Since everyone else was in the hall for the midday meal, she didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone, so she opened the door to her right. Glynis took one step inside and froze. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, a voice was telling her to get out. But her feet would not obey.
Alexander Bàn MacDonald stood with his back to the door—and not a stitch on him. How she knew it was him from the back was a question she’d ask herself later. But one look at the blond hair, the broad shoulders, the long, muscular legs, and that perfect, manly arse, and Glynis knew for certain that this naked man was Alex.
A woman’s fingers were laced at the back of his neck. Glynis still could not move—her hand held the door latch as if melded to it. She forced her gaze to the floor, but there was nothing she could do to slow her heartbeat. When the woman gave a throaty laugh, Glynis could not help looking up again.
She could not breathe. The woman had her hands on Alex’s bare backside. Glynis imagined how his muscles would feel beneath her fingers.
“Not now, Catherine.” Alex’s voice penetrated her daze.
Glynis had to leave before Alex saw her. And still, she felt as if her feet were nailed to the floor.
Alex turned.
Ach, it was a sin for a man to be so tall and handsome. It wasn’t fair at all. Her eyes skimmed over him, slowly moving from his damp blond hair and striking face to his broad chest. She longed to feel the rough hair and hard muscles beneath her palms. And then her gaze fell lower still.
Her mouth fell open, and she felt an odd squeeze inside her as she stared at his fully erect shaft. Suddenly, she realized what she was doing, and she jerked her gaze back up to his face.
Alex had halted where he was. A dark smile played over his lips.
“Glynis.” He spoke her name slowly, as if tasting each letter. His voice was thick honey, golden like the rest of him.
Glynis was so bewitched that she had forgotten there was someone else in the room. When the woman came out from behind Alex and slipped her arm around his waist, Alex looked as startled as Glynis was.
The woman was Catherine Campbell, the Maclean chieftain’s wife. With her shining black hair tousled, her gown loosened to reveal the tops of her generous breasts, and her eyes dark with desire, she was breathtaking.
Alex called Glynis’s name as she ran down the stairs. His voice echoed off the stone walls and inside her head, but she did not stop. She ran out of the keep, across the yard, and out the gate. Only after she scrambled down to the shore did she finally stop. She sat on a rock and pressed her palm to her chest, trying to get her breath back. Her hands shook, and her heart pounded as if it would burst.
Why was she so upset? She hardly knew Alex MacDonald. And from what she did know about him, she shouldn’t have been surprised to find him in bed with a woman. Still, it had been a shock to see the pair of them like that. She covered her face, remembering how she had stared at him naked. Ach, she had stared at his manly parts! How could she?
Of course, it would be the most beautiful woman in all the Highlands who was in bed with Alex. But his host’s wife? Foolish, but Glynis had thought better of him than that.
* * *
Alex tried to find Glynis as soon as he had untangled himself from Catherine. Why he felt the need to explain himself to Glynis, he did not know. But for some reason, it was important to him that she not think he was even worse than he actually was.
He still hadn’t seen Glynis when he and Duncan entered the hall for supper. He scanned the room for her. He didn’t have much time left—he was leaving for Edinburgh in the morning.
“Who are ye looking for?” Duncan asked.
“No one,” Alex said.
“Hmmph,” Duncan grunted, but he let it pass. “These rebels are up to something. Donald Gallda and the other chieftains met this afternoon without any of their men present.”
Donald Gallda MacDonald of Lachalsh was the latest MacDonald to take up the leadership of the rebellion. The king had taken him to be raised in the Lowlands after his father’s rebellion, which was the reason Highlanders called him Donald Gallda, the Stranger.
“Let’s split up and see what we can find out,” Alex said.
“I’ll see if that drunken lot knows anything,” Duncan said with a nod toward a table of Maclean warriors. “I assume you’ll talk with the MacNeils.”
Before Alex could ask Duncan what he meant by that remark, Duncan was gone.
Alex found the MacNeil chieftain near the hearth. Judging from his hearty greeting, the man had forgiven Alex for that kiss on the beach.
