The Guardian

Her foot had barely touched the bottom step when Alex banged through the front door, holding his side. She blinked, unable to take in what was happening for a moment.

Good God, that was blood dripping through his fingers! As Ian and Niall helped Alex to a chair, she bolted for the kitchen to get a cloth and basin of water. By the time she returned, Ian had removed Alex’s plaid and cut his shirt open, revealing a deep red gash down Alex’s side and another on his thigh.

“Ian, ye must go for Connor and Duncan,” Alex said, speaking in short bursts between gasps for air. “They’re hurt far worse than me.”

Alex winced as Sìleas began to clean the wound on his side with the wet cloth.

“Where will I find them?” Ian said.

“We were ambushed on the path, less than a mile north of here,” Alex said. “But they’re in no shape to walk.”

“Let’s go,” Ian said to Niall. “We’ll take the horses.”

“Ian.” Alex’s voice stopped him at the door. “They left us for dead, so I don’t think they’ll be back. But keep a sharp eye, all the same.”

“How many men?” Ian asked.

“Twenty when they attacked us,” Alex said. “A few less now.”

Beitris had come into the room in the midst of this exchange and immediately set to helping Sìleas staunch the blood from Alex’s wounds.

After the door slammed behind Ian and Niall, Sìleas said, “We’ll need ye to lie down, Alex, so we can sew up that cut on your face. It looks deep.”

“There’s no need,” Alex said, but he let them help him to the floor by the fire.

“Careful now,” she said, “I think ye may have broken a rib or two.”

Sìleas built up the fire while Beitris went to get needle and thread.

“We’ll need to work fast,” Beitris said when she returned, “so we’re ready when they bring in Connor and Duncan.”

Fear hammered at Sìleas’s heart as she washed blood and dirt from the wound on Alex’s cheek. If Alex was the least hurt, what must the other two look like?

“Can ye tell me what happened?” she asked to divert him from what she was doing.

“They were looking for us.” Alex sucked in his breath as she took the first stitch to close the gash. “I’m guessing someone saw us crossing the water yesterday.”

“Was it Hugh?” she asked.

“No.” Alex winced as she drew the needle through again. “It was the MacKinnons and a few of their good friends, the MacLeods.”

Sìleas’s fingers froze. “Are ye sure? What would they be doing here, so far into MacDonald territory?”

“That’s a verra good question,” Alex said. “Your step-da Murdoc was with them. And that ugly ox Angus as well.”

Sìleas swallowed back the panic rising in her throat and forced herself to keep her hand steady as she finished up the stitches. Then she took the salve Beitris handed her and rubbed it gently over the wound.

“There ye go,” she said, wiping her hands. “Ye might have a scar, but that will just make ye more interesting to the lasses.”

They worked quickly to clean and bind his other wounds.

“Lie still,” Beitris told Alex, as she got up from her knees. “Now we’d best get clean water and blankets for the others.”

No sooner had they gathered the blankets than Ian burst through the door carrying Duncan. The huge, red-haired man’s head lolled against Ian’s arm, as if he were a sleeping child. Sìleas spread a blanket on the floor by the hearth where Alex had lain a few moments before. Ian dropped to his knees and gently laid Duncan down between them.

“I need to help Niall with Connor.” Ian met her eyes. “He’s verra bad.”

The blood from Duncan’s wounds was already soaking the flagstones of the hearth.

“God help us,” she whispered, as Beitris took Ian’s place on the other side of the moaning man.

“He’s trying to wake,” Beitris said. “ ’Tis a good sign.”

Sìleas suspected Beitris was saying that to give them hope. Taking the knife her mother-in-law had brought in from the kitchen, she began cutting away Duncan’s blood-soaked shirt. She swallowed back bile when she saw the wound beneath.

“Oh God, no,” she said, covering her mouth.

“Let me do that.” Alex hobbled over and pushed her aside. “I’ve tended wounds like this before.”

Before she could argue with Alex, Ian backed through the door with Connor. He was supporting Connor’s head and shoulders, while Niall followed carrying his legs.

Mary, Mother of God! No wonder the MacKinnons had left him for dead. If it weren’t for the straight black hair that was so like Ian’s, Sìleas would not have known this broken man was Connor.

Ian laid him on the blanket she spread for him. Using his dirk, he cut Connor’s clothes off, tossing the pieces of blood-soaked cloth into the fire as he worked. Connor was covered with so much blood, Sìleas could not tell where his wounds were. But the shallowness of his breathing frightened her more than all the blood.

Like Alex, Ian worked with a brisk efficiency that bespoke experience. She knew they had fought in France—and in the Borders before that—but the dangers they faced had never seemed real to her before.

“Can ye get the whiskey?” Alex called out to her from where he and Beitris worked over Duncan.

“There’s a good lass,” Alex said when she got it down from the shelf. “Now pour it onto a couple of cloths for us.”

She did as he said and then stoked the fire to a roaring blaze to keep the injured men warm.

“His whistle saved him,” Alex said, holding it up. The whistle, which hung about Duncan’s neck from a leather cord, was bent in the middle where it had been struck by a sword.

Duncan’s body bucked as Alex and Beitris cleaned his wounds with whiskey-soaked cloths. Though his pain made her cringe, the fight in Duncan reassured her.

Connor only shivered as Ian cleaned his wounds. Sìleas prayed hard while she handed Ian clean cloths.

“Do ye think he’ll live?” she asked Ian in a choked whisper.

“I will no let him die,” Ian said.

She helped him bind the bandages around Connor’s head and chest, and then his arms. Ach, Connor’s skin had a gray cast to it. He’d lost far too much blood.

Lord Jesus, have mercy. Connor is a good man, and the hope of our clan. Do not take him from us.

Ian tried to make a plan as he worked to stem the flow of Connor’s blood. He had to get the injured men to safety. Connor was most likely the target, but whoever had done this had meant to kill them all.

“We’ll need to hide the three of ye while ye recover,” he said over his shoulder to Alex. “It is best that the men who did this believe they succeeded in their treachery.”

“It was the MacKinnons, with a few of the MacLeods,” Alex said. “But I suspect Hugh made a devil’s agreement with them to do it, or they wouldn’t risk attacking us so far into MacDonald territory.”

“I have the same suspicion,” Ian said, as he pulled tight the last knot of the bandage around Connor’s arm. “Proving it will be another matter.”

“It would be even harder to prove if we were dead,” Alex said.

Alex caught his eye and tilted his head to the side, signaling he wanted a word outside of the others’ hearing. When Ian crouched beside him, Alex said, “Did ye notice the MacKinnons and MacLeods didn’t take time to gather their dead? Something scared them off.”

“Aye. All the more reason to get the three of ye away from here.” Ian wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “I’ll take ye by boat to Teàrlag’s cottage. She is the best healer, and ye can hide there, same as before.

“Niall, get the wagon so we can get them down to the water,” he called out to his brother, as he returned to where Connor lay.

He looked down at Connor’s battered face, and rage swept through him. Earlier, he had been so focused on staunching the blood to save Connor’s life that he had not truly seen how badly beaten he was.

“I should have killed Hugh Dubh outside the church that day,” Ian said, clenching his fists. “I swear to God, I will have his blood for this.”

His mother came to kneel beside Sìleas on the other side of Connor. Her mouth tightened as she laid her fingers against Connor’s cheek.

“Ye must get the priest before ye take him away,” she said.

“There’s no time for that,” Ian said.

“This is my dead sister’s only son,” his mother said, looking up at him, “and I’ll not have him meet his Maker with his sins upon him.”

“Connor is not dying.”

“I fear he might, son,” she said in a soft voice. “What’s more, ye will hurt what chance he has by moving him.”

Ian looked at Connor as he weighed the risks. “No, I’m taking him. I’ll not have him dragged from this house and slaughtered in the yard like an animal.”

Alex nodded his agreement. In the chaos, Ian hadn’t noticed that his father had come into the room until now.

“Ian’s right,” Payton said, laying a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “If those men hear Connor survived and is here, they’ll come for him.”

A rush of cold air sent the flames of the hearth dancing as Niall came through the door. “I’ve got the cart just outside.”

Ian rubbed his forehead. His parents and Niall should be safe enough at home, so long as they weren’t hiding Connor here. But he didn’t like leaving Sìleas here with Murdoc in the area.

But what was he to do with her? With Hugh and the MacKinnons set on murdering Connor, taking her with them could put her in greater danger than leaving her. Besides, there was barely room for the injured men in the tiny fishing boat.

There was only one choice. “Niall, I need ye to take Sìleas up to Gòrdan’s.”

Ian looked down at Sìleas, where she knelt on the floor holding Connor’s hand like some angel. God in Heaven, he loved this woman. He went down on one knee and touched her cheek.

“It’s not safe for ye here at the house, with MacKinnons about,” he said. “They’ll not think to look for ye at Gòrdan’s, and I know he’d protect ye with his life.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“After ye take her,” he said to Niall, “find the priest and ask him to come to Teàrlag’s cottage after nightfall—tell him he must not be seen.”

That would comfort his mother, and it couldn’t hurt to have the priest praying over the men either way.

“I’ll help ye get them down to the boat before Sìl and I go,” Niall said.

“I can help with the others,” Alex said.

Ian saw the sheen of sweat on Alex’s forehead as he struggled to his feet. Alex was hurt worse than he wanted them to know.

As they rolled the cart down to the beach, the cold wind snapped the ends of the blankets that were wrapped around the injured men. Sìleas followed the cart down to the water. While he and Niall carried first Duncan and then Connor from the cart to the boat, she found a stick for Alex to lean on and helped him into the boat.

Ian looked at the three injured men, Alex slumped over and the two others lying across the small boat at the edge of the shore. God only knew how he would get them up the steep steps from the beach to Teàrlag’s cottage, but he would.

He squeezed his brother’s shoulder and turned to say good-bye to Sìleas.

“Ye are the best of men, Ian MacDonald,” she said, her voice firm and her eyes dry and clear. “If anyone can save them, ye will do it.”

She had always had such faith in him—and he needed it now.

“I’ll return as soon as I can.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Be safe, mo chroí.”

CHAPTER 32

“Take this dirk,” Niall said, handing it to her as they left the beach. “Put it up your sleeve, just in case.”

They took the fork in the path toward Gòrdan’s house and walked at a brisk pace without speaking again, their thoughts on the loved ones they had just left. Relying on Gòrdan to protect her must have been bitter medicine for Ian to swallow, but he hadn’t hesitated to put her safety before his pride.

Sìleas looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse through the trees of Ian on the beach pushing the boat out into the water. A shiver went through her.

Please, God, watch over Ian and keep him safe for me. Do not let these young men perish.

It was only a half mile to Gòrdan’s, but the path rose and turned so that one could not see from one house to the other. As they rounded a bend, a dozen men on horses appeared in the distance, coming in their direction.

Sìleas sucked in her breath. Was that her stepfather and Angus at the front of the riders? Even from this distance, they would know her by her hair. She could feel their eyes on her. What she had feared for years was coming true.

They were coming for her.

“Run,” she said to Niall. “They are going to take me, and there is nothing ye can do to prevent it.”

“We can make it back to the house,” Niall said, tugging at her arm.

“No! If they come to the house, they’ll see the others leaving in the boat,” she shouted. “They’ll kill them all.”

The MacKinnons had tried to murder Connor once. When they saw that they had failed, they would kill every man in the boat. Ian was the best of fighters, but there were too many of them. He would die trying to save the others. Likely, Payton and Beitris would run out to help and be killed as well. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Please, Niall,” she said. “I’m begging ye to go. It’s me they want.”

“Not without ye.” She heard the familiar whisper of a steel blade as Niall drew his claymore from his back.

“Ye must go so ye can tell Ian they’ve taken me,” she said, holding his arm.

The hooves of the approaching horses vibrated through her feet and echoed in her head.

“It’s too late. Get behind me,” Niall said, shoving her back.

In another moment, a dozen MacKinnon men surrounded them.

“He’s a brave one,” one of the men said with a laugh, as they dismounted. He jumped back, though, when Niall swung his claymore within an inch of his chest.

“Come, laddie, there’s no need for ye to die today,” another man said, “but the lass belongs to us.”

The men moved aside as Murdoc pushed through them on his horse.

“Ye have a lot to answer for, Sìleas,” he said in a hard voice, as he looked down at her. Glancing at Niall, he said, “Who’s the foolish lad ready to die for ye?”

Before she could think of a lie, Niall said in a defiant voice, “I am Niall MacDonald, son of Payton and brother to Ian.”

“Take him,” Murdoc said.

Sìleas screamed as the men closed in on Niall from all sides. Niall sliced one man’s arm and nicked another, but there were too many of them. It wasn’t long before they held him.

“He’s yours,” Murdoc said, turning to Angus.

Panic pounded through Sìleas’s veins as Angus dismounted from his horse. It was no use pleading with him, for Angus enjoyed hurting people and wasn’t one to think about the consequences. Murdoc was the calculating one. Killing Niall was not important to him; she needed to give him a reason not to do it.

“Ye will regret it if ye hurt him,” she shouted.

Murdoc raised his hand, signaling Angus to halt. “And why would I regret one less MacDonald in this world?”

“Ian MacDonald is a stubborn man,” she said. “Ye must have heard he stayed away for five years just because he was forced to wed me.”

“I’ve heard he’s even refused to bed ye.” Murdoc laughed and the others joined in. “Luckily, Angus here is no so particular.”

Sìleas could not let herself look at Angus for fear she would lose her nerve.

“ ’Tis true Ian doesn’t want me.” She stretched out her arm, pointing at Niall. “But this lad is Ian’s only brother. If ye harm a hair on his head, I can promise ye Ian will come after ye. No matter how long it takes, one day he will catch ye unawares. He’s that stubborn.”

“Enough talk,” Angus said, pulling his sword.

Fear seized her heart as Angus started toward Niall. “Murdoc, ye gain nothing by harming him.”

“If Ian has treated ye so poorly,” Murdoc asked, narrowing his eyes at her, “why do ye care what happens to his brother?”

“Because he’s like a brother to me as well,” she said, letting the truth of it show in her eyes.

“If your mother had not been so useless,” Murdoc said, his anger flashing, “ye would have a true brother.”

Sìleas felt for the dirk up her sleeve. If Murdoc didn’t stop Angus she would have to stab the brute as he walked by her. She’d have only one chance, but she didn’t know where best to stick him. Her heart raced as she tried to think. Angus had too much belly—if she stuck him there, it might not stop him. No, it had to be in his thick neck.

“Angus, we’ve got what we came for,” Murdoc said, then turned to the other men. “Tie the lad to a tree. If he rots before he’s found, so be it.”

Sìleas’s limbs felt weak from the relief surging through her. Praise God! She watched as the men bound and gagged Niall, despite his kicking.

“Come, Sìleas. We’ve no more time to waste,” Murdoc said. “Ye will ride with Angus.”

It wasn’t easy to keep her courage up when Angus smiled, showing his brown and broken teeth, and crooked his finger at her.

“Let me say good-bye,” she blurted out. Before anyone moved to stop her, she ran to the tree where Niall was tied and threw her arms around his neck.

“Tell Ian I’ll be waiting for him,” she said in Niall’s ear, as she dropped the dirk behind his back.

An instant later, Angus’s rough hands jerked her to her feet.

CHAPTER 33

Connor lay so still that Ian watched for the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he guided the boat in to shore. Connor was still alive, but not much more.

He and Alex exchanged a worried look, but there was nothing to say. As soon as he hauled the boat onto the beach, he lifted his cousin’s limp body in his arms. His stomach tightened; it was hard to see Connor like this.

Leaving Alex to watch over Duncan, he started up the treacherous steps of the sea cliff. He thought of all the times they had raced up and down these steps when they were lads. As men, the two years between him and Connor made no difference. But as a lad, Ian had looked up to his older cousin. Though as brave as anyone, Connor had always been the most sensible of the four of them. They lived to manhood only because Connor managed to discourage their most foolhardy adventures—or at least some of them.

When Ian neared the top of the bluff, he looked up to see Teàrlag and Duncan’s sister Ilysa clutching their arms against the wind and peering over the side.

“I saw ye coming,” Teàrlag called out, and he knew she was referring to the Sight for which she was well-known.

The women rushed him inside and directed him to lay Connor on blankets they had already laid out before the fire. Ilysa went almost as pale as Connor when she saw the condition he was in.

“Go fetch the others,” Teàrlag said, waving him off.

When he returned to the boat, he was relieved to find Duncan was awake and able to hold onto Ian’s back. He was a huge man, though, and Ian nearly lost his balance more than once on the slick rock steps. The wind was blowing a thin, icy rain now. By the time they reached the top, Duncan was shivering violently. His body, already taxed to the limit, could not take the cold and wet.

Ian banged through the cottage door and staggered across the room to deposit his burden onto Teàrlag’s bed. It was a box bed built into the partial wall that separated the main room of her cottage from the byre, where her cow was mooing in complaint.

Ilysa threw a blanket over her brother while Teàrlag shoveled a hot stone from the fire to place at his feet.

Without pausing to rest, Ian returned to the beach for Alex.

“I can walk up, if ye give me a hand,” Alex said.

“No, I’ll take ye on my back,” Ian said. “It’ll be quicker, and I’m in no mood to argue.”

Alex didn’t like it, but that was how it was going to be.

Ian grunted as he hefted Alex onto his back. “God help me, the three of ye must eat like horses.”

