But if harsh features were a mark of lesser intelligence, then the rule was broken here. His mind was more than a match for his son’s, or even Mary’s. The truly frightening thing about him, as she would soon learn, was that this glowering beast, this physical brute, was also sharper and shrewder than any man she had ever known. She could not feel brave in his presence, only vulnerable and afraid.
But as the two men returned from the loft, reporting, “No sign that anyone’s been here but herself, though the upper room is undoubtedly a young lady’s,” she remembered the dangerous nearness of those she had sworn to protect, and the injuries they had already suffered at the hands of such men. Her pride returned, along with the instinctive cunning of a woman cornered.
“Of course,” she said, feigning indignation against the search alone, and total ignorance of what they could want from her. “It is my niece’s room, to return to if and when she chooses.”
“And where is she now?” demanded the tyrant.
“She has gone to live with her mother, as I told your son not a fortnight since. I suggest you look for her there.” It occurred to her only after she had said this that it might endanger her sister-in-law.
“It may please you to know,” he said calmly, taking a sharpened letter-knife from his coat and twirling it carelessly between his fingers, “that we have already been to see the widow MacCain. She, too, had the insolence to speak to me in such a manner. Would you like to know what we did to her? Tell her, Ballard.”
“Burned her for a witch, we did---tied to a tree, right up on her own roof.” The man smiled, as if he found this detail particularly satisfying. “My one regret, Lord, is that you hit her so hard in the questioning, she never regained her senses to enjoy it. One would have thought she was dead already.”
“That will be all, Lieutenant. Take the bodies back to the Castle. But first, check the neighborhood. See if you can’t flush out a kilt and jacket for our amorous red-haired friend, if you follow my meaning.”
“I do at that, sir. And I don’t suppose it would hurt to brand him for a prisoner as well?”
“Number 406. Good day, Ballard.” The Lieutenant pushed the younger man forward, then followed him out, closing the door behind.