Christina had noticed the MacLeod chief’s absence at the evening meal, but she didn’t attach any significance to it until her father stormed into their chamber as she and Beatrix were preparing for bed.
They’d changed out of their gowns, and the maid had just finished brushing out Beatrix’s hair and was starting on hers. Her father wrenched the brush out of the poor girl’s hand before ordering her from the room. Christina wished she could flee with her.
Christina’s father loomed over her chair, his face livid.
Something had happened. Her heart dropped.Heaven help me, had he heard? Had the MacLeod chief betrayed his vow?
“He’s leaving,” he seethed. “And we must do something to stop him.”
Hiding her relief that he hadn’t learned of her attack, she tried to keep her voice even and not focus on the heavy silver brush in his hand. “Who’s leaving?”
“The MacLeod chief, you fool.”
She flinched when he slammed the brush down on the table in front of her, rattling the delicate glass vials that held her perfumes and the wooden boxes for her jewelry.
When her heart had started beating again, she realized what he’d said. Her brows furrowed.Leaving?“For how long?”
Her father looked at her as if she were a simpleton. “For good. He’s refused both of you,” he said disgustedly, as if it were obviously their fault.
Refused?She caught her sister’s gaze and read the relief, but also the surprise. Earlier when Christina had returned to the room in her disheveled state, she’d had no choice but to confide in Beatrix most of what had happened, leaving out the more upsetting details. Beatrix had been horrified, blaming herself for not going with her, which was ridiculous because it was Christina who’d insisted on going alone. If there was anyone to blame for what had happened, it was she. But seeing her sister’s expression right now, Christina realized she might have overdone the noble and gallant attributes of her rescuer.
Perhaps to herself as well.
She should be relieved that he’d refused them, but instead the sudden tightness in her chest felt more like disappointment.
Her initial fear and prejudice, she realized, had been unwarranted. She’d secretly wondered … if perhaps he was the knight errant of her dreams. He’d saved her, heeded her plea for mercy, held her in his arms, and almost kissed her.
But he hadn’t. She’d thought it was honor that prevented him. Was she reading knightly attributes into his actions when he actually had no interest in her at all?
Had her forwardness repelled him? Had she simply imagined the connection between them? Certainly, nothing in his expression gave her any indication that he thought her anything other than a foolish girl who’d very nearly managed to get herself ravished. Indeed, thinking back, she realized that he’d looked at her with the same emotionless gaze that he did everyone else. The fierce, implacable façade was impossible to read, but for one moment she’d thought …
It didn’t matter. She told herself that this was the best news indeed. He didn’t want to marry her. She and Beatrix were safe—at least for the moment. They wouldn’t have to risk a last-minute escape to Iona. Her sister would be disappointed, but it would be better if they had more time. Their plan had been borne out of desperation, not rationality.
It was for the best. But she couldn’t stop herself from asking “Why?”
Her father’s face contorted into an angry grimace. “You must have angered him with your interference. What does it matter why? He’s refused, and we can’t allow that to happen. We need him. We need this alliance.”
“But why is the MacLeod chief so important?” Finlaggan was practically bursting with Island chiefs—not that she was anxious for her father to consider any of them.
His eyes narrowed. “He is; that’s all you need to know.”
Her father might think her a fool, but she knew the reason they were there had to have something to do with a war with England. At the root of all her father’s actions was securing Scotland’s freedom from the “bloodthirsty English whoreson.” Her family’s patriotism was well known, but her father’s was tinged with rabid fanaticism. At times she wondered whether there was anything he wouldn’t do to see Edward of England purged from Scotland.
Unlike most of the nobility who changed sides for political expediency—like the Bruces and Comyns, who seemed to fight on whatever side the other was not—the Frasers were always on the side of Scotland. They’d fought alongside Wallace, Balliol, Comyn, and now, if her cousin Simon’s fealty was any indication, with Robert Bruce. She guessed that the Bishop of St. Andrew’s presence here meant that he’d aligned himself with Bruce as well.
Clearly, her father and Lamberton were planning something and had decided they needed the Island chiefs’ support, and Tormod MacLeod’s in particular. The best swordsman in the Isles.
Was that it? Would they be rash enough to be considering another rebellion? She hoped not. It was a dangerous proposition. Word of William Wallace’s fate had spread through Scotland like wildfire. As much as she feared her father, she did not wish to see his head stuck on a pike over some English castle.
Her father was watching her as if he expected her to say something. But the MacLeod chief had refused the alliance. What else could they do? “Perhaps you can find another way to win him to your side,” she offered.
His gaze slid over to Beatrix, who was doing her best to disappear into the billowy bed hangings and nearly succeeding. With her long, golden hair tumbling around her shoulders and gowned only in a linen chemise, she looked as ethereal as an angel.
“Oh, I haven’t given up,” her father said with a sly smile. “We will just have to leave him no choice in the matter.”
Something in his voice made the fine hairs on Christina’s arms stand up. “What do you mean?” The MacLeod chief seemed like a man who always made his own decisions; she couldn’t imagine trying to force him to do anything.
“If Beatrix is discovered in his bed, he’ll be honor bound to marry her.”
