“You see? My brother said tae—”
“I know! Eat slowly or I’ll choke!” Aislinn cut him off. She felt so foolish sitting there in her water-splattered nightgown, while Conall sat down opposite her and calmly dug a spoon into his bowl of porridge.
She glanced at Cameron and caught him looking at her out of the corner of his eye—but he turned back to the fire almost at once and left her wondering again whatever was the matter with the man.
She could sense from the tension in his broad shoulders that his unease had only mounted, the sweat upon his face glistening in the firelight. Conall glanced at him, too, his expression almost resigned as he focused once more on his porridge, while Aislinn sampled some from her bowl.
Like the bread, she took far too big a mouthful, but as she focused as well on the food in front of her and ate her fill, the terrible pains in her stomach began to ease.
Pains she’d suffered for long days in that stinking black hole where she and Finnegan and three of her father’s men had been imprisoned, Aislinn certain as time wore on that they were all going to die.
A pang of guilt ripped through her that she hadn’t asked about the others, but something told her that the news would be the same.
Finnegan, the other three. All dead, or surely she would have been told otherwise.
It seemed an uprising had occurred while she and her clansmen had suffered in that prison, for the MacDougall guards had jeered at them quite plainly that the fortress was the domain of Earl Seoras.
She had never seen him, but it had been his orders that they be thrown into the fetid hole to rot—aye, so the guards had taunted them.
“Filthy Irishmen! Earl Seoras despises your kind! This will teach you for crossing the water tae fight for Robert the Bruce—the traitorous usurper!”
Thank God they had not discerned she was a woman, Finnegan warning her all along when they had dropped their weapons and been taken prisoner not to utter a word for fear that the timbre of her voice would give her away. He had told her that male garb and bound breasts would not be enough to save her even if she spoke in guttural tones, and she had heeded his advice—ah, Finnegan, God rest you!
Aislinn shoved away the bowl, overcome by fresh guilt at how much she had eaten when she and her clansmen had been given so little food… tainted, foul-tasting water and moldy bread.
To a man, they had refused to eat or drink at all if she didn’t take some of their ration, tears filling her eyes at their selfless sacrifice. Dead, all dead—
“Now that she’s eaten, Conall, ask her what happened tae her father, William De Burgh, and the other one she cried out for, Daran—”
“I can hear you, Laird Campbell!” Aislinn burst out in frustration, swiping away the tears that had trickled down her face. “Why will you not speak to me yourself like you did in the tower? Do you not think it strange at all, asking your brother to repeat everything you say? If you want answers to your questions, then face me like the baron you say you are and ask them! I’ll not speak another word otherwise, I vow it!”
Her strident words ringing around them, Aislinn saw that Conall had dropped his spoon into his bowl and looked at his brother, who hadn’t moved an inch from staring into the fire.
Servants stood wide-eyed, too, she imagined because she had spoken so defiantly to their laird, until they began to back away as if expecting some explosion from him at any moment.
Yet no explosion came, though Aislinn noticed, too, that Cameron’s hand had tightened into a fist around the poker as he slowly turned to face her.
His dark scowl made her heartbeat quicken, and she felt a stab of regret that she had lashed out at him.
If what Conall had said was true, and Cameron had been doing his best to help her, then the least she could do was act civilly toward him.
She twisted further in her chair to face him, and at once saw his gaze drop to the bodice of her nightgown, which clung to her skin for the water she’d spilled upon herself.
The curved outline of her breasts and rosy shade of her nipples visible beneath the sodden fabric. She had been so ravenous that she hadn’t noticed, but now her face grew warm at the intensity with which he stared at her.
Still he said not a word, but instead set down the poker and unwound his breacan and tossed it at her. A full stomach having sharpened her reflexes, she caught the garment and draped it over her shoulders to cover herself, imagining that was exactly what he had intended for her to do.
Still he was silent, a raw tension in his face that made her wonder anew what plagued him even as she noted the breacan bore a decided masculine scent.
Wood smoke. Sweat. And something else she couldn’t name… and which she realized must be of the very man himself, her cheeks flaring again.
Not because she didn’t like it, but because she did.
“Speak, Lady De Burgh.”
Chapter 6
At Cameron’s terse command, Aislinn heard a sharp intake of breath from Conall. Yet she didn’t spare him a glance even as she felt some astonishment that he hadn’t focused once upon her damp bodice.