“I have a warning for ye,” the MacNeil said below the noise of the hall. “No one but the chieftains is to know ahead of time, but we’re attacking Mingary Castle tomorrow.”
“That’s poking a stick in the hornet’s nest.” Mingary was held by the MacIains, who were close allies of the Crown. The Crown would be up in arms over this, which made it all the more important for Alex to get to Edinburgh to reassure the regent.
“If ye don’t want to be part of it, be gone by morning.” The MacNeil glanced about to be sure no one was listening. “They intend to give you and Duncan the choice to fight with us or be the first to die in the battle.”
If Connor’s close cousin and the captain of his guard participated in the attack, the Crown’s allies would hear of it, and their clan would be committed to the rebellion.
“The sly dogs.” Alex should have expected it.
“I don’t agree with forcing a chieftain’s hand like that,” the MacNeil said. “But after the others saw ye fight, they were determined to see ye on the right side or dead.”
“I appreciate the warning.” They would all have to leave tonight, he to Edinburgh, and Duncan and the rest of their men to Skye.
“Being Highlanders, these other chieftains will be all the more impressed if ye succeed in sneaking out of here under their noses,” the MacNeil said, and they both laughed.
“They’ll never hear us leave,” Alex said with a wink. He was anxious to talk with Duncan, but that would have to wait until after the meal. “Shall we find your daughter and sit down?”
“She’s sitting at the high table tonight.”
Alex turned and saw Glynis was indeed at the high table, sitting next to the weasel with the weedy beard. “Who is that?”
“Shaggy’s second son, Alain.” The MacNeil elbowed him. “He would be a good match for my Glynis.”
“Him?” Alex stared at the pair at the head table for a long moment, trying to decide if the MacNeil chieftain was having a joke on him.
“Aye,” the MacNeil said, nodding. “Alain is a chieftain’s son from a strong clan that supports the rebellion, and she’s known him all her life.”
“He’s not a man I would trust,” Alex said.
For a brief moment, Glynis met his eyes. But when Alex smiled and nodded, she turned her head.
“And you are?” MacNeil asked him.
“Are what?” Alex asked, with his gaze still on Glynis.
“A man to be trusted.”
That got his attention. Alex knew exactly what the MacNeil chieftain was asking him. He heard his mother’s voice in his head, as if she were standing right next to him. Ye will be just like your father!
And Alex had turned out to be like his father. He enjoyed women, though never the same one for long. But in one regard, Alex was determined to be different from his father. He would not make the mistake of marrying a good woman and causing her to hate him.
“Your daughter would have her dirk in me in no time,” Alex said. “And I’d deserve it.”
“Alain will do,” the MacNeil chieftain said. “Of course, I’d prefer that she and Magnus Clanranald patched up their differences.”
Alex spun around to stare at him. “Ye can’t mean it,” he said, struggling to keep his voice low. “Magnus is a vile man—and he’s a danger to her.”
“Ach,” MacNeil said, dismissing this with a wave of his hand. “They got off to
a bad start. A little time is all they need—and a babe, of course. A babe would solve the problem. Ye can’t blame Magnus for wanting an heir. Every man does.”
He’d send her back to Magnus? Alex wanted to pound the MacNeil’s thick head on the table, but knocking sense into the man was clearly a hopeless task.
Alex drank down his ale, wishing to God that Shaggy served whiskey instead.
* * *
The bar across the door creaked as Glynis slid it back. Over the pounding in her ears, she heard one of the women on the bed behind her sigh. Her hands shook as she waited for the woman to call out to her.
There was a rustle of bedclothes, and she held her breath, waiting. Silence settled over the room again. Moving as quickly as she dared in the blackness, Glynis picked up the cloth bag she had left beside the door, lifted her cloak from the peg, and slipped out.
Panic surged through her limbs as a large hand covered her mouth.
CHAPTER 9
Don’t scream. It’s me.” Alex didn’t release his hand from Glynis’s mouth until she nodded.
