Part 7 (1/2)
”What the devil is the meaning of this?” Lochlan asked. ”What are all of you doing here?”
”We've come for answers,” Fergus said over the murmuring voices. ”I saw the way you and your brothers cozied up to the women, and now I'm thinking you and them fancy brothers of yours are wanting to be keeping our women for yourselves.”
Lochlan gaped in disbelief. ”You canna be serious.”
”What else are we to think?” Davis snarled.
At a score and ten years, with a thick mop of tawny hair and a slight build, Davis was normally one of the more reliable men of the clan. But by the furious look on his face, Lochlan could tell Fergus had stirred up quite a bit of mischief while Lochlan had been gone.
”All of us here know that Braden MacAllister never sleeps alone,” Davis continued, ”and now you've left him locked up in the kirk with our women. He's probably in a darkened corner even as we speak with one of our women wrapped about him. And G.o.d help you both if it's my wife he's with.”
Davis raked Lochlan with a repugnant glare ”Where was your head when you decided to leave him in there? I'm thinking it's time we b< finding=”” ourselves=”” a=”” new=”” laird!=”” one=”” with=”” some=”” common=””>
”Aye!” the others shouted in unison.
Lochlan could feel his blood starting to boil Granted, Braden was a bit rambunctious when it came to women, but even his scandalous brother knew when to draw the line of propriety.
Most of the time, anyway.
It wasn't Fergus's or Davis's place to reprimand Braden. That was for Lochlan to do.
”I left Braden in there to get the women out,' Lochlan explained.
About half the men snorted in disgust.
Dermot came forward. Only half an inch shorter than Lochlan, the older man's light gray eyes burned in anger. ”I've spent the better par of a decade guarding my daughters from that randy brother of yours, and now you expect me to believe he's not in there, right now, lining the women up to choose one or even more to warn his bed? Whose knotty-pated decision was it to send him in there in the first place?”
The word ”mine” faltered on Lochlan's tongue No need to make the matter any worse than it already was. None of his men were ready to listen to reason.
Silently, Lochlan cursed his brother's raging hormones and good looks. Better he should have had a brother who looked like a warted troll than one who was forever being pursued by the fairer s.e.x.
The men began shouting at him again.
Lochlan held his hands up to silence them.
Seeking to allay their fears, he explained Braden's plan as best he could and prayed for them to listen.
”Braden went inside the kirk to bring Maggie out. She's the only woman he's after; the rest are safe.”
Bitter, cruel laughter broke out.
”What kind of fools do you take us for?” Davis asked. ”None ofus would have Maggie on her best day.
Now, why would your brother be after her when he could have the best-looking among them?”
The coldhearted statement brought a sudden echoing silence to the hall.
All eyes turned slowly to Maggie's four brothers who had come inside with the others. Stephen, Ian, Duncan and Jamie looked as if they were ready to kill each man standing in the room.
”And just what do you be meaning by that, Davis MacDowd?” Jamie asked in a low, lethal tone.
Davis stammered as he regarded the four angry brothers united in defense of their baby sister. ”I didn't mean much. It's just... you know yourself that no man here has ever courted her.”
The words only served to make the brothers' faces even redder, their bodies more tense as they regarded the men around them.
”And what's wrong with my little sister?” Duncan took up the challenge.
”First, she's not much to look at,” Fergus said. ”And second, she's off in the head. Look what she's gone and done with the women! Not to mention, she attacked me in the kirk when I went to see my wife.”
The words set off total chaos in the hall as the four brothers growled in rage, then attacked their clansmen.
Lochlan joined the fray, trying to bring peace to his men. Curses and shouts rang through the hall, along with the sounds of fists striking flesh, and breaking furniture.
Lochlan had never in his life seen such a melee.
The urge to cross the room and remove his sword from the mantel was strong, but he didn't truly want to hurt any of them. He did, however, want them to exercise a little restraint.
As Lochlan struggled to pull the brothers from the fray, five men set upon him at once. Before Lochlan could extract himself from their beefy hands, they seized him and set him down hard in a chair before the hearth.
”What are you doing?” Lochlan demanded as three of the men held him in place while two others grabbed ropes.
The answer was plain.
After a few more minutes, Maggie's four brothers were seated next to him, the five of them trussed up like birds for the slaughter.
Cursing them all, Lochlan struggled against the ropes which bound him to the chair. If he ever got out of this, they would pay dearly for their actions.
Fergus and the others looked down upon them with evil smiles. ”Now it's time we find us a laird who can actually handle the-”
”What in the name of Satan's hairy toes is this?”
Fergus's face paled at the sound of the deep bellow.
Settling down, Lochlan breathed a sigh of relief at Braden's appearance.
But his relief was short-lived.
The mob turned on Braden with a vengeance. Their angry voices again reached a deafening tone.
Until a loud whistle sounded.
The men settled down, and they drifted back, making a path from Braden to Lochlan and Maggie's brothers.
His face a mask of fury, Braden stepped forward and eyed the crowd. ”Would someone care to explain to me why my brother, your laird, is tied to a chair?”
A wave of sheepishness washed through the men. Except for Fergus. He moved forward to confront Braden. ”We want this matter with the women settled.”
”And you think tying Lochlan to a chair is the best way to accomplish this?”
Lochlan smiled. With Braden here, he allowed himself to see the ridiculousness of the situation.