Ian’s legs were cramping by the time he reached the cottage the third time. Alex insisted on sitting in a chair. He made no complaint, however, when the women whisked a blanket around his shoulders, a warming stone under his feet, and a cup of hot broth into his hands.

Ian sat down heavily on a stool by the table. He had succeeded in getting all three men here alive, though Connor was hanging on by a thread and Duncan was not much better. Ian was grateful that both women were skilled at healing, though he suspected there was little that could be done now except keep the men warm and feed them broth.

And pray.

“Ye mustn’t tarry,” Teàrlag said, fixing her good eye on him. “Your wife is in danger.”

Sìleas. He jumped to his feet, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

“What can ye tell me?” he asked.

“Only that she’s very frightened,” Teàrlag said.

“Take this,” Ilysa said, shoving a wrapped cloth of oatcakes into his hand as he went out the cottage door.

The heavens opened on his return trip, soaking him to the skin. He shouted in frustration when it forced him to bring down the sail and row. As he strained against the oars, his heart seemed to race in time to the rain pelting his face.

If Sìleas had not left the dirk with Niall, she would stab Angus with it now. The foul smell of the man surrounded her, suffocating her as they rode. She looked down at the massive thigh rubbing against hers and imagined plunging her blade into it over and over again. Every time he moved the arm around her waist up to press against the undersides of her breasts, she rammed her elbow into his ribs.

Angus made no sign he noticed.

“How many little girls have ye raped since the last time I saw ye?” she said, and jabbed him again.

“I don’t count them,” he said, sounding amused. “Shame ye have grown up, Sìleas. You’ll do, but I liked ye better before.”

“Ach, ye are a disgusting beast! Ye will burn in hell for sure.”

“I confess to the priests,” he said. “When I hold a blade to their throats, the penance is no so bad—except for that damned Father Brian. He’s a self-righteous bastard.”

“My husband is going to kill ye before ye have a chance to confess again,” she said. “Ye will die with your soul black with sin.”

“Your marriage is a sham, and everyone on Skye knows it.” He leaned down until his filthy whiskers touched the side of her face and his breath choked her. “But you’ll soon have a real husband—the kind who knows what he’s supposed to do with a wife.”

The taunts she had used to hold back her fear left her. Ian would come for her, but when? He thought she was safe, in Gòrdan’s care. How long would she be inside Knock Castle with Angus and Murdoc before Ian learned she was there?

As if to dampen her hopes, a cold rain began to fall.

As Knock Castle rose out of the misty rain on the headland, fear weighed down on her chest, making it hard to breathe. She had not been inside the castle since the day she escaped through the tunnel after Murdoc beat her. As they crossed the drawbridge, she looked up at the massive iron and wooden gates and shivered. Dear Lord, how would Ian ever get her out?

Sileas wondered if the ghost of the castle would appear to her as she used to. The legend was that the Green Lady, as she was called for the pale green gown she wore, would smile or weep, depending on whether good news or bad was coming to the family who occupied the castle.

The ghost had always wept for Sìleas.

CHAPTER 34

By the time Ian finally neared the shore below his parents’ home, the muscles of his arms and shoulders felt ready to tear from the bone. He narrowed his eyes to peer through the freezing rain still pelting his face. Someone was on the beach waving his arms.

It was Niall. Ian’s heart dropped to his boots. Teàrlag was right. Something had gone wrong. He jumped out of the boat and splashed toward shore, hauling the boat with him, as Niall waded into the rough surf to help.

“They’ve got Sìleas,” Niall shouted over the wind and rain whipping around them, as he grabbed the other side of the boat.

“Who has her?” Ian shouted back.

“The MacKinnons and her step-da,” Niall said, and Ian could see that his brother was near tears. “Angus was with them.”

Ian slammed his fist against the boat. God, no!

As soon as they had lugged the boat above the tide line, Niall told him in a rush of words what had happened.

The MacKinnon devils had taken Ian’s wife—and almost killed his brother.

“I tried to save her,” Niall said in a choked voice.

Ian clenched his jaws against the rage surging inside him and squeezed his brother’s shoulders. “I know ye did.”

“Ian! Niall!”

At the shouts, Ian looked up to see Gòrdan running toward them along the path above the shore.

“Tell me the MacKinnons did not take her,” Gòrdan called out, as he scrambled down the bank to them.

How did Gòrdan know it was the MacKinnons? Murder pulsed through Ian’s veins. He pulled his dirk and started toward Gòrdan. “What do ye know of this?”

Niall held Ian’s arm. “Gòrdan wouldn’t harm Sìleas. Let him talk.”

Gòrdan had the wild eyes of a distraught man, and he had come to find them. Ian lowered his dirk, but he did not put it away.

“When Sìleas came to talk to me last night, my mother thought she was making plans to leave ye—to marry me,” Gòrdan said, looking pained. “She sent the boy who works for me out in the night to Knock Castle. She gave him a message for Murdoc, telling him that the four of ye had brought Sìleas back from Stirling and were here at your folks’ house. The boy just told me about it now.”

After Niall told Gòrdan what happened, Gòrdan sank to the wet sand and held his head. Ian left him on the beach without a backward glance. Damn Gòrdan and his mother.

“Murdoc will have Sìleas inside Knock Castle by now,” he said to Niall, as they headed up to the house. “I’ve got to get her out.”

Ian clenched his fists, remembering the scars Murdoc put on her back. He was going to kill him, regardless. But if Murdoc had laid a hand on her, he would tear him limb from limb.

“Ian,” his brother said, turning worried eyes on him. “She let Murdoc believe that ye don’t care for her and that ye never… well, that your marriage was not completed.”

Ian waited for the rest.

“He intends to wed her to Angus.”

The thought of Angus’s meaty hands on Sìleas’s delicate skin made his own hands shake with fury. He had to rescue her—and quickly. If he did not save her before Angus raped her, he would never forgive himself. Never.

He could not allow his rage to cloud his thinking. He forced himself to focus his thoughts on the problems before him. The first thing he had to do was make a plan to get Sìleas out of Knock Castle. Then, once he had her safe, he needed to save his clan from Hugh. With the others injured, there was no one else to do it.

He took what comfort he could from her whispered message to Niall. Tell Ian I’ll be waiting for him. She believed he could not fail her.

He’d always had Connor, Duncan, and Alex at his side. As bairns, they played together. As lads, they learned to sail and to swing their first claymores together. As men, they fought side by side. Through the years, they had taken countless foolish risks together and saved each others’ lives. They watched each others’ backs.

Now, when Ian needed them more than ever before, he was on his own.

“Ye have me and da,” his brother said, as if reading his thoughts.

Ian almost laughed. If he added Father Brian, he’d have a new foursome. But a one-legged man, a fifteen-year-old lad, and a priest were poor substitutes for experienced Highland warriors in their prime.

“Should I gather what men I can?” Niall asked.

“Men were willing to fight with us because they believed Connor could be our new chieftain,” Ian said, shaking his head. “Hugh will be spreading the word that Connor is dead or gone. Until Connor is on his feet again, it would put him in danger for us to let it be known he survived the attack.”

“Then what will we do?” Niall asked.

“We’ll do what Highlanders always do when our enemy is stronger,” Ian said, meeting his brother’s eyes.

“What’s that?” Niall asked.

“We’ll use deceit and trickery, of course.”

CHAPTER 35

Mice skittered out of the rushes as Murdoc dragged Sìleas down the length of the room. The castle’s hall was even filthier than she remembered.

“Get some food on this table!” Murdoc shouted at a woman cowering in the corner. He kicked at two dogs fighting over a bone and turned to Sìleas. “We’ll have the wedding after we eat.”

“Ye can’t do this,” Sìleas said. “I am already wed. And it was no trial marriage—a priest wed Ian and me.”

Murdoc’s lips curled into a sneer. “So ye believed that drunk your chieftain found was a priest?”

Sìleas was stunned. “Of course he was.”

Even as she said it, she remembered how the priest fumbled through the words and the threat in the chieftain’s eyes when he looked at the man. Other things fell into place that had been buried beneath worse memories of that day: the priest tripping over robes that were far too long for him; his attempt to follow, rather than lead them up the stairs to sprinkle the bed with holy water—before Ian threatened to toss him down the stairs.

“Ye are as easily fooled as your mother was,” Murdoc said.

She was indeed a fool.

“Ian and I said vows to each other, and that makes us husband and wife under Highland custom.” She swallowed. “And no matter what ye heard, I could be carrying his child.”

She instinctively put a hand over her abdomen as the truth of her words struck her.

“Ye think I care whose child it is?” Murdoc shrugged. “But if Angus doesn’t want to claim your brat as his own, well, babes die all the time.”

She gaped at him openmouthed. She hadn’t believed even Murdoc capable of such evil.

“If ye aren’t pregnant now, ye soon will be,” Murdoc said. “One way or another, ye are going to give me the MacKinnon child your mother should have. We need that child to have a clear right to the castle.”

“I promise ye, Murdoc, ye will never have your hands on a child of mine.”

“Don’t think ye can escape this time, because I’ve blocked the tunnel.” He gave her a hard shove. “Go help get food on the table. The men are hungry.”

Ian pulled his plaid over his head as he passed within sight of Dunscaith Castle on his way to the church.

Luck was with him, for he found the priest alone on his knees before the church’s simple altar. “Sorry, Father, but this cannot wait.”

The priest crossed himself and got to his feet.

“Are ye that desperate to confess your sins, Ian MacDonald?” Father Brian asked, as he brushed off his knees.

“No, Father. I haven’t time for it.”

“I thought as much,” the priest said. “ ’Tis a shame, for I suspect it would be a good deal more interesting than what I usually hear.”

“One day I’ll give ye hours of confession over cups of whiskey, if ye like,” Ian said. “But right now I need a different kind of help.”

“What kind is that?” the priest asked.

“Are ye on good terms with the MacKinnons?”

“Whether I am or no, I serve all the clans in these parts,” Father Brian said with a shrug. “As a matter of fact, I was planning to visit the MacKinnons next, as I do every year.”

“Will the MacKinnons let ye into Knock Castle?” Ian asked.

“If they have sins to confess or weddings to be blessed, they’ll open their gates to me,” Father Brian said. “Why do ye ask?”

Ian’s stomach knotted at the priest’s mention of weddings to be blessed. He hated to think that Murdoc’s plan to wed Sìleas to Angus might serve as the key to the gate.

“Murdoc MacKinnon is holding my wife at Knock Castle,” Ian said between clenched teeth. “I need to get her out. Will ye help me, Father?”

When the priest did not answer at once, Ian said. “He plans to give her to Angus MacKinnon.”

“Ach, not Angus. I’ve seen what that man has done to young lasses,” the priest said, his eyes snapping with anger. “What would ye have me do?”

“We’ll talk on the way.” Ian hoped a plan would come to him soon. God had sent him Father Brian, and that was a start.

Ian crossed himself before he left the church. Please, God, keep her safe until I can get to her.

CHAPTER 36

Sìleas’s eyes widened when she saw the woman leaning against the wall by the stairs that led down to the kitchens.

“Dina,” she whispered. “What are ye doing here?”

“One of the MacKinnon men took a liking to me,” Dina said. “I had nowhere else to go.”

“I’m sorry for it.” Though Sìleas had reason to wish the worst for Dina, she was unhappy to see any woman living in this hellhole.

“I am sorry to see ye here as well,” Dina said.

“Will ye help me then?”

“I can’t get ye out,” Dina said. “They’re keeping guards at the gate.”

“Then I need to find a way to divert them until Ian comes for me,” she said.

“You’re that sure he’ll come for ye?” Dina asked.

“I am.”

“I wouldn’t have done what I did if I knew ye wanted Ian,” Dina said. “Since ye weren’t giving him what he wanted, I saw no harm in it.”

They were interrupted by Murdoc’s bellow from across the hall. “Where’s our dinner?”

When his metal cup hit the wall by Sìleas’s head, she and Dina started down. It was dark on the stairs, but there was light and the sound of voices and pans coming from the kitchen below.

“I have some poison,” Dina said close to Sìleas’s ear.

“Poison?” Sìleas halted and turned to stare at Dina. “How did ye get poison?”

“Teàrlag gave it to me,” Dina said. “I went to see her to ask for a charm before I came here. I didn’t tell her where I was going, but she said, ‘A lass as foolish as you is likely to need something stronger than a good luck charm.’ ”

Dina leaned down and reached into the side of her boot. “That’s when she gave me this wee vial. We can pour it in the ale, aye?”

“I don’t want to murder them all,” Sìleas said.

“Teàrlag said a drop or two will make a man ill.” Dina handed her the vial. “The pitchers of ale will be on a tray by the door. I’ll distract the men in the kitchen while ye do it.”

“How will ye do that?”

Dina laughed. “You’ll see. Nothing could be easier.”

Sìleas followed Dina under the low vaulted ceiling of the undercroft into the noisy kitchen. She stayed by the door while Dina crossed the kitchen, hips swaying, toward a beefy man who had a cleaver in his hand and was shouting orders to the other kitchen servants.

He stopped shouting midsentence when he saw Dina coming.

“I’m starving, Donald,” she said with a purr in her voice. She laid her hand on the cook’s shoulder. “Do ye have something… special… for a hungry lass?”

Everyone else in the kitchen paused in the midst of their tasks to watch Dina as she leaned closer to the cook and spoke to him in a low, suggestive voice. Sìleas saw a half-dozen pitchers of ale on the table next to her, ready to be taken into the hall. Turning her back to the room, she pulled the tiny stopper from the vial.

How many drops should she put in each? It was hard to guess how much each man would drink from the shared pitchers. Her hands shook as she poured a few drops into each.

“What are ye doing there?” The harsh voice behind her startled Sìleas, and she spilled the rest of the poison into the last pitcher.

“Murdoc told her to bring more ale to the table,” Dina said, “so you’d best let her go.”

Sìleas lifted the tray and hurried out of the kitchen, sloshing ale. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to draw in a deep breath to steady herself. It would do no good to poison the ale if she spilled it all on the floor.

Before she could get to the table, men started snatching pitchers from her tray.

“Stop it, ye animals!” she shouted and lifted her tray higher, fearful they would take it all.

She had only one pitcher left when she reached the table—but it was the one with the extra poison. She tried to hide her smile as she set it between Murdoc and Angus.

Another man shoved her aside and grabbed the last pitcher. Fury burned in her chest as she watched ale drip off his chin while he gulped the ale straight from the pitcher.

“Take my ale, will ye?” Angus punched the man in the belly and jerked the pitcher from his hands.

Hope rose in her heart as Angus lifted the pitcher to his mouth—and sank again when nothing came out of the pitcher. Angus threw it against the hearth and commenced to beat the man who took it about the head.

“Get more,” Murdoc said and slapped her behind hard enough to sting through the layers of her gown. “And tell that worthless cook I’ll take my dirk to him if he doesn’t get food up here now.”

She had made a grave error. What she should have done was saved all the poison for Murdoc and killed him. Without him, the other men would run around confused, like a chicken with its ugly head cut off.

Murdoc turned and caught her glaring at him. “What are ye doing looking at me?” he said and slammed his fist on the table. “Go!”

Sìleas stood against the wall with Dina, watching the men eat and waiting for them to show some sign of illness. Her time was running out.

She chewed her lip. “Why isn’t the poison working, Dina?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s too soon.”

Sìleas jumped when Murdoc stood and banged his cup on the table. When he had the men’s attention, he shouted, “ ’Tis time for a wedding!”

He scanned the room until he found Sìleas and then motioned her to come forward. When she did not move, he nodded to two burly men.

“I’ve heard Angus can’t perform unless a woman is screaming and crying,” Dina said, squeezing her hand. “So lie still.”

Sìleas looked frantically for a means of escape as the two men came toward her. Despite Dina’s warning, she screamed as they dragged her across the hall to stand before Murdoc and Angus.

“You’ll say your vows now,” Murdoc said.

“I won’t,” Sìleas said, meeting his eyes. “If ye couldn’t make me do it at thirteen, ye must know ye cannot now.”

“Perhaps ye will be more willing after the bedding.” Murdoc shrugged. “But if not, all we truly need is a MacKinnon child by ye.”

“My husband Ian will kill ye if ye let a man touch me,” she said. “And the MacDonalds won’t rest while ye hold Knock Castle.”

“Ye are so naïve it pains me,” Murdoc said, shaking his head. “Hugh MacDonald and I made an agreement. I get you and Knock Castle in exchange for killing his nephew Connor.”

A well of anger rose up from deep inside her. With it came words she did not know were there.

“In the name of my mother, I curse ye, Murdoc MacKinnon,” she shouted, stretching out her arm and pointing at Murdoc. Then she turned slowly and swung her arm in a wide circle. “I curse every one of ye! Ye shall suffer for snatching me from my husband and for taking what belongs to me and my clan. Every one of ye shall suffer!”

The hall went quiet. Every man’s eyes were upon her, and a few crossed themselves.

“Angus!” Murdoc’s deep voice broke the silence, filling the hall and reverberating in her chest. “Take her upstairs.”

Panic flooded through her when Angus picked her up with one arm and tossed her over his shoulder. With her head hanging down, blood pounded in her ears as she screamed and beat her fists on his back. The men’s laughter faded as he climbed the enclosed spiral staircase that led to the family’s private rooms above.

