Nicole Locke - Secrets Of A Highland Warrior

‘Did you lose someone else?’

She suddenly hugged her body, her hands roughly rubbing her arms as if she was chilled. ‘We should be talking about my father’s proposal for us, not my childhood.’

‘Your childhood?’

She made a sound of frustration, of anger. ‘You don’t deserve my secrets, but know that I have just cause for my reservations about this marriage,’ she said. ‘But even then, I ask you, can you not see the benefits?’

His body recognised the benefits. His desire couldn’t avoid them. That red hair and rosy lips. Those blushing cheeks. Her fiery temper.

Even now when he was refusing such connection to her, his body conjured images. How he’d wrap the flames of her hair around his fist as he plundered those lips, as he coaxed her to her knees...

Hands suddenly greedy, he clasped them before she could tell what was truly in his thoughts. Her. She talked of past deaths and he could only think of her. Her father was foolish or maybe wise to leave them in this room together...alone. The small unadorned room only highlighted her worth and he kept noticing it.

‘You don’t want more deaths, Ailsa. I understand. But your father prevented McCrieff deaths when he confiscated our weapons,’ he said. ‘Of course, he could kill us. How would I know, since this is our first meeting?’

‘As if you’d simply let him. You’re wasting time, Lochmore.’

Until her father’s return. Her father had made it all too easy for them to come to McCrieff land. Now he understood why.

Sighing, Ailsa continued, ‘We know nothing of each other, but that matters not when it comes to our clans. If we marry, no one dies.’

‘Perhaps today, or for the next sennight, but distrust and animosity between our clans runs too deep,’ he stated.

‘Marriage is permanent. The change would be permanent,’ she said.

‘One was tried before and failed. And we all know whose fault that was.’ Legend had it that a woman who had promised to marry a McCrieff had married a Lochmore instead. True or not, it was also well known that the McCrieffs retaliated and relations deteriorated from there.

A slight frown. ‘What is known and what is speculated does not matter. The fact is we can start anew.’

If she had experienced the deaths of people she cared for, how could she believe so naively? Frederick, the Tanist, proposed it, but he also said he would remain Tanist and that nothing was a guarantee. ‘Did you not hear your father? This is not about starting anew. This is about preserving McCrieff power.’

‘That’s why you care,’ she said. ‘Not for lives, but for power.’

Power was everything. Lochmores were given McCrieff land because they held more power. For once, he’d like control of his life. With power, he could.

‘Don’t you care about it? You want to marry and, by doing so, you preserve the land you have regardless if the King says it is Lochmores. I could not wage battle against your family. Further, you also probably prevent King Edward from taking any more away.’

She opened her mouth, closed it abruptly.

‘You didn’t think that?’

‘I told you why I want it. For lives, which appears to be nothing you care about.’ She fingered the shears around her belt. ‘It doesn’t matter. In the end, the outcome is the same. Two people who have...position and influence in both clans marry.’

‘You think I gain power by marrying you though your father said otherwise?’

‘You certainly don’t lose it. There would be no fight over the land by the border.’

‘I’m Lochmore’s Chief, I could marry anyone and gain other lands.’

‘But none closer or convenient. And for that matter, none merely handed to you.’

Ailsa’s beauty was one thing, her unexpected intelligence was another. Everything about her was unexpected. She was fair of face and body. Mere hours in her presence and he knew she had a fine mind as well. There would be no burden to marry her.

He wouldn’t voice it, but there was a possibility to gain all the McCrieff lands. An achievement none of his clan would expect. All of this done without bloodshed, but there was a catch. There was always a catch when it came to the McCrieffs and the Tanist confessed it. He didn’t intend to concede power. By doing so, Frederick projected to his clan that McCrieffs remained in power.

Where would that leave him? Waiting for the warrior’s death, counting the years until he could wrest control...even if he could. However, it was inconceivable that Frederick would want that for his daughter’s children. Maybe the old man had hope to combine the clans as well. Frederick, as a McCrieff, would be in a better position to know if that hope was possible.

So he married a McCrieff’s daughter, which solved nothing now and only perhaps gained something in the future. Even with all this disclosure, and the almost certainty that Frederick would want a brighter future for his daughter, Rory still sensed a trap.

It was Frederick’s movements before he left the room, a jitter to his leg, his sword hand opening and closing. The frequent glances to the door as if he expected it to burst open. His readiness to be on the other side of the door. He left giving the pretext of privacy, but was it possible he stood on the other side of the door to guard it?

For now Rory could hear muffled voices and the clinking of goblets. There was much talking and occasional shouts of merriment. Was he being merely suspicious?

The danger surrounding him hadn’t been the travelling on McCrieff land, or the offering of marriage. The danger was something he couldn’t see or understand. And for a moment, Rory wished for his sword so he could lay it firmly against Frederick’s neck and demand the truth.

There were lies everywhere. That same instinct that told him something was wrong with his past told him something was wrong now. There was disclosure in this room, but something still felt amiss. Secrets, he saw them everywhere, he’d been trained at it since he was very young.

He knew, though he had never been told, he was not, and could not be, Chief Lochmore’s son.

Though he emulated his parents, though he behaved and trained as the son of a chief should, something inside him warned that he didn’t belong. And it was that which made him refuse the offer now. Not some trap or unknown future. Not some false sense of pride that he wasn’t a pawn to game. They were all pawns and everything a trap. It was that frisson of something amiss that held him back.

‘As the son of a chief, as an enforcer of King Edward’s decree, I cannot accept this offer.’

‘Why, because of this power?’ she scoffed. ‘Because you will not have any since my father will not concede his?’

Power. It was all about power. She might think he held off because of her father, but in fact, he held back because he had none. ‘Power is everything.’

‘So shortsighted! Today we could have some peace. Blood would not be spilled.’

Rory stood then. He was irritated that he could not tell the full truth because he knew these people weren’t. Since that was the case, he’d continue to argue what was known. ‘Shortsighted? A marriage isn’t only for today, it’s for the future. And your father’s proposal curtails mine.’

Small room and a woman who should have looked insignificant against his size now that he stood, but she raised her chin defiantly and he saw nothing but her own stubborn strength and fire.

He had some of his own and his impatience with these people, with his own circumstances, roiled harder inside him. But when he took the steps necessary to be even closer to her, to now intimidate her, she held her ground. And he knew, absolutely knew, he lost some of his. Despite the facts and the glaring falsehoods, he wanted her.