take a beating on his behalf. He’d taken only a handful of steps when the first crunch of fist on bone sounded, followed by a high-pitched yelp.
He stumbled to a halt, his mouth falling open.
It wasn’t the stranger taking the beating, but his attackers. And it wasn’t being done with the refinedrules Ian had witnessed while visiting Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon in London, but with a ruthless efficiency that combined joyful abandon with brute force. By the time he was through with them, they were no longer
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