The Chieftain

by Margaret Mallory

  When it was gone, Ilysa sat back on her heels. What on earth did it mean? And who was the man, Lachlan or Connor?

  CHAPTER 9

  Connor would not permit himself to limp in front of the men. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on keeping his stride even as another shooting pain ripped down his leg. Once he passed through the doorway into the adjoining building, he paused to take a deep breath before climbing the stairs.

  Damn the arrow that struck his leg, and damn the man who shot it.

  He was sweating by the time he reached the top and pushed the door open.

  “Ilysa?” What in the hell was she doing kneeling on his floor? Why was she in his bedchamber at all?

  Her brown eyes were huge as she looked up at him from the floor. Surprise gave way to what looked suspiciously like guilt, though Connor could not imagine what sweet Ilysa had to feel guilty about.

  “I was just…,” she murmured as she started to rise.

  Connor lunged to help her and winced as hot needles of pain jabbed into his thigh.

  “I warned ye that ye should let me take care of that wound in your leg,” Ilysa scolded him. “Now you’re going to set aside your pride, Connor MacDonald, and let me.”

  It was not pride that had kept Connor from sending for her, but the memory of her hands on his bare skin. As it was, he thought of that every time he saw her. He’d even had dreams of sweet, innocent Ilysa’s featherlike fingers running over every inch of his body until he was groaning with need and—good God—begging her to take him in her mouth. It made him damned uncomfortable to be around her.

  Because of his lascivious imagination, he had let the wound fester too long. Now he let her take his arm and pull him toward the bed.

  “What’s that smell?” he asked, sniffing. It was vaguely familiar, but he could not place it.

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  “Good God, is that what ye were doing in my chamber?” he said as he hobbled over to the bed. “Making it smell sweet?” First lilies, now this.

  “I was waiting here for ye so I could tend to your leg.” She held up her basket. “See, I brought my medicines.”

  Ilysa was not a practiced liar. It struck him as odd that she would make up a story, but perhaps she was embarrassed about smelling up his chamber with that odd scent.

  “I’ll heat some water and mix up the poultice while ye make yourself ready,” she said, by which she meant that he should take off his trews.

  The blood had soaked through them and onto his shirt, so he took that off as well. He stretched out on the bed and pulled the bedclothes across his hips to cover his manly parts.

  Ilysa kept her gaze on the basin of steaming water she carried as she walked toward him with a cloth over her shoulder. After setting her things on the stool next to the bed, she turned toward him and sucked in her breath.

  “I am so angry with ye! It’s full of pus,” she said, glaring at the wound in his leg. “That was careless and irresponsible of ye, Connor MacDonald.”

  He snorted on a laugh, making the bed shake. No one ever called him careless and irresponsible. Ah, but he wished he could be sometimes. At the very top of his list would be making love to a woman until neither of them could walk. That was the second and the third thing on his list as well. In fact, there was nothing else on his list but rolling in the bedclothes, making love to a lass, over and over. Ach, he was as hard as a battering ram thinking about it.

  “Ouch!” He was jolted from his thoughts by the hot, wet compress Ilysa laid on the wound. Jesu, it hurt.

  “Ye deserve it,” she snapped.

  Her sharpness was out of character, and Connor realized she was worried about him.

  “Don’t fret. This is nothing,” he said and covered her hand where it rested on the bed beside him.

  The air vibrated between them, and his mouth went dry at the feel of her soft skin. Connor jerked his hand away. He should not be touching Ilysa—not even her hand—when he was lying naked in his bed thinking of endless rounds of hot, sweaty sex.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m a bit jumpy.”

  “I know it’s painful,” she said, drawing her brows together.

  She had no idea how painful, and he did not mean the wound. He clenched his teeth and tried not to groan aloud as she rested her free hand lightly on his thigh and then—God, help me—on his stomach, while she wiped the wound clean and covered it with her poultice.