When Angus carried her into the bedchamber that had been her mother’s, true hysteria took her. It blinded her to everything but the image in her mind of her mother lying on the bed with blood soaking her shift and the sheets beneath her. Sìleas saw the tiny droplets that fell from the bed to the floor as her mother died.

Sìleas clawed and screeched like a wild animal. When she sank her teeth into Angus’s hand, he let go long enough for her to scramble off the bed and sprint for the door.

She ran headlong into Murdoc in the doorway. He held her fast.

“No, not here,” she pleaded, flailing her arms and legs. “Please, not here, not where she died.”

Murdoc did not heed her pleading any more than he had her mother’s.

How many times had she stood on the other side of the door and heard her mother weeping? Her mother had suffered the attentions of two husbands who wanted an heir to this castle and did not care if they killed her in the process.

For years, Sìleas had pushed the memories of her mother’s suffering to the far recesses of her mind. Her mother had seemed so unlike her—beautiful, frail, compliant. In truth, Sìleas had blamed her mother for the choices that had led to their misery. Now she realized her mother must have felt as trapped as she did now.

As Murdoc dragged her back to the bed, she saw her mother’s strawberry blond hair fanned out on the pillow, its beauty a stark contrast to the dark blood on the sheets. The smell of blood and the sweat of illness filled her nose. She saw the deathly pale skin and limp arms of a woman too weak to weep anymore.

When Murdoc dropped her on her back on the bed, Sìleas felt her body sink into the mattress, heavy with the weight of her grief. She saw her mother as she had the very last time, with her eyes open but unseeing, and one thin arm stretched out across the bed, as if she were still hoping someone would take her hand and rescue her from the nightmare that was her life.

In the end, it was God who had mercy and took her to join her dead babes.

Sìleas lay unblinking, her gaze fixed on the beams of the ceiling. She felt immune to the men now, drenched in grief for her mother, grief that she had denied until now.

CHAPTER 37

The darkening sky increased Ian’s sense of urgency as he scanned the top of the walls of Knock Castle.

“Only two men on the wall,” his father said beside him.

Ian nodded. “Are ye ready, Father Brian?”

“Aye.”

Ian climbed into the handcart and crouched down next to the barrel of wine. God’s bones, what was he doing?

“We should have used the horse cart, so da and I could go in with ye,” Niall complained, not for the first time.

“The guards would be more suspicious of a large cart,” Ian said. “I’ll open the gate for ye to join us as soon as I can.”

The truth was that Ian did not know if there were two men or forty waiting on the other side of the gate, and there was no point in all of them being killed.

“God be with ye,” Father Brian said, and flung the tarp over Ian as if he were spreading a cloth over an altar. Then he tucked it around Ian and made sure it didn’t cover the wine barrel.

Their trick was as old as the ancient Greeks. It seemed unlikely, however, that Murdoc or Angus had studied the classics.

Father Brian grunted as he picked up the handles and pushed the cart forward. ’Twas a good thing the priest was a strong man, for it was a hundred yards from the trees to the castle out on the headland.

With the wine barrel sloshing next to his head, Ian wondered if the Trojans had been as cramped in their wooden horse. He held on to the edges of the tarp to keep it in place as the cart bumped over the boards of the drawbridge. When Father Brian brought the cart to a jerking halt and dropped the handles to the ground, Ian had to brace his feet against the sides to keep from sliding out the back.

Through a hole he poked in the tarp with the point of his dirk, he watched the priest bang on the wooden gate. A voice responded from the other side, but Ian couldn’t distinguish the words.

“I am making my rounds of Skye, as I do every year,” Father Brian said in his deep, rumbling voice. He gestured toward the cart. “I’ve a barrel of wine from the monastery on Iona I was bringing to my bishop, but it’s too far to carry. I’m willing to sell it to ye.”

The gate creaked open. Ian gripped the hilt of his dirk as Father Brian picked up the cart handles and pushed it forward.

“Since we’re celebrating a wedding, I’m sure ye will be wanting to make a gift of that wine,” a guard said.

The blood in Ian’s veins turned to ice at the mention of a wedding, and he prayed he was not too late to save Sìleas from rape.

“There will be no taking the wine until I have payment in my hand for the good monks’ work,” Father Brian said, as he brought the cart to a halt inside the bailey yard.

As Ian had predicted, the guards were not inclined to wait. When the first one lifted the tarp, Ian stuck his dirk under the man’s raised arm and killed him before he could utter a sound. There were only five other guards around the cart. As he sprang to his feet, he drew his claymore and swung into one of them.

The others who had crowded around the cart, intent on relieving the priest of his wine, stepped back quickly. The ever-helpful Father Brian stuck his foot out, causing one of them to fall backward with a shout. When one of his companions turned to look, Ian’s sword whooshed through the air, nearly severing the man’s head from his body.

By now, the other guards had their swords out and ready. There were only two of them standing, though. Ian moved toward the pair swinging, anxious to finish the job.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the man Father Brian had tripped get up and charge the priest with his blade drawn. A moment later, the guard lay at Father Brian’s feet, and the priest was wiping blood from his attacker’s blade on his robe.

Ian swung in a full circle, and one of his opponents shrieked as Ian’s blade struck the man’s side. Damn, they were making too much noise. The last guard charged, believing Ian would not be quick enough to recover from his last swing.

It was the last mistake the man would ever make.

Ian scanned the walls. When he didn’t see anyone, he assumed the two who had been on the wall earlier had come down for the wine and were among the dead. He ran to the gate and waved to signal his father and brother.

“Ye weren’t always a priest, were ye, Father?” Ian said, as the two of them dragged the bodies of the dead men into an empty storeroom built against the wall.

“I thought I’d put my fighting days behind me,” the priest said. After they had moved the last man, he crossed himself and wiped his hands on his robe. “There should have been more guards here. Where do ye suppose all the other men are?”

“Inside the keep.”

Celebrating a wedding.

Angus’s massive frame appeared at the edge of Sìleas’s vision. As if from a great distance, she saw him drop his plaid and lift his shirt. She shivered, her body sensing the danger, as she struggled to push aside the images of her mother and the weight of the grief that pinned her to the bed.

But when Angus’s beefy hands gripped her thighs, she came back to herself with a jerk. She could not bear to have this vile man touch her. Before she could gather herself to fight him, Angus looked over his shoulder.

“What?” Angus said. “Are ye going to stay and watch me?”

“I want to be sure it’s done. Capturing her does us no good unless she bears a child.”

She could not see beyond the mammoth man standing between her legs at the edge of the bed, but it was Murdoc’s voice she heard.

“I can’t do it when she’s staring at me like the dead,” Angus complained.

“We both know what ye need to take a woman,” Murdoc said. “So do it.”

At Murdoc’s words, Dina’s advice came back to her: Lie still. As Angus turned back to her with his arm cocked to strike her, she steeled herself to take the blow.

But then, Angus froze in place, his eyes fixed on something above her. As an eerie keening filled the bedchamber, Sìleas looked up to see the translucent form of the Green Lady floating above her. She was weeping, making a pitiful sound.

Angus staggered back from the bed. “The wretch has called up a ghost with her curse!”

Angus held his arms in front of his face as the Green Lady’s wailing grew louder. The sadness in the ghost’s voice was enough to make the angels weep.

“She’s coming for me!” Angus stumbled over his own feet as he turned and fled from the room.

Sìleas sat up and met her stepfather’s eyes. The Green Lady’s intervention had given her time to get her courage—and her anger—back.

“It is you who makes her weep,” she said. “You have always made her weep.”

Murdoc crossed the room in three long strides and shoved her down on the bed.

“Her weeping never stopped me before,” he said. “And it will not now.”

Sìleas stared up at him, terror gripping her heart. “I am your wife’s daughter. Not even you would commit such a grave sin.”

Murdoc held her shoulders fast and leaned over her until she felt the heat from his body.

“I will tell ye the same as I told your mother,” he hissed in her face. “I need a child of my blood.”

The Green Lady’s weeping had grown soft, as if she knew it would do no good against Murdoc.

“After being such an ugly child, ye have become a pretty thing,” Murdoc said, leaning back to fix his hard black eyes on her breasts. “If Angus can’t do the job, I’m sure I’ll have no trouble.”

CHAPTER 38

“We’ll see if the wine works a second time,” Ian told the others. “Father Brian, are ye willing to take the barrel into the hall to distract them?”

The priest nodded.

“Once all the men inside gather around Father Brian, we’ll go in as quietly as we can,” he said to his father and Niall. “If Sìleas is in the hall, we’ll take her and be gone before most of them notice we’re there.”

Or so he hoped.

“If she’s not in the hall…” Ian swallowed at the thought of what that would mean. “Then Niall and da will guard the stairs while I go up and fetch her.”

It was a poor plan, but he could think of none better.

Father Brian said a quick prayer for them, and they all made the sign of the cross. As Ian and the priest carried the cart up the steps of the keep, he turned to watch his father crossing the bailey yard. Seeing how slowly his father moved, he feared he was leading all the men of his family to their deaths.

“God is on our side.” The priest patted Ian’s arm as he spoke, then opened the door and wheeled his cart inside, calling, “Good evening to ye, MacKinnons!”

Ian waited a few moments, every muscle taut, before he eased the door open and slipped inside. No guard was posted at the door—or if there was one, he had left his post to join the throng of men gathered around Father Brian and his barrel. When Niall poked his head inside, Ian waved him forward and moved along the wall into the shadows.

He scanned the dimly lit hall, searching for Sìleas. There were fifty MacKinnon men in the hall, to his four, but there were almost no women—and Sìleas was not among them. His stomach tightened when he realized that Angus and Murdoc were also missing from the hall.

His eyes went back to one of the women. What was Dina doing here? Her gaze was fixed on him. His muscles tensed as he waited for her to give them away.

After glancing about her, Dina removed the torch from the wall bracket beside her and dropped the torch onto the rushes on the floor. Then she met Ian’s eyes again and nodded toward the stairs.

She was telling him they had Sìleas upstairs.

As he ran through the arched doorway to the stairs, the rushes were already beginning to flame. The spiral of the stone staircase was built clockwise to give the advantage to the defender, who could swing his sword arm freely, while a right-handed attacker going up had his sword arm cramped against the middle of the spiral. The advantage was lost, however, when the attacker had taught himself to swing equally either way. As Ian sprinted up the stairs, he shifted his sword to his left hand.

Other footsteps echoed above him. An instant later, a huge man barreled into him, sending them both tumbling down the stairs. When Ian saw that the man on top of him was Angus MacKinnon, rage nearly blinded him.

“What have ye done to her?” he shouted, as he plunged his dirk into Angus’s gut.

Angus was strong, but he fought with wild, panicked punches, as if he were mad. In no time, Ian was sitting on Angus’s chest with his dirk at the man’s throat.

“I asked what ye have done with my wife.” Ian pressed his blade against Angus’s throat until he drew blood.

“I saw her ghost!” Angus cried out. “It was hovering over me.”

Ian’s heart stopped in his chest. He had feared they would rape Sìleas, but he’d never thought they would murder her.

He heard an eerie, unnatural sound, and a coldness passed over him. God, no. Don’t let her be dead! Ian slashed his blade across Angus’s throat and ran up the stairs.

When he reached the next floor, the open door from the stairs led into a large bedchamber. Through it, he saw a man leaning over the bed, a woman’s bare knee, and a bit of bright blue fabric hanging over the side of the bed. The blue was the same shade as the gown Sìleas was wearing when last he saw her.

White hot rage pounded through him. With a roar, he burst into the bedchamber swinging his claymore.

CHAPTER 39

Murdoc clamped his hand over Sìleas’s mouth as she fought to get out from under him. She could not hear the Green Lady’s weeping over his harsh breathing.

Even the castle’s ghost had deserted her.

“Your mother was a weak vessel,” Murdoc said. “Poking her was dull work. But a lively lass like you will surely give me a strong son.”

Murdoc suddenly released her as a murderous war cry rolled through the room like a thunderclap. Relief washed over her.

Ian had come for her.

Murdoc spun and drew his sword with lightning quickness. Although he blocked Ian’s thrust from reaching his heart, blood seeped down his arm, soaking the sleeve of his shirt. The clank of swords filled the room as the two men moved back and forth.

Sìleas hugged her knees to her chest as she watched and prayed.

Ian looked glorious, with his dark hair flying, and his blue eyes as piercing as a hawk dropping from the sky for a kill. The muscles of his body clenched and released as he swung the heavy two-handed sword in deadly, rhythmic arcs.

Behind the controlled violence, she felt Ian’s pulsing rage. Time and again, he attacked, his blade slicing through the air with lethal force. Another slash and blood ran from the top of Murdoc’s thigh, near his groin. Another, and his shoulder bled. Yet Murdoc fought his way back each time. He was a strong man and an experienced warrior, and he was fighting for his life. The men grunted with the effort of their swings.

Blood sprayed the bed as the fight moved closer. When Murdoc fell backward against the bed, she scrambled to get out of his way. But Murdoc’s arm shot out, and she shrieked as he caught her ankle in an iron grip.

“Arrgh!” Murdoc screamed as Ian’s sword went through his belly, pinning him to the bed. In quick successive moves, Ian grabbed Murdoc by the hair, drew his dirk across Murdoc’s throat, and pulled his sword from Murdoc’s gut with a great sucking sound.

Ian stepped over Murdoc’s body and lifted Sìleas off the bed into his arms. She held onto him with all her strength.

“Hush, hush. I’m here now.” He soothed her with soft murmurs as he rubbed her back and kissed her hair. “I’ll keep ye safe.”

“Ian! We must go.”

At the sound of a man’s deep voice, she turned and saw Father Brian in the doorway. Smoke was billowing out of the stairwell behind him.

“Hurry,” the priest shouted. “The castle is burning.”

Ian lifted her in his arms. As he carried her out, she looked over his shoulder at the bedchamber that had been the place of so much of her mother’s suffering. Smoke was filling the room so rapidly she could barely make out Murdoc’s body on the floor. The last thing she saw gliding through swells of gray was the flash of a pale green gown.

The smoke was so thick in the stairwell that she could not see Father Brian ahead of them, but she heard him coughing. Her eyes watered and her throat burned. When they reached the bottom, Niall and Payton were waiting for them just inside the hall.

The two were surrounded by the bodies of dead men.

As soon as Ian set her on her feet, the four of them ran along the wall toward the front door of the keep. The smoke was not as thick in the hall, because the fire was hot here. Everything that could burn—rushes, tables, overturned benches—was ablaze. As she watched, flames shot up from the high table and ignited the wooden ceiling.

She prayed that Dina had escaped, for there was no one else in the hall but the dead.

“I’ll go first. They may have men just outside, ready to cut us down as we come out,” Ian warned before he opened the door.

That was what he would have done, but when he stepped outside, it appeared that the MacKinnons had abandoned the castle altogether. The bailey yard was empty save for Dina, a goat, and a few squawking chickens.

“Ye should have seen Niall,” his father said, as he came down the steps of the keep one at a time. He was covered in blood and leaning on Niall for support, but he was grinning as if he’d never been happier. “We stood together, with him covering my weak side, and cut down every MacKinnon who dared come near the stairs.”

Ian tightened his arm around Sìleas. He couldn’t join in their good humor over their success. The vision of his wife held down on a bed with a man standing between her legs was still with him—and would likely haunt his dreams for a long, long time to come.

“Father Brian was a sight to behold,” Niall said, laughing. “He didn’t want to use a sword or dirk, so he went ’round hitting MacKinnons on the head with a silver candlestick holder.”

“There was little fight left in them by then,” Father Brian said. “Between retching and the fire, they fled like rabbits.”

“Dina and I poisoned their ale,” Sìleas said in a quiet voice.

“Clever lasses,” his father said, beaming at her.

While the others continued sharing stories, Ian pulled Sìleas against his chest and closed his eyes. Praise be to God he had found her.

His eyes flew open at the sound of boots on the wooden planks of the drawbridge. He pushed Sìleas behind him and drew his claymore just before a dozen men poured through the gate.

“It’s Gòrdan,” Sìleas said.

Ian relaxed his stance when he saw that it was, indeed, Gòrdan, and he was leading a group of MacDonald men.

“We’ve taken Knock Castle!” his father greeted them, raising his sword to the sky.

The men took in the smoldering keep and the bailey yard empty of MacKinnons and lowered their weapons. To a man, they looked disappointed.

“I could only gather a dozen men quickly,” Gòrdan said, as he approached them.

“I’m grateful to ye for coming,” Ian said and saw the pain in Gòrdan’s eyes when they flicked to Sìleas.

Gòrdan turned away and fixed his gaze on the smoke billowing out of the open doors of the keep. “I thought ye would need help, but I can see ye didn’t.”

“I do need your help,” Ian said.

Gòrdan turned back. “Good. What would ye have me do?”

“It’s near dark, so we’ll have to stay here overnight,” Ian said. “But in the morning, I must see my family home and get Connor to the gathering. Can ye hold the castle for me for a time?”

“Aye. The guardhouse hasn’t been touched by the fire, so we can sleep there,” Gòrdan said. “I’ll send one man to the gathering tomorrow night to speak for all the men here.” His gaze roved over the smoldering keep again. “With so much stone, the keep won’t burn long. We’ll save what we can, but I suspect there won’t be much.”

Ian thought of all the bad memories Sìleas had of this castle, which was to be their home. He didn’t want to keep a single stick of furniture, sheet, or floorboard.

“Let the men have anything they can salvage,” he said. “Sìleas and I will start anew.”

