by Paula Quinn
Sina put down her quill and rubbed her fingers over a scar on her left forearm. She sat at a small table beside the window in Adam’s chambers. She had barely seen or spoken to him in two days. He avoided her during the day and slept in his chair at night, gone in the morning before she woke up. She didn’t mind his absence. The less she looked at him or spoke to him, the less she wanted to.
But she couldn’t help but wonder where he was. Who he was with. Had his claim to remain faithful been sincere? What did she care?
I vow to you, my dear William, that I will never love him. If I am not released from this marriage and must stay here for the remainder of my days, I will never let him have my heart, for it belongs only to you, my beloved, dearest friend. I wish it were you I had wed. But alas, I am payment for MacGregor fealty to my father.
I can certainly understand why anyone would want the MacGregors on their side. They are great stalwart men and, to my astonishment, even the women practice swordplay! I can see them from my bedchamber window. They are at it day and night. They are fierce, and ’tis a shocking sight to behold. One of them is a pirate!
I could never be like any of them. I don’t belong here.
As each moment passed, it hit her harder. What if no help came? As long as Anne lived, there was nothing anyone could do. No one could defy the queen’s order without terrible consequences, from which Sina wanted none to suffer.
There was nothing she could do for now. It made her want to scream and go grab a sword and start swinging.
She turned to look out the window. She didn’t want Anne to die. Anne had been more like a mother to her than her own. That’s why this betrayal cut so deeply.
She wiped her eyes. She was done weeping. She was fighting the wrong people. If she had to live with the MacGregors temporarily, she would try to get along with them. They didn’t seem so bad, really. The women had all been kind, so far, despite her hesitancy to open up to them. The men, though frightening in size, all seemed unusually gentle and attentive. Save for raiding, they hadn’t done anything savage yet.
She folded her parchment and went to the wardrobe where she’d finally found her other wrinkled dress. She slipped William’s letter in the pocket of her skirts.
If they could read and one of them opened it…
No. She’d see William again one day soon and give him everything she’d written. Then he would know she had no part in this.
Pinching her cheeks to give herself some color, she stepped out of the chamber. She was tired of moping in Adam’s room. She thought about going outdoors to watch the women practice. Should she? Watching them from the window had made her heart pound. They appeared so fearsome and beautiful with their braids and their swords swinging, going against even the men.
She spotted Adam’s mother leaving the solar with her hound at her side, and called out to her. “May I have a word, my lady?”
“Of course,” Lady Davina replied with an immediate smile when she turned to her. “Are ye feeling better?”
Sina paused, feeling her cheeks go up in flames. The last time Davina had seen her, she was flung over Adam’s shoulder, kicking and shouting. It was shameful behavior for a lady of the court, especially witnessed by a woman of such natural grace as Lady Davina MacGregor.
Sina lowered her lashes to veil her humiliation. Best to get it over with and quit hiding. “Forgive me for my outburst. I’m not usually fiery tempered. I’ve been angry with all of you, when ’tis the queen and my father with whom I should be angry.”
Davina bent her chin and looked away. “My hope is that one day ye will no longer be angry at all.”
She finally lifted her tender gaze and reached for Sina’s arm.
Sina let her take it. She didn’t back away when Adam’s mother twined their elbows together. In fact, she couldn’t help but smile.
She appreciated that the chief’s wife let the matter go while they walked together side by side toward the stairs.
“I was wondering about something,” Sina said, remembering what she’d wanted to ask Davina in the first place. “Why do the women here practice fighting?”
“Everyone in Camlochlin knows how to defend their lives,” the chief’s wife told her, “whether it be with bow and arrow, or sword, fists, or pistol. Though we live a peaceful life here, the name MacGregor is still proscribed.”
“Why are you proscribed?”
They reached the top of the stairs, and Sina looked down to see Adam taking the last two steps up to reach them.
