“I believe ye, Moira,” James said and blew out his breath. “But it’s no that easy. Having their chieftain killed by a lass in their own fortress humiliated the MacQuillans. They want retribution.”
“What if my brother was willing to make a modest payment to the MacQuillans?” Moira asked. “To compensate them for their…‘loss.’”
Such payments were sometimes made in cases of rape and murder, to avoid blood feuds.
“That was clever,” Connor said under his breath to Duncan, before he finally intervened in Moira’s play. “James, I am prepared to offer a modest sum, as my sister suggests.”
“That would help soothe their pride,” James said.
“Though I will expect one in return for the harm their chieftain did to my sister,” Connor added.
“I’ll leave now and let you men discuss it,” Moira said as if she had not orchestrated it all. “Thank you, James, for listening to me with an open heart.”
“You’re a brave lass,” James said and kissed her hand again, quite unnecessarily. “I’ve always admired ye.”
Duncan wanted to gag—or better yet, slice James’s silver tongue from his throat.
* * *
Moira lay on her bed, exhausted. Before her marriage, she could have carried off that performance without feeling like her soul was bleeding out on the floor. The display of her wounds was necessary and the drama effective, but she had underestimated the toll it would take on her. Making love with Duncan had made her believe she had recovered from Sean. But though she had always liked James, she found herself feeling faint when he stood too close and kept dropping his gaze to her breasts.
The mischievous faeries must have cast a spell on her for their amusement. Not only did she love a man who thought she was useless, silly, and wholly lacking in character, but it appeared that no other man could touch her without sending her into a panic.
A knock on the door made her sit up straight. “Who is it?”
She squelched her disappointment when Connor stuck his head through the door.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
When she nodded, he came inside and closed the door behind him.
“I appreciate what ye did,” Connor said. “I suspect you were more of a help to our father when he was chieftain than I ever realized.”
At least her brother was beginning to see her value, if belatedly.
“I am so sorry I didn’t send Duncan to Ireland sooner.” Connor came to stand by the bed and took her hand. “I believed you were safe, and there were so many dangers facing our clan that I…Well, there is no excuse for it. I should have found a way.”
Connor had such sadness in his eyes that she felt her own tearing up. “Thank you for saying that. I thought ye didn’t care at all.”
“It was never that,” Connor said as he brushed a lock of her hair off her forehead. “Growing up, it always seemed as if ye had a special magic around ye, and that nothing bad could ever happen to ye.”
Moira gave a humorless laugh. “What the faeries give they take away twice.”
“Duncan loves ye, and he’s a good man,” Connor said.
“Hmmph.” Moira crossed her arms and looked away.
“Give him a chance, Moira.”
“Is that an order from my chieftain?” she asked.
“It’s advice from a brother who wants to see ye happy,” Connor said. “And now, if you’ll have pity on me, I’m desperate for your help with our guest.”
“I do have something else I need to discuss with James,” Moira said, smiling at her brother. “And I think I might enjoy aggravating Duncan a bit more.”
Chapter 32
Duncan sat by the hall’s great hearth sharpening his dirk on a whetstone while he watched Moira flirt with James. At least she had changed out of that low-cut gown, though nothing could hide curves like hers.
He emptied his cup of whiskey and refilled it. If everything went well, he would be the keeper of Trotternish Castle in a week’s time. Then he could marry Moira and give her the kind of home she needed.
If she didn’t run off with that damned James, son of a chieftain, first.
Connor strolled over and sat next to him. “I had a long talk with James,” he said in a low voice. “Thanks to Moira, he’s verra cooperative now.”
“Hmmph.” Duncan took another long drink of his whiskey.
“According to James, Alastair MacLeod and Shaggy Maclean have left the rebellion and are proving their newfound loyalty to the Crown by chasing after their former ally Donald Gallda,” Connor said, referring to the leader of the rebellion. “They haven’t caught Donald yet, but they captured his brothers and turned them over to the Crown to be executed.”
“Now we know where Alastair MacLeod went with his war galleys,” Duncan said. “’Tis good news for us that he’s busy elsewhere.”
“The bad news is that the Crown has rewarded Alastair MacLeod by granting him a royal charter to the lands he stole from us on Trotternish.”
“But we never joined the rebellion!” Duncan said, slamming his cup down. Connor had taken a considerable risk by not taking up arms with their neighboring clans against the Crown.
“Surely ye remember the parable of the prodigal son,” Connor said, shaking his head.
“Forget the damned charter,” Duncan said. “What matters most is who holds the land.”
It had proven far easier for the Crown to issue royal charters—in fact, it had been known to issue charters to the same land to rival clans—than to remove a clan from its lands.
“I should help my sister with our guest,” Connor said, shifting his gaze to Moira, who was still having an excessively friendly chat with James on the other side of the hall. “I know it’s soon to ask her, but I wonder if she would consider James for her next husband.”
Duncan squeezed the cup in his hand pretending it was James’s neck.
Rhona came into the hall from the kitchens carrying a jug of wine and cups. After serving Moira, James, and Connor, she ambled over to where Duncan sat.
