Parris Afton Bonds Read Online Free PDF Page B

problem. Time was all she had. She didn’t even know the hour.
    She chose a simple sack gown of glazed, lavender-striped lawn with flounced lace ruffles at the elbow. A gauze handkerchief was secured by a breast knot, modestly covering t he gown’s low, lace-bordered décolletage. A small round cambric cap perched over a less-than-artfully arranged chignon.
    Then she could only pace. And wait. The cabin grew hot and stuffy. How long had it been? How much longer? Perspiration dampened her clot hes. From the heat—or from fear?
    She spotted the hourglass and cursed her forgetfulness. Inverting it, she began to pace again. Her gaze flickered ever so often to the hourglass. The sands trickled so slowly!
    She was hungry. Surely, the chief of the Cameron clan would see that she was fed.
    An hour had passed. She inverted the hourglass once more. How long before it became obvious she had been abducted? And then how much time could elapse before a rescue party was mustered? Days? Weeks? More like months, if she was realistic about her predicament. The Highlands’ hazardous geography, which helped the remaining Jacobites fight back effectively, would work against her and her servants.
    Elspeth, Mary Laurie, Duncan —what had become of them? God forbid that their lives had been taken!
    Five more times she turned the hourglass over before apathy dulled her agitation. She sought the solace of sleep. Sometime much later, the opening and closing of the cabin door roused her. The candle had gutted out. She could not see h er visitor, but she knew who it was. She was alone with her captor.
    "G ’evening, Madam Murdock. I imagine ye must be hungry."
    So it was evening. She picked up the pillow and hurled it in the direction of that marvelous deep voice. "You are a simpleton, Rana ld Kincairn. A starved captive will bring you no ransom.”
    His rich laughter infuriated her. “ I never spoke of ransom. I spoke of retribution.”
    Fear smote her anew. "You willna get away with this! This outrage!"
    The bed shifted beneath her. She smelled food: hot porridge. "A simple meal I have for ye, perforce one of the nuisances of voyages. Gratefully, ours shall not be a lengthy one. Open your mouth."
    She could not credit what she was hearing! The man meant to feed her like a chained d og! She felt the spoon nudge her lips. With a backlash of her hand, she knocked the spoon from her lips.
    A softly murmured Gaelic curse enhanced the darkness. "I take it ye are not hungry."
    "I’m famished, you brute! You dolt! You black-guard!”
    The bed crea ked with the release of his weight.
    "No! Wait! Come back!”
    The cat-quiet tread, unusual for so big a man, halted. "Aye?"
    "Please, my servants? Assure me they are alive and all right!"
    "That they are. As for ye, I keep ye alive, me lady, not out of kindness. I do it for the perverse pleasure I shall take in observing your degeneration from highborn lady to a slut who inhabits closes and wends and whom none but the lowest of humanity deign to touch. I shall return tomorrow.”
    “ Oh, God!" Tears stung her eyes. She swallowed back their salty taste. "What must I do?”
    "I ’m not God, so I canna answer as to His opinion," came the sardonic reply. "I, however, would suggest an apology for your crudeness. When last we talked I had thought ye spirited. Ye sink much faster to the dregs than I had anticipated. That shortens me pleasure."
    A neat psychological trap he had prepared: surrender now and assure her own self-destruction; defy him and give him diversion.
    Delay was the only prospect she had. "Then I proffer an apology." Her tone was flippant. Her brain raced. The words she next chose were of the King’s finest English. She would not betray her cowardice to her captor again. "But if it is entertaining you I must, I would hope the same from yourself, sir."
    “ Ye are not in a position to hope for such."
    Good. She heard the humor in his voice. "Alas. But you will feed me?”
    "A pleasure.” His