Rory, like a hound with a bone, rarely gave up on anything. He might worry at that bone, but he did not know the meaning of surrender.
“Listen.” Farlan leaned forward and laid a hand on Leith’s dead arm. “Those here, Mistress Moira and Alasdair in particular, were ready to send ye home to MacLeod before that happened. They waited only for Mistress Rhian to declare ye fit to travel.”
“Aye?”
Farlan nodded.
“But do I no’ make a canny hostage?”
“They have had their fill o’ hostages, after wha’ happened wi’ me. They are no’ happy having a cuckoo in their nest and wanted well rid o’ ye. I maun say I encouraged it, to get ye home. Both for your sake and Rory’s, thinking o’ him half mad wi’out ye.”
“Ye do still care about him, then.”
“Of course I care about him. We are like brothers, or were. Now, though, they do no’ want to send ye home before I negotiate wi’ ye for a truce. A peace.”
“Negotiate wi’ me?”
“Aye.” Farlan met Leith’s gaze steadily. “If Rory be dead, ye will be the next Chief MacLeod.”
It hit Leith so hard, he gasped as with a physical pain. His mind had been through so many loops and over so many hurdles, in and out of consciousness and dreams, that he could barely grasp this. That he must be his cousin’s heir.
Rory had always been there, the man to lead MacLeod after his father. Young and vigorous, there had never been any doubt he would take a wife and sire any number of sons—just as soon as he could take his mind from his ambitions long enough to choose a woman.
If he’d been taken from this earth betimes by an arrow—
Leith swore softly, and Farlan nodded. “They will no’ send ye back now, even if ye recover. Not until they are certain o’ ye, that is.”
“Certain o’ me?”
“That, as I say, ye might be swayed toward striking a peace.”
“So they sent ye to persuade me, did they? One o’ my closest friends.”
“Aye,” Farlan admitted.
“That woman o’ yours, the chief, she came up wi’ the idea?”
Farlan’s chin jerked upward. “That woman is fighting for the survival o’ her clan. She will do as she must.”
Leith’s wits moved sluggishly still, though he pushed them to motion. “Does that include killing me? For a Clan MacLeod wi’out any chief at all would be far easier to defeat.”
“Would she allow her sister to nurse ye, only to cut yer throat?”
“I do no’ ken. She began wi’ nursing me before there was a possibility o’ Rory dyin’.”
“And d’ye think Rhian would allow any harm to come to ye?”
Leith did not know what Rhian would do. She seemed determined to care for him. She treated him with such kind compassion and tenderness that he wanted to trust her. He’d slept the night secure in her arms. But if it came down to it, would she choose protecting him over her loyalty to her clan? He could not tell. Would he be willing to bet his life on her?
He might mean little more to her than any other patient. And she might, just as Farlan said of her sister the chief, be fighting for survival.
What a fool he’d been! Half seduced when he was the one used to doing the seducing.
His lips pressed into a tight line. He had come close, perilously close, to losing his heart. Only he knew how near.
He asked Farlan in a hard voice, “Wha’ happened to the lass who tried to kill me?”
Farlan withdrew his hand and sat up a bit. “She’s been apprehended. Naught has been done wi’ her. Her emotional state—”