  A little lower, please. He wanted to beg her to touch him, to wrap her hand around his cock and give him the relief he needed. Better yet, crawl into bed with him and let him…

  If Ilysa knew what he was thinking, the poor lass’s heart would give out. He looked at the delicate features of her kind face and then at her hideous gown and ugly head covering and wondered how he could be so depraved as to actually be thinking of seducing her.

  Connor covered his face with his arm and commanded himself not to imagine what Ilysa looked like under that dreadful gown.

  * * *

  Connor MacDonald was not at all what Lachlan expected.

  In the days since his arrival at the castle, Lachlan had watched the chieftain closely. Unlike Hugh, Connor met Lachlan’s gaze directly and spoke to him with respect. Not once had he heard Connor make jokes at the expense of the lesser men or servants. In fact, his humor was self-deprecating, which Lachlan found disconcerting.

  From everything his father had told him, he expected a man who carried the blood of the last chieftain to be a careless womanizer who was indifferent to the welfare of the lesser members of the clan. A chieftain had his choice of women, and Connor was undoubtedly handsome, judging by the way the women of the castle tripped over their feet watching him. The chieftain, however, did not appear to give any of them special attention.

  Except for Ilysa.

  Now, that was surprising. Ilysa was a funny, wee thing. Despite being highborn, she wore dull gowns that looked like hand-me-downs from an elderly relative twice her size. No, Ilysa did not look like a lass who would be sharing the chieftain’s bed. If she were, Lachlan would have heard whispers about it by now.

  And yet, there was something between them.

  Lachlan watched Ilysa cross the hall, stopping on her way to say a kind word here and there and checking to see that all was well. Despite her youth and diminutive size, Ilysa controlled the household with a velvet glove. The servants would kill for her.

  As she passed by, Lachlan put a hand on her arm. “You’re always moving. Sit and rest a bit.”

  “I have a hundred things to do.” She smiled as she made her excuse and started to move on, but then she halted and her smile faded.

  There was always something in her eyes when she looked at him, as if she saw the blackness in his heart. Yet Lachlan never felt as if she condemned him for it.

  After a moment, she perched herself on the bench beside him.

  “Tell me why ye cover your prettiness,” Lachlan said. “Is it the chieftain ye don’t want to notice?”

  Ilysa straightened her spine and blinked at him. “Mind your tongue, Lachlan. What a thing to say. And I’m not pretty.”

  Ilysa was a puzzle. When you really looked at her, you could see that her features were fair, but she tied that kerchief around her head so tightly it pulled her skin.

  “What color is your hair under there?” he asked.

  When he reached for her head covering, Ilysa slapped his hand away. “Stop it!”

  He heard her gasp as a long blade flashed between them. Its point stopped an inch from Lachlan’s throat. When he looked up the length of the blade, he saw Connor MacDonald at the other end of it.

  “Is Lachlan bothering ye, Ilysa?” Connor’s voice was as calm as the sea on a windless day, but his eyes were blue ice.

  Lachlan did not move.

  “No, he’s not troubling me at all,” Ilysa said.

  “Ilysa is like a sister to me,” Connor said. “If ye distress her, cause her even the tiniest bit of unease, yo
u’ll answer to me.”

  Like his sister, my arse.

  “I don’t want to leave any room for misunderstanding,” Connor said, with the point of his blade pricking Lachlan’s throat. “Have I been clear enough?”

  “Aye, ye have,” Lachlan said.

  “I’m not certain I did right in defending ye to the chieftain,” Ilysa said in a low voice after Connor walked away. “I want to trust ye, but you’re hiding something.”

  “I spent the last two and a half years fighting the MacLeods,” Lachlan said. “You’ve no right to question my loyalty.”

  “What have ye got against our chieftain?” she asked, undeterred.

  “Nothing.” Ach, she was as persistent as those wee dogs that bite at your heels.

  “If ye endanger him, I’ll kill ye myself.” Ilysa got to her feet and looked down at him. “That’s a promise, Lachlan.”

  Out of respect for her, he did not laugh. He had to admit that Connor MacDonald engendered loyalty from those who knew him well. That did not mean he deserved Lachlan’s.