“I see she’s even quicker to find a new man this time,” Rhona said, leaning down to speak into his ear. “I told ye this would happen.”
Rhona gave him an amused glance over her shoulder as she pranced off.
Duncan watched how Moira and James leaned their heads together and looked into each other’s eyes while they talked about God knew what.
But it was her laugh a moment later that sent him over the edge. As her face lit up, he could feel the pulse in his temples throb. Her shining black braid fell over her shoulder as she leaned closer to James and laughed. That last night before he was forced to leave for France, Duncan had watched her laugh just like this with the man who became her husband.
The temper Duncan had spent his youth learning to control exploded. It surged through his veins, pounded in his ears, and tunneled his vision until all he could see was the two of them laughing.
Duncan marched across the hall, aware but not giving a goddamn that he was causing a disruption. He’d had enough. As he neared the pair, some of James’s men started to rise from their seats
“Stay where ye are!” Duncan said, turning to glare at them. “It’s not James I’m after.”
At least not yet. James was just a pawn in Moira’s game.
When Duncan reached Moira, he grabbed her by her arms and lifted her out of her seat.
“What do ye think you’re doing, Duncan MacDonald?” she said, as he dragged her away. “Connor! Do something!”
“Halt!” James called and started after them, but he thought better of it when all of the MacDonalds of Sleat began hooting and clapping.
Duncan was too full of fury to feel gratified by the cheers.
“I’ll strangle ye in your sleep! I’ll burn your cottage!” Moira was spewing a stream of useless threats.
He hauled her through the arched doorway to the stairwell, then tossed her over his shoulder and headed up the stairs. She was pounding his back
and calling him all manner of vile names, which for some perverse reason did bring him a measure of satisfaction.
Duncan flung open the door to the sacrosanct bedchamber belonging to the adored chieftain’s daughter, the room he was never permitted to violate with his lowly presence even as a child. As a young man, he would have been beaten within an inch of his life if he had been caught invading this hallowed place.
Well, he was here now.
Duncan kicked the door shut behind him. As soon as he set Moira on her feet, he grabbed her arms before she could scratch his eyes out. Judging from the fire in hers, that was precisely what she wished to do to him.
Good. He was in the mood for a fight.
“What in hell were ye doing down there in the hall?” he shouted at her.
“What was I doing?” she asked. “I was enjoying a civil conversation with a civilized man before ye interrupted us acting like a madman.”
“I won’t have your games, Moira. I put up with them when I was nineteen, but I won’t now,” he said as he backed her up against the door. “I’ll no stand by while ye flirt and bat your eyes and God knows what else with another man!”
“We have an important guest,” she said between her teeth. “I was merely being a gracious hostess—not that it’s any business of yours.”
The edges of his vision turned blood-red. “Does being a gracious hostess involve taking our highborn guest to bed?”
He had released her arms, which was a mistake. Moira tried to slap his face, but years of practice with a sword made him far too quick for her. He caught her wrists again and pinned them against the door.
“What do ye mean, it’s no my business?” he said an inch from her face. “I thought we had an understanding.”
“An understanding?” she said, her eyes narrow slits of blue fire. “And what understanding would that be?”
“That you’re mine.”
Duncan kissed her—not the sweet, tender kisses he had been giving her, but hard on the mouth. She said she was no fragile flower, and he hoped to God she was right, because he was in no mood for caution. His need for her was as violent as the storm that had torn their boat apart.
Ever since he had found her again, he had banked his passion, made himself be the gentle lover she needed him to be. But he could hold back no longer. Control was beyond him. His hunger for her was boundless.
He wanted to strip her bare to her soul and make her his, utterly and completely.
Moira gripped her hands in his hair and held on as he thrust his tongue into her mouth and devoured her with his kisses. Her nails dug into his shoulders through his clothes. When he grasped her buttocks and lifted her against his throbbing erection, she wrapped her legs around him in a vise. He wanted desperately to take her right now, fast and hard against the door.
But he had spent too many nights in his younger years dreaming of her in that bed.
Without lifting his mouth from hers, he carried her to it. When he broke the kiss to pull back the bed curtains and set her down, she looked at him with velvet eyes that were dark with desire.
“Ye don’t seem quite so concerned about propriety now,” she said in a throaty voice as her mouth curved up in a slow smile. When she ran the tip of her tongue over her swollen lips, all the blood in his head went straight to his cock.
This was the old Moira. Without realizing it, Duncan had been waiting for her—the wild and free Moira he had first fallen in love with. And yet, she was so much more now. He loved this complex, deeper woman even more than he had loved the carefree girl.
“Just because I want to protect ye,” he said between harsh breaths, “does not mean I think you’re weak.”
Moira fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled him down. They fell across the bed, legs tangled and hands tearing at each other’s clothes with a frantic desperation. Duncan ignored the sound of her gown ripping as he pulled the bodice down and filled his hands with her full, rounded breasts. While he rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, he moved down her throat with his mouth, leaving his mark on her with sucking kisses. She moaned and arched her back, egging him on.
