Highlander’s False Betrothal by Alisa Adams
19
The mercenaries closed in around Aodh, and he raised his sword, but Caroline threw herself between him and the oncoming blades.
“Do not dare harm him!” she admonished them. “Not a hair on his head!”
“Hold, all of you!” George called out fretfully. “Do not injure my daughter! Caroline, for heaven’s sake, you must stand aside! I do not know what this man has said or done to confound you so, but I promise you, he is your enemy and mine as well!”
“He is neither, I assure you!” Caroline retorted. “And until you listen to reason, Father, I refuse to move! Any who seek to hurt Laird Aodh shall have to pierce through me to do it!”
“Do as he says, Caroline,” Aodh entreated. “Stand away from me. Do not risk yourself on my account.”
“Indeed not,” Marcus chimed in. “There is no need of it. Kill the laird of the Campbell clan, and all of my soldiers and theirs shall crash down upon your ranks like a stormy sea.”
“You are gravely outnumbered, in case you have not noticed,” George said smugly.
“Perhaps,” Aodh conceded, “but our forces do not need to overpower you, only keep you occupied long enough for the Brodie clan’s reinforcements to arrive.”
“All of this silly posturing,” Freya muttered to herself. “Boys are a thoroughly ridiculous lot.”
“And still, I will not be moved,” Caroline announced.
George tilted his head, bemused. “You are bluffing, Daughter. Surely you would not sacrifice yourself for this man. Not with your general disdain for his people, your unwillingness to even entertain the prospect of an arranged union with him—”
“None of that matters to me anymore, Father,” she countered. “I have come to love him deeply and sincerely, and he feels the same for me. We wish to be married truly.”
The English lord turned to Aodh quizzically. “And I suppose you expect me to believe all of this as well?”
“I have no control over what you believe, sir,” Aodh answered, “but I can tell you that I adore your daughter more than life itself, and I intend to do all I can to cherish and protect her. This I vow.”
“Ah, yes, but I seem to recall that you already took similar vows which turned out to be false,” George pointed out. “Why should I trust you, young man?”
“Because I trust him,” Caroline told him. “And because it will prevent a needless war, which was meant to be the point of all this to begin with, was it not?”
The old man’s face softened, and he nodded. “Very well. We shall have our forces stand down, and we shall talk things through.”
“No!” Bhaltair shrieked. “You cannot make peace! Not after everything I did to exact my revenge! There must be blood, do you hear?! My sons cry out for blood!”
Suddenly, he dismounted from the horse he had been tied to, and Aodh saw, to his dismay, that the ropes had been cut through.
From the look of it, Bhaltair had hidden Ainsley’s poisoned dagger up his sleeve. Now, even with his wrists manacled, he was slicing the lethal blade toward Caroline.
Aodh shoved her aside, and the knife plunged into his forearm.
He yanked his arm away, and the blade came with it, leaving Bhaltair empty-handed and shackled. Aodh’s fist came back around in a wide arc, crashing against the disgraced laird’s broad jaw and breaking it.
Bhaltair fell to the ground, unconscious, mumbling the names of his lost sons.
The effects of the poison were immediate.
At first, it felt like a hive of bees inside Aodh’s skull. Then his skin began to tingle darkly, as though death itself were running through his veins, blackening and rotting them. The grassy ground beneath him spun up to meet his face, and the last thing he heard was Caroline’s voice calling out his name before consciousness was ripped away from him.
