"Lad!"

Connor sighed. "It would be very easy to check, you know, if you make it necessary. Now, I will ask this just once more, and the consequences of a falsehood lie on your own head: are you lad or lass?"

Caitlyn glared at him. She was in a terrible quandary. Every instinct urged her to deny the truth, but as he had said, it would be very easy to check. He would probably enjoy doing so. It might even lead to the very thing of which she had lived in dread for so long.

"Lass," she spat, hating him. Her eyes met his with angry, proud defiance. If he thought she would now cringe before him, he was very mistaken.

"Ahh!" he said. Then, "If I were to let you go, would you find it necessary to rend me limb from limb, do you suppose? Or could you sit there peacefully, knowing yourself in no danger at all, while we exchange a few words of harmless conversation?"

She said nothing, just glowered at him.

"Will you sit?" he asked, his hands tightening only a fraction on the wrists he still imprisoned. Remembering the power those hands could exert from the day before, she nodded jerkily.

"Aye."

"Very well." He straightened, releasing her, his hands on his hips as he regarded her as one would an extremely problematic object. Caitlyn lifted her chin and met him stare for stare. Inwardly she was quaking with fear. But if she had learned nothing else in her years on the streets, she had learned never to show that she was afraid of any- one or anything. "So you're a lassie, are you? What are we to do with you now, I wonder?"

The softness of his voice told her that he was speaking mainly to himself. The answer would occur to him before long, if it hadn't already, she felt sure. What else would a man do with a female who was helpless and in his power but use her for his pleasure? Maybe they all would. At the thought, sweat broke out on her upper lip. She had to escape-she had to! Despair brought the glimmer of a plan.