“I hope this Lachlan is all that you’ve heard,” Connor said. “I’ll send for him. Someone in the castle will know where to find him.”
Ilysa smiled to herself, having accomplished one of the two tasks she had set for herself before coming into the room. Now for the second one.
“The wound on your chest is healing well, but I haven’t seen the one on your leg since I removed the arrow,” she said, praying her cheeks were not turning pink. “Ye should let me look at it.”
Despite her embarrassment, she was faintly disappointed when he pulled his tunic on. She helped him, as usual, so that he would not ruin the bandaging she had just done. When he started unfastening his trews, she spun around. She could almost hear him chuckle.
“Wish me well,” he said while her back was to him.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m negotiating a marriage contract tonight.”
Ilysa slowly turned around. “A marriage contract? For who?”
“For me,” Connor said with a sudden, blinding smile.
“Who are ye marrying?” Her mind was moving slowly, as if she had thick mud in her head. “Is it…Deirdre?”
“Aye,” he said. “She’s a fair lass, isn’t she?”
“She is that.” Ilysa’s heart pounded in her ears. She had to tell him about Deirdre and her lover, but how?
“Is something wrong, Ilysa? Ye look pale.”
He startled her by grasping her around her waist and lifting her onto the stool he had been sitting on earlier.Oh my.That had not helped calm her at all. He leaned down until his face was inches from hers and scrutinized her with narrowed eyes, which set her heart beating harder still.
“I know it’s not my place to say this”—she paused to lick her lips—“but I like to think we’re friends.”
“Of course we are.” He straightened and looked impossibly tall standing above her. “I’ve known ye since ye were a babe in your mother’s arms.”
“Ye mustn’t marry Deirdre,” she said. “She isn’t the right wife for ye.”
“Her clan can help us defeat the MacLeods,” he said, the concern in his eyes evaporating, “and that makes her right for me.”
Ach, Ilysa did not want to tell him what she had seen in the storeroom. And that was not all. When she saw the man Deirdre had been with again, she realized he was one of James’s warriors. All week, Ilysa had watched him leave the hall, time and again, shortly after Deirdre.
“If ye intend to bandage my leg, you’d best be about it,” Connor said.
“I fear Deirdre will make ye unhappy,” Ilysa said, dropping her gaze to her hands, which were folded in her lap, “and embarrass ye.”
When he did not speak for a long moment, she glanced up at him. His eyes were so cold that she swallowed. What had she done?
“Like my mother embarrassed my father? Is that what you’re saying?” Connor said. “You assume that being beautiful makes her untrustworthy?”
Ilysa had not given his mother a thought.
“You’re quick to judge the poor lass,” he said. “That is unkind of ye.”
“I did not mean—”
“I have much to do,” he said. “Ye may go.”
“But your leg?” she asked.
“I said, ye may go.”
It was a clear dismissal, but she must tell him. Deirdre could already be carrying another man’s child. A chieftain, even more than most men, had to know that his heir was of his own blood.
