Caelen offered a lazy smile. “I can assure you that your daughter will be delivered of a child within nine months of our marriage. What does nine more months buy you?”

Rionna flushed and Laird McDonald nearly exploded with rage.

Caelen then turned to the king. “I gave my word that I would not relate an event that happened some days past. But the reason for not telling is no longer an issue and I would want you and the other clans to know the kind of man Laird McDonald is and why it is my condition that he step down the moment I marry his daughter.”

The king frowned. “Speak then. I give you leave to break this promise.”

“When Keeley was a young girl, she was a McDonald. Cousin to Rionna and niece to Laird McDonald. He caught her in her chamber and tried to rape her. A girl barely on the cusp of womanhood. When his wife found them, she cried Keeley whore and cast her out of the keep. She was forced to live on her own and provide for herself as no young girl should have to do. She was without protection. It’s a wonder she survived.”

“That’s crazy talk,” Laird McDonald sputtered. “ ’Tis as my lady wife said. The lass tried to seduce me.”

Rionna whirled and pinned her father with a glare that made him pale and take his seat once again.

“That’s not the whole of it,” Caelen said softly. “Upon the laird’s arrival here, when he found out that Keeley was staying here in the McCabe keep, he waited for her to pass his chamber. He pulled her into his room, locked the door, and tried to rape her again.”

Alaric lunged across the table and slammed into Laird McDonald. The force sent them both over the back of the laird’s chair and they hit the floor with a resounding thump that echoed throughout the keep.

“You son of a bitch,” Alaric snarled. “You dared to touch her again? I’ll kill you for this!”

He yanked the laird to his feet and smashed his fist into his face, satisfied when the laird promptly spewed blood and two teeth from his mouth. Alaric reared back to hit him again when Caelen caught his fist.

“ ’Tis enough,” he said quietly. “I let you get in one, but now the laird is my problem, and I’ll deal with him accordingly.”

“You’re the one who found her, weren’t you?” Alaric said hoarsely. “And you didn’t tell me. She was mine to defend. It should have been me to have repaid his insult.”

Caelen smiled. “Your lass did a fine enough job on her own. She busted his nose and fair cracked his cods open. I merely finished the job for her.”