A Gentle Feuding by Johanna Lindsey Read Free Book Online Page B

the last months, and with which clans? If ’tis your youngest you’re no’ offering, why no’ say so?”
    “You can have my youngest, though if you’ve any decency, you’ll no’ choose her. She’s too young to wed,” Dugald retorted. “’Tis my oldest you canna have.”
    “Why? Has she a love match?”
    “Nay, she’s the only one who doesna want to marry yet, and if we have peace, she’ll no’ have to.”
    “Ahhh…now I ken. She’s your favorite, eh? Too good for the savage MacKinnion?”
    Dugald wouldn’t answer. “When you’re tired of this hole, lad, I’ll let you see my daughters and make a choice.” Jamie’s humor was gone, and his voice was coldly final. “I wasna jesting when I said I must try my wife ’afore marrying her.”
    “You’ll change your mind after a while in here.”
    Soon Jamie was alone again and doubly furious.To think he had been fretting about facing the jesting of his kin! There had never been the slightest notion that he wouldn’t be released.
    There would be no cause for worry, even now, if only his clan knew he was there. Old Dugald had just been bluffing about that. Faced with an actual attack, he would have no choice but to let Jamie go. But who was to tell his clan he was there?
    For hours he contemplated revenge, and soon the empty wine flask lay in his lap. But his anger kept him sober. He devised countless ways to make an unwanted wife suffer. And—sweetest revenge—he would not kill Dugald Fergusson, but take him prisoner and daily report to him the abuse of his daughter. Too bad it could not be the favorite daughter.
    Jamie’s anger buzzed around him. He could not remember ever feeling so frustrated. Even when his first marriage was arranged for him, he had not really felt trapped. He had not wanted the Mackintosh girl. She had been a bonny lass, but a stranger. His father had wanted the match, and so it was done. He would not even have considered disobeying his father’s wish. Afterward, both father and son greatly regretted the marriage. Instead of an alliance, they made fresh enemies, for the Mackintosh laird blamed them for his daughter’s death.
    The creaking of the trapdoor signaled that Jamie was to have more company. He was too incensed to speak to the laird again. “If that’s you, Fergusson, I’ll thank you to leave me be. I’m no’ finished yetdevising all the ways I’ll be making your daughter suffer when she’s my wife.”
    Jamie heard a gasp and leaned forward to try to see into the opening. “If that’s no’ you, old man, then who?”
    “’Tis me.”
    “Who is me?” Jamie growled.
    “Niall Fergusson.”
    “Is it now?” Jamie sneered, leaning back against the hard wall. “The very lad who keeps his word for but a few hours? Come to gloat, have you, over your fooling The MacKinnion into believing there was honor in your oath?”
    “I didna mean to betray you,” Niall said in a weak, frightened voice.
    “Now you insult me with lies. There is no half measure in a betrayal.”
    “But I told only my sister,” Niall protested. “She would have kept the secret.”
    “Then the bitch—”
    “Dinna call her that!” Niall cut him off with such fury that he surprised both of them. After a moment, with more control, he said, “She told no one. ’Twas another sister who overheard me in the telling and ran to my father. I couldna stop her. But I dinna disclaim the responsibility. The fault was mine. ’Tis why I risked coming here again—to tell you how sorry I am.”
    “You canna be as sorry as I, lad,” Jamie said bitterly. “And I swear if I had my hands around yourneck at this moment, you’d see how I repay those who betray me.”
    Niall’s breath came with difficulty, as if those very hands were indeed about his neck. “What did my father say to make you so angry?”
    “Dinna jabber now and pretend you’ve no idea!” Jamie hissed.
    “But he didna tell me. He’s no’ happy that I kept your identity from