The Chieftain

by Margaret Mallory

  Alastair MacLeod insisted on escorting Ilysa back to the keep himself. At the entrance to the hall, he fixed his piercing eyes on her for a long moment, then gave her a stiff nod and left her. No sooner had he gone than Ilysa felt another set of eyes burning into her. She turned to see Connor striding toward her from across the room. He looked ready to do battle.

  “I didn’t expect to find Alastair MacLeod among your admirers,” Connor said in his hard, chieftain’s voice. “Why were ye talking to our enemy?”

  “He doesn’t seem like such a bad man to me,” Ilysa said. “Alliances change all the time. Perhaps the two of ye could settle your differences.”

  “The only way the MacLeods and the MacDonalds will resolve our differences is by sword and blood.”

  “I liked him,” she said, which made Connor’s eyes flare.

  “He’s dangerous,” Connor hissed. “Stay away from him.”

  Ilysa refrained from saying she had no plans to visit Dunvegan Castle, the famed MacLeod stronghold, since Connor did not appear to be in the mood for a jest.

  “As your chieftain, ’tis my duty to give ye another warning,” he said. “Ye must be careful of some of the men you’re meeting here.”

  “None of the clans will raise trouble at the gathering,” Ilysa said.

  “That’s no what I mean.” Connor leaned closer. “Ye don’t have experience with these sorts of men.”

  “And what sort is that?” Ilysa asked, though she thought she knew.

  “Men of power and wealth.”

  “Ye mean chieftains?” Ilysa kept her voice pleasant, but she was not accustomed to being lectured about her behavior, which had always been so far above reproach as to be lamentably dull. She especially did not appreciate being lectured on this particular point by Connor.

  “I’ll speak plainly,” he said. “If ye want a man and a home to yourself, don’t look to any of these chieftains or their sons.”

  As if she did not know this. Connor’s very being reminded her of it every day.

  “Your brother could rise to be keeper of a castle through his skills as a warrior,” he continued, apparently assuming her silence showed a feeble lack of comprehension. “You are highborn, but for a lass to be a chieftain’s wife, she must bring power and property to the marriage.”

  “I appreciate your explaining my unworthiness so clearly.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about her marriage offer, but it was wiser to keep that to herself until she decided what she wanted to do.

  “I did not say ye were unworthy.” Connor spoke in a measured tone, as if she were slow-witted. “But ye must be on your guard with such men, for it’s not marriage they seek.”

  “I have been watching out for myself since I was eleven,” Ilysa said, biting out the words. “You were all gone, so I did it without your help or my brother’s or anyone else’s.”

  “I can see that it’s fortunate we are leaving tomorrow,” Connor said.

  Ilysa never got angry when she argued. She had always found it far more effective to face opposition with perfect calm, but she was failing at that now. Luckily, they were interrupted before she resorted to raising her voice.

  “Pardon me,” a tall, curly-haired man said as he took her arm, “but this sweet lass made a promise to sit with me at supper.”

  Ilysa was inordinately pleased that he was not just the son of any clan chieftain, but the son of the Earl of Huntley.

  “Thank ye kindly for your advice, Connor,” she said over her shoulder.

  * * *

  “The MacLeod galleys are gone,” Connor said when he met Duncan at their camp.

  “Yours is loaded, and the men ready to set sail,” Duncan said, anticipating that Connor would want to return to Trotternish at once.

  “Unless I send word that the MacLeods have attacked earlier, come to Trotternish Castle on Beltane and be prepared to fight,” Connor said.

  “Hmmph,” Duncan grunted in acknowledgment. Instead of looking at Connor, he folded his arms and stared out at the water.

  “Bring all the warriors ye can spare and tell Ian to do the same,” Connor continued. “I’ll send word to Alex.”

  “Hmmph,” Duncan grunted again.

  Connor had failed to make a marriage alliance. His sister was barely speaking to him. He had made Ilysa angry, a monumental feat. And now, for the first time in his life, he felt discord between himself and Duncan, his best friend from the cradle.

