“Ye can tell it to me.” Sean planted his hands on his hips and rocked back on his heels as he spoke. “Moira is not well today.”
“Well or no, we must see her,” Duncan said. “Our chieftain expects us to pay our respects to his sister.”
“I can’t let ye disturb my wife’s rest when she’s ill.” Sean did not seem the least bit worried about his wife’s health, and Duncan wondered why he did not want them to see Moira. Regardless, Duncan was losing patience with this game.
“It would be a shame if my chieftain had to make this trip himself with a dozen of his war galleys.” Connor didn’t have a dozen war galleys, but Duncan was hoping Sean did not know that.
Sean locked gazes with Duncan for a good long while. Apparently, he was persuaded that Duncan did indeed mean his words as a threat.
“Ach, no reason to get upset over so trifling a matter,” Sean said, waving his hand. “Moira has a wee headache. Ye know what complainers women are.” He turned and shouted at one of the serving women, “Tell my wife to come down to the hall at once.”
Duncan half turned from his host so that he was positioned to see Moira when she came through the doorway from the stairs. Seven years he had waited for this. He needed to see what was in Moira’s eyes the very first moment she saw him, before she had a chance to cover her reaction.
“I’m surprised ye made the sail from Skye this time of year,” Sean said while they waited. “Did ye get caught in any storms?”
Duncan ignored Sean’s attempt to engage him in conversation. He had a mission here, and discussing the weather was not part of it. Niall gave him a sideways glance and raised an eyebrow, but Duncan ignored that, too.
“I see your friend is a man of few words,” Sean said to Niall.
“Aye,” Niall said. “But Duncan’s eloquence with a sword more than makes up for it.”
If Duncan had known Niall had a silver tongue, he would have left all the talking to him. Sean fidgeted in the silence that fell between them in the wake of Niall’s remark. Sean was uncomfortable with silence, and Duncan preferred him to be uncomfortable.
Through the open doorway, Duncan heard a light step on the stairs. The pain in his heart told him it was Moira.
* * *
Moira buried her face in one of Ragnall’s shirts and breathed in deeply, but it had been a week since her son had been taken from her, and the smell of him was nearly gone. Sean had promised to take her to the MacLeods to see Ragnall in a year or two, but he was always threatening to change his mind.
She quickly tucked the shirt away as the bedchamber door opened.
“The chieftain wants ye in the hall,” the maid said from the doorway. “Your clansmen have come.”
The saints be praised!Moira pictured her brother in the hall dressed in his chieftain’s finery and flanked by two dozen of his warriors, with a hundred more waiting on the shore with his war galleys. Conner would take her home and help her get Ragnall from the MacLeods.
“How many warriors did my brother bring?” Moira asked as she straightened her gown.
“Your chieftain did not come himself,” the woman said. “He sent two men.”
Moira blinked at the woman. “Two?”
What use is that?Two men could never get her out of this castle. Her only hope now was to give them a message for Connor, begging him to send his war galleys to rescue her. As Moira hurried down the stairs, she tried desperately to think of how she could do it. She paused at the bottom of the stairs to school her face before entering the hall.
When she walked through the doorway, she felt as if all the air was sucked from the room. She could not breathe. Duncan MacDonald, the man responsible for ruining her life and for taking every happiness from her, filled her vision.
At nineteen, Duncan had already been a fierce and powerfully built warrior. Now he carried an additional twenty pounds of hard muscle and exuded the confidence of a warrior who had defeated so many men in battle that he no longer needed to prove himself.
His auburn hair brushed his broad shoulders, and he wore gold bands around his biceps as if he were one of the ancient warriors of legend. Yet there was no mistaking him. This was the man whose desertion led her directly to her current wretched existence.
When she met Duncan’s hazel eyes, they burned with a hunger that made her pulse leap wildly. How could he look at her like that after what he’d done? How dare he? She swept past him to stand beside her husband.
Moira made herself smile up at Sean by imagining she was sticking a dirk into his eye. “Ye wished to see me?”
“These men of your clan are here to greet ye.”
Moira avoided looking at Duncan and instead fixed her gaze on the lean, younger man next to him who had chestnut hair and deep brown eyes.
“Don’t ye recognize me?” the young man said. “I’m your cousin Niall.”
