CHAPTER 98

A garbled sound of rage roared from her throat. She looked as though she wanted to clench her fingers around her hair and pull.

“Nay, you shouldn’t have protected me better, husband. What you should have done was allowed me to protect myself!”

“You’re not making sense, lass. Calm down. Let’s go inside. You should be above stairs in your chamber.”

“Do you know what had just happened before those men attacked me?” she asked, ignoring his suggestion to return indoors. “I’ll tell you what happened. My sword had just been taken by Hugh because he said he didn’t want me to be harmed and ’twas not a womanly thing to be wielding a sword. He warned the other men that any who engaged me in swordplay would answer to him.”

She advanced on Caleb and poked a finger into his chest. “If I had my sword, those men would have never gotten close to me. They wouldn’t have shoved me to the snow. They wouldn’t have touched me. They wouldn’t have hit me.”

Ah, but the lass had worked herself into a fit of rag