Chapter One
Dun Ara Castle, Isle of Mull
Eight months later
Ailis MacKinnon sat at the table on the dais, waiting for her father’s words. From his ruddy face and the way he kept starting and stopping, he was angry. Davina threw furtive glances in her direction, as though asking for her help. Ailis snorted. Davina, her stepmother and former closest friend would rot in Hell before Ailis helped her.
“Ye’re being willful, girl,” her father shouted. “Ye will accept this man!”
Silence reigned over the entire hall as all gathered there waited for the next argument between the chieftain and his daughter. Ailis knew it. Her father prepared for it. Even Davina saw it coming. It was Davina’s voice that gave her father pause.
“Husband,” she said, rising and walking to his side. “Mayhap we should discuss this in the solar?” Davina placed her hand on Ailis’ father’s arm. He took a breath, clearly considering his wife’s plea. For a moment, Ailis thought he might accept Davina’s suggestion but he shook off her hand and stomped his foot.
“Nay, Wife,” he said, “’tis too late for a private word on this matter.”
Davina startled at the sharpness of his tone and stepped back. Ailis watched as he grabbed Davina’s hand and tugged her closer to him. Tears burned in Ailis’ eyes as she watched, yet again, as her father softened for …her.
Ailis wanted to run. She wanted to leave the table, leave the keep and even her father’s lands. Everything in her life had fallen apart. There was no way to put the pieces back together. Her friend was happy. Her father was happy. She was desolate and no one seemed to notice or care.
“Ailis! Come here now!”
She’d not realized she’d turned away until his call turned her back towards him. Lord Duncan MacNeil stood at her father’s side watching the drama unfold. As she walked around the table towards them, she saw neither anger nor any emotion on the old man’s face. If he was insulted by her refusal, she cared not. Pushing her hair over her shoulders, she stopped before her father and curtsied.
She nodded at Lord Duncan, out of respect, truly. The poor man had no idea of what he’d agreed to in bringing his suit to her father. He likely believed his offer was a kind one for a noble born woman with such … deformities as she did. That thought made her tug the leather gloves higher onto her arms before she faced her father.
“Lord Duncan is of good standing with his chieftain and his king. A marriage like this will benefit ye. Ye will accept his offer of marriage.”
Ailis felt the eyes of those gathered moving from one to another as they watched this disagreement continue. A glance past her father revealed Davina’s concern. Ailis looked away from her.
“I fear I canna.”
The simple statement sent everyone into chaos. Shouts and whispers filled the air around them until her father waved his hand and everyone quieted.
“Ye seem to think this is a request, Daughter. Mistake not my resolve that ye will marry Lord Duncan.”
Ailis felt a small trickle of sweat run down her face and another on her back. Defying her father wasn’t an easy task, nor one she did lightly. But the thought of taking this man to husband when she had already promised herself to another was too hard, even if that man was now dead. Facing her father’s bluster wasn’t something she wished to do, even knowing he had promised her mother as she lay dying that he would never force their daughter to marry.
“Father,” she began, lowering her head and her voice. “I canna and willna marry this man.”
He reached out for her hands and realized his error before touching her. Instead, he lifted her chin with his finger to bring their gazes to meet.
“Ye must marry, Ailis. Ye will marry Lord Duncan.”
“Nay.”
Instead of the reaction she expected of her father, that of any irate man when faced with a recalcitrant and defiant daughter, the one she witnessed startled her. His gaze narrowed, he glanced from her to the man involved before huffing out a loud breath and walking to the table. Even Davina was surprised. She met Ailis’ eyes and shrugged.
Her father grabbed a goblet and filled it from the pitcher sitting there. He drank it down and filled it again. Turning to face them, he swallowed the contents in several mouthfuls and slammed the cup on the table. She jumped, Davina jumped and the rest gasped.
“Ye willna marry Lord Duncan then?” She shook her head. “Fine.” He walked to her and stared at her, his gaze softening for so short a time she thought she’d not seen it happen. “I have labored under a promise, sworn as all of ye ken, to my late, sainted wife not to force our daughter to marry against her will. A man of honor, I have upheld that promise.”
“Father—” she began. Mayhap she had pushed him too far? Glancing at Lord Duncan, she wondered if she should relent.
“But even my beloved dead wife wouldna expect this behavior in her daughter.”
Ailis gasped in shock and pain. Tears escaped before she could stop them. Her mother had passed before she had lost Lachlan. Her mother couldn’t have known how this would be for her. Or how hard it would be to watch her friend betray her and marry her father, fresh from her mother’s death. Now, ‘twas clear that her father’s regard for her mother and the vow made was at an end.
“My late wife would understand there has to be an end to this and a way to give ye into the care of a husband.” She heard Davina’s whispered pleas and saw her father brush her words off.
