“My mother sent her to live with a Sutherland friend who had wed into the Sinclair clan. Vi was ten and old enough to attract my father’s rather base attention, so my mother packed her off.”

What horrors Randolph, Viola, and their poor mother must have endured. “Randolph,” Ella said, holding the goblet before her like a shield. “I am sorry that my father did not take you and your family in. Alec Sutherland was a cruel man. I lived under him, so I know. But forcing me to wed you and harming an innocent boy will make you the same as he. Do not be my father. Do not be your father. Be your own man.”

Randolph’s face contorted, turning red as his lips rolled back. He threw the goblet, where it smashed against the wall, making Ella jump at the sudden explosion. Red wine sprayed out against the stone to stain it like blood. “I am my own man, Arabella.” He held up his arm, which was thinner than most of the warriors with whom she’d grown up. “I was born without the bulk and physical strength of my father and without the foolish sentiment of my mother.”

Tall, dark, and slender, Randolph Mackay could have been handsome if his heart hadn’t decayed with wrath.

He tapped the side of his head. “But I have a cunning mind, one that I am pitting against the strategic planning of Cain Sinclair.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled, shaking slightly as if ridding himself of his fury, and his leer-like smile crept back across his face. “Hew was easy enough to control like a child’s poppet, and ye finished him off quite nicely while saving that foolish sister of Cain’s. Cain Sinclair has a much brighter mind, but I have had a lifetime of planning my rise to power. I but waited until someone slaughtered your father. I would have done it myself if I had not been implementing my plan.”

Ella glanced at the few men around the room, Iain being the largest. Grim and formidable, were they loyal to this lunatic? They stood frozen, as if cut from marble, their faces impassive, all except Iain who continued to watch her like a predator stalking his kill. Had Randolph promised her to him for helping him? The thought made her legs feel weak.

Randolph stretched his empty hands over his head to cup the back of it. “If all goes according to my plan, I will end up the chief of Clans Mackay, Sutherland, and eventually Sinclair with the royal backing of the Scottish throne.” He laughed. “I could be king.”