  As his father so often told him, blood must be paid with blood.

  CHAPTER 10

  Luck was against them.

  Connor cursed under his breath. This time of year, he should have been able to count on a heavy mist to hide the boat. Instead a full moon shone bright on the sea. Their galley would be visible to any MacLeod who might be watching from the opposite side of the sea inlet that separated the Trotternish Peninsula from the traditional lands of the MacLeods.

  “Hug the shore as close as ye can,” Connor whispered in the ear of the man at the rudder. The other MacDonald warriors in the galley were silent, keenly aware of how well sound traveled over water on a clear, cold night.

  “That’s the place,” the man next to Connor said in a hushed voice as he pointed toward a dark cottage with a gray plume of smoke rising from its chimney into the star-filled sky.

  Each night, Connor took a handful of his warriors out under cover of darkness to visit homes of MacDonalds who had not yet left or been forced out in the face of the threat from the MacLeods. This was the farthest they had ventured from the castle, and it was also the closest to the MacLeods’ home territory, where they were strongest.

  Connor felt his men’s tension as their small galley glided to shore. He flicked his gaze up and down the shoreline, ready to give the signal to reverse oars should enemy warriors spring from the bushes shouting their battle cry. All he heard in the still night was the rustle of reeds brushing against the side of the boat and the flap of wings when a startled waterbird took flight.

  The steel blade of his claymore made the familiar whoosh as he pulled it from its scabbard. He dropped over the side into icy water up to his thighs. With barely a ripple, his men followed him into the water. Together, they hauled the galley onto the shore and hid it under low-hanging trees.

  All Connor’s senses were alert to danger as he and his five men climbed single-file up the small bluff to the cottage. He neither saw nor heard anything suspicious. And yet, he felt as if someone was watching them from the darkness.

  Once again, he wished Ian, Duncan, or Alex were with him. They had saved each other’s lives countless times, and he could trust them absolutely. Though he had hand-selected the warriors who accompanied him tonight, he did not know them well, except for Sorely. He would have added Lachlan to the group, but he could not find him.

  When they reached the cottage, Connor held his sword at the ready while Sorely rapped on the door, his fist making a hollow sound on the weathered wood.

  “’Tis me, Sorely.” His soft voice sounded unnaturally loud after their long silence.

  The door opened a crack, and a beak-nosed face peered out.

  “Open up,” Sorely said. “I’ve brought our new chieftain.”

  Connor wondered how long he would be known as the “new” chieftain.

  The beak-nosed man stepped back inside, and the door creaked open wide. If Duncan or his cousins were here, one of them would have gone in first to make certain it was not a trap. Connor was not afraid of death for himself, but his death would very likely lead to Hugh being made chieftain—and that would destroy the clan.

  To succeed in his mission to assure the clan’s future, however, he needed more than the fealty of his clansmen. He needed warriors who were fierce in their loyalty and willing to die at his side. Highlanders respected fearlessness, whether it was foolish or no.

  Connor stepped over the cottage’s threshold, praying it was not an ambush.

  Inside, a dozen men, mostly farmers, crowded the cottage. Connor swept his gaze over the men, the lone woman standing by the hearth, and the children peeking out from the loft overhead.

  He signaled for three of the warriors who accompanied him to stand guard outside. With three, they could keep an eye on each other, as well as watch for MacLeods.

  “I am Connor, great-grandson of the Lord of the Isles, grandson of Hugh, the first MacDonald of Sleat, and son of Donald Gallach, our last chieftain.” Though it would be safer for all of them if this meeting was over quickly, the men would expect a certain amount of formality from their chieftain. “Beannachd air an taigh.” A blessing on this house.

  “Mìle fàilte oirbh,” a thousand welcomes, his beak-nosed host greeted him. “I am Malcom.”

  As each man introduced himself, Connor fixed the name and face in his mind. Then he said, “Tell me how you and your families on this side of Trotternish fare.”

