The Wolfe (109 page)

“I dunna know,” Malcolm said. “Mayhap
use ye to whore. I dunna think Dunbar is planning on killing ye.”

Disgust and fear shot up her spine
and she went stiff. “Whore? I would rather die.”

“When ye went to the English, ye
became a whore anyway,” he replied irritably. “What is the difference if ye
whore here or at Northwood?”

She was outraged. “Malcolm, I have
lain with only one man in my entire life - my husband.” she exclaimed. She
debated whether or not to tell him the whole story, but thought against it. She
did not want anyone knowing who she was married to.

He shrugged. “And he is an English
bastard, he is.”

“What of Callie?” Jordan suddenly
wanted to know. “They are not keeping her to whore, are they?”

“Nay,” Malcolm shook his head. “No
one has touched her. I think Dunbar wants her for Abner, although she is too
tall and thin for his tastes.”

Sweet Caladora. Jordan was desperate
to see her cousin and to comfort her. Callie was a weak soul. She could only
imagine the fear the girl must have been going through, just as Jordan was now.

Malcolm suddenly stepped back into
the shadows as Dunbar and Abner marched into the room, their eyes riveting to
Jordan as if she were a fat slab of prize beef.

“Ye dinna lie, for once,” Dunbar said
to his son. “Ye did get her.”

Jordan instinctively cowered as
Dunbar approached her, very pleased with the turn of events. He put his beefy
hands on his fat hips, smiling happily.

“Lady de Longley,” he said. “’Tis a
pleasure.”

Jordan didn’t reply and simply
stared back with apprehension. He took a step closer and took her chin between
his thumb and forefinger, turning her face from side to side.

“Aye, the moat beauteous woman in
all of Scotland,” he said with satisfaction, glancing at his son. “Do ye want
her, Abner? ‘Tis a fine bit of flesh.”

“Nay,” Malcolm suddenly stepped
forward. “I will claim her.”

Dunbar looked at Malcolm. “Ye?”

Malcolm nodded firmly. “Aye.
Consider her payment for all of the help I have given ye. I have always had an
eye for Jordan, my sweet little cousin.”

Bile rose in Jordan’s throat. What
in the bloody hell was the man saying? She would not, could not couple with her
cousin. He’d given her no indication of his intentions in their conversation.

Dunbar looked hard at Malcolm, who
returned the glare.

“I am yer son, too,” Malcolm met his
glare. “I am a year older than Abner, which makes me yer eldest. I demand first
choice of the booty.”

Dunbar held his gaze for a long,
long moment and Malcolm kept waiting for a fist in his face. But no fist was
forthcoming.

“Ye’re becoming a McKenna after all,”
Dunbar said finally. “Ye can have yer cousin until I decide what to do with
her, just like the others.”

“But – Da,” Abner stammered. “Ye
said we were going to call the leaders and try her as a traitor. What about it?”

“We still might,” Dunbar nodded,
smiling humorlessly at Jordan. “But let yer brother have his fun wi’ her first.
‘Tis no harm in it.”

“And then what?” Abner wanted to
know. “We finally have the mighty Countess of Teviot in our hands. What are we
gonna do with her?”

Dunbar scratched his bug-ridden
scalp. “To be honest, lad, I hadn’t planned on her being here. ‘Tis a great
surprise. I dunna know what to do with her. Yet.”

Abner’s eyes darted back and forth
between Jordan and his father. When he told his father that he had captured
Jordan and ordered her father killed, he hadn’t told him the entire story. He
failed to mention the companion that got away. The men he sent after the rider
had yet to return, so he still held out hope that the person had been caught.

Yet, he knew he had better tell his
father everything lest all of his plans go awry.

“Da, there is one other thing,” he
said as bravely as he could muster. “When we found Lady Jordan and her da, they
had a companion with them who rode away before we could catch him.”

“What? What’s this?” Dunbar’s
attention was on his son.

“I dunna know who it was, but my men
will surely catch him,” Abner added quickly. “‘Tis not possible for the rider
to return to Northwood to summon help.”