“I asked ye to meet me outside the kitchens,” she whispered.
“Quiet. We can’t talk here.” He put his arm around her and swept her down the stairs before someone in one of the bedchambers heard them and came out to investigate.
When they reached the main floor, he continued down into the undercroft. With so many guests in the castle, they could find servants sleeping or still working in the kitchens, so he grabbed a lit torch off the wall and shoved her into a storeroom.
“What were ye thinking asking me to meet ye at this hour?” he said, as he rammed the torch into the sconce on the wall.
Alex had been on the galley sorting out the supplies he needed to take with him to Edinburgh when a young boy appeared and told him that a lady wanted him to meet her at midnight outside the kitchens. This was not the first time he’d had that sort of request. He was about to send the lad away, but something made him ask the lad to describe the lady first.
“I’m glad ye came,” Glynis said.
“Ye gave me no choice,” he said. “I couldn’t have ye wandering around a castle full of warriors—half of them drunk— looking for me in the dark.”
He took a deep breath. He had wanted to say good-bye to her—and to explain about what she’d seen when she walked in on him and Catherine—but he didn’t have a lot of time. He was meeting Duncan soon, and then they were all leaving.
“Why did ye want to see me?” he asked.
“When I talked with your friend Duncan this afternoon, he told me you’re going to Edinburgh.”
How had she gotten closemouthed Duncan to share their business with her?
“I want ye to take me with ye,” she said.
Alex could not have been more stunned if she’d sprouted fairy wings and flown over the pots and bags of grain in the storeroom. Just what was Glynis suggesting? His heart gave a big lurch as he considered the possibility that she might actually want to run off with him. Apparently, she liked what she saw of him earlier today.
But it seemed so unlikely that he had to ask. “Why?”
“I’ve decided to live with my mother’s family,” she said. “They are Lowlanders and live in Edinburgh.”
Alex waited for the relief he should feel upon learning that her request had nothing to do with him, but it didn’t come. A bad sign.
“Ye know verra well that I can’t just run off with ye across Scotland,” Alex said.
“Ye must,” she said, clenching her fists. “My da wants to marry me to Alain.”
Alex wanted to hit something. He didn’t have time for this, and her father hadn’t listened to him before, but he wanted to help her if he could. “Do ye know where your father is? I’ll speak with him.”
“Does my father strike ye as the sort of man who takes advice well?”
She had a point, but he said, “I can be verra persuasive.”
“So I’ve heard,” Glynis said with more than a touch of sarcasm. “But it will do no good. My father is too stubborn by half.”
As was his daughter. “Have ye considered a compromise? Is there no man ye are willing to wed?”
Glynis gave her head a firm shake and folded her arms. “Ye said ye would be my friend.”
“Stealing a lass away from her father is no being a friend,” he said, though his words felt hollow. Her mother’s family could hardly do worse by her.
“Take me, Alexander Bàn MacDonald,” she said, her gray eyes turning to hard flint. “Or I’ll go tell the Maclean chieftain right now that I saw ye swiving his wife.”
“That wasn’t what it looked like!” Alex was so used to having committed whatever offense he was accused of that he hardly knew how to defend himself. “My clan needs ties to the Campbells, so I couldn’t offend her.”
“Ye sacrificed yourself for the sake of your clan, did ye?”
“I didn’t do what ye think,” Alex protested. “Though it wasn’t easy, mind ye.”
Judging from the grim line of her mouth, Glynis was not impressed with his forbearance.
“Catherine is close to her brothers,” he explained. “If you’ve forgotten, they are the Earl of Argyll and the Thane of Cawdor, so I had to be verra careful about how I told her nay.”
“It looked like ‘aye’ to me—your being naked and all.”
Ach, she was full of sarcasm tonight. Glynis took a step closer and tapped her finger against his chest. Despite the anger in her eyes, the point of her finger sent heat radiating through his body.
“How about I tell Shaggy Maclean what I saw and let him sort it out?” she asked.