Sina hated herself for looking at him with anything but opposition and resistance. She didn’t want to admire his striking good looks, his beguiling, plump lips.
He wore his hair pulled away from his forehead and temples and set free around his shoulders like shadows against the light. She didn’t want to notice that he’d been scowling an instant before he looked up and saw her and his expression softened.
“The queen never spoke of us?” he asked curiously, reaching the second landing. His silver-tinted eyes settled for a moment on his mother, and then to her arm coiled with Sina’s.
“Adam,” the chief’s wife said with a thread of admonishment in her voice.
Sina wondered why Davina would be bothered by such a question.
His gaze flicked to his mother. His smile softened as he acquiesced to her silent demand.
How precisely did the queen know the MacGregors? Had she met them through her dearest friend, General Marlow? Why did she allow Sina to leave her side and go live with people she didn’t know?
“The queen may have mentioned the MacGregors when speaking of General Marlow,” Sina told him, averting her gaze from his. “We never spoke of the proscription. I know of it only through kitchen gossip. I—”
“Ah, gossip,” he said, as if the meaning of life had just become clear.
“Why are you taking that tone?” she asked.
He dipped his chin and, with a cock of his lips, fastened his eyes on her. “What tone is that?”
He knew exactly what tone she meant. Why was he speaking to her now and not running the other way? Perhaps a push would help him get moving and wipe that infuriating, bone-melting half smile off his face. The stairs were directly behind him. It was one way to get out of the marriage.
“It’s true,” she said calmly, not willing to lose her temper again in front of the chief’s wife. “All I know of your people, I know from gossip. I…I may have judged some too hastily.”
His smile turned into an achingly tantalizing pout. “Some?”
He was dangerous if she let him be.
“Aye.” Holding on to his mother, she pushed past him. “Some.”
He laughed behind her. She ground her teeth and kept going. She hadn’t judged him too hastily. How many hearts had he broken besides the ones in the chapel? Did he think he could break hers? Was he trying to beguile her or irritate her already raw nerves? She had to stop him from doing both.
She turned to the chief’s wife, her pleasant smile intact. “So, my lady, you were telling me about the proscription.”
He stayed close while Davina told her of the ancient MacGregor-Campbell feud filled with violence and sorrow.
Sina was so caught up in the tale of Callum MacGregor and Kate Campbell finding each other amid the hatred that she was barely aware of Adam somewhere behind them or the two hounds trotting close by.
“Kate had heard terrible tales of the Devil MacGregor,” Davina told her. “She considered the MacGregors the scourge of Scotland: uncivilized barbarians with no regard for honor or a man’s family.”
“When she first met him,” Adam finally spoke as he came around them and swept his gaze over hers, “she discovered she was mostly correct.”
Sina was certain she was. Poor woman. “And then what happened?” she asked while they approached the front doors. She was sure he was going to tell her that once she came to know the laird, she quickly fell in love with him. She would then ask him if his grandmother was betrothed to a
nother man at the time.
“And then,” he told her, spreading his gaze around the halls as if he too were caught up in his grandparents’ tale, “she helped him build his kingdom. She looked deeper and taught him and his kin what they didna know.”
Sina felt her heart go a little soft toward the MacGregors, especially Adam’s grandmother. Sina couldn’t begin to imagine taming a man who had inherited the title of the Devil and turning his isolated fortress into Camelot.
“Adam.” They turned at Maggie’s voice to find her hurrying toward them. “I was lookin’ fer yer faither, but ye’re just as good.”
Sina watched him grace his great-aunt with a smile so tender that she almost doubted her first impression of him after all.
“Come tell the cook not to slaughter Sadie.” Maggie took his hand and tugged.
“Who’s Sadie?” Adam asked, taking a step to follow her.
Maggie stopped and turned her large blue eyes to him. “The brown cow with the white eye? Ye brought her in last night from the Dunbars’ herd.”
While she waited for him to remember, she turned to Sina. “I’m glad to see ye on yer own two feet, gel.”