From the way Sìleas squeezed his hand, he knew he had made the right decision.

“Are ye all right, lass?” his father asked her.

While Sìleas talked with his father and Niall, Ian drew Gòrdan away for a private word.

“There’s another favor I’d ask of ye,” he said in a low voice.

Gòrdan looked at the ground and kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “Ye know I owe ye after what my mother did.”

“Can ye take care of Dina after we leave in the morning?” When Gòrdan’s head snapped up, Ian added, “Just until I can find someone else to take her in.”

“Is she your mistress?” Gòrdan hissed, his nostrils flaring. “I said I owe ye, but I’ll no help ye deceive Sìleas.”

“Ye misunderstand me,” Ian said, putting a hand up. “There will never be another woman for me but Sìleas.”

Gòrdan’s lips were pressed into a hard line, but he was listening.

“I doubt we would have all gotten out alive without Dina’s help,” Ian said. “I don’t like leaving her unprotected. Will ye watch over her and see that’s she’s safe?”

Gòrdan looked over at Dina, who was standing alone, hugging herself against the fine mist that had begun to fall.

“She’s made mistakes,” Ian said. “But we all deserve a chance to redeem ourselves.”

“Aye, we do,” Gòrdan said with a tight nod. “I’ll see her safe.”

CHAPTER 40

It was damp and cold in the gatehouse, but they didn’t go hungry that night. Gòrdan had brought dried fish, oatcakes, and cheese, and Father Brian—bless him—had the presence of mind to wheel the wine barrel out of the keep when he was escaping the fire.

After their cold supper, Father Brian led them in prayer. They bowed their heads to pray for the lives of Connor, Alex, and Duncan, and for the survival of their clan.

While the others dropped off to sleep or spoke in low voices, Ian huddled against the wall with Sìleas, where he could watch the door. He couldn’t be certain the MacKinnons would not return. Although he’d barred the gate and left a few men out on the wall in the rain to keep watch, he wouldn’t rest easy tonight. He didn’t have enough men to hold the castle against a full attack.

He wrapped his plaid tighter around Sìleas and kissed her hair as she rested against his chest. Every time he thought of how close he had come to losing her, he felt as if a great fist squeezed his heart.

“There is something I need to tell ye,” Sìleas said in a low voice.

Blood pounded in Ian’s ears as he braced himself to hear what he knew would be past bearing. But he must bear it and be strong for her.

“Was it Angus or Murdoc?” he asked in a choked voice. For as long as he lived, he would never forgive himself for being too late to save her from being taken in violence.

Sìleas touched her fingers to his face. “No. That didn’t happen.”

Would she lie to spare him? He didn’t want to press her now. When he had her safe, with hours before them to talk, he would find out all that had happened in the castle.

“I speak the truth,” she said. “I wasn’t certain ye would find me before one of them raped me, but ye did.”

Relief flooded through him. Men had their hands on her and frightened her, but at least she had not suffered the worst violation.

“I never doubted ye would rescue me in the end,” she said. “Ye always have.”

Her faith in him overwhelmed him. Ian lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.

“And tomorrow, ye will make certain Hugh Dubh does not become our chieftain,” she said in a determined voice. “Ye will do it for the clan, for Connor, and for all the others. And ye will do it for me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“What I wanted to tell ye is that Murdoc admitted he had an agreement with Hugh,” Sìleas said. “Hugh let him have Knock Castle—and me—in exchange for murdering Connor.”

“I knew it,” Ian said, pounding his fist on the dirt floor. “I promise ye, I will not let Hugh become chieftain.”

He’d murder Hugh before he let that happen.

She let her head drop against his chest again. “I want to stay awake just to feel your arms around me,” she said in a soft voice. “But I’m so tired, I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Shhh. Sleep, mo chroí,” he murmured, as she fell asleep in his arms.

Ian roused the men at first light. He was anxious to get his wife to a safer place and to see how Connor and the others fared. And there was no time to spare. The dark days of November were almost upon them; the celebration of Samhain would begin at sunset.

“Ian,” Niall called from the gate. “Come see this.”

Ian heard the urgency in his brother’s voice and ran to join him on the drawbridge.

“There,” Niall said, pointing out to sea, where three war galleys were sailing toward shore.

Damn, damn, damn. Ian squinted through the rain, trying to see who they were. God’s blood, the man standing in the prow of the front ship was none other than his former jailor, Shaggy Lachlan Cattanach Maclean.

Why would Shaggy be coming here? With three galleys loaded with clansmen, it did not appear to be a friendly visit.

“Christ above,” Ian said, “I don’t have time to deal with a pack of murdering Macleans this morning.”

Ian turned as Father Brian joined them on the drawbridge.

“I’m sure ye meant to call on the Lord’s help, rather than take His name in vain,” the priest said. “Because we’ll be needing divine intervention, that’s for certain.”

Indeed they would, for the Macleans were landing.

“Quick, I need every man up on the wall!” Ian shouted, as he ran inside. “Each of ye take a dead man’s shield with ye. The Macleans are coming, and we must make them believe there are more of us than there are.”

He didn’t object when Sìleas and Dina followed Gòrdan up a ladder carrying shields. If Shaggy’s men did break through, they would be safer up on the wall.

“I’m going down there,” Ian called out to the others.

The rain and extra shields would only fool Shaggy from a distance, which meant he needed to keep Shaggy on the beach.

Shaggy was the sort who could smell weakness, so Ian made a point of walking as if he had all the time in the world as he made his way down to where Shaggy and his men had landed their boats.

“A bit far from home, aren’t ye, Shaggy?” he said when he reached them.

He was glad to see that the younger man beside Shaggy was Hector, Shaggy’s eldest son. Hector had a reputation for being both more sensible and more trustworthy than his father.

“What kind of fool faces three war galleys full of men alone?” Shaggy said, glaring at him from under his black eyebrows. “But then, I heard that the Douglas says ye are fearless to the point of foolishness.”

Sometimes news traveled faster than men in the Highlands.

Ian shrugged. “I’m just curious about why ye are sailing these waters.”

“I’m searching for that sweet little galley ye stole from me,” Shaggy said. “I didn’t see it when I sailed by your house, so I’m still looking.”

Ian had the answer to one question. It must have been the sight of Shaggy’s three war galleys off shore that had sent the MacKinnons running after they attacked Connor and the others. He didn’t believe, however, that Shaggy had come just for his missing boat.

“I can’t offer ye the kind of hospitality I’d like to,” Ian said. “We had to burn the keep in the process of taking the castle, so the dungeon is in verra poor shape.”

Shaggy started toward him, but his son grabbed his arm.

“I’ve a proposition for ye,” Ian said. “And if ye aren’t as mad as they say, you’ll take it.”

Hector held his father back a second time. “Let’s hear it first, da.”

“You’ve backed the wrong man in helping Hugh take the chieftainship from Connor. We escaped your dungeon, and now we’ve taken Knock Castle.” Ian paused to let Shaggy consider this, before he said, “I suggest ye change sides while ye still can.”

Shaggy growled, which Ian took as sufficient encouragement to continue.

“Hugh sat by while the MacKinnons took Knock Castle, which is why you were thinking you could come and take it yourself,” Ian said. “If we have a chieftain who will not protect our lands, then the MacKinnons and the MacLeods will overrun us—and that will be the end of the MacDonalds on Skye.”

Ian paused for a long moment. “Have ye thought about what the MacKinnons and their more powerful brothers, the MacLeods, would do if they had all of Skye?”

“What do I care what the damned MacLeods do?” Shaggy said.

Ian spread his hands. “If they don’t have to worry about the MacDonalds on their doorstep, they’ll be looking south to your lands on the Isle of Mull.”

From the sideways glance Hector gave his father, Ian suspected Hector had given Shaggy precisely the same warning. Any man with sense knew maintaining a balance was important, with friends as well as enemies. In the Highlands, one often became the other.

“But that won’t happen, because Connor will be chieftain.” Ian folded his arms as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Connor is not a man ye want as your enemy. So if ye have any notion of attempting to take Knock Castle, you’d best reconsider.”

Shaggy exchanged glances with his son.

“Hugh says he’ll join the rebellion against the Crown,” Shaggy said. “Would Connor?”

“Ye can’t believe a word Hugh tells ye.” Ian shrugged. “I can’t speak for Connor, but he’ll do whatever is best for our clan.”

Shaggy fixed his eyes on Ian as he scratched his face through his beard. Despite the rain and cold wind blowing off the sea, sweat trickled down Ian’s back. Time was growing short. He was anxious to have the Macleans gone so he could be on his way to get Connor.

All the same, he tilted his head back as if he were considering the weather until, at last, Shaggy spoke.

“Connor hasn’t taken a wife yet, has he?”

Ian was so surprised by the question that he nearly laughed. Still, it wasn’t hard to guess why Shaggy asked it. With the number of wives Shaggy had wed and then put aside over the years, he probably had an abundance of daughters to marry off.

“Connor isn’t married… yet,” Ian said, rocking back on his heels, and wishing the man would take his damned boats and leave.

“If Connor were to wed one of my daughters—assuming he does become your chieftain,” Shaggy said, “I could be persuaded to let him keep that galley as a wedding present.”

“That galley is a fine, fast boat,” Ian said. “I’ll speak to Connor about your daughters.”

“Tell him he can use the galley when he comes to fetch one of them.” Shaggy’s crooked teeth showed in the midst of his bushy beard, in what Ian took for a smile.

“When Connor comes for the wedding,” Shaggy called back as he headed to his boat, “we’ll discuss his position on the rebellion.”

Poor Connor. He would have his hands full when he became chieftain.

If he still lived.

As soon as Ian was back inside the gate, he got his horse.

“I may not make it to Dunscaith Castle before the gathering begins,” he said to his father, as he mounted. “Can ye delay the ceremony to choose the chieftain until I can get there with Connor?”

“The seannachie will tell stories of the clan from ancient times to the present,” his father said. “When he comes to Connor’s da, I’ll add my own tales to honor my old friend, and I’ll encourage the other older men to do so as well. It will be awkward for Hugh to cut us off. All the same, ye’d best have the wind at your back.”

“I’m going with ye,” Sìleas said, reaching her hand up to him.

“Good. I want ye with me.” He helped her up onto his horse.

Last time, he had left her, thinking that would keep her safe. He wouldn’t risk being parted from her again. Whatever happened today, they would face it together.

As soon as Shaggy’s boats rounded the bay and were out of sight, Ian and Sìleas galloped over the drawbridge. The sun was a lighter circle of gray in the heavy clouds ahead. It was raining between here and Dunscaith Castle, which meant there was a reasonable chance Hugh would not see the smoke from Knock Castle and learn that his plans had gone afoul.

Ian was counting on it. To have any hope of success, he needed surprise on his side.

CHAPTER 41

“Ye look as poor an excuse for a man as I’ve ever seen,” Ian said, leaning over the bed to squeeze Connor’s good shoulder. “But ye never looked better to me.”

Connor was weak and battered, but he was alert.

“He’s no fit to go anywhere yet,” Ilysa said, her brows pinched together. “And poor Duncan is as weak as a kitten.”

Despite the direness of their situation, he and the other men exchanged amused glances. Even badly injured, no one but Duncan’s sister would compare him to a kitten.

“And Alex’s leg wound frets me something fierce,” Ilysa said, pointing an accusing finger at the offending patient.

“Ach, we’ll all be fine,” Duncan said, though he was so pale that the freckles stood out on his face.

“Do ye think ye can travel?” Ian asked Connor. “The gathering is starting.”

Wee thing that she was, Ilysa stood between him and Connor and put her hands on her hips. “Ye can’t mean to get him out of this bed, Ian MacDonald.”

“I can make it to the gathering,” Connor said between his teeth, as he tried to sit up.

Duncan caught his sister’s arm as Ian went to help Connor. “Connor has to go,” Duncan said. “We all do.”

The effort to sit up had cost Connor; he was breathing hard and sweat beaded on his brow.

“We must go, but the question is how,” Alex said from his stool across the tiny room. “I hate to admit it, lads, but we won’t strike fear in the hearts of our enemies in our present condition.”

Ian looked them over. Duncan and Alex had two good legs between them and one good sword arm, and it was doubtful Connor could stand at all.

“Alex is right. If Hugh sees ye coming looking like this, he’ll finish ye off before we make it into the castle,” Ian said. “We need to get the three of ye inside without anyone seeing ye.

“We have two things in our favor,” he continued. “First, Hugh isn’t expecting ye because he thinks you’re dead.”

“And the second,” Sìleas said, “is that it’s the eve of Samhain, so we can dress ye in disguises.”

Half the clan would be wearing costumes—whether to imitate the dead or ward them off, Ian was never sure.

“We can paint our faces black,” Duncan suggested. “A lot of the young men do that.”

“If I arrive with three men of your size and hair color—especially yours, Duncan—I fear blackened faces won’t be enough to prevent someone from guessing who ye are.”

Teàrlag, who had been bent over something boiling in the iron pot over her fire, turned and spoke for the first time. “Ilysa, I haven’t yet given away the clothes of the last person we helped lay out. They should do, aye?”

“My braw brother won’t like it,” Ilysa said, a slow smile spreading over her face. “But I believe we’ll get ye into the castle without anyone recognizing ye.”

Ian steered Shaggy’s fine little galley around the point. Luckily, there was a stiff breeze so he didn’t have to row.

“Ye look fetching,” Alex said, choking back a laugh as Duncan held his bonnet against the wind. “I fear it will be hard keeping the men at a distance.”

Duncan was wearing the clothes of a well-known gossip who had died a few weeks earlier and who, fortunately, had been enormous. Duncan and Alex had drawn straws for the privilege.

“Any man that touches me will find himself on his arse,” Duncan said with a sour look.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I think ye will be safe from untoward advances,” Ian said. “But just in case, I hope ye have a dirk hidden beneath your skirts.”

“Hmmph.” Duncan snorted and glared at the castle.

Alex put on one of the masks Teàrlag had fashioned from scrap cloth to cover Connor’s and Alex’s bruised faces. “I hate to hide my pretty face, when all the lasses of the clan will be at the gathering.”

Connor was lying in the bottom of the boat, fast asleep. Even though Ian had carried him most of the way, the trip down to the boat from the cottage had sapped what little strength he had.

“Best get him up now,” Ian said.

Duncan and Alex helped Connor sit up, and Sìleas put on his mask for him.

Ian didn’t need to hide his own identity, since people would expect him to be at the gathering. All the same, he kept his cap low over his eyes as he guided the boat up to the castle’s sea entrance. Earlier, there would have been a line of boats waiting, but the afternoon light was gone, and evening had settled in. The torches inside the sea gate shone on the boat ahead of them, the only other latecomer.

Ilysa had returned to the castle earlier by the road, since it might raise alarms if she was missing when it was time to set out the food for the gathering.

The water sloshed between the boat and the sea steps as one of the guards grabbed the coiled rope from the front of their boat and tied it to an iron peg. This was the most dangerous moment. Ian was prepared to reach for his claymore and cut the guards down if he had to.

The other guard was a small wiry fellow, who gamely offered his hand to Duncan. “Big lass, aren’t ye now?”

Duncan looked as if he was going to squeeze the life out of the guard rather than take his hand. Ach, this was going to be trouble. Ian tensed as the guard turned his head, letting his gaze rove over each of them in turn. When his eyes met Ian’s, his face broke into a wide grin that showed several missing teeth.

“It’s me, Tait,” the man said in a low voice. “Ilysa sent me down to help at the sea gate.”

In the light from the torches behind the guard, Ian could just make out the features of Tait, the man who hated Hugh for violating his sister.

“I can handle this last boat and lock the sea gate,” Tait called to the other guard. “Ye don’t want to miss the bonfire, now do ye?”

This time when Tait offered his hand, Duncan took it. The boat dipped as Duncan stepped on the side of the boat then rose again when he stepped off.

“Glad to see ye here, lads,” Tait said as soon as the other guard disappeared up the stairs. “That damned Hugh Dubh has been parading around the castle all day like a damned rooster.”

Tait climbed into the boat to help him with Connor. As they half-carried Connor between them, Ian looked over his shoulder to see Sìleas helping Alex.

“By now, everyone will be outside in the yard for the bonfire,” Tait said.

Ian looked up the long flight of steps, lit by torches that lined the walls on either side. Unfortunately, they would have to go up through the keep to get to the bailey yard. All that was on the dank sea level of the castle was the dungeon—a place Ian hoped they wouldn’t see the inside of tonight.

Alex went first, managing well enough on his own. Duncan was next, dragging his leg, with Sìleas hovering beside him.

“I think I can go up myself,” Connor said in a tight voice, but a groan escaped him as Ian and Tait helped him up the first step.

“Save your strength,” Ian said. “You’ll be needing it soon.”

“Word is that Hugh has his men watching for ye, Ian,” Tait said, as they inched their way up the steps behind the others.

It was taking an eternity to get the men up the damned stairs.

“He’s heard that some of the men intend to put your name forward to be chieftain, now that they think Connor is dead—even though ye aren’t of the chieftain’s blood,” Tait said.

“Why do ye suppose I went to such trouble to get Connor here tonight?” Ian joked.

Connor stopped where he was and turned. “Maybe ye should take it, Ian. I’m in no shape to lead the clan.”

“No, ye will not be giving me the miserable task of leading this stubborn rabble,” Ian said, pulling Connor up the next step. “You’re the right man for it. The only one.”