  “Our children are hungry,” one man spoke up, “and our women fear we cannot protect them.”

  Connor listened patiently while several of the men took turns speaking.

  “We hold Trotternish Castle again, but taking back all of the peninsula will be a more difficult task,” he told them. “Every man must be a warrior and join in the fight if we are to remove the MacLeods and make your families safe from attack.”

  There was a general rumble of agreement from the men.

  “When the time comes to fight, I will send the crann tara,” Connor said. The crann tara was a wooden cross that had been set on fire and then dipped in blood to extinguish the flame. It was the traditional method for raising the clan. “Every man who sees it will be expected to pass the word.”

  There was another rumble of agreement, then one man asked, “Where shall the clan gather?”

  “It must be near here.” That was the reason Connor had come to this particular place tonight. “The MacLeod warriors are spread thin among our own people here on Trotternish. Their strength lies on the other side of the Snizort River, so we must stop them there.”

  The room was quiet as the men took this in.

  “Where is a good place for us to rally?” Connor asked. “It should be a place all our people know and can find in the night, without alerting the MacLeods.”

  As Connor shifted his gaze from man to man, each shook his head.

  “What about a place men fear to go?” The voice belonged to the lone woman by the hearth. She was an attractive, plump woman in her midthirties, whom Connor assumed was Malcom’s wife and the mother of the children in the loft.

  “Hush,” Malcom said, but Connor signaled for her to go on.

  He had an inkling of what the woman meant and thought it a clever idea, though it did not appear to sit well with the men.

  “There are three such places nearby,” she said. “First is the graveyard on the island in the Snizort River, where the old church dedicated to Saint Columba is.”

  Connor felt the room grow tense. No man wanted to mingle with the dead after dark.

  “We’d risk bringing ill luck upon us by disrespecting the dead chieftains and warriors who rest there,” Connor said. “Where else?”

  “The faery glen,” the woman said. “’Tis hidden away, and the MacLeods won’t go near it, day or night.”

  “That’s because they’re no fools,” one of the men said.

  “Riling the faeries is even more dangerous than disturbing dead
chieftains,” another said.

  “And the third place?” Connor asked, though he was beginning to think he should have let her husband hush her.

  “The standing stone,” she said. “It doesn’t hold much magic except at the solstice, and it can be good magic. All the same, most folk avoid it at night.”

  “It’s on a hill that overlooks the sea inlet, not far from the river,” Sorely said. “’Tis a good choice.”

  “Then it’s settled. When I raise the clan with the crann tara, we’ll meet at the standing stone.” Connor let his gaze move from man to man until each of them nodded. Then he signaled for the men to keep their voices down and raised his fist. “We will take the MacLeods by land and by sea!”

  All the men in the room raised their fists and repeated the MacDonald motto. “By land and by sea!”

  The moment Connor stepped out of the cottage door, he knew something was wrong. The men he had left standing guard appeared unaware of the threat. Connor stood still, listening and staring out into the night. He sensed no movement to his left or to his right.

  As he peered out at the dark water, two war galleys made a silent appearance around the jut of land to the south. In the moonlight, he could see the row of shields along the length of the boats, each of which would carry thirty to fifty warriors.

  Connor had six men, counting himself.

  There were far too many enemy warriors to fight, and Connor could not afford to lose any of his. As he watched, the war galleys turned into the cove, which made it impossible for Connor and his men to reach their own galley and escape by sea.

  By now his men had gathered around him.

  “Our best chance is to split up and run like hell,” Connor said in a hushed voice. “We’ll meet back at the castle. Now go!”

  As the men ran off, Connor went back inside to warn the others.

  “Ye must be silent! MacLeod warriors are landing,” he told them. “Everyone, run!”

  Connor held the door, urging them to hurry, as he watched the MacLeod galleys glide into shore. The men left quickly, but it seemed to take a lifetime for the woman and her husband to gather their children. Tension thrummed through Connor as he watched the line of children climbing down the ladder from the loft. Jesu, how many did the couple have?