  “What’s troubling ye?” he asked. “Come, Duncan, tell me.”

  “I don’t like my sister living at Trotternish with ye,” Duncan said, still staring out at the water.

  “Why not?” Connor asked.

  “People will talk.”

  “Talk?” Connor asked.

  “They’ll say she’s warming your bed as well as keeping your household.”

  Ilysa warming my bed. Connor could not let himself think about that.

  “Ilysa has kept my household since I became chieftain, and you’ve never mentioned this before,” Connor said. “Besides, no one would think that Ilysa and I are…” It seemed too dangerous to say the words, but they blazed across his mind: lovers, bedmates.

  “The men look at her differently now,” Duncan said. “And they will think it.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” Connor said. “Ilysa is your sister.”

  “Aye, she is.” Duncan turned and met his gaze. “She thinks the world of ye, and you’re her chieftain. It would be easy for ye to take advantage of her.”

  “By the saints, Duncan, I’ve been as celibate as a monk,” Connor said. “It hasn’t been easy, but ye know I’ve held out this long because I won’t risk having a babe with any woman but my wife.”

  “Sometimes things happen between a man and woman, despite their intentions,” Duncan said, his gaze still locked on Connor’s. “See that they don’t with my sister.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Connor forgot what he was saying when Ilysa passed through the hall balancing a basket on her hip. He knew she must have passed through his hall several times a day over the past two and a half years. And yet, he had never been aware of her movements until their return from the gathering.

  The problem was her new manner of dressing. Although she did not wear anything remotely inappropriate, her new gowns did not hide the feminine lines of her body. As she re-crossed the hall, Connor’s gaze followed the graceful curve of her neck and the swell of her breasts. Before he could stop himself, he imagined the slender, shapely legs beneath her skirts.

  When he finally tore his gaze away, he realized the men were waiting for him to continue whatever in the hell he’d been talking about. He began again but found himself straining to hear her soft voice as she spoke to one of the women.

  This could not continue. He was chieftain, and the future of his clan was in his hands.

  “We’ll speak more of this later,” he told the men. “Sorely, lead the practice, and I’ll join ye shortly. Our foes do not rest, and neither must we.”

  Leaving them with that trite admonishment, he strode across the hall to where Ilysa appeared to be in a struggle to the death with a torch that had been rammed too forcefully into a sconce in the wall.

  “I’ll do it,” he said, reaching for it.

  When their hands touched, it was as if a lightning bolt went through him. Angry at his reaction to her, he jerked the torch out of the wall and tossed it into the hearth.

  Ilysa raised her eyebrows, and he knew he’d offended her careful husbandry of the castle resources. But they belonged to him, damn it, and if he wanted to toss a torch into the fire, so be it. He had a far bigger problem to deal with here than one wasted torch.

  “I must speak with ye,” he said.

  “I was just about—”

  “Now.” Connor turned, then marched across the hall and through the doorway to the other building and his private chamber. He wanted no risk of this conversation being overheard. But when he shut the door behind her, he was sudd
enly acutely aware that this was also his bedchamber, and that he and Ilysa were alone in it.

  “What is it?” Ilysa asked with a pleasant smile and folded her hands in front of her.

  With all his blood leaving his head and filling his cock, he was having trouble recalling his purpose in bringing her here. Something deep inside him made him want to break through her composure, to see if there was fire beneath all that brisk efficiency and calm control.

  What was wrong with him? He reminded himself that Ilysa was a lass of undeniable virtue who trusted him blindly. If that wasn’t enough—and it should be—she was his best friend’s sister. Connor took a deep breath and approached her. Ach, it was a mistake to stand so close to her. The light scent of lilies filled his nose, making him long to smell it on her bare skin.

  She glanced at the bed, drawing his attention to it, which was most unfortunate. It would be so easy to get her there. His breathing grew shallow as he imagined her naked above him, a tangle of red-gold hair falling over her breasts while he gripped her slim hips. When Ilysa shifted her gaze back to him, she looked a trifle nervous. As well she should.

