Chapter 2
1341 - Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh
Boyd MacKinnon wasbored.
Spectacularly, mind-numbingly bored.
He slouched in his chair in the king's council chamber, a cup of ale dangling from his fingers, and tried to care about whatever drivel was being discussed by the now seventeen-year-old king, his guardians and the community of the realm.Something about land disputes.Or trade routes.Or some nobleman's wounded pride.
It all blurred together after a while.
Ten years as the king's right-hand known as 'The Monk', and Boyd had seen enough of royal court to last several lifetimes.He'd fought in battles, ended feuds, politically strategized all in service to the King of the Scots.He'd become exactly what he'd set out to be: powerful, feared, beholden to no one.
Well.Almost no one.
He took another drink and tried not to think about the haunting dreams.
They'd been getting worse lately.Every night, the same tormenting visions: dark hair spread across white pillows, brown eyes full of betrayal, a whispered name that made his chest ache even a decade later.
Bella.
Damn it, why couldn't he be free of her?She'd been a liar, a manipulator, who'd played him false for her own amusement.He'd been the one to walk away, to refuse her games.So why did she still haunt him?Every morning he woke in a cold sweat and hard as a rock from erotic dreams and memories of the secret passion they'd shared under the cover of darkness.
Perhaps it was because he'd been thinking of settling down.Finding a wife.Having bairns.A home and hearth of his own, something he'd never allowed himself to want in all his years of service to the realm.
Maybe that's why she'd crept back into his thoughts.Bella was a ghost of what might have been if she'd been real, if her love hadn't been a lie.
"—the Sutherlands."
Boyd's head snapped up.He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he'd missed the first part of the sentence, but that name, that cursed name, cut through his fog like a blade.
He sat up straighter, suddenly alert.
"—a petition against Bryce Sutherland for breaching the king's contract," the emissary was saying.
Bryce Sutherland.
Boyd's hands tightened on his cup.Why were they discussing Bella's brother?The pompous arse who'd always looked at Boyd like something he'd scraped off his boot.
"What think you of this, Your Majesty?"a councilor asked.
King David frowned, his fingers drumming against the table."'Tis a terrible day when a man cannot abide by a royal decree made by my father.The agreement was clear.The MacKay lands were to remain untouched, the Ferguson alliance honored.Yet Bryce Sutherland seems to think himself above the law."
"Should he lose his holdings?"another suggested."Banishment, perhaps?"
"I am yet to decide."The king waved a hand."What of his dependents?Does the man have family who would suffer?"
