Page 39 of Deception of a Highlander

Something was not right. She spun away from the window and ran out her door, right into Colin’s broad chest.

She backed up and mumbled a feeble apology as a charming smile slid over his handsome face.

“Good morning to ye, Mariel. I was just coming to see if ye’d broken yer fast yet.”

“What transpires on the lawn below?” Even as she asked the question, she had a sinking suspicion he would not answer her.

“Nothing ye need to be seeing.” His lighthearted wink was meant to dissuade her questions.

A savage cry drifted in through the window at the end of the hall, followed by a chorus of cheers.

“Please, Colin.”

His arm slid around her shoulder and pulled her tight against him. “I’d rather have yer company in the hall.” The smooth tone of his voice made the suggestion behind his words all the more blatant.

The great hall was downstairs. Mariel knew how to leave the castle from there. Perhