The scare she gave him made him resolve, yet again, to end it. Moira could hide the loss of her virginity, but a child was another matter.
“If my father won’t agree, we can run away,” she said.
“He’d send half a dozen war galleys after us,” Duncan said as he fastened her cloak for her. “Even if we escaped—which we wouldn’t—ye would never be happy estranged from our clan and living in a humble cottage. I love ye too much to do that to ye.”
“Don’t doubt me,” Moira said, gripping the front of his shirt. “I’d live anywhere with ye.”
She believed it only because she’d never lived with hardship. Duncan had known from the start that he could never keep her. Moira was like a colorful butterfly, landing on his hand for a breathless moment.
The sky was growing light when they reached the kitchen entrance behind the keep.
“I love ye,” Moira said. “And I promise ye, one way or another, I will marry ye.”
Duncan was a lucky man to have her love, even for a little while. He pulled her into one last mindless kiss and wondered how he would last until the next time.
He lived on the precipice of disaster, never knowing which would befall him first—getting caught or having her end it. And yet, he had never felt happier in his life. He had to stop himself from whistling as he crossed the castle yard to his mother’s cottage.
Damn, there was candlelight in the window. Duncan was a grown man of nearly twenty and didn’t have to answer to his mother. Still, he wished she were not awake to see him come in with the rising sun. She would ask questions, and he didn’t like to lie to her.
Duncan opened the door—and his stomach dropped like a stone to his feet.
His chieftain and Ragnall sat on either side of his mother’s table with their long, claymore swords resting, unsheathed, across their thighs. Rage rolled off them. With their golden hair and fierce golden eyes, they looked like a pair of lions.
Duncan hoped they would not kill him in front of his mother and sister. Though he did not take his eyes off the two warriors dwarfing the tiny cottage, he was aware of his mother hunched on the floor in the corner, weeping. His eleven-year-old sister stood with her hand on their mother’s shoulder.
“The old seer foretold that ye would save my son Connor’s life one day.” The chieftain’s voice held enough menace to fell birds from the sky. “That is the only reason I did not kill ye the moment ye walked through that door.”
Duncan suspected he would be flogged within an inch of his life instead. But a beating, however bad, meant nothing. He was strong; he would survive it. What weighed down his shoulders was the realization that he would never again hold Moira in his arms.
His chieftain was speaking again, but Duncan found it hard to listen with the well of grief rising in his chest.
“I suspect Connor and my nephews knew ye wereviolating my daughter!”
When the chieftain started to rise from his chair, Ragnall put his hand on his father’s arm.
“We are taking Knock Castle from the MacKinnons today, so fetch your sword and shield,” Ragnall said. “As soon as the battle is over, you, Alex, and Ian will sail with Connor for France. Ye can hone your skills there, fighting the English.”
“By the time ye return,” the chieftain said, his eyes narrow slits of hate, “Moira will be far from Skye, living with her husband and children.”
Duncan had known from the start that he would lose Moira. And yet, he felt the loss as keenly as if he’d been the expectant bridegroom whose bride is torn from his arms on his wedding night.
The bright spark was gone from his life forever.
Chapter 1
THE GLENS, IRELAND
JANUARY 1516
The Isle of Skye is there.” Moira stood at the edge of the sea holding her son’s hand and pointed at the empty horizon to the north. “That is our true home. Never forget that we are MacDonalds of Sleat.”
Her son Ragnall, whom she named for her older brother, gave her a grave nod. After a moment, he asked, “If they are our clan, why don’t they come for us?”
Why indeed. She hated this feeling of being trapped. If she ever escaped from her husband, she would never let it happen again. Never. All she wanted in this life was to be safe with her son at Dunscaith Castle. Once, she had wanted more. Nay, she had expected it as her due.
Unbidden and unwanted, the image of Duncan MacDonald, the man whose desertion had led to all this misery, filled her head. No one had seen a young warrior of such promise since her brother Ragnall, who was ten years older. Moira remembered Duncan’s copper hair glinting in the sunlight, the hard lines of his face that softened when he looked at her, the warrior’s body that had taught her pleasure.
She would be better off without these memories. Ach, she had been a foolish and trusting lass at seventeen. She had read devotion in Duncan’s silences, mistaken his lust for love, and counted on his strength to fight for her. Alas, she had been wrong in every regard.
