Today, I’m posting the Great Hall scene from Highlander’s Hope. This is where Adaira’s family finds out she’s kept Lord Clarendon locked in the dungeon.
Excerpt from Highlander’s Hope
The clansmen moved to leave the Hall, but halted abruptly and staring dumbfounded at the irregular pair entering.
A nobleman stood before them wholly disheveled, several days’ growth of beard on his angular face. Adaira’s arm was wrapped in his steely grasp. Her eyes were swollen from crying, her hair a tangled mass hanging to her waist.
Hugh reached for his dirk. “What be the meaning of this? Unhand me daughter.”
“Clarendon?” Ewan’s eyebrows arched first in total surprise—he’d never seen The Earl angry before—then descended into a dark scowl. “Where the hell did you come from?”
Clarendon’s mouth skewed as he gave Adaira a slight shake. She protested not in the least but stared mutely at the floor.
Ewan stiffened and narrowed his eyes. “Here now, that’s my sister you are shaking about.”
Hugh and Dugall growled dual warnings.
Clarendon sliced a glance at the woman he restrained. “What, you’ve nothing to say now? You’ve been blathering non-stop for the past three days. You’d plenty to say then, most of it imprecise and illogical. Now you’re tongue-tied?” He jostled her again.
“Three days?” Ewan looked from Adaira to Clarendon.
“Your sister,” Clarendon leveled Adaira with a blistering glare, “has kept me as a forced guest in the dungeon below for three days past.”
Ewan narrowed his eyes. “Adaira?”
“I thought,” she peeked at him, then Clarendon. Shoulders slumping even more, she mumbled, “I thought he was the other one—the one who wants to harm Yvette.”
“What made you think that?” Ewan asked.
“I met him in the village. His horse was lame, and he was asking for directions to the Keep.”
Ewan’s eyes met Clarendon’s. There was a challenge in them.
“I often leave off my title when traveling,” said Clarendon. “I find it eliminates a lot of, shall we say, undesirable attention. Surely you understand.”
So who wants to guess what Adaira’s punishment was?