Dunbar was visibly agitated. He let
out a low growl and struck Abner on the side of the face hard, sending spittle
and blood flying from the lad’s mouth.

“Damnation!” Dunbar exploded. “Why
did ye not tell me this ‘fore?”

Abner rubbed his face. “Because the
rider willna get through. I wasna worried about it.”

“I am, lad!” his father shouted,
then as quickly as he angered, he calmed. “I hope he gets through. Aye, I do, and
I shall tell ye why; it will bring the English to our doorstep and we can blast
them once and for all.” He was instantly swept away with yet another outrageous
plan. “Aye, lads, do ye not see the beauty of this? While the English attack us
here, I shall split my forces and route an army wide around the English and
back to Northwood. All of their forces will be here fighting us, with no one
left to defend the fortress. ‘Tis brilliant. Masterful. Northwood will fall.”
His last three words were punctuated by correspondingly pounding a balled fist
into his hand.

Jordan could scarce believe what she
was hearing. She stared at Dunbar, at Abner, at Malcolm, her mouth agape.
Oh,
God, what have I done?

“Take yer woman, Malcolm,” Dunbar
had all but forgotten about Jordan in his haste. “Keep her with the other Scott
bitch if ye want.”

Malcolm hastily grabbed Jordan’s arm
and pulled her away with him. She struggled against him as he half-dragged her
up a crumbling flight of stairs and down a musty corridor to a door that was
stoutly bolted from the outside.

Jordan was terrified he was going to
rape her and struggled furiously with him. He didn’t say a word as he lifted
the big bolt and opened the door.

Jordan heard a familiar gasp and
knew that Caladora was in the room. Her struggles ceased for the moment at the
imminent prospect of seeing her cousin and she thrust herself through the doorway,
coming face-to-face with tall, wan Caladora Scott.

Caladora’s pale face went paler with
shock. “Jordan!”

“Callie!” Jordan threw herself into
her cousin’s arms, hugging her tightly. “Are ye all right? Did they hurt ye?”

“I told ye nobody hurt her,” Malcolm
said from the doorway. “And nobody will hurt ye, either, if ye do as ye’re
told. I shall be back later.”

“Wait!” Jordan cried before he could
close the door. Malcolm looked at her darkly, expectantly. “Ye said nothing
about making me yer own when we talked before, Malcolm Scott. Is that what ye
intend?”

He made a face. “Nay,” he snapped. “I
only said that so they’d leave ye alone for the time. Even if ye are an English
whore, ye’re still my cousin.”

“But why should ye protect me?” her
tone was deadly serious. “Ye let the clans kill yer mother, yer aunt, and yer
brother. Why am I any different?”

Malcolm didn’t even know why. All he
knew was that Jordan had always been nice to him, even when they were children.
She had always been special which was why he didn’t have the heart to slit her
throat when he’d had the chance a year back. Why was she asking him such dumb
questions? His face glazed with an angry expression.

“Well, I shall ravish ye if that’s
what ye want!” He slammed the door and bolted it.

Still in each other’s arms, Jordan
and Caladora stared at the door for a moment before turning back to each other.
Caladora touched her cousin’s hair as if trying to convince herself she wasn’t
seeing things.

“Are ye real, Jordi? I thought ye
were in England.” Caladora exclaimed softly.

“I was,” Jordan said. “But I came
back to see Langton for myself after I was told of her attack. Oh, Callie,
there is so much to tell ye.”

Time flew by as Jordan told Caladora
every single detail of her life, and of Jemma’s, since the moment she left Langton’s
gates. Her cousin was amazed, frightened, and thrilled for her all at the same
time and color gently washed her pale cheeks at all of the excitement.

When Jordan came to the point in the
tale where Jemma’s daughter had been a stillborn, she tried to be gentle but
Caladora broke out in tears anyway. Dear Callie had always been so sensitive,
but Jordan knew she would want to know of Jemma’s misfortune. Jordan spent a
good fifteen minutes comforting her cousin before finishing her story.

When it came Caladora’s turn to fill
Jordan in on everything that had happened at home during that time, the mood sobered
a little, but not completely. Life at Langton had not been near so exciting.

