She looked to Cain as she spoke. “As the new chief, I broke the betrothal contract my father had signed without my consent. We have paid the forfeiture price, with Pastor John present.” She turned her gaze on Hew. “And I will not wed you.”

“But ye will wed him?” Hew threw his thick, dirt-smeared arm out toward Cain, a sneer on his face, a scraggly beard making him look even more like a wild man. The Mackay chief had always been thick and squat, his furrowed brows and piercing eyes giving him a scoundrel’s look.

Thank you, God, for saving me from wedding him.

She’d thwarted most of his clumsy advances, although his brutality had been tempered by his idea of charm, believing she would wed him soon enough and be at his mercy.

“I have not agreed to wed any man,” she said, holding firm against the storm of rage growing in his crimson face.

Hew stood taller, his voice ringing out over the hall of men. “Arabella Sutherland and I are already wed in the eyes of God.”

A deep murmur rose from the witnesses in the room, their discontent and censure rising into the rafters. Fury shot up inside Ella. Did the idiot think she didn’t know what happened between a man and woman to consummate a marriage? Or did he consider her the docile girl he remembered under Alec Sutherland’s reign of terror? He was delusional if he thought their few uncomfortable kisses bound them together.

“You lying bastard,” she said, her words thick with disgust.

Hew’s words rang out. “I challenge the banns that have been posted for their unholy union, for we have joined together carnally if not yet by a cleric.”

“Lies,” she said, stepping before him. Her nose curled at the smell of human waste wafting off him, and she tugged free the dagger she’d secreted up her sleeve. With an underhand flick of her wrist, she pricked the point into the soft divot between his chin and Adam’s apple. “Speak another, and you will speak no more.” A drop of blood swelled out to snake down under his torn, filthy tunic.

“If she kills him, the Mackays will war with the Sutherlands and the Sinclairs,” Randolph said quickly.

Bàs stepped before Randolph, hefting his scythe. “Or I can kill ye here without a single Mackay learning about your puny threat.”

The surprise on Hew’s face made her think that she was right about him foolishly wagering that she was docile, even though she’d kneed him in the ballocks when he’d groped her with his meaty paws at Varrich last autumn.

“I have not, in any way, married you, Hew Mackay,” Ella said from between clenched teeth. “Despite your brutish tricks to catch me alone, you have won nothing from me but my disdain and several clumsy kisses, you bloody leasing-monger.”