With her chest heaving, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The cold from the stone seeped through her back, but it did nothing to cool her burning cheeks.
She was mortified. At first, when Connor stared at her, she thought he was admiring how she looked, as the other men had. How wrong she was.
What happened to ye? No, it doesn’t look right at all.
Taking slow, deep breaths, she attempted to calm herself. She had survived worse humiliation with her husband, and she would survive this as well. The disappointment was harder to bear. Ilysa squeezed her eyes shut tighter to force back the tears that threatened.
She had deceived herself. Only now could she admit why she had let Moira and Sìleas persuade her to change her appearance and come to the gathering. She had not done it to gain a marriage offer from a stranger. No, in her secret heart of hearts, she had hoped to make Connor look at her and for once see a desirable woman. Was that too much to ask?
Her pleasure in the attention from the other men evaporated like the mist on a hot day. They had only flocked around her because there were so few women here. Besides, what did it matter if they all thought she was pretty, when the one man she cared about did not find her so?
Ilysa felt someone’s presence and snapped her eyes open.O shluagh!None other than Alastair MacLeod stood not two feet away, staring down at her. He was huge.
Though she had never seen the famed chieftain of her enemy clan before, she had heard stories about him all her life. She recognized him by his maimed shoulder, which was caused by a MacDonald axe and figured in the tales as often as the slaughters of her clan.
Sweat broke out on her palms. The MacLeod chieftain towered over her, and she could not get by him in the narrow gap between buildings. She was trapped.
“I am Alastair MacLeod,” he said in a voice so deep she could feel it through her feet. “No matter what you’ve heard, I don’t eat captured MacDonald children for breakfast.”
Ilysa was caught off guard by his jest and assumed, or at least hoped, it meant he did not intend to harm her. Despite his age and disfigured shoulder, he was unexpectedly handsome. None of the stories had mentioned that.
“I’m honored to meet ye,” she said to be courteous, though she could not quite believe she was conversing with the MacLeod chieftain. “How do ye know I’m a MacDonald?”
“I saw ye come into the hall with your clansmen,” he said. “What’s your name, lass?”
“Ilysa,” she said, her voice unnaturally high.
“A lovely name,” he said. “It suits ye.”
She did not know what to say to that. She was still reeling from his admission that he had watched her enter the hall.
“Did you follow me out?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I was out here enjoying the quiet when I saw ye burst out of the keep like a lamb chased by a wolf.”
Ilysa wondered if he was speaking the truth. Remarkably, she was no longer afraid of him. At least not much.
“’Tis growing dark, and there are a great many men here,” he continued. “Ye should know better than to wander outside the hall without one of your clansmen to protect you.”
“My brother would not be pleased if he knew,” she said and gave a humorless laugh. It did not bear thinking about what Duncan would do if he learned she was alone in a secluded corner of the castle with the man her clan called the Scourge of Skye. And that was the nicest name they called him.
“That’s an unusual brooch you’re wearing,” he said.
“It was my mother’s,” Ilysa said, looking down at it. The brooch was distinctive with its unusual pattern of interlocking leaves surrounding a deep red stone.
“I’m sorry, has your mother passed?” he asked in a surprisingly soft voice.
Ilysa felt a sting at the back of her eyes and nodded. Ridiculous as it seemed, Ilysa felt as though the MacLeod chieftain understood her sadness.
“She died three years ago, when I was sixteen.” Ilysa ran her fingertip over the slippery surface of the brooch’s red stone. “She dressed plainly and always wore it under her gown where no one could see it.”
“Were ye named for her?” he asked.
“No. Her name was Anna.”
After a moment, he said, “I hope ye still have your father to look after ye.”
“Ach, I never had him, whoever he was.” When she looked up, Alastair MacLeod’s eyes had that hollow look of someone for whom pain is a constant companion, and her heart went out to him. “Does your shoulder pain ye a great deal?”