  “I want ye to go back to wearing your old gowns,” he said, wanting to get this over with.

  Ilysa stared at him wide-eyed. Finally, she said, “I don’t have them anymore.”

  Damn it. “Why not?”

  “Your sister and Sìleas threw them all away,” she said. “Besides, everyone else likes my new gowns.”

  “You’re lovely—I mean, the gowns are lovely,” he fumbled. “But you’re distracting the men dressed like that.”

  “Distracting the men?” Ilysa said. “I’m sorry, Connor, but that’s ridiculous.”

  “I don’t want ye coming in the hall while I’m speaking with them.”

  “I try to be quiet.” She looked at him with huge brown eyes as innocent as fawn’s. “Did I disturb ye?”

  She disturbed his peace of mind.

  “I can’t have ye coming in and out of the hall while I’m meeting with the men until ye have something that is less…less…”—he paused to swallow—“provocative to wear.”

  When she drew in a deep breath in a huff, he could see the swell of her breasts pressing against the soft fabric of her bodice.

  “My clothes are not provocative,” she said in a prim tone.

  He was being unreasonable. The problem was not her clothes but that he could not stop imagining her without them.

  “I don’t mean to insult ye,” he said and took her hands without thinking.

  They were so small in his and her fingers wondrously delicate. Her hands were like the woman herself. Their fragile appearance disguised competence and strength. He turned them over and examined her palms.

  “’Tis hard to believe ye cut an arrowhead out of my chest with these,” he said.

  “They’ve done more than that to ye,” she said and then inexplicably turned a violent shade of red. She tried to pull away, but he refused to let go.

  “What have these hands done to me that I wouldn’t know about?” he asked with a grin. Teasing her made him feel on safe ground again.

  “Ye don’t remember?”

  Ilysa turned yet another shade of red, as only the very fair could. Now he was intrigued.

  “What did ye do, ruffle my hair when ye were a bairn?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Ye were a perfectly behaved child, as I recall,” he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “It must have been a strain being so good all the time.”

  When she dropped her gaze, he realized he had hit the mark squarely and felt badly for it. He ran his thumb over her palm instinctively to soothe her, but when she drew in a sharp breath, it set his blood boiling again. He should let her go. And yet, he did not.

  “You’re not leaving here until ye tell me what ye meant,” he said, attempting a light tone.

  Ilysa glanced sideways again, and her gaze appeared to become stuck on the bed. O shluagh! He should quit playing these games with her and send her out quickly. He was about to do just that until her next words sent sparks shooting through his veins.

  “I bathed ye.”

  “What?” Surely he had misheard her, yet his whole body was alive with the misunderstanding. “Ah, ye mean ye bathed my wounds.”

  “Not just your wounds.” She spoke so softly that he had to lean forward to hear her. “I washed all of ye. Several times.”

  Why would she say that? Was she trying to stop his heart and kill him? “I think I would have recalled that,” he said.

  “After the MacKinnons left ye for dead and Ian brought ye to Teàrlag’s, I tended your wounds.” She paused and then added in a choked voice, “We feared we’d lose ye.”

  Ach, tears were suddenly spilling down her cheeks. Connor put his arms around her. He, Duncan, and Alex had been ambushed by two dozen MacKinnons and a few MacLeods. They had killed a good many of their attackers, but all three of them had been badly injured. It was Connor they were after, and they thought they had killed him.

  “Ian cut your bloody clothes off in pieces and tossed them into the hearth fire,” she said. “Every inch of ye was bruised and battered. I washed and bound your wounds, then for three days I fed ye broth and sponged your body to fight the fever that wanted to take ye to the other side.”

  “Shh. It’s all right now,” Connor said into her hair as he held her.

  “Sometimes ye seemed to wake,” she said, “so I thought ye might remember some of it.”

  “I was out of my head and thought I saw an angel watching over me,” Connor said. “You must be my angel.”