The Samhain bonfire raged in the middle of the castle’s bailey yard, just as it had every year of Sìleas’s life. It seemed odd, when so much else had changed.

No one gave them a second look as they merged into the shadows at the back of the circle gathered around the fire. Many in the crowd wore garish costumes or carried lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips with carved faces to ward off evil spirits.

A few women were throwing bones or roasting nuts to divine whom they would marry, for Samhain was a time for divination. Many a lass told her young man aye or nay following Samhain, depending on what the signs revealed this night.

The children were enjoying themselves as they usually did, but Sìleas sensed the tension behind the adults’ revelry. Hugh had made it known he would call on every man to make a pledge of loyalty to him before the night was over.

“When we go inside for the ceremony, I want ye to find Ilysa and stand with her,” Ian said to her in a low voice. “She’ll know how to get ye out if things should turn violent.”

“I will.” She understood it would help him not to have to worry about her when the time came.

At the sound of pipes and drums, the crowd turned their attention to Hugh, who stood facing the crowd with the great fire behind him.

“Samhain is a time when we come together to celebrate the final harvest of the year and remember our dead,” Hugh said, holding his arms out.

“I am grateful for the long stories that so many of you have shared in remembrance of my dear, departed brother,” he said, emphasizing the long and the many, with a glance toward a group of older men that included Ian’s father. “But Samhain is also when we mark the beginning of our New Year. And on this Samhain, we also celebrate the beginning of a new era for the MacDonalds of Sleat.”

Sìleas tapped her foot. Hugh was in fine form tonight.

“I’ve laid a place at the head table for my dead brother and my nephew Ragnall, as is our tradition, so their spirits can join us for this special Samhain night.”

Sìleas thought calling on the memory of their former chieftain was bold on Hugh’s part, for most members of the clan knew Hugh had resented his brother from the day he was born. Still, blood ties were respected in the Highlands.

Hugh put his hand over his heart. “I know my brother would be pleased to see me take his place as chieftain.”

Alex and Duncan both made choking noises. Hugh glared in their direction, but they were safe from discovery here in the shadows.

“It is time now for all of us to set aside our sorrow, hard as it may be,” Hugh said, “and to swear fealty to your new chieftain.”

“Does he think he can avoid taking a vote altogether?” she whispered to Ian.

“Aye, but the men don’t like it.”

From the low grumbling around them, it was clear Ian was right.

“We’ll have our feast as soon as the oaths are taken,” Hugh said. “To the hall!”

“Move about among the men and be ready,” Ian said to Tait. Then he turned to Connor and the others. “Don’t let anyone see ye until I signal.”

“Grá mo chroí,” Ian said to Sìleas, and squeezed her hand before disappearing into the crowd. Love of my heart.

Sìleas waited with the three men until most of the crowd was inside. The rumble of voices was loud in the hall as they moved inside and found a place to stand against the back wall.

She leaned forward to look at the three of them. They appeared to be an odd but unremarkable, drunken threesome—two men in Samhain masks and an enormous woman in a large bonnet—leaning against the wall and holding on to each other for support.

Connor lifted his mask and leaned over to speak in her ear. “Ye shouldn’t be near us now, when things are coming to a head.”

His voice sounded stronger than before, and he was staying upright. That much was good. She squeezed his arm and went to join Ilysa and Beitris, who were standing with the other women.

She had a good view of Hugh, who sat in the chieftain’s chair on a raised platform at one end of the hall. She didn’t know the rough-looking men who stood on either side of him, but assumed they were companions from his pirating days. They glared at the crowd, looking as if they were eager to force the oath from any man who didn’t give it freely.

“Who wants the honor of being first?” Hugh called out.

The hall grew quiet as everyone waited to see who would be the first to come forward. There was an audible intake of breath from the crowd as Ian stepped into the space that had been left in front of Hugh and the guards flanking him.

“Well, ye have more sense than I gave ye credit for, Ian Aluinn,” Hugh said, using the nickname the women had given Ian years ago in an attempt to ridicule him. “I thought my men would have to ‘persuade’ ye to do what ye must.”

Instead of bending his knee to take his oath, Ian turned to face the crowd. There was fire in his eyes, and he stood with his legs apart as if he was ready to fight half a dozen men at once—which he probably was. Ach, her husband was breathtaking.

“It is our tradition to allow men to speak before the selection of a new chieftain,” Ian said in a voice that reached every corner of the hall. “I intend to speak.”

A loud murmur of agreement rose from the crowd.

Hugh drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, as if he were itching to give the order to cut Ian down. But Hugh was no fool. It was clear from the reaction to Ian’s statement that the clan expected him to follow the traditions, even if they believed the outcome was certain.

“Speak if ye must,” Hugh said with an impatient wave of his hand. “But as I am the only man here of chieftain’s blood, I see little point in it.”

Ian turned to look over his shoulder at Hugh. “Can ye be so sure my uncle did not leave another son or two that ye don’t know about?”

There were barks of male laughter around the room, for everyone knew their chieftain, like his father before him, had bedded countless women over the years.

“But no, I’ve not disrupted the evening to tell ye about a new claimant to the chieftainship.” Ian raised his fist in the air. “I’ve here to tell ye I’ve taken Knock Castle back from the MacKinnons!”

The hall erupted as men waved their claymores, and the crowd roared their approval. Hugh stood and raised his hands for quiet, but it was some time before he could be heard.

After the cheering died down, Hugh said, “Just saying ye took the castle doesn’t make it so.”

Sìleas was startled to see Gòrdan emerge from the crowd to stand beside Ian at the front. His clothes were streaked with soot, and he looked as if he had ridden hard to get here.

“Most of ye know I’ve had my differences with Ian,” Gòrdan said. “So ye can trust my word when I say he did take Knock Castle yesterday.”

A few men shouted, but Gòrdan put his hand up to signal he wasn’t finished. “Shaggy Maclean is plying the waters nearby, so I hope some of ye will join me at Knock Castle in the morning. We don’t want to lose it to the Macleans after we’ve just taken it back from the MacKinnons.”

The hall again was filled with whoops and swords raised high. His speech done, Gòrdan gave a stiff nod and moved back into the crowd.

“This is a proud day, indeed, for the MacDonalds of Sleat.” Hugh spoke as if he were responsible for the victory, though everyone knew he had stood by while the MacKinnons held Knock Castle.

All eyes, however, were on Ian, who had won the crowd’s goodwill. He walked the few feet to the high table, where the two places had been set for the dead.

“Before we choose a new chieftain,” Ian said, in a slow deliberate voice, “we must settle the matter of the death of our last chieftain—and of his son, Ragnall.”

A chill went through the room at his mention of the dead, for the veil was thin between the dead and the living on Samhain. Sìleas could almost see the chieftain and Ragnall—big, muscular, fair-haired men with grim faces—standing on either side of Ian.

“Those of us who were at Flodden know what happened,” Hugh said, his hard, gray eyes sweeping the crowd. “While Ian here was drinking fine wines and dallying with the ladies in France, we were being slaughtered by the English!”

Ian waited for the murmur that followed to grow quiet. Then, in a voice choked with rage, he said, “Our chieftain and his son were not slaughtered by the English.”

The blood drained from Hugh’s face, and he stared at Ian openmouthed, before he caught himself and snapped his mouth shut. The crowd was stunned into silence.

Ian stretched out his arm, pointing at Hugh, and shouted in a voice that reverberated through the hall. “I accuse you, Hugh Dubh MacDonald, of murdering our chieftain and his son at Flodden!”

The crowd was in an uproar.

Hugh tried to speak several times before he could be heard. “I fought at Flodden,” he said, clenching his fists and fixing murderous eyes on Ian. “How dare ye accuse me of the vilest crime, when I sank in Scots’ blood to my ankles, fighting, while you deserted the clan in our hour of need.”

Hugh turned and shouted to his guard, “Seize him!”

Sìleas gasped and started forward, but Beitris and Ilysa held her.

Then Tait’s voice came from the other side of the hall. “Let’s hear what Ian has to say!”

Several others followed, shouting, “Aye! Let him speak! Let him speak!”

Hugh put his hand up as if to stop his guards, though they had been slow to follow his order.

“ ’Tis easy to make accusations,” Hugh said to Ian, “with nothing to back them up.”

“But I do have proof.” Ian paused, giving everyone time to take in his words, before he said, “I ask my father, Payton MacDonald, to come forward.”

Sìleas squeezed Beitris’s and Ilysa’s hands as Payton made his way to the front of the room. Despite his limp and his graying hair, he was still a formidable man with powerful shoulders and battle scars on his face and hands. Her heart burst with pride to see father and son, fine and honorable men, standing together before their clan.

“Da,” Ian said, “can ye tell us which of our clansman fought near ye in the battle.”

“I fought on our chieftain’s left and Ragnall fought on his right, just as we always did,” his father said. “We were in the front—again, same as always.”

There was a rumble of agreement among the men, for they knew the three always fought like that.

“And who was behind ye?” Ian asked.

“This time, it was Hugh Dubh and a few of his men.”

Payton’s answer caused a murmuring in the crowd, though Hugh’s being behind the men who were killed proved nothing in itself.

“Can ye tell us how the chieftain and Ragnall were killed?”

Payton shook his head. “I didn’t see who struck the blows, but they came from behind us. I’ve puzzled on that ever since.”

The hall was so quiet that Sìleas could hear her own breathing.

“The English came at us hard, and we were fighting for our lives,” Payton said. “All the same, I don’t know how English soldiers could have gotten behind us without us knowing it.”

Ian shrugged his shoulders. “In the heat of battle, ye can’t always see.”

“But the three of us were used to fighting together. We watched each other’s backs. I can understand one of us not seeing an English soldier slip behind us—but none of us?” Payton shook his head. “No, that doesn’t seem possible.”

Several men grunted in agreement, for the three men had been known as remarkable fighters who had survived many a battle when others had not.

“The three of us were struck at almost the same moment,” Payton said. “I saw our chieftain fall forward at the same time that I heard Ragnall cry out. Before I could reach either of them, I took a blow to the back of my head.”

“In the back, from behind,” Ian repeated. “Do ye know who struck ye, da?”

Payton shook his head. “I woke up a fortnight later in bed with no leg.”

“This is proof?” Hugh interrupted, lifting his arms. “ ’Tis a shame that my brother and Ragnall were lost at Flodden, but you’re wasting our time dwelling on the past.”

Ian pointed to three older men in the front. “Would ye say ye have fought against the English and other Highlanders often enough to know the difference in their weapons?”

“Don’t be a damned fool,” one of them said. “Of course we can.”

“Then can ye tell us what weapon made the scar on the back of my da’s head?”

Payton took off his cap and turned around. His head had been shaved around a five-inch wound.

“Lucky he caught ye with just the tip of his sword, or you’d be a dead man,” one of them said. “Your moving to reach the chieftain and Ragnall as the blow fell is probably what saved ye.”

“Can ye tell what kind of sword it was?” Ian asked.

“This was made by a claymore, not an English blade,” the man said, and the other two nodded. “Ye see how thick the cut is? Aye, that was done by a claymore.”

The noise in the hall was deafening until Ian raised his hands for silence.

“We have plenty of enemies among the clans, and most of them were there that day,” Hugh said. “Our chieftain was my brother, and Ragnall, my nephew. I’d never raise my hand against my own blood.”

“Is Connor not your own blood?” Ian said, stepping toward Hugh with his hands clenched into fists. “Why don’t ye tell our clansmen what ye did to Connor?”

“I haven’t laid eyes on Connor in more than five years.”

“I know what ye did,” Ian said, his eyes narrow blue slits. “First, ye asked Shaggy Maclean to kill the four of us before we got to Skye. But we surprised ye, when we escaped Shaggy’s dungeon.”

Hugh started to speak, but Ian shouted over him. “So ye made a deal with that devil Murdoc MacKinnon. Ye told him he could keep Knock Castle—and take my wife—in exchange for murdering Connor.”

Every man in the room had wondered why Hugh did not fight for Knock Castle; Ian had just given them an explanation they could believe.

“You’re a liar,” Hugh said, but sweat was beading on his forehead.

“Murdoc MacKinnon admitted the treachery to my wife.”

“A woman will tell ye what she thinks ye want to hear.” Hugh’s eyes darted around the room. “What I think happened is that Connor and the other two decided to return to France soon after the four of ye came home.”

“Then why have ye been spreading the word that they were murdered by the MacKinnons?” Ian asked. “Shall I call on Connor, Alex, and Duncan to tell us the tale?”

The high, sweet sound of a whistle started at the back of the hall, causing everyone to turn and look. At the back of the room, stood Connor, Alex, and Duncan, without their disguises. Men gasped and women drew back their skirts to let them pass as the three started forward.

“It’s Samhain, uncle,” Connor called out. “Are ye prepared to meet the dead?”

Hugh’s eyes went wide, and he made a strangled sound, while his men crossed themselves and backed away. Though the three men limped and their faces were bruised, there was no mistaking that these were warriors to be reckoned with.

“Ye should have murdered me yourself,” Connor said, when he reached his uncle at the front. “Only a fool would rely on a Maclean or MacKinnon for such an important task.”

When several clansmen surrounded Hugh, he looked to his guards to protect him. But Hugh’s men, who as pirates were known for vanishing into the mists to avoid capture, had disappeared into the crowd. In no time, Hugh was disarmed and dragged to the side.

Every eye in the room was fixed on the four Highland warriors who had returned from France. Despite their injuries, they were hard-muscled men in their prime, a new generation of MacDonald men, ready to take their place as leaders and protectors of their clan.

Ian’s father began pounding his cane rhythmically on the stone floor. Immediately, others began to stomp and clap to the same rhythm. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Deep voices filled the hall, shouting in time to the stomping and clapping. “Chief-tain! Chief-tain! Chief-tain!”

Connor stepped forward and raised his arms as the crowd roared louder and louder, proclaiming him as their choice.

It was a miracle Connor managed to stand alone as long as he did. Sìleas didn’t think the crowd noticed when he started to weave, but Alex and Duncan limped forward to stand on either side of him.

Ian stood a little apart, his eyes searching the hall until he found her.

They had succeeded. Connor would be the next chieftain of the MacDonalds of Sleat.

Ian felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders—a weight he had carried since the moment he first learned of the calamity at Flodden. He had redeemed himself by saving his clan from certain disaster.

The fight was not over. Hugh still had supporters—some in the hall and others who slipped out of the castle in the chaos. They would have to be dealt with eventually, but they would cause no more trouble tonight.

Ian wanted to share this moment with Sìleas. Smiling, he turned to look for her.

His heart swelled when he saw her, because she was smiling back at him, her eyes shining. People moved out of his way as he pushed through the crowd toward her. Suddenly, her gaze shifted to something behind him, and she screamed.

He spun around in time to see a flash of steel behind Connor, Alex, and Duncan, where the men were holding Hugh. In the midst of the tumultuous jubilation, no one else seemed to notice when one of the men holding Hugh sank to the ground with blood gushing from his throat. A moment later, the second man holding Hugh doubled over, with blood seeping between his lips.

Neither did anyone heed Ian’s cry of warning as Hugh pulled the dead man’s dirk from his belt. Ian was already pushing through the crowd, racing to get to Connor before Hugh did.

Though Ian was running as fast as he could, he saw everything with piercing clarity, as if time had slowed. He saw each person who fell out of his way, Duncan’s hands clapping, Alex’s head thrown back in laughter—and Hugh moving toward Connor with the point of his blade aimed at Connor’s back.

“No!” Ian shouted, as he took the last three steps at a dead run and flew through the air.

He felt the sting of a blade glancing off his back as he crashed to the floor on top of Connor with a hard thump. When he looked up, with his dirk ready in his hand, Duncan and Alex were holding Hugh above him. Screams and shouts echoed off the walls, and every dirk and claymore in the hall was unsheathed.

“I appreciate ye saving my life,” Connor grunted from beneath him. “But do ye think ye could get off of me now? I feel as if a horse fell on me.”

“I hope I didn’t break open any of your wounds,” Ian said, as he got up. “Ach, from the blood it looks as though I did.”

“The blood is yours this time,” Connor said after Ian helped him up. “Turn ’round and let’s see how bad he cut ye.”

“I don’t even feel it,” Ian said, looking over his shoulder at his bloody shirt.

“Connor, what do ye want us to do with this murderer?” Alex asked, and gave Hugh a shake.

“My father was a great chieftain, and my brother Ragnall would have been an even greater one,” Connor said, looking at his uncle. “You have deprived the clan of their leadership.”

Ian thought Connor would be a better chieftain than either of them, but it wasn’t the time to say it.

“You haven’t the hardness it takes to be chieftain,” Hugh spat out. “Your father at least had that.”

“I won’t mar tonight’s celebration with an execution—but say your prayers, Hugh, for you’ll die in the morning.” Connor turned to several clansmen who were standing nearby. “Take him to the dungeon. He’s a slippery one, so mind him closely.”

The noise in the hall was deafening as men carried Connor around in the chieftain’s chair. In the wake of the revelation of their former chieftain’s murder, the clan’s choice was clear. That did not mean no one had doubts about Connor’s leadership, but none would express them tonight.

They chose Connor because he was his father’s son and Ragnall’s brother—and because he was not Hugh. Most members of the clan did not know Connor’s mettle yet. In time, he would prove himself to them. Once they knew him as Ian did, they would follow Connor because of the good man he was and the great man he was destined to be.

