CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The MacLeods were very surprised to see Gillian when she arrived home at Glen Iolair by ship two weeks later, still unwed.
“It just didn’t work out, Papa,” she said quietly when her father asked for an explanation. Her father had pinned Callum—the only MacLeod warrior left in her escort—with a fierce glare. But he’d promised Gillian he’d say nothing about her adventures with outlaws, or John.
Callum dutifully reported a wee skirmish on the road, which left the rest of Gillian’s escort injured. He left out the part where Gillian heroically captured or killed or escaped from anyone at all and said only that she had been kindly escorted the rest of the way to Edinburgh by the MacKenzies of Kinfell.
Gillian saw her sisters’ disbelieving stares. They cast her pitying looks, sure that their shy, timid sister must have been so terrified by the events on the road that she’d been unable to go through with her wedding. They surrounded her when Callum finished talking and tried to coax her to tell them everything. Even her father regarded her with furrows of confusion in his brow.
“I’d like to rest for a wee while, Papa,” Gillian said, and she went upstairs to sleep for two whole days, happy knowing there were no adoring clansmen standing guard outside her door, and here she was just Gillian again and not heroic at all.
* * *
Two days later, the four missing men from Gillian’s tail arrived home with new scars and a different tale to tell. They were surprised to hear that Gillian had returned unwed.
“Gillian is a heroine, Laird,” Tam MacLeod told Donal. “We were savagely attacked on the road, struck down, but we held out long enough for Gillian to escape into the wood.”
“All alone?” Donal MacLeod demanded.
Tam looked at Keir and shrugged. Lachlan and Ewan looked sheepish. “Aye, all alone,” Tam said.
“The MacKenzies found her the next morning,” Lachlan said. “By then she’d captured the outlaws who attacked us, a terrible band of thieves and murderers that had plagued Kinfell for three years.”
“Gilliancaptured an outlaw?” Donal asked, his eyes popping.
“Nay, Laird—she capturedthreeof them,” Ewan said.
“Atleastthree,” Tam added. “Some accounts say there were more.”
“Some accounts?” Donal stared at his men. They’d obviously fought hard—their wounds were proof of that. Yet Gillian didn’t have a scratch on her that he could see. Her sisters hadn’t reported anything, nor had Ada, the healer.
“Ye saymyGillian—wee, shy Gillian MacLeod—capturedthreeoutlaws by herself—”
“Or more,” Tam said again. Donal held up his hand.
“You’re telling me that Gillian captured a band of outlaws on her own, men who’d bested the five of you, my best and my strongest?”
His men hung their heads. “It’s the dirks the lasses carry,” Ewan murmured.
“A lass with a dirk cannot stand against three outlaws,” Donal said. “Or more.”
He looked at Meggie, who sat listening to the incredible tale. “Go and fetch your sister. It’s time—past time—I heard what really happened.”
But before Meggie could return with Gillian, there was the sound of arrival at the castle gates.
* * *
Davy MacKenzie, the laird of Kinfell, entered Donal MacLeod’s hall with a dozen clansmen behind him. His bonnet was set at a rakish angle on his dark curls, and his plaid was clasped with a fine, jeweled brooch the size of a saucer. He wore gleaming silver buckles on his boots and a fine basket-hilted rapier on his hip.
With a gallant flourish he dropped to one knee before Donal MacLeod.
“Laird MacLeod, I wish to wed your daughter.”
“Which one?” Donal asked in surprise.
Davy Mackenzie looked confused for an instant. “Why—”
But Gillian arrived at that moment, coming down the stairs with her sisters to answer her father’s summons.