His, she was his.
He licked the salt of her skin, breathed in the smell of her desire. As he sought more bare skin beneath her clothes, he kissed her breasts and pressed his cock against her thigh. There was far too much cloth between them, and he was desperate for her.
“Hurry, Duncan, hurry,” Moira pleaded in ragged breaths as she jerked at her skirts, trying to help free them. “I want ye now.”
The lass was going to kill him. With a final tug, he had her skirts up around her waist.
“I love ye so much,” he said. “And I do know you.”
Moira clamped her legs around him and lifted her hips to meet him. As he plunged into her, he squeezed his eyes shut against the rush of pleasure that surged through him. He paused, deep inside her, reveling in the sensation. This was where he was meant to be. She was his. And God knew, he was hers. He had been since the beginning of time.
“Aye, aye,” she gasped as he began moving inside her.
She was everything he wanted, and he was claiming her, body and soul. She tossed her head from side to side and held on to him, making frantic little noises as he thrust deeply, again and again.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded as he reached the very edge of his control.
They cried each other’s name as they came together in an explosion of pleasure that was so intense it blinded him. He rested his forehead on the bed beside her, gasping for air. He was trying not to crush her, but he could hardly hold himself up. Finally, he gave up and collapsed beside her. They lay side by side, breathing hard, their skin damp with perspiration.
Duncan stared up at the fancy drapes that hung around her bed. That hadn’t resolved anything, but he felt a whole hell of a lot better.
“I’m leaving to take Trotternish Castle now,” he said. “And ye had best be waiting here for me.”
“And if I’m not?” Moira said, raising her eyebrows.
“I will come find you.” He cupped her cheek with his hand and held her gaze. “You and I are one, and we will always be.”
Chapter 33
As Duncan made his way down the hill to meet Alex’s boat, he was glad for the dense fog that had rolled in with the night, covering the sea and the shore. No one would see them slip out of the bay. Duncan was twenty paces from where Alex’s boat was pulled up on shore before its black outline emerged from the dark gray billowing fog.
As Duncan drew closer, he could make out the figures of the men in the boat—and one man leaning against it. He knew it was Connor even before he was close enough to recognize the long, lean frame.
“Duncan,” Alex called out in a soft voice from the boat, and Duncan raised his hand in greeting.
“We must talk,” Connor said. “In private.”
Duncan sighed inwardly. Connor was furious with him—and rightly so—for carrying Moira out of the hall like that, declaring to the world that he was bedding the chieftain’s sister. Though Duncan knew they must have this conversation, he had hoped to delay it until after they had taken Trotternish Castle.
“Ye shouldn’t leave the castle without guards,” Duncan said when they had walked through the fog far enough to be out of earshot of the others.
Connor chafed under the constraints for his personal protection that came with being chieftain, but he understood what his death would mean for the clan so he usually complied.
But not tonight.
“I have important business with ye.” Connor put a hand on Duncan’s shoulder, but there was no mistaking the steel in his voice. “We need to discuss my sister.”
Though he and Connor had been his best friends since the cradle, Connor would put the interests of the clan before their friendship. Duty to the clan was ingrained in Connor’s soul, and it weighed even more heavily on him now that he was chieftain.
“What is it ye wish to know?” Duncan asked, delaying the in
evitable.
Connor squeezed his shoulder harder and leaned close. “Ye know damned well what I’m asking.”
Connor, Ian, and Alex had always treated Duncan as an equal, but others had not because his father was unknown. Duncan had worked hard—harder than anyone—until he became a warrior of such strength and skill that he commanded respect in his own right.
Still, asking to wed his chieftain’s sister was reaching above him.
“I know this is not what ye want for Moira or for the clan,” Duncan said. “But I can’t live without her.”
“That’s a bit vague,” Connor said, and Duncan could feel Connor’s eyes drilling into him through the darkness. “What, precisely, do ye plan to do about it?”
“I respect ye as my chieftain, and you’re closer than a brother to me,” Duncan said. “But I cannot let ye wed Moira to another man. If I must, I will fight even you for her.”
The prospect of losing Connor’s friendship was like a hot blade piercing his heart. If he lost this lifelong bond, Duncan would never feel whole again. But as much as it would pain him, he was choosing Moira.
“I intend to marry her this time,” Duncan said and steeled himself to face Connor’s fury.
“It would have been a shame to have to kill ye,” Connor said, his teeth showing white in the darkness as he broke into a grin. “With the way the two of ye have been carrying on, the whole clan is talking—and that was before ye carried her upstairs in front of God and everyone today.”
“Are ye saying I have your approval?” Duncan was stunned. “I thought ye would want Moira to make a marriage alliance for the clan.”
“Ach, marrying her outside the clan has its dangers,” Connor said. “If Moira sticks a dirk in you like she did her last husband, I won’t have to worry about it causing a clan war.”
“There is that,” Duncan said with a dry laugh.
“You’ve always underestimated your value to me and to the clan,” Connor said, his tone serious. “If you are the one Moira wants to wed, I’m glad of it.”
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