For tonight, Connor and the clan were safe. The celebrations would go on through most of the night, but Ian did not need to stay for them. He had one more thing he must do to make up for the past, one last step to redeem himself with the person who mattered most.

He found Sìleas elbowing her way through the throng of men crowded around the front. When she felt his gaze, she gave him a broad smile, as before. After all the ways he had failed her, her smile was a small miracle, a gift he hoped to earn in time.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the hall.

Most of the guests would be sleeping on the floor of the hall tonight, but Ian intended to take one of the few bedchambers. Connor owed him that.

CHAPTER 42

As soon as the chamber door was closed behind them, he pulled Sìleas into his arms. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in the familiar scent of her hair and skin. While she was in danger, all his focus was on rescuing her. Then he had to turn his mind to getting Connor to the gathering and making him chieftain.

“I almost lost you.”

Only now that his tasks were completed and the dangers passed, did it fully hit him. His knees felt weak at the thought of how close it had been. He ran his hands over her to assure himself that she was whole.

“I should have prevented Murdoc from taking ye,” he said.

“Ian, ye can’t blame yourself for everything that happens.” Sìleas leaned back and looked at him with her honest green eyes. “And ye did save me.”

“I’ve failed ye so many times—starting with the day I found ye outside the tunnel and didn’t believe ye were in danger,” he said. “I never should have left ye to deal with everything alone while I went off to France. I don’t know how to tell ye how sorry I am for it all.”

“Ye returned home precisely when we needed ye most,” she said, touching her fingers to his cheek. “If ye had been here all along, ye might have been killed at Flodden with the rest of them. And where would we be now without ye? Your da would still be lying in bed spewing venom at Niall, Hugh would be chieftain, and I’d likely be wed to that brute Angus.”

The thought of Angus’s hands on her sent a wave of cold fury through him. If he could kill him again, he would. “I don’t know how ye can forgive me.”

“Do ye know why I waited five long years for ye, Ian MacDonald?” she asked with a soft smile lighting her face.

It was a wonder to him that she had.

“It’s because I always knew ye were special. I could see it in ye from the time I was a wee bairn. Even when ye made mistakes, I believed in that lad who had so much courage and kindness in his heart. I knew the man ye could be.”

He cradled her face in his hand. He felt an overwhelming gratitude for her faith in him—for the wee bairn who trusted him to rescue her from every mishap, for the brave thirteen-year-old lass who threw her fate in with his without thinking twice. And most of all, for the young woman who waited for him to return, and who, when he failed her again, gave him yet another chance to prove himself.

He had come home seeking only atonement, and she had given him the wonder of love. “I’ll do my best to be the man ye believe I can become.”

“Ye already are,” she said.

He felt a powerful need to make love to her, to show her how much he cared. But she would need time, after what she had been through. The image of Murdoc standing between her legs would be with him for a long, long time. How much worse the memory must be for her. Would it ever fade enough for her to want him again?

“Let me help ye to bed, a chroí. Ye need your rest,” he said. “But if ye can bear to have me touch ye, I’d like to sleep holding ye in my arms.”

He wanted much more than that, but he brushed his lips across her forehead.

He was already hard with wanting her before she slid her arms around his neck. When she rose up on her toes and leaned into him, he held himself in check and gave her a chaste kiss. But when she pulled him down into a deep kiss, thrusting her tongue into his mouth with an urgency that sent his blood pounding through his veins, he was a lost man.

Finally, he forced himself to break the kiss. “Ye don’t have to do this to please me. Ye should r—”

“I want ye something fierce,” she said, pulling him to her by the front of his shirt. “Don’t ye dare tell me I must rest.”

Ian trusted his wife to know what she wanted.

Sìleas needed him to make love to her to wipe away the fear that had dogged her since Alex burst into the house bleeding the morning before. She had kept up a brave front most of the time, but she had feared rape and degradation and death; she had feared for the lives of Ian’s family and friends, who were now her family and friends. And most of all, she had feared she would die and never see Ian again.

She felt desperate to hold him, to feel him inside her and all around her. They fell to the bed, kissing and running their hands over each other as if they might never get the chance again—because it had almost been true. They tore at each other’s clothes until at last they lay skin to skin. But it wasn’t enough.

She needed to feel his weight on her. When she tugged on his shoulder, he rolled to cover her. She closed her eyes and drew in deep breaths. It was as if she needed to feel him pressing down on her, touching her from head to toe, to believe he was truly here with her.

She felt safe at last.

And she wanted him as she had never wanted him before. He slid his hands between her legs and groaned when he found how wet she was for him.

“I need ye inside of me,” she said, her voice coming out hoarse. “I need us to be one.”

When he brought the head of his shaft to touch her center, he shuddered with the effort not to plunge into her. But when she clamped her legs around him, he gave in to what they both wanted. She gasped as he thrust deep inside her.

For a long moment, they held still, and she reveled in the intensity of the sensation of him inside her, and the anticipation of his moving again.

“Mo chroí.” He held her head between his hands and kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her hair. “Do ye know how much I love ye?”

“Aye.” She did know it now. His love shone in his eyes, his voice, his touch. It was all around her, encompassing her in its warmth.

Ian’s heart was worth waiting for. He was worth waiting for.

With his eyes locked on hers, he began moving slowly inside her. The pouch holding the crystal she gave him dragged across her chest as if connecting their hearts as he moved over her again and again. His breathing was ragged, and the muscles of his face were straining.

“Harder.” She arched her back and pulled on his shoulders, urging him closer, deeper. She clung to him with all her strength and love.

“Mo shíorghrá… mo shíorghrá…”

He whispered endearments to her as he moved inside her, but she felt too much now to speak. Tears streamed down the sides of her face from emotions too strong to contain. Ian captured her mouth and swallowed her cries as they melded together in an explosion of white fire.

Ian rolled with her until she lay sprawled on top of him. His heart thumped wildly in her ear, and his hand shook as he brushed the hair back from her face.

“We are one,” he said. “We always will be.”

The gray light of dawn was coming through the narrow window when she awoke. Ian lay behind her, his arms wrapped about her and one hand cupping her breast. She snuggled closer and felt his shaft press against her. When she turned in his arms to face him, he traced her skin with his fingers and kissed her with a tenderness that squeezed her heart.

“This time, I’m determined to make love to ye slowly,” he said with a gleam in his eye, “and you’re going to let me have my way.”

“I will,” she said, smiling back at him.

Ian sat up and took her hand. “I have something I want to ask ye first.”

The seriousness of his expression sent a frisson of anxiety through her. She sat up cross-legged to face him and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. “Aye, what is it?”

Ian licked his lips. She’d never seen Ian look nervous before in her life, and it put her on edge to see it now.

“What I want to ask ye is, would ye like to do it over again?” he said. “Get married, I mean. With friends and neighbors coming to wish us well, a big feast, music and dancing.”

Sìleas was too stunned to speak.

“I’d like to do it right this time,” he said.

Tears stung at the back of her eyes. Her voice came out as a whisper. “Ye mean it?”

“I do,” he said, his eyes soft on hers. “When I give ye my vows before all our friends and neighbors, they will know I give them freely and that I mean to keep them.”

She had tried not to let what others said hurt her, but in an island clan where everyone knew everyone else’s business, it had been hard. Ian had found a way to restore her pride by honoring her before their clan.

“Murdoc said that wasn’t a real priest who wed us that day,” she said.

“Ach, I should have guessed my uncle would do that. Then we’ll ask Father Brian to bless our marriage.” Ian lifted her chin with his finger. “I want ye looking your loveliest in a fine gown, and every man eating his heart out because ye are mine.”

Sìleas thought of the ill-fitting red gown that sagged at her bosom and made her skin look blotchy and her hair orange.

“I’ll wear a gown of blue, the color of my true love’s eyes,” she said, letting a slow smile spread across her face. “It will be so gorgeous that the women will talk of nothing else for weeks.”

“Ye will do it then?” Ian asked. “Marry me again?”

Sìleas threw her arms around his neck. “I’d marry ye a thousand times over, Ian MacDonald.”

Ian held her tight against him.

“When I was a lad, Teàrlag predicted I would wed twice,” he said with a laugh in his voice. “Teàrlag could have saved me a good deal of trouble if she’d told me it would be to the same woman both times.”

Sìleas looked up at him from under her lashes. “So which wife is it that ye intend to make love to slowly?”

“It will have to be you, mo chroí,” Ian said, as he kissed her below her ear and eased her back on the bed, “and you again.”

CHAPTER 43

Sìleas and Beitris greeted the last group of women as they entered the gatehouse of Knock Castle. The women cooed and clucked as they surveyed the presents that were laid out for that very purpose.

“Ach, the stitching on that pillow is lovely, Margaret,” one woman said to another.

“But not as useful a gift for a bride as the fine iron pot ye gave her,” her friend replied.

It was only three days since Connor was made chieftain, so the women had barely had time to prepare their gifts. But after Sìleas’s long wait for a real wedding celebration, none of them was complaining. Despite the mild smell of charred wood that lingered in the air, Sìleas was glad now that Ian had insisted they not wait until the keep was livable to have their wedding.

Once the women had finished viewing the gifts and complimenting each other, Beitris called out, “Time for the washing of the bride’s feet!”

Sìleas laughed as the women sat her down on a stool before a wooden tub—a wedding present from Ilysa—pulled off her shoes and stockings, and stuck her feet into the cold water.

Sìleas had not grown up in the company of women. She had always felt awkward among them, particularly in the years when she didn’t fit in with either the unmarried lasses or the women with husbands. More than a few had made thoughtless remarks to her about Ian’s long absence. But today, she felt accepted for the first time—and she was enjoying herself.

Sìleas watched as her mother-in-law twisted off her wedding ring and tossed it into the tub.

“You have the happiest marriage I know, so your ring is sure to bring me the best of luck.” Sìleas took Beitris’s hand and smiled up at her. “I am blessed to have a mother-in-law who is like a mother to me.”

Beitris sniffed and wiped her nose as the women cheered.

Then all the women in want of husbands gathered around the tub. Sìleas shrieked as they took turns scrubbing her ticklish feet and searching the bottom of the tub for the ring. Though Ilysa was younger than she and a widow, Sìleas was surprised to see her standing in line to take a turn. Ilysa had never shown any interest in remarrying before.

Ilysa, however, never got her turn.

“I have it!” Dina shouted. The other women exchanged glances, for they were all quite aware of how Dina lost her last husband.

“Good luck to ye, Dina,” Sìleas said. “May ye be as happy as I am.”

The women finally deigned to notice Ian and the other men who, by tradition, were crowded around the doorway, joking with each other and trying to peek inside. Ian let the women drag him into the room and sit him down on a stool on the other side of the tub from Sìleas.

Ian’s gaze was warm on hers as he put his hand over his heart and mouthed, a chuisle mo chroí. There was a good deal of sighing from the women, but that didn’t stop them from covering his feet in ashes before putting them in the tub.

The feet washing and gift viewing were supposed to take place the eve before the wedding, but they had decided to do it all on the same day so Father Brian could be on his way.

Ian took her hands and helped her to her feet. As they stood together in the tub, he gave her a kiss that made her forget the others were watching—until she heard them shouting their approval.

“I think he could give my Donald a lesson or two,” one of the older women said, causing another round of laughter.

“Out with ye, Ian Aluinn,” another woman said, and Ian let a matron half his size push him out the door.

Before they could close it on him, he blew Sìleas a kiss. “I’ll be waiting for ye in the yard, a chroí.”

“You’re a lucky lass,” Dina said, as the women helped her out of the tub and dried her feet. From the way the other women’s eyes had followed Ian, Sìleas suspected Dina wasn’t the only woman in the room who would have been more than glad to change places with her.

Sìleas wondered where Beitris had gone when she saw her return from the corner of the room with a shimmering silk gown the color of bluebells.

“Ahh, it’s gorgeous,” Sìleas breathed, as she fingered the fine material. “When did ye have time to make it?”

Beitris’s smile was so broad she looked as if her face might split. “I started working on it the night Ian came home from France.”

Sìleas didn’t bother asking how her mother-in-law had known she would be needing it. She lifted her arms as two of the women pulled her gown over her head, leaving her in her chemise.

“Beitris, this one will give ye many grandchildren,” an old woman with pure white hair said, as she pinched Sìleas’s hip.

“She’ll have beautiful babes,” Beitris said, as she dropped the gown over Sìleas’s head.

The gown floated over her in a swirl of cool silk. It fit perfectly, clinging to every curve as if it had been stitched by faeries. Sìleas met Beitris’s eyes and knew they were both thinking of the awful red gown she had worn to her first wedding.

“Thank ye, Beitris,” she said, as they grinned at each other.

“Ach, such luck you’ll have!” the women exclaimed again and again, for a wedding gown that fit well was a sign of good luck.

The women slid thin stockings up her legs and combed her hair. As a last touch, Ilysa tied a sprig of white heather in her hair, another token of good fortune.

Then all the women cooed and sighed, telling her, as they did all brides, that she was the loveliest bride they’d ever seen. When she stepped out into the bailey yard and Ian looked at her, she felt as if it were true.

He was so handsome that the sight of him made her feel as if something had slammed against her chest. The crystal she had given him had been fashioned into a pin that held his plaid at the shoulder, and he wore a sprig of white heather in his cap like the one she wore one in her hair.

Duncan, Connor, and Alex were next to him, dressed in their best and looking fine. Being young and healthy, they were recovering quickly from their injuries, though their bruises still told the tale.

When Duncan raised his eyebrows at her, she nodded and he began to play. His pipes filled the bailey yard with a song of hope and joy. All eyes were on her as she joined Ian to stand before Father Brian.

“I, Ian Payton MacDonald, take ye, Sìleas MacDonald, to be my wife. In the presence of God and before these witnesses, I promise to be a loving and faithful husband to ye until God shall separate us by death.”

Sìleas said her vows in turn. When the priest had blessed them, Ian kissed her and the crowd erupted into cheers.

Connor was the first to congratulate them. “May ye be blessed with long life and peace.”

Sìleas squeezed Ian’s hand. Between the rebellion brewing and Hugh’s escape, peace seemed unlikely, but she would hope for a long life together.

“May ye grow old with goodness and with riches,” Duncan said, giving them another of the usual blessings.

When it was Alex’s turn, he said to Ian, “Ye saved yourself a lot of trouble by marrying a MacDonald. As they say, ‘Marry a lass and ye marry her whole clan.’ ”

“I’m glad ye mentioned that,” Connor said, resting his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “That is precisely the reason I need ye to marry a woman from another clan. I’ll be calling on ye soon to do your duty.”

“Not me,” Alex said, putting his hands up and taking a step back. “I live by the saying, ‘The smart fellow’s share is on every dish.’ ”

They all pretended not to hear Alex’s parents, who had gone off to the far end of the bailey yard to shout at each other.

They had the feast in the yard, too, since the guardhouse was too small for all the guests. Though it was chilly, it wasn’t raining, and the food the women brought was tasty and plentiful. They warmed up afterward with music and dancing. All the men kissed Sìleas, giving her pennies, until Ian put a stop to that particular tradition.

“Let’s get the priest,” he whispered in her ear.

They found Father Brian and sneaked away without anyone noticing—or at least they pretended not to notice. When they reached the makeshift bedchamber Ian had set up for them on the upper floor of the gatehouse, he carried her over the threshold.

He set her down, and they waited while Father Brian sprinkled the bed with holy water.

“Do your part,” he said to Ian with a wink, “and ye will have many fine children.”

As soon as Ian closed the door behind the priest, Sìleas burst out laughing. “I already put the fertility charm Teàrlag gave me under the bed.”

Ian pulled her into his arms. “We’ll have to do our best not to waste so much luck.”

EPILOGUE

NINE MONTHS LATER

Fear was an unnatural state for Ian.

His mother came downstairs periodically to report that his wife was well and all was proceeding as expected. Despite her reassurances, an unfamiliar sensation of panic flooded through his limbs every time he heard his mother’s step on the stairs.

“Sit down, Ian, before ye wear out your new floor,” Alex said.

Why had he got Sìleas with child? What was he thinking? It wasn’t of children, that was for certain. But God help him, her mother had died in childbirth.

“She is a strong lass,” his father said. The sympathy in his eyes showed that he understood in a way the others, who had no wives, could not.

Sìleas screamed again, and his heart stopped in his chest.

“ ’Tis only when they’re too weak to scream that ye have cause to fret,” his father said.

His father could be lying to him, but the strength of Sìleas’s voice was reassuring.

“I think I hear her cursing,” Duncan said, looking nearly as worried as Ian. “That’s a good sign, aye?”

“How long does this take, da?” Ian ran his hands through his hair as he paced. “I shouldn’t have brought her back here to Knock Castle. What if it’s bad luck?”

“First ye had Father Brian bless every nook and corner,” Alex said. “Then ye kept poor old Teàrlag here for three days making silly spells for protection.”

“That was to comfort Sìleas,” Ian said—and ignored the snorts from the others.

“If the two of ye have been unhappy here,” Connor said, “you’ve done a good job of fooling everyone.”

They’d been too happy. Ian feared they’d made the faeries jealous.

“Ian,” his mother said from doorway. “Ye can come up now.”

She stepped aside to let him run by her, and he took the stairs three at a time. When he entered their bedchamber, Sìleas was propped up on pillows, flanked by Ilysa and Dina.

His wife looked tired but radiant. Praise God! He never wanted to go through this again.