Sina lowered her gaze, sorry that Maggie had seen her fall apart.
“Next time,” Maggie continued, pointing her finger at her, “dinna let this one cart ye around as if ye were his child. Make yer fight on yer feet.” Her gaze slipped back to her nephew. “Adam, my love, what are ye still doin’ here?”
“Let me go.” Davina detached herself from Sina and stepped away. She let out a little laugh. “I was on my way to the kitchen anyway.”
Maggie tossed her a worried look. “Will ye be firm, Davina?”
“I may need yer help, Aunt Maggie,” Davina answered and winked at her.
For a moment, Maggie looked a bit confused, but then, as if a bell went off in her head, she grinned and glanced at Adam and Sina before hurrying off.
“Verra subtle, ladies,” Adam called out after them with a thread of low laughter tangled in his voice.
Sina felt ill. The two women in Camlochlin whom she liked the most were playing matchmaker to her and Adam. Everyone was trying to push her into his arms. She didn’t want to go. Did she? She remembered being in them on her wedding night when Goliath frightened her. No arms had ever been stronger.
Keeping William clear in her head, she hurried away, leaving Adam alone in the hall.
Chapter Nine
Sina found her way to the training field and watched the women she’d seen from her window. She refused to let Adam MacGregor invade her thoughts while she enjoyed the afternoon.
She thought she’d be opposed to women warriors. She’d never seen any at court in England or Germany. But against the backdrop of rugged mountain ranges and a vast gray sky, they looked powerful and deadly, more wildly untamed and beautiful than any woman she’d seen in her lifetime.
She recognized Adam’s cousin Caitrina slamming her cutlass against her pirate husband’s blade. Both wore kerchiefs around their heads and gold loops in their lobes.
Captain Kidd held nothing back while he struck and parried. His wife took every blow and matched them with lethal ones of her own.
Sina couldn’t look away. She could never fight like them. But, then, she wouldn’t want to live a pirate’s life either.
There were other couples practicing. Abby and General Marlow lifted their blades to each other, as well. Their swings were less treacherous and more precise, but no less terrifying.
Adam’s brothers, Braigh and Tam, practiced with their cousins Nichola and Violet.
Everywhere she looked in the training fields, women fought with the men and with each other. They laughed and they argued, but none struck in anger.
“I could teach ye to fight.”
She controlled her startled reaction to hearing Adam’s deep voice behind her. She kept her eyes on the training and didn’t move, despite the lure of his warmth and the urge to turn around and look at him.
“No, you would too often tempt me to kill you.”
His soft, slow chuckle at her ear sent a lick of heat down her spine. She stepped forward.
“I can protect myself,” he promised, coming around to stand beside her.
If he possessed the same skill as the rest of them, she didn’t doubt it.
“Thank you, but I won’t be here long enough to learn anything significant.”
She was glad when yet another one of his cousins appeared and challenged him to the field.
This one, Luke MacGregor, was even bigger than the rest. He carried no weapon but his husky arms.
It looked as if they were going to fight with fists. Barbaric. She should leave.
Instead, she watched Adam meander to the field and roll up his sleeves. They exchanged a few words and laughed together before Luke threw a powerful blow. Sina squinted her eyes and felt just a tad relieved when Adam easily avoided the huge fist to his face.
Sina didn’t know why she cared if Adam were hurt. She’d wanted to hurt him herself on a few occasions. But other than irritate her, he hadn’t done anything deserving of a beating.
And it didn’t seem as if he would get one. He barely threw a punch and hadn’t been hit by one yet. He sidestepped most strikes and blocked the rest with his forearms, frustrating his opponent.
In fact, he was quick enough to lean back from a right hook to the chin and take a moment to turn and cast her a brief smile.
Her belly coiled into a tight little knot. What was happening to her? Was she truly attracted to him? What about William? So what if Adam was pleasing to the eye and quick on his feet and with his mind? Any woman would find the dashing tilt of his lips and his playful gaze a bit irresistible.
