Chapter Two
Raphael would havea serious talk with Torin MacPherson later about dishonesty. Torin had vowed that his two brothers wanted peace as he did. On that vow, Raphael had begged his father to accept the MacPhersons’ invitation to their Christmastide celebration and staying for Hogmanay. Not long after they arrived, Raphael had discovered that the most merciless brother of the three, Cain, did not want peace. Not surprisingly, he also felt very strongly about a Cameron anywhere near his bonny daughter.
Elysande.
In all his travels, Raphael had never met anyone so exquisite, so utterly perfect to his eyes. When he’d first found her among the many faces of his audience, he’d wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. He’d never lost his power of speech before—or had it been his inability to form a coherent thought that stopped him from speaking? Why did she have to be MacPherson’s daughter? How was he ever expected to forget her luminously big, blue eyes that spoke their own language, or her mouth…hell, her mouth was the shape of an expertly carved bow, pink and plump and parted with bated breath, waiting for him to say something!
“Father,” she spoke, denying her father’s request to go find her mother. He didn’t seem to mind.
She spoke and Raphael fell like one enchanted by the sound of her, by the sight of her long, loose curls draping her shoulder and secured by her laurel circlet. She looked like a forest angel, otherworldly and mesmerizing. “Mr. Cameron was just tellin’ the story of Lady Agnes Randolf of Dunbar Castle.”
“Hmm,” her father growled, still eyeing him. “I know of her.”
“She reminds me of mother,” beautiful Elysande told him. Then she turned to Raphael and rattled his world around in her hands with her smile. He had spoken the truth. He hadn’t come here for a bride, but now that he’d seen Elysande MacPherson, he wondered if there was a man in the stronghold who had already captured her heart.
He glanced at her glaring father and doubted it.
“My mother defended her castle in England with the same tenacity as Lady Agnes.”
“Yer mother is English?” Raphael asked with a raised brow aimed at her father. This was a surprise that the fearsome Highland warrior had married his enemy.
“Norman,” her father corrected on a warning growl.
“She knew my father’s troops were comin’,” Elysande continued, drawing Raphael’s attention to her…along with her father’s. “So with the help of her loyal villagers, they turned the surroundin’ forest into a battlefield. They constructed walkways in the trees and built traps that could be set off from above.”
“We lost nine men at her hands,” said another Highlander who had just joined them. He had a long scar running down his face, and a wee girl in his arms. “She didna give up even after we took the castle. Remember, Cain? She poisoned Nicky.”
“Aye,” her father nodded, his scowl, finally fading into something warm. “She escaped the dungeon and tried to kill me in my own bed.”
The men laughed with admiration for her. Raphael was surprised and gladdened that such warriors felt as they did.
When the woman they were speaking of entered the hall, Elysande called to her. “Mother! Come join us!”
Aleysia d’Argentan MacPherson approached with her arm hooked onto the elbow of an older priest. She was even lovelier than Raphael expected by the looks of her daughter. Her skin was as white as winter. Her eyes were as green as trees in summer. Her long, plaited hair was dark with a broad streak of gray shot through above her right temple.
After her arrival, more people came to share memories of a castle called Lismoor and the surrender of the Scot’s fiercest warrior.
Raphael enjoyed the stories and, more, the fact that Cain MacPherson finally forgot about him.
He caught Elysande’s eyes and she motioned for him to meet her at a long, nearby table. He did as she silently requested, doubting the good of his decision…of his mind and followed her. He looked toward the table where his father was sitting and drinking wassail with the youngest MacPherson brother, Nicholas.
“Dinna worry,” Elysande reassured him. “If anyone can win him over, ’tis Uncle Nicky.”
“Ye dinna know my father,” Raphael said, shaking his head. “Robbie Cameron is a cantankerous man, always sour and ready to fight. I worry I made the wrong decision in comin’ here and in trustin’ yer uncle, Torin, when he had proposed the idea of comin’ together fer Christmastide. Let our friendships grow and animosity end and let there be peace. It felt good talkin’ aboot it.”
Raphael wanted nothing more. He was determined to strive for it. He’d been so since his mother lost her life to a band of Privers, also rivals of the Camerons. The Privers were nearly wiped out in his father’s rage. He and his small army of men, including Raphael, had killed two hundred men, leaving their wives as widows and their children as orphans.
Raphael wanted to avoid battle again. He would do almost anything, including dine and drink with the enemy and try to make them enemies no more. But he hadn’t bargained on meeting the most beautiful woman in Scotland, or that he would like sitting with her, talking to her, looking at her.
“How do ye feel aboot peace, Elysande?” He bowed his head, hoping he hadn’t been too forward all this time using her Christian name. “May I call ye Elysande? I like the sound of it.”
She nodded then rested her elbow on the table and her chin inside her hand. “I like how it sounds when ye say it. And I shall call ye Raphael. Ye do know that Raphael is the name of an angel, aye?”
He laughed softly. “I dinna take after my namesake.”
“How d’ye know that?” she asked. He thought that if she wanted him to be an angel, he would give up everything that displeased God—what was he saying? He was a fool. His father would never…herfather would never…
He should get up, leave her company. He could go sit with his father and learn a little about Nicholas MacPherson. But he didn’t want to leave her.