Ilysa moved aside so he could take her place next to the bed. “We’ll leave ye alone,” she said. “Just call if ye need me.”

“I’ll say good-bye, because Gòrdan will be coming to fetch me soon.” Dina patted her own expanding belly and gave them a broad wink. “He’s a very… attentive… husband.”

When Ian asked Gòrdan to watch over Dina, he never suspected he was fostering a lasting union. It appeared to be a love match as well. Having a steady man like Gòrdan had settled Dina, and Dina added a spark to Gòrdan. The shouting matches between Dina and Gòrdan’s mother, however, were the stuff of legends.

When the door closed behind the two women, Ian brushed his fingers against Sìleas’s cheek. “Are ye all right, a chuisle mo chroí?”

“I am,” she said.

“Ach, ye sounded as if ye were being tortured.”

“I was,” she said, but when she smiled up at him, Ian’s heart did a turn in his chest. Sìleas had an inner glow that made her unbearably beautiful.

“Ye haven’t looked yet,” she said.

The blanket over the bundle in her arm shielded the babe’s face from him.

“What is it?” he asked. “A boy or a girl?”

He hoped for a boy, only because the thought of having a girl frightened him half to death. What if she was a bairn like her mother, falling into trouble at every opportunity? He’d be an old man before his time.

“Take your daughter,” Sìleas said.

When he lifted the bundle from her arm, the babe weighed nothing at all.

“She is a wee tiny thing, isn’t she?” He pushed the blanket back to see her face—and his daughter held his heartstrings from that moment. “Ah, but she is a beauty! She’s going to have lovely orange hair, just like you.”

“My hair is not orange.”

It was, but he didn’t argue.

“Do ye want to see the other one now?” she asked.

“What? There’s more?”

“Just one more. Another girl.”

He hadn’t noticed the bundle in his wife’s other arm until now. She lifted it up and rested it in the crook of his arm.

“This one has orange hair, too,” Ian said as he looked at his second lovely daughter. He grinned at his wife. “There’re going to be trouble, aren’t they?”

“More than likely,” she said, sounding quite complacent about it. “You’re going to be a wonderful da.”

Sìleas always had such faith in him.

“What shall we name them?” he asked.

“I’d like to name one Beitris, after your mother,” Sìleas said. “What about Alexandra for the other, after Alex?”

“Fine,” he said, smiling down at his wee girls. “Duncan and Connor are not good names for a lass.”

“We should have sons after this,” she said. “We’ll need at least four.”

“Four sons? Why do we need any sons at all?” Overjoyed as he was with their two babes, he wasn’t anxious to risk his wife’s life again.

“So we can name them after Connor, Duncan, Payton, and Niall, of course.” She touched his arm. “After being an only child, I want a houseful of children.”

He nodded, hoping it would be easier next time, but expecting it wouldn’t. “If we do two at a time, it won’t take long.”

He heard a tinkle of laugher and looked up to see what looked very much like a woman in a pale green gown floating above the bed.

“It’s the Green Lady—she’s come back,” Sìleas said, sounding pleased at finding a ghost in their bedchamber. “I’ve never seen her smile before.”

Ian decided he could live with a smiling ghost if it made his wife happy.

As he leaned down with his babes in his arms to give his beloved Sìleas a kiss, he could have sworn that the Green Lady winked at him.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Last summer, I was lucky enough to take a trip to Scotland. One memorable afternoon, I drove across the Sleat Peninsula of Skye, from the ruins of Knock Castle to the ruins of Dunscaith Castle, on a one-lane road that had more sheep than cars. Seeing the castles I was writing about was an amazing experience, and the island is breathtakingly beautiful. The landscape hasn’t changed much over the centuries, so I found it easy to imagine my heroes traipsing over the hills or sailing the shores.

Researching clan histories of five hundred years ago proved far more challenging. Not much was recorded in a written record at the time. While there is a rich tradition of oral histories, clans often have different versions of the same long-ago events. And clan alliances, including marriages between chieftains’ families, were made and broken with a frequency that is hard to follow.

The MacDonalds of Sleat are a prime example of the complex family relationships. Hugh (Uisdean), the first MacDonald of Sleat and the grandfather of my fictional character Connor, had six sons by six different women, all from prominent families. If I have this right, Hugh, one of his sons, and one of his grandsons all married daughters of Torquil MacLeod of Lewis—and another of Hugh’s sons married Torquil’s former wife.

As is often the case, Hugh’s proliferate ways did not lead to family harmony. Hugh’s first son hated his half brothers so much that upon his death he turned the clan’s lands over to the Crown to keep the others from inheriting them. The lack of legal title to their lands caused later chieftains problems for years. Two of Hugh’s other sons were murdered by their brothers, and another was murdered by Hugh’s grandsons.

In this series, I’ve kept the family animosity, but changed the details and timing of these events. I’ve also changed the name of one of Hugh’s sons from Archibald to Hugh. A number of other secondary characters in The Guardian are real historical figures, including Shaggy Maclean and Archibald Douglas. I embellished freely upon what I knew of their personalities.

For ease of reading, I used anglicized versions of Gaelic names for some of my fictional characters. For the same reason, I did not follow the practice of calling a person by different names when he was with his mother’s clan, his father’s clan, or somewhere else.

Finally, I confess that I shortened travel times to suit the needs of my story and that Knock Castle was still known as Castle Camus, or Caisteal Chamuis, in 1513. I did not, however, make up the legend of the Green Lady of Knock Castle.

Look for the second book of this sizzling series featuring the fearless Highlanders!

Please turn this page for a preview of

THE SINNER

Available in November 2011.

CHAPTER 1

BARRA ISLAND,

Scottish Highlands

SPRING 1515

“Can ye hurry with your stitching?” Glynis asked, as she peered out her window. “Their boat is nearly at the sea gate.”

“Your father is going to murder ye for this.” Old Molly’s face was grim, but her needle flew along the seam. “Now stand straight.”

“Better dead than wed again,” Glynis muttered under her breath.

“This trick will work but once, if it works at all.” Old Molly paused to tie a knot and rethread the needle. “ ’Tis a losing game you’re playing, lass.”

Glynis crossed her arms. “I won’t let him marry me off again.”

“Your da is just as stubborn as you, and he’s the chieftain.” Old Molly looked up from her sewing to fix her filmy eyes on Glynis. “Not all men are as blackhearted as your first husband.”

“Perhaps not,” Glynis said, though she was far from convinced. “But the MacDonalds of Sleat are known philanderers. I swear on my grandmother’s grave, I’ll no take one of them.”

“Beware of what ye swear, lass,” Old Molly said. “I knew your grandmother well, and I’d hate for ye to cause that good woman to turn in her grave.”

“Ouch!” Glynis yelped when a loud banging caused Old Molly to stick her needle in Glynis’s side.

“Get yourself down to the hall, Glynis,” her father shouted from the other side of the door. “Our guests are arriving.”

“I’m almost ready, da,” she called out.

“Don’t think ye can fool me with a sweet voice,” he said. “What are ye doing in there?”

Glynis risked opening the door a crack and stuck her face in it. Her father, a big, barrel-chested man, was looking as foul-tempered as his reputation.

“Ye said I should dress so these damned MacDonalds won’t soon forget me,” she said. “That takes a woman time, da.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but he let that pass. After all these years of living with a wife and daughters, females were still largely a mystery to him. In this war with her father, Glynis was willing to use whatever small advantage she had.

“Their new chieftain didn’t come himself,” he said in what for him was a low voice. “But it was too much to hope a chieftain would take ye, after the shame ye brought upon yourself. One of these others will have to do.”

Glynis swallowed against the lump in her throat. Having her father blame her for her failed marriage—and believe she had dishonored her family—hurt more than anything her husband had done to her.

“I did nothing shameful,” she said through clenched teeth. “But I will, if ye force me to take another husband.”

“Ye were born obstinate as an ox,” her father shouted through the six-inch crack in the door. “But I am your father and your chieftain, and ye will do as I tell ye.”

“What man will want a woman who’s shamed herself?” she hissed at him.

“Ach, men are fools for beauty,” her father said. “Despite what happened, ye are still that.”

Glynis slammed the door shut in his face and threw the bar across it.

“Ye will do as I say, or I’ll throw ye out to starve!”

That was all she could make out amidst his long string of curses before his footsteps echoed down the spiral stone staircase.

Glynis blinked hard to keep back the tears. She was done with weeping.

“I should have given ye poison as a wedding gift, so ye could come home a widow,” Old Molly said behind her. “I told the chieftain he was wedding ye to a bad man, but he’s no better at listening than his daughter is.”

“Quickly now.” Glynis picked up the small bowl from the side table and held it out to Molly. “It will ruin everything if he loses patience and comes back to drag me downstairs.”

Old Molly heaved a great sigh and dipped her fingers into the red clay paste.

Alex stretched out and closed his eyes to enjoy the sun and sea breeze a little longer. It was a long sail from the Isle of Skye to the MacNeil stronghold on Barra, but they were nearly there.

“Remind me how Connor convinced us to pay a visit on the MacNeils,” Alex said.

“We volunteered,” Duncan said.

“Ach, that was foolish,” Alex said, “when we know the MacNeil chieftain is looking for husbands for his daughters.”

“Aye.”

Alex opened one eye. “Were we that drunk?”

“Aye,” Duncan said with one of his rare smiles.

Duncan was a good man, if a wee bit dour these days—which just went to show that love could bring the strongest of men to their knees. Alex had known the big, red-haired warrior since they were bairns. They and Alex’s cousins, Connor and Ian, had been fast friends all their lives.

“I swear,” Alex said, “since Connor became chieftain, he grows more devious by the day.”

“Drunk or sober, we would have agreed,” Duncan said. “We couldn’t let Connor come himself.”

A chieftain didn’t travel the Western Isles without war galleys full of men—the risk of being taken hostage or murdered by another clan was too great. With Connor’s uncle Hugh Dubh still threatening to take the chieftainship, Connor had to keep most of his warriors at home to defend Dunscaith Castle.

The four of them—Alex, Duncan, Ian, and Connor—had returned from France to find Connor’s father dead, his blackhearted Uncle Hugh living in the chieftain’s castle, and their clan in a dire state. While they had succeeded in driving Hugh Dubh from the castle and making Connor chieftain, Hugh Dubh had escaped. Worse still, Hugh had returned to pirating with his brothers. Now, at a time when their clan was badly in need of allies, Connor’s uncles were harassing clans all over the Western Isles.

Alex and Duncan’s task, as Connor’s emissaries, was to assure the other chieftains that Connor’s uncles weren’t raping and pillaging their shores on their new chieftain’s orders.

“Ye could make this easy by marrying one of the MacNeil’s daughters,” Duncan said, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

“I see ye do remember how to make a joke.” Not many men teased Duncan, so Alex did his best to make up for it.

“Ye know that’s what Connor wants,” Duncan said. “He has no brothers to make marriage alliances for him—so a cousin will have to do. If ye don’t like one of the MacNeil lasses, there are plenty of other chieftains’ daughters.”

“I’d take a blade for Connor,” Alex said, losing his humor, “but I’ll no take a wife for him.”

“Connor has a way of getting what he wants,” Duncan said. “I’ll wager you’ll be wed within half a year.”

“Ye must still be drunk.” Alex sat up and grinned at his friend. “What shall we wager?”

“This galley,” Duncan said.

“Perfect.” Alex loved this boat, which was smaller and sleeker than a war galley and sliced through the water like a fish. They had been arguing over who had the better right to it ever since they had stolen it from Shaggy Maclean.

The MacNeil castle, which sat on a rock island in a bay off the coast of Barra, was in sight now.

“You’re going to miss this sweet galley,” Alex said, as he guided the boat into the bay.

A short time later, a large group of armed MacNeil warriors were escorting them inside the castle’s keep.

“I see we’ve got them scared,” Alex said in a low voice to Duncan.

“We could take them,” Duncan grunted.

“Did ye notice that there are twelve of them?” Alex asked.

“I’m no saying it would be easy.”

Alex laughed, which had the MacNeils all reaching for their swords. He was enjoying himself. Still, he hoped he and Duncan wouldn’t have to fight their way out. These were Highland warriors, not Englishmen or Lowlanders, and everyone knew MacNeils were mean and devious fighters.

Almost as mean and devious as MacDonalds.

But the MacNeils had more dangerous weapons in their arsenal. Alex heard Duncan groan beside him as they entered the hall and saw what was waiting for them.

“God save us,” escaped Alex’s lips. Three twittering lasses were sitting at the head table. The girls were pretty, but young and innocent enough to give Alex hives.

One of them wiggled her fingers at him, then her sister elbowed her in the ribs, and all three went into a fit of giggles behind their hands.

It was going to be a long evening.

“Quiet!” the chieftain thundered, and the color drained from the girls’ faces.

After exchanging greetings with Alex and Duncan, the MacNeil introduced his wife, an attractive, plump woman half his age, and his young son, who sat on her lap. Then he waved his arm toward the girls, saying, “These are my three youngest daughters. My eldest will join us soon.”

The missing daughter would be the one they’d heard about. She was rumored to be a rare beauty who had been turned out by her husband in disgrace.

She sounded like Alex’s kind of woman.

Before the chieftain could direct them where to sit, Alex and Duncan took seats at the far end from the three lasses. After a cursory prayer, wine and ale was poured, and the first courses were brought out.

Alex wanted to get their business done as soon as possible—and leave. “Our chieftain hopes to strengthen the friendship between our two clans and has sent us here on a mission of goodwill,” he began.

The MacNeil kept glancing at the doorway, his face darker each time. Though he didn’t appear to be listening to a word, Alex forged ahead.

“Our chieftain pledges that he will join ye in fighting the pirates who are harassing all our shores.”

That caught the MacNeil’s attention. In a sour tone, he asked, “Isn’t it his own uncle who leads them?”

“His half uncle,” Duncan put in, as if that explained it all.

The MacNeil chief tilted his head back to take a long drink from his cup, then slammed it on the table, sputtering and choking.

Alex followed the direction of his gaze—and almost choked on his own ale when he saw the woman. Ach, the poor thing had suffered the worst case of pox Alex had ever seen. The afflicted woman crossed the room at a brisk pace, her gaze fixed on the floor. When she took the place at the end of the table next to Alex, he had to move over to make room for her. She was quite stout, though not in a pleasing sort of way.

Alex tried not to stare at the pockmarks when he turned to greet her. But he couldn’t help it. God’s bones, these weren’t old scars—the pox were still oozing! Blood never troubled him at all, of course, but he was a wee bit squeamish about oozing sores.

“I am Alexander MacDonald.” He put on a bright smile for her, which she missed altogether because she kept her gaze on the table before her.

He waited, but when she didn’t introduce herself, he asked, “And you are?”

“Glynis.”

Since she refused to look at him, Alex could stare freely. The longer he looked, the more certain he was that the pockmarks weren’t oozing—they were melting. Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“I confess, ye have me curious, Glynis,” he said, leaning close to her ear. “What would cause a lass to give herself pockmarks?”

Glynis jerked her head up and stared at him. Despite the distracting red boils that were easing their way down her face, Alex couldn’t help noticing she had arrestingly beautiful gray eyes.

“It is unkind to poke fun at a lady’s unfortunate looks,” she said.

It was disconcerting to hear such a lovely voice come out of that alarming face. Alex let his gaze drift over her, taking in the graceful swan neck and the long, slender fingers clenching her wine cup.

“Your secret is safe with me, lass,” Alex said in a low voice. “But I suspect your family already knows it’s a disguise.”

He was hoping for a laugh, but he got none.

“Come,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her. “Ye must tell me why ye did it.”

She took a deep drink from her wine, then said, “So ye wouldn’t want to marry me, of course.”

Alex laughed. “I fear ye went to a good deal of trouble for no purpose, for I have no intention of leaving here with a wife. But does it happen to ye often that men see ye once and want to marry ye?”

“My father says men are fools for beauty, so I couldn’t take the risk.”

The woman said this with utter seriousness. Alex hadn’t been this amused in some time—and he was a man easily amused.

“No matter how lovely ye are beneath the padding and paste,” Alex said, “ye are quite safe from finding wedded bliss with me.”

She searched his face intently, as if trying to decide if she could believe him. The combination of her sober expression and the globs sliding down her face made it hard not to laugh, but he managed.

“My father was certain your new chieftain would want a marriage between our clans,” she said at last, “to show his goodwill—after the trouble caused by the MacDonald pirates.”

“Your father isn’t far wrong,” Alex said. “But my chieftain, who is also my cousin and good friend, knows my feelings about matrimony.”

Alex realized he’d been so caught up in his conversation with this unusual lass that he’d been ignoring her father and the rest of the table. When he turned to join their conversation, however, he found that no one else was talking. Every member of Glynis’s family was staring at them.

Alex guessed this was the first time Glynis had tried this particular method of thwarting a potential suitor.

Glynis nudged him. When he turned back to her, she nodded toward Duncan, who, as usual, was putting away astonishing quantities of food.

“What about your friend?” she asked in a low voice. “Is he in want of a wife?”

Duncan only wanted one woman. Unfortunately, that particular woman was living in Ireland with her husband.

“No, you’re safe from Duncan as well.”

Glynis dropped her shoulders and closed her eyes, as if he’d just told her that a loved one she’d feared dead had been found alive.

“ ’Tis a pleasure to talk with a woman who is almost as set against marriage as I am.” Alex lifted his cup to her. “To our escape from that blessèd union.”