She was too busy admonishing herself for admiring him and didn’t notice Will MacGregor’s hound Ula running toward her until the beast was almost upon her.
But Adam saw. Sina watched him lose his focus and get caught with a left jab just as Ula reached her.
Sina turned and held up her hands to ward off the beast. Her eyes opened wide with horror as Ula bounded up on her hind legs, standing as tall as Sina was, and brought her front paws down on Sina’s shoulders. Her weight nearly brought Sina to her knees.
Death would have been better than staring, paralyzed with fear, at the fangs about to sink into her face. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t make a sound or close her eyes. Memories of being bitten as a child overwhelmed her.
But Ula didn’t bite her. She slopped her wet tongue on Sina’s face from chin to cheek and then fell back to all fours.
Once the dog was no longer blocking her view, she saw Adam standing an arm’s distance away. He quirked his damned sensual mouth when she wiped her face with her sleeve. Then he turned a much harder look on the dog.
“Ye know better, Ula. Go home.”
With the edge of her sleeve still pressed to her cheek and her heart finally slowing down, Sina watched the dog turn away with a lowered head and tail. She almost called Ula back. The hound hadn’t done anything but lick her…and frighten her half to death. Sina didn’t want her to get into trouble over it though.
But she didn’t want to care about these people—or their dogs.
“Are ye injured at all?” Adam asked her.
“No.”
“She seems taken with ye.” He set his luminous blue eyes on the dog in the distance and shook his head. “’Tis no’ a good sign.”
“Why not?” She looked toward the dog as well.
“Because ye might no’ be able to rid yerself of her. The hounds grow to love certain people, and sometimes they choose to stay with them.”
Love? Stay? Sina didn’t feel comfortable hearing words like those. She couldn’t give up hope that someone would rescue her, that the queen would change her mind, something.
“Your lip is bleeding,” she said, not realizing that her eyes had dipped to his mouth.
He touched his fingers to his lower lip, then pulled them back to see th
e bit of blood there. He shrugged his shoulders. “I was distracted.”
By her. He’d seen Ula and was struck just before the dog jumped. He’d been hit because of her.
“Did it hurt very badly?” she asked, trying not to sound overly concerned or guilty.
His eyes seemed to pierce right through her—like steel-tipped arrows—seeing what she tried to conceal. It made him smile and her look away.
“No’ too badly,” he told her softly. “He’ll never let me ferget it though.”
“Adam,” his cousin called out from the field, as if on cue, “are ye quittin’ because I hit ye?”
“Ye see?” Adam pointed out with an extra dash of amusement coloring his eyes before he turned to Luke.
“Ye struck me while I was distracted. How noble is that, knight?”
“In a real fight,” Luke countered, “d’ye stop and wait until yer opponent pays attention?”
“’Twasn’t a real fight, and my wife was aboot to be mauled.”
“By Ula?” His cousin laughed. “Come back and prove it canna happen again.”
Adam laughed and shook his head, then turned back to Sina. “D’ye want to take a walk?”
She blinked and realized she was smiling at him like some lackwit. “A walk?”
“Aye.” His smile remained as he bent to meet her gaze. “Or d’ye have somethin’ else to do?”
“No.” She sighed inwardly. She had nothing else to do and the day was long. “But after avoiding me for a pair of days, I’m surprised you’re not running off.”
“Runnin’ just keeps leadin’ me back to the same place,” he said with the slightest of smiles.
With an arch of her brow, she turned to go. She would be careful around him—careful not to fall under the spells he wove so effortlessly with his voice, his expressions shifting from amused to even more amused, his words. She would be careful not to pick up a rock and smash it over his head.
“Are ye hungry?” he asked, keeping step beside her. “’Tis close to supper. We’re goin’ to be invited to eat in every house we pass.”