Highland Knight Read Free

released him. He let go of her to rub his abused head and she took quick advantage of her freedom. Even as she started to her feet, she punched him in the faceagain. She leapt to her feet and started to run, but he grabbed her skirts, yanking sharply.
    A curse escaped Avery as she hit the floor hard. She quickly turned onto her back and, seeing that he was moving to try and pin her down with his body, she kicked him in the face. He cursed but kept on coming. Twisting, kicking, and pummeling him with her fists, she did her utmost to prevent him from pinning her to the floor.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Avery saw a flash of movement. A moment later, Gillyanne was on the man’s back, her thin arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Avery punched Sir Cameron yet again as Gillyanne struggled to yank his head back.
    “Donald!” Sir Cameron bellowed. “Get this hellborn child off me!”
    It did not take Donald long to pull the tiny, cursing Gillyanne off Sir Cameron. It took even less time for Sir Cameron to firmly pin Avery down. She glared at him even as she realized that he had obviously done all he could not to seriously hurt her. That was a revelation she could ponder later, she decided.
    “My brother is no rapist,” she snapped.
    “My sister says he is,” Cameron replied in a cold, tight voice as he yanked her to her feet, her wrists held tightly in one big hand.
    “And ye heard that false claim all the way here where ye serve these murdering swine, the DeVeaux?”
    The way she said the name “DeVeau,” as if it were the most heinous of curses, interested him, but Cameron decided he would have to wait to satisfy his curiosity about that. “My cousin Iain, who acts as laird of Cairnmoor in my stead, sent a runner to tell me the news. It has taken me a fortnight to clear myself of all obligation, but I am finally able to go home to deal with the matter.”
    Suddenly, Avery recalled where she had recently heard the name MacAlpin. She had read it in the last letter sent from home. Her mother had referred to “a small confusion” that needed to be cleared away between the MacAlpins and the Murrays. Since her mother had then gently hinted that she and Gillyanne might wish to linger with her French cousins, Avery had been writing back to ask exactly what “a small confusion” was when the attack by the DeVeaux had come. Now she knew and now she fully understood her mother wanting her and Gillyanne to stay where they were. The rape of a laird’s kinswoman was a serious crime, one that led to bloody battles over offended honor, one that could easily lead to a long, deadly feud.
    “Have ye e’er met my brother or any of my family?” she demanded.
    “I met Sir Balfour Murray at court once,” Cameron replied as he dragged her over to the bed and picked up a set of wrist manacles from atop a large chest.
    Diverted for a moment, Avery looked at him as he manacled her to the thick wooden bedpost. “Manacles at your bedside? Have trouble keeping the lasses in your bed, do ye?” She heard Donald gasp and saw a slight flush rise and fall beneath Cameron’s dark skin, then wondered if it was particularly wise to so enrage her captor.
    “I bought them to take back to Cairnmoor, for they are stronger yet kinder than the ones we use there,” he spat out between clenched teeth, wondering why he felt compelled to explain himself to the impertinent woman.
    She just shrugged and set her mind back on the crime he accused her brother of. “And just where was my brother supposed to have committed this heinous crime against your sister and your clan?”
    “At court. Iain and my aunt took my sister there to try and arrange a marriage forher.”
    “And why wasnae this trouble sorted out there where the king himself may have aided in the settling of it?”
    “Because my sister didnae say anything until they had all returned to Cairnmoor. They pressed her to accept a match with Sir Malcolm Cameron, but she kept refusing. Finally,