Glynis couldn’t spare him a smile, but she did raise her cup to his.

“How could ye tell my gown was padded?” she asked.

“I pinched your behind.”

Her jaw dropped. “Ye wouldn’t dare.”

“Ach, of course I would,” he said, though he hadn’t. “And ye didn’t feel a thing.”

“How did ye know I didn’t feel it?” she asked.

“Well, it’s like this,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows. “A pinch earns a man either a slap or a wink, and ye gave me neither.”

She gave a laugh that was all the more lovely for being unexpected.

“Ye are a devil,” she said and poked his arm with her finger.

That long, slender finger made him wonder what the rest of her looked like without the padding. He was a man of considerable imagination.

“Which do ye get more often, a wink or a slap?” she asked.

“ ’Tis always a wink, lass.”

Glynis laughed again and missed the startled looks her father and sisters gave her.

“Ye are a vain man, to be sure.” She took a drumstick from the platter as she spoke, and Alex realized he hadn’t taken a bite himself since she sat down.

“It’s just that I know women,” Alex explained, as he took a slab of roasted mutton with his knife. “So I can tell the ones that would welcome a pinch.”

She pointed her drumstick at him. “Ye pinched me, and I didn’t want ye to.”

“Pinching your padding doesn’t count,” Alex said. “You’d wink if I pinched ye, Mistress Glynis. Ye may not know it yet, but I can tell.”

Instead of laughing and calling him vain again, as he’d hoped, her expression was tense. “I don’t like the way my father looks.”

“How does he look to ye?” Alex asked.

“Hopeful.”

Alex and Duncan slept on the floor of the hall with a score of snoring MacNeils. At dawn, Alex awoke to the sound of soft footfalls crossing the hall. He rolled to the side and leaped to his feet, leaving his host kicking into air where Alex had been lying.

“You’re quick,” the MacNeil said, with an approving nod. “I only meant to wake ye.”

“That could have gotten ye killed,” Alex said, as he slipped his dirk back into his belt. “And then I’d have no end of trouble leaving your fine home.”

Duncan was feigning sleep, but his hand was on the hilt of his dagger. If Alex gave the signal, Duncan would slit their host’s throat, and the two of them would be halfway to their boat before anyone else in the hall knew what had happened.

“Come for a stroll with me,” the MacNeil said. “I’ve something to show ye.”

“I could use some fresh air after all the whiskey ye gave me last night.”

It was difficult to discover a man’s intentions when he was sober, so Alex had matched the MacNeil drink for drink far into the night. No doubt the MacNeil chieftain had attempted to drink him under the table with the same goal in mind. Neither had succeeded.

“No one forced it down your throat,” the MacNeil said, as they left the hall.

“Ah, but ye knew I am a MacDonald,” Alex said. “We don’t like to lose, whether it be drinking games or battles.”

The MacNeil cocked an eyebrow. “Or women?”

Alex didn’t take the bait. His problem had never been losing women, but finding a graceful way to end it when the time came—which it always did.

Alex followed the MacNeil out the gate and onto the narrow causeway that connected the castle to the main island.

The MacNeil halted and pointed down the beach. “My daughter Glynis is there.”

Alex’s gaze was riveted to the slender figure walking barefoot along the shore with her back to them. Her long hair was blowing in the wind, and every few feet she stopped and leaned over to pick up something from the beach. Ach, she made a lovely sight. Alex had a weakness for a woman who liked to get her feet wet.

“Ye strike me as a curious man,” the MacNeil said. “Don’t ye want to know what she truly looks like?”

Alex did want to know. He narrowed his eyes at the MacNeil. He was more accustomed to having fathers hide their daughters from him. “Are ye not fond of your daughter?”

“Glynis is my only child by my first wife. She’s very much like her mother, as difficult a woman as was ever born.” The MacNeil sighed. “God, how I loved her.

“The other girls are sweet, biddable lasses who will tell their husbands they are wise and clever and always in the right, whether they are or no. But not Glynis.”

The younger sisters sounded too dull by half.

“I didn’t raise Glynis any different, she just is,” the chieftain said. “If we were attacked and I was killed, the other girls would weep and wail, helpless creatures that they are. But Glynis would pick up a sword and fight like a she-wolf to protect the others.”

“So why are ye so anxious to see Glynis wed?” Alex asked. She seemed the only one worth keeping to him.

“She and her stepmother are like dry kindling and a lit torch. Glynis needs her own home. She doesn’t like being under the thumb of another woman.”

“Or a man’s,” Alex said. “Judging from what I heard she did to her former husband.”

“Ach, he was a fool to tell the tale,” the MacNeil said with a wave of his hand. “What man with any pride would admit his wife got her blade into his hip? Ye know what she was aiming for, of course.”

Alex winced. He’d had women weep and occasionally toss things at him, but none had ever tried to cut off his manly parts.

But then, Alex had never married.

THE DISH

Where authors give you the inside scoop!

From the desk of Margaret Mallory

Dear Reader,

I was a late bloomer.

There, I’ve said it. That single fact defined my adolescence.

When I entered high school at thirteen-going-on-fourteen, I looked like a sixth grader. Was it the braces? The glasses? The flat chest? The short stature? Red hair and freckles did not lend sophistication to this deadly combination. I have a vivid memory of one of my mother’s friends looking at me that summer before high school and blurting out, “What a funny-looking kid.”

To my enormous relief, I entered tenth grade with breasts, contact lenses, and no braces. Boys looked at me differently, girls quit ridiculing me, and adults ceased to speak to me as if I were eleven. And older guys—who had utterly failed to notice my “inner beauty” before—appeared out of nowhere

Although it took my self-esteem years to recover, suffering is never wasted on a writer. With THE GUARDIAN, I wanted to write a story with a heroine who goes through this awkward stage—along with several dangerous adventures—and eventually comes out the other side as a confident, mature woman who feels loved and valued for her beauty inside and out.

Of course, I had to give Sìleas, my ugly-duckling heroine, a hero to die for. Ian MacDonald is the handsome young Highlander she has adored since she could walk.

Sìleas is an awkward, funny-looking thirteen-year-old when Ian rescues her from her latest round of trouble. Ian is not exactly pleased when, as a result of his good deed, he is forced to wed her. Although Sìleas lives in the Scottish Highlands in the year 1513, I knew exactly how she felt when she overheard Ian shouting at his father, “Have ye taken a good look at her, da?”

When Ian returns years later, Sìleas is so beautiful she knocks his socks off. Not surprisingly, Ian finds that he is now willing to consummate the marriage. But as Sìleas’s self-confidence grows, she knows she deserves a man who loves and respects her.

Our handsome hero has his hands full trying to win his bride while also saving his clan. Eventually, Ian realizes he wants Sìleas’s heart as much as he wants her in his bed. I admit that I found it most gratifying to make this handsome Highland warrior suffer until he proves himself worthy of Sìleas. But I had faith in Ian. He always did have a hero’s heart.

I hope you enjoyed Ian and Sìleas’s love story. THE GUARDIAN is the first book in my Return of the Highlanders series about four warriors who return home from fighting in France to find their clan in danger. Each brave warrior must do his part to save the clan in the troubled times ahead—and to win the Highland lass who captures his heart.

Happy Reading!

www.margaretmallory.com

From the desk of Roxanne St. Claire

Dear Reader,

Character notes? Character notes! Where did I put my character notes for Vivi Angelino? Oh, that’s right. I never had any. She wrote herself.

I have never subscribed to the theory that “a character tells her own story,” despite the number of times I’ve heard writers discuss that phenomenon. Sure, certain characters are vivid in the writer’s head and have personality traits that, for whatever reason, make them standouts on the page. They’re fun people to write, but letting them take over the book? Come on! Who is the boss here? Whose fingertips are on the keyboard? Whose imagination is at work? A good author should be able to control their character.

And then along came Vivina Angelino. From the first book in the Guardian Angelinos series, Vivi was not only vivid and three-dimensional to me, she seemed to liven up every scene. (Make that “take over” every scene.) When I could finally give her free rein as the heroine of FACE OF DANGER, I did what any writer would do. I buckled up and hung on for the ride. There were daily surprises with Vivi, including her back story, which she revealed to me as slowly and carefully as she does to the reader, and the hero.

The interesting thing about Vivi is that she is one of those people—or appears to be on the surface—who knows exactly who she is and doesn’t give a flying saucer what other people think. I think we all kind of envy that bone-deep confidence. I know I do! She scoots around Boston on a skateboard (and, yes, this is possible, because this is precisely how my stepson transports himself from home to work in downtown Boston), wears her hair short and spiky, and has a tiny diamond in her nose… not because she’s making a statement, but because she likes it. She’s a woman, but she’s not particularly feminine and she has little regard for fashion, makeup, and the “girlier” things in life. I wanted to know why.

About five years ago, long before I “met” Vivi, I read an article about a woman who looked so much like Demi Moore that she worked as a “celebrity look-alike” at trade shows and special events. Of course, the suspense writer in me instantly asked the “what-if” question that is at the heart of every book. What if that look-alike was truly mistaken for the actress by someone with nefarious intentions? What if the look-alike was brave enough to take the job to intentionally attract and trap that threatening person?

I held on to that thread of a story, waiting for the right character. I wanted a heroine who is so comfortable in her own skin that assuming someone else’s identity would be a little excruciating. Kind of like kicking off sneakers and sliding into stilettos—fun until you try to walk, and near impossible when you have to run for your life. When Vivi Angelino showed up on the scene, I knew I had my girl.

No surprise, Vivi told this story her way. Of course, she chafed at the hair extensions and false eyelashes, but that was only on the surface. Wearing another woman’s identity forced this character to understand herself better and to do that, she had to face her past. More importantly, to find the love she so richly deserves, she had to shed the skin she clung to so steadfastly, and discover why she was uncomfortable with the feminine things in life. When she did, well, like everything about Vivi, she surprised me.

She pulled it off, though, and now she’s FBI Agent Colton Lang’s problem. I hope he can control her better than I could.

Enjoy!

www.roxannestclaire.com

From the desk of Isobel Carr

Dear Reader,

Do you ever wonder what happens to all the mistresses who are given up by noble heroes so they can have their monogamous happily-ever-after with their virginal brides? Or how all those “spares” get on after they’ve been made redundant when their elder brother produces an heir? I most certainly do!

In fact, I’ve always been intrigued by people who take charge, go out on a limb, and make lemonade when the universe keeps handing them lemons. So it comes as little surprise that my series—The League of Second Sons—is about younger sons of the nobility, the untraditional women they fall in love with, and what it takes for two people who aren’t going to inherit everything to make a life for themselves.

The League of Second Sons is a secret club for younger sons who’ve banded together to help one another seize whatever life offers them and make the most of it. These are the men who actually run England. They’re elected to the House of Commons, they run their family estates, they’re the traditional family sacrifice to the military (the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson were both younger sons). They work—in a gentlemanly manner—for what they’ve got and what they want. They’re hungry, in a way that an eldest son, destined for fortune and title, never can be.

Leonidas Vaughn, the hero of the first book, RIPE FOR PLEASURE, is just such a younger son. His father may be a duke, but Leonidas not going to inherit much beyond the small estate his grandfather bequeathed him.

My heroine, Viola Whedon, took a chance on young love that worked out very badly indeed. Since then, she’s been level-headed and practical. A rough life in the workhouse or a posh life as a mistress was an easy decision, and keeping her heart out of it was never a problem… until now. Brash seduction at the hands of a handsome man who promises to put her desires first sweeps her off her feet and off her guard.

I hope you’ll enjoy letting Leo show you what it means to be RIPE FOR PLEASURE.

www.isobelcarr.com

From the desk of Katie Lane

Dear Reader,

When I was little I used to love watching The Andy Griffith Show reruns. I loved everything about Mayberry—from Floyd’s barbershop, where all the town gossip took place, to the tree-lined lake where Andy took his son fishing. I would daydream for hours about living in Mayberry, eating Aunt Bea’s home cooking, tagging after Barney to listen to his latest harebrained scheme, or just hanging out with Opie. And even though my life remained in a larger city, these daydreams stuck with me over the years. So much so that I ended up snagging a redheaded, freckle-faced Opie of my own… with one tiny difference.

My Opie came from Texas.

Welcome to Bramble! Mayberry on Texas peyote.

You won’t find Andy, Barney, or Aunt Bea in town. But you will find a sheriff who enjoys grand theft auto, a matchmaking mayor, a hairdresser whose “exes” fill half of Texas, and a bunch of meddling townsfolk. And let’s not forget the pretty imposter, the smoking-hot cowboy, the feisty actress, and the very naughty bad boy.

So I hope you’ll stop by because the folks of Bramble, Texas, are just itchin’ to show y’all a knee-slappin’ good time. GOING COWBOY CRAZY, my first romance set in Bramble, is out now.

Much Love and Laughter,

www.katielanebooks.com

Contents

FRONT COVER IMAGE

WELCOME

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EPIGRAPH

A PREVIEW OF THE SINNER

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

EPILOGUE

HISTORICAL NOTE

THE DISH

ALSO BY MARGARET MALLORY

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF MARGARET MALLORY

COPYRIGHT

ALSO BY MARGARET MALLORY

Knight of Desire

Knight of Pleasure

Knight of Passion

Praise for the novels of

Margaret Mallory

KNIGHT OF PASSION

“Top Pick! As in the previous book in her All the King’s Men series, Mallory brings history to life, creating dramatic and gut-wrenching stories. Her characters are incredibly alive and readers will feel and believe their sensual and passionate adventures. Mallory raises the genre to new levels.”

—RT Book Reviews

“A story full of revenge, love, hope, and pain… Beautifully written. Mallory is extremely talented… [She] has obviously done a great deal of research for this trilogy—it certainly paid off! And if you’re addicted to historical romance, you’re going to want to get your hands on this book.”

—RexRobotReviews.com

“Another hit for this wonderful series!”

—TheMysticCastle.com

“I really enjoyed this story… Very intense… Fans of medieval historicals will especially love this one.”

—CoffeeTimeRomance.com

“Intriguing and enjoyable… truly a great romance that you won’t be able to put down!”

—RomanceJunkiesReviews.com

“An amazing story… a series that readers won’t want to miss… Filled with hot romance as well as adventure with a fascinating historical background.”

—RomRevToday.com

KNIGHT OF PLEASURE

“4 Stars! A riveting story… Such depth and sensuality are a rare treat.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Fascinating… An excellent historical romance. Ms. Mallory gives us amazingly vivid details of the characters, romance, and intrigue of England. You’re not just reading a novel, you are stepping into the story and feeling all the emotions of each character… Knight of Pleasure is amazing and I highly recommend it.”

—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

“An absolute delight… captivating… Combining a luscious romantic story with a fascinating look at an intriguing time in history, Mallory captures her readers’ attention.”

—FreshFiction.com

“If you like heated romance sprinkled liberally with royal politics, you can’t miss this book.”

—RomanceJunkiesReviews.com

“Thrilling, romantic, and just plain good reading… an enjoyable, historically accurate, and very well written novel.”

—RomRevToday.com

“A beautifully written tale, allowing us to spend a night or two of pleasure engrossed in the story of Isobel and Stephen… Their romance is extremely satisfying for us to experience while the historical background makes the tale so much richer. A fantastic job.”

—SingleTitles.com

“Lovely… your own heart weeps with all the issues that are keeping [Isobel and Stephen] apart.”

—HistoricalRomanceSociety.com

KNIGHT OF DESIRE

“Margaret Mallory bring[s] history to vivid, pulsing life.”

—VIRGINIA HENLEY, New York Times bestselling author

“Spellbinding! Few writers share Margaret Mallory’s talent for bringing history to vivid, pulsing life.”

—VIRGINIA HENLEY, New York Times bestselling author of The Decadent Duke

“An impressive debut… Margaret Mallory is a star in the making.”

—MARY BALOGH, New York Times bestselling author of At Last Comes Love

“5 Stars! Amazing… The fifteenth century came alive… I swear the turning pages crackled with the friction both characters put out… Knight of Desire is the first in the All the King’s Men series and what a way to start it off.”

—CoffeeTimeRomance.com

“A fast-paced tale of romance and intrigue that will sweep you along and have you rooting for William and his fair Catherine to fight their way to love at last.”

—CANDACE CAMP, New York Times bestselling author of The Courtship Dance

“4 Stars! Mallory’s debut is impressive. She breathes life into major historical characters… in a dramatic romance.”

—RT Book Reviews

“A lavish historical romance, evocative and emotionally rich. Knight of Desire will transport you.”

—SOPHIE JORDAN, USA Today bestselling author of Sins of a Wicked Duke

“Knight of Desire is akin to stepping into another century; Mallory has a grasp of history reminiscent of reading the great Roberta Gellis.”

—JACKIE IVIE, author of A Knight Well Spent

“An amazing debut… I’m looking forward to the next installment of this series.”

—TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

“The story sizzles with romance and adventure.”

—RomRevToday.com

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Peggy L. Brown

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Hachette Book Group

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Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

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Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

First eBook Edition: May 2011

ISBN: 978-1-609-41859-5

Table of Contents

FRONT COVER IMAGE

WELCOME

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EPIGRAPH

A PREVIEW OF THE SINNER

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

EPILOGUE

HISTORICAL NOTE

THE DISH

ALSO BY MARGARET MALLORY

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF MARGARET MALLORY

COPYRIGHT