“David,” he corrected her. “I’ve given your answer, lass. You’ll wed David MacKay.”
Pain swept through her eyes. It hit Donal like a blow. “No,” she whispered. “Oh, no.”
He set her down, kept one hand around her waist to steady her. She looked about her, pale as a shroud, and her eyes met Alasdair Og’s. He took a step toward her, and she reached out her hand. Donal grabbed her wrist, pulled her back. “I have made my choice.”
“But it was not Fia’s choice,” Meggie said. “She loves Dair, Papa.” The Sinclairs nodded. Meggie went to stand among them, her arms crossed over her chest. Her sisters joined her, glaring athim,their laird and father.
Hot frustration rose up the back of Donal’s neck. “What do you know of it? I’m the laird of this clan. I know what’s best for my own flesh and blood, don’t I?”
“She can’t marry David MacKay,” Isobel said.
“Of course not,” Gillian agreed.
“I really can’t, Papa,” Fia said, her eyes pleading with him to change his mind. But the MacKays were grinning, celebrating. To reverse himself now would make Donal look weak and foolish.
“Ye’ll marry David,” he insisted. The look Fia gave him now was so fierce that it shocked him.
“No, I won’t.” she said. “’Tis Dair I want, Papa.”
A rebellion, in his own castle, before guests? Donal couldn’t stand for that. He had his pride. “You’ll do as I say, Fia MacLeod, and until you’re willing, ye’ll go to the tower to think about your responsibility to your laird and father.” He summoned two of his clansmen, who’d been standing watching the scene with interest. They were probably wagering on the outcome. “Take her up and lock her in,” Donal commanded.
He watched as they took her away, lifting her like a child by the elbows so she wouldn’t stumble on the stairs. She glared at him over her shoulder as she went, mutinous and angry, two spots of hectic color in her cheeks now, defiance written clearly in every line of her wee body. He could hardly believe this was his sweet, biddable, gentle daughter.
“Oh, Papa.” Meggie’s tone was withering now.
Alasdair Og’s eyes never left Fia. Donal’s breath caught. Would he fight for her? He hadn’t moved from where he was standing.
Donal’s daughters descended upon him, chattering, pinching, pushing, and insisting he was wrong.
“Wrong?” he roared. “Wrong? I am the Fearsome MacLeod of Glen Iolair, and I am never, ever wrong!”
The girls fell silent. The MacKays stopped celebrating. The Sinclairs stood at attention, dignified in defeat, and Alasdair Og Sinclair regarded the now-empty staircase with a flat, chiefly expression, the look of a man who was not used to being told no. Donal could see the tension in the Sinclair’s jaw, and his knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. It was the look of a man who loved a woman so fiercely he’d do anything to have her.
Donal’s guts curled. AchDhia,he was most definitely wrong this time, but he’d spoken now. He should make the Sinclairs leave. And what would Alasdair Og do then?
“You may stay the night, Sinclair,” he said instead. “’Tis a long journey back to Carraig Brigh, and it looks like rain.”
With that, he left the room, and hoped that somehow everything would turn out right.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Even imprisonment in the tower couldn’t diminish Fia’s joy. Dair was alive. She had no ideawhyhe was here, since she’d fainted dead away like a ninny, and her father had said yes to David MacKay while she lay in a swoon.
It was disaster. She could not marry David, but if she did not, she might well spend the rest of her life locked in this tower, alone, pining for Dair. Her father was a stubborn man. Well, so was she. She sat on the edge of the cot and waited. And waited some more.
Cold seeped from the ancient stone walls, made her teeth chatter. She felt the old familiar dread she hadn’t felt since childhood creep into her bones. Her own ghosts had haunted her here, in this room where she’d spent long weeks of pain and nightmares as a child. She felt a flutter of panic rise in her breast. Her mother’s death hadn’t been her fault. She should have told her father long ago what really happened. She crossed the room and tugged on the door latch. It was locked tight by her father’s order. She had to get out, find him, tell him the truth, convince him she wasn’t daft or fey. She knew her mind, and her heart. She wanted—
Fia spun as the shutters burst open with a crash. A dark figure swung through the window on a rope and landed on the floor at her feet.
“Dair!” she cried, and he gave her a pirate grin and bowed low.
“At your service, mistress.”
“How—” She pointed to the window. “It’s forty feet down!”
“If a pirate can’t win what he wants, he steals it. Or so they say. Forty feet is nothing. I’ve climbed the rigging and masts of ships all my life, lass, though never for anything so important as this,” he said.
She threw herself into his arms, her pirate, her Laird o’ the Seas, her lover, and kissed him.