“I find it so unbelievable that ye
married the fearsome Wolf, Jordi.” Caladora said in her gentle voice.

Jordan lay back on the small bed,
smiling. “He’s not so fearsome to me,” she said. “He’s the most handsome, the
most charming, and the most dashing man I have ever met and we canna keep our
hands from one another.”

Caladora blushed as her cousin
laughed at her. “Dunna say such things to me, Jordi, for I am a maiden.”

“Well, I am not,” Jordan felt bawdy
but, after all, ‘twas only Caladora. “I carry another babe as we speak.”

Caladora shook her head. “And the
twins only six months old, yet. Did it hurt much to birth a babe?”

“Nay,” Jordan said confidently. “Well,
mayhap a little. But it was over quickly.”

Caladora nodded, but childbirth
scared the hell out of her; it always had. Jemma’s mishap scared her even more.

“I intend to have no children,” she
said firmly.

Jordan grinned knowingly. “Aye, ye
will want to when ye meet a man ye can love. Ye would die for him if he asked
it.”

Caladora shrugged. “What man would
have me, Jordi? Especially after I have been locked up in here for months, he
will think me despoiled.”

“Callie, any man would be lucky to
have ye,” Jordan sat up and went to her cousin. There was a dirty ivory comb on
a small broken table. Picking it up, she ran it through her cousin’s soiled
hair. Even oily and sticky, it was the most beautiful shade of red Jordan had
ever seen. So much gold and light to it.

Caladora closed her eyes at the
attention; it felt good to have her hair combed. “Next to ye and Jemma, I
always felt so awkward and plain. The men always noticed the two of ye and
never me.”

Jordan gave her hair a gentle yank. “‘Tis
not true, I tell ye. Ye’re beautiful. Tall and elegant as I wish I were. Jemma
and I are as short as trolls.”

Caladora’s pale green eyes opened as
she gazed out of the small window overlooking the western half of the keep. “But
ye’re so beautiful, Jordi. No one alive is as beautiful as ye are.”

“Hush, now, no more of that,” she
told her sternly. “If I had yer long legs, I would believe that. Now, when is
the last time ye washed this hair of yer’s?”

Caladora sighed thoughtfully. “Oh,
let me think - a couple of weeks ago, I think.”

“What?” Jordan cried. “Why so long?”

Her cousin shrugged. “Because they
frighten me and I dunna like demanding things of them.”

Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “Well, they
dunna frighten me. I shall get us soap and water, and a proper bath, too.”

When Malcolm returned several hours
later with a bit of dinner for them, she had her wish.

***

Dunbar had called the clan chiefs
together again, and within a half a day, they were gathered. The men sat
skeptically before Dunbar as the McKenna chief laid out his grand plan, telling
them of his recent capture and of Thomas’ death. When the lairds tried to argue
against taking on Northwood again, Dunbar was adamant that this time they would
be successful. After all, all of the English troops would be riding to McKenna
Keep to rescue the earl’s wife, leaving their own fortress vulnerable.

Into the night they argued and
fought until one by one, the chief’s began to give in. ‘Twas easier to give in
that continue beating their head against a wall. Dunbar, when convinced he was
right, was immovable.

Yet no one was glad to hear that
Thomas was dead. The man had been a loyal border earl for many years. They had
made the mistake of allowing Dunbar to convince them that Thomas was a traitor
when in fact, he had been wiser than all of them by seeking peace. But they
were afraid to oppose Dunbar and side with Thomas because at the time they,
too, doubted Thomas’ loyalties. Now, months after the fact, they knew it was a
mistake but it was too late to turn back. And no one would admit it, not even
to each other. So they were alone and isolated in their guilt.

Now Dunbar wanted to split up his
force and send half to attack Northwood while her guard was down while the
other half set up the defenses of McKenna Keep. Ambitious, even for him, but he
was so charismatic and logical that even they began to believe it possible.
With Northwood gone, mayhap Dunbar’s overall scheme would indeed work. So far,
all the clans had acquired from their initial assault was a lot of widows and
orphans and none of the promised border wealth.