God preserve him, she was a determined woman. If she went running to Shaggy with this tale now, none of the MacDonalds would escape tonight. Alex ran his hand through his hair. He could tie her up and leave her in the storeroom. But he didn’t like the idea of leaving her helpless, not knowing how long she might lie here—or who might find her.
“If ye tell Shaggy, he’ll kill me,” Alex said, attempting to reason with her.
“It wouldn’t be my fault,” she said. “A man should pay for his sins.”
Hadn’t Teàrlag said something like that to him?
“Ye wouldn’t be that heartless,” he said, though Glynis was looking as if she damned well would. “And I’m telling ye, I didn’t sin with Catherine.”
Not this time, anyway.
“I’ll do what I must,” Glynis said with that stubborn look in her eyes. “There are hundreds of men here. My father won’t know it was you I left with, if that’s your concern.”
With her father attacking Mingary, he wouldn’t even know she was missing for days. Still, it was too foolish.
“The truth has a way of coming out.” Alex folded his arms across his chest. “Have ye thought of what your father will do if he finds out I’m the one who stole ye away? Angry as he would be, he’d demand a wedding.”
For the first time, Glynis looked uncertain. It grated on him that the possibility of being forced to wed him was the only part of her ridiculous plan that gave her pause.
“I’ll have to take the risk,” she said in a hard voice. “Now, do I go bang on Shaggy’s bedchamber door, or will ye take me?”
CHAPTER 10
Let’s go,” Alex said.
Glynis sucked in her breath as he pulled her tight against his side. Her feet barely touched the ground as they passed the kitchens and started up the stairs.
What was she doing, putting herself into the hands of a man she barely knew? What made her trust this too-handsome warrior from a different clan? He owed her no allegiance. And he was angry that she’d coerced him into taking her. He could abandon her in the wilderness.
This was the most outrageous thing she had ever done, except perhaps stabbing her husband. But sticking Magnus was something that just happened—she hadn’t planned it.
The cool night air hit her face as they left the keep, but Alex’s heat radiated through her. He had a warrio
r’s body, powerful and graceful, and he held her with a sureness that sent her heart hammering.
Would Alex expect to be more than her escort?
That might be a reasonable assumption for a man to make—especially if he was the sort of man who was accustomed to having women offer themselves to him. If half of what she’d heard about Alex Bàn MacDonald was true, he was that sort of man.
“If anyone sees us,” Alex said in a low voice, “we want them to believe we’re a pair of lovers sneaking off for a tryst.”
Alex only meant to pretend they would. Glynis was, of course, relieved that Alex had not mistaken her intentions.
“’Tis fortunate I have a companion with so much useful experience,” she whispered.
“Keep your head down,” Alex said. “We don’t want anyone to recognize ye.”
“I suppose it won’t matter if they recognize you,” she said. “In fact, it might seem suspicious if a night went by without someone seeing ye sneak off with a lass.”
“Shhh.”
They were walking along the castle wall, in sight of the gate now. Glynis’s heart raced. Would the guards stop them? Would they demand to know who she was and call her father? Alex slowed his steps. When he leaned down, the warmth of his breath in her ear sent a tingle all the way to her toes.
“Play along with me,” he whispered.
She nearly yelped when he slid his hand under her cloak and along her ribcage. It was far too close to her breast.
She grabbed his wrist and hissed, “I cannot breathe with your hand there.”
He chuckled deep in his throat, but he didn’t remove his hand. Instead, he nuzzled her neck. “Have ye changed your mind?” he said against her skin. “Because if ye want to go to Edinburgh, we must first get out of the castle.”
She heard the sound of boots coming around the corner of the keep. The next thing she knew, Alex had her flattened against the stone wall. His mouth was on hers before she could think, Oh, God, he’s going to kiss me!
And it didn’t seem like a pretend kiss at all. His body was hard against hers, but his mouth was soft and warm. As Alex kissed her again and again, her knees grew so weak she had to put her arms around his neck to keep from falling. He held her tighter as he deepened their kisses, his tongue in her mouth, probing, seeking.
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