  Ilysa laughed against his chest. “Hardly that.”

  Heat and tension flared between them, and Connor was suddenly aware of how very dangerous it was to hold her like this. He told himself to let go of her, but his arms would not obey.

  “Why do ye want me to stay out of the hall, truly?” Ilysa leaned back and looked up at him with brown eyes that could melt the heart of a sea serpent. “I’ve always done it, and ye never minded my coming and going before.”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t notice,” he said and touched the back of his fingers to her cheek. It felt so soft that he did it again. “But every time ye enter a room now, I can see nothing else.”

  Tension coiled in his belly and spiraled down his limbs. It was wrong to hold her like this, wrong to even think of kissing her. He knew it, and yet he wanted to feel her lips. This once, he wanted to be reckless. To do something that was just for him. And how could he help himself when he could feel her body drawing to his?

  What harm could there be in one simple kiss?

  “Ilysa.” He breathed her name as he lowered his head.

  One innocent kiss, and then he would put this behind him and do his duty, as he always did. But the moment her lips, soft and trembling, touched his, fire burned in his belly.

  And yet, he might have had the strength to pull away if she had not curled her fingers into his shirt and pulled him closer. Hot jolts of lust shot through him from every point her body touched his. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and was vaguely aware that he had startled her, but she did not pull away.

  When she made a high-pitched sigh against his mouth, he knew it was a lost cause. He pulled her hard against him and gave her deep, hungry kisses that should have frightened her. Instead, she returned them with an urgency that matched his own.

  He could never trust a woman to want him, the man, rather than the chieftain. But he trusted Ilysa utterly and completely. She knew him, with all his flaws and shortcomings. She would not be in his arms for any reason except that she wanted him.

  And, by the saints, he wanted her. Without lifting his mouth from hers, he backed her up to his bed. He refused to think, refused to let his conscience catch up with him. For once, he was giving in to blind passion.

  Part of him wanted her to say no, to be the sensible lass she usually was and push him away. Instead, Ilysa melted into his arms. He pr
essed her against the side of the bed with his body and devoured her mouth for long minutes. He only tore his mouth away from hers to run his lips and tongue along the divine curve of her throat, which he had been longing to kiss without knowing it.

  But as he reached to pull back the bed curtain, guilt reared its ugly head. This is Ilysa. Duncan’s sister. If ever there was a lass who deserved honorable treatment and his protection, it was she.

  Connor unclasped her hands from around his neck. Her breathing was uneven, and her eyes held a dark passion that spoke to the erotic dreams he harbored. And yet, he forced himself to pull away. It was his duty to protect her, even from his own desire—and hers.

  Confusion clouded her eyes. If Connor looked into them another moment, he would lift her onto the bed, and they would not leave it for a long, long time.

  “This is wrong,” he said and turned his back on her. “Forgive me.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, and her light touch on his shoulder pulled him like an undertow.

  “’Tis my fault,” he said. “I beg ye, Ilysa. Go quickly.”

  * * *

  Ilysa shut her door and leaned against it.

  Connor kissed me! Not a brotherly peck on the cheek, either. Nor a light brush on her lips. No, this was a real kiss. He wasn’t pretending he wanted to do it, as her husband Mìchael had. This was a thrillingly passionate kiss.

  And not just one kiss. Ilysa wanted to count them all and remember each one, but they had blended together, one into the next. Her head was still swimming. She had been surprised when Connor used his tongue. Though she was aware people did that sometimes, she had not expected to like it so very much.

  She touched her fingertips to her lips. She had dreamed of this, but it had been more wonderful than she ever imagined. Truly, she could have kissed Connor all night and wanted more. When he pulled her against him, his arms felt so strong around her. She hugged herself, remembering how magical it had been. While Connor held her, she had felt as if anything was possible. Anything at all.

  Still, Ilysa was no fool. She understood Connor could never be hers, not truly and not for long. That did not keep her from wanting however much of him he would give her.