task she’d been fearing more than any other: seeing her father. The last year had allowed her to set aside much of her past. But that all came rushing back the moment she’d come face-to-face with him again.
She could no longer pretend she was not the daughter of an evil man. All those gathered in the great hall earlier—who’d had loved ones pricked, tortured, and killed by her father—brought that truth home.
Even so, her time with Cameron and at Ravenscraig had also shown her that she was not weak. Distance had provided her time to heal, and to see herself in a different light. Nessie had also helped her realize she might be her father’s daughter, but she was also her mother’s. She chose to believe her mother was filled with enough goodness to balance out the bad she might have inherited from her father. That thought gave her the courage to walk up the stairs to the third floor of the castle and down the hallway to the room her father occupied as Cameron’s “guest.”
At the doorway she addressed the two guardsmen. “I wish to see my father.”
The blond-haired guard she’d come to know as Orrin frowned. “M’laird said not to let you see the man alone.”
“There are things I need to discuss with him in private—as a daughter to a father. Besides, I will not be alone. You’ll both be right outside the door. Keep the door ajar if you must. A few moments are all I ask.”
The younger guard, Kyle, stepped closer. “What if he—”
“He will not harm me. I am, after all, his only child.”
Orrin’s brows knotted. “We should check with m’laird first.”
Without waiting for permission or a response, Mariam pushed the latch and opened the door. Drawing upon every scrap of fortitude she possessed, she stepped into the chamber. Despite her attempt to control her emotions, her fingers shook and her heart raced.
“Have you come to set me free or have you come to gloat?” He sat in a chair near the small hearth. At her entrance he stood, and with measured, heavy footsteps approached. Deep lines fanned from his dark eyes—eyes that bored into her own.
She stepped farther inside and left the door slightly ajar. “Why would I do either?” she asked, struggling to control the shiver in her voice. “I came to see if there was anything you needed.”
“I need nothing but to be set free.” Her father scowled as his gaze measured her from her head to her feet. “When the king hears about my imprisonment, he will be most annoyed.”
“When Laird Sinclair took me on as his ward, King James ordered you to stay away. I suspect the king will be more annoyed you didn’t follow a direct order. So why did you come here?” She straightened to her full height as he came to stand before her trying, as he had when she was a child, to make her feel small. The girl she had been then was gone. She was all grown up now.
His eyes narrowed at her lack of a negative response. “I came not as your father, but as the witch pricker. It was brought to my attention that strange things were happening around Ravenscraig Castle as of late—strange occurrences involving you,” he said, his voice cold.
“Why did you buy the Isle of May?”
He startled for a heartbeat before his icy mask fell back into place. “Who told you about that?”
“So, it is true?”
“’Twas a worthless isle. What interest could you possibly have in an abandoned hunk of land?”
“It was my mother’s home, and that of her people. They’d lived there for centuries, but you forbade them to return. I want to know why.”
A predatory smile lifted his lips as he grabbed her hand, holding it up between the two of them. Her fingers quivered, despite her attempt to still them. “What’s this? Emotions, Mariam? More specifically, fear?” He shook his head. “You’ve grown soft in the past year. The lessons I taught you are fading.” He tightened his grip, pinching her flesh.
Doing something she never would have dared in the past, she wrenched her hand away. “Do not touch me.” She stepped back, out of his reach.
Again, he startled before he shuttered his features. “Such boldness in a female is undesirable. I taught you better.”
Mariam ignored his barb. “Why did you take away their home?”
Her father’s lips tightened. “Your mother’s home was with me. She needed nothing more. How many opportunities do you think a woman