Kenneth MacDonald.
Her awareness wavered again, drawing her between layers of sensation: the weight of a heavy woolen blanket tucked around her, the faint taste of salt on her lips, the distant echo of men shouting orders outside. But above all, she felt hands – large, calloused – adjusting the blanket around her with surprising care.
She dimly remembered his voice, taut with an urgency she had never heard in a man’s tone before. “Strip the wet off her,” he’d growled, “she’ll freeze else.”
Now, the evidence clung to her. Her gown and skirts were gone, replaced only by the thin linen of her shift beneath the blanket. Heat flooded her cheeks at the realization, but she was too weak to lift her head, too heavy-limbed to protest.
“Callum,” Kenneth said quietly, but his voice carried the iron weight of a command. “Make certain the men stay away from this cabin.”
“Aye.” Callum’s voice, lower and rougher, in response. The sound of boots thudded on the planks outside. “They’ll nae come near.”
“Good. The lass needs quiet.”
“But Kenneth—” Callum’s voice again.
“What now?”
“D’you truly think it was Aidan? This reeks of his daeing.”
A long silence followed. Selene’s senses drifted, but even in her half-dreaming state she felt the shift in the air – something dark and heavy, that brought the past into the present.
“Aidan’s behind everything,” Kenneth said at last. “He’ll never rest. Nae after what happened three years ago.”
The weight of those words lingered like the storm clouds outside, thick and brewing with the threat of something far greater. But before she could fathom their meaning, the world tilted again and she vanished again into darkness.
She woke abruptly to motion.
A rhythmic sway – gentler than the violent rocking of the ship, but firm enough to jostle her senses. Her cheek rested against something solid.
She inhaled sharply, her nostrils filling with new scents: grass, leather, and a familiar smell, warm and alive.
She was on a horse.
Not astride properly, but seated between a pair of strong thighs, her back pressed flush against a broad chest. A strong arm lay firmly across her stomach, anchoring her in place with absolute, effortless control.
She gasped and jerked upright – or attempted to. Leather tightened across her wrists. Her arms were secured in front of her with a short tether, preventing sudden movement.
“What in the name of all the saints in heaven?—?”
The man behind her did not flinch. Not so much as a tiny shift of muscle.
“You’ll fall if ye dae that.” His voice rumbled through his chest, deep enough that she felt it against her spine before she even processed the words. “Sit still.”
Selene twisted as far as the tether allowed, and there he was – Kenneth MacDonald. For the first time she saw him clearly. And dammit. He was far too handsome, with that straight imperious nose and those cheekbones as sharp as blades. He was looking down at her with blue-grey eyes and a most infuriatingly calm expression. It was, for all the world, as if riding across a storm-soaked stretch of Highland terrain with a half-conscious Englishwoman bound to him was a perfectly ordinary occurrence.
And, dear God, perhaps it was.
“Untie me at once,” she snapped, heat flaring with rage. Then as she realized she was in nothing but her shift beneath the heavy plaid he had wrapped around her the heat rushed to her cheeks. She tugged futilely at the wool, unable to reach the leather straps around her wrists. “How dare you bind me like this. Put me down. Now!”
Kenneth raised a thick, dark eyebrow. “On yer feet? In this mud? Bare as ye are beneath that blanket?” His mouth curved slightly yet his eyes were steely, with no hint of amusement. “Nay, lass. Ye’re me prisoner until I learn more about you and satisfy myself that ye’re nae a spy.”
“No?” she repeated, disbelief breaking through her shock. “You cannot simply?—”
“I can,” he said, utterly unbothered by her fury. “And I am.”
She struggled to pull away from him again, only to collide with his unyielding chest. He did not shift. Not an inch. She might as well have tried to dislodge a mountainside.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, wriggling to gain space between them. “Must you sit so… so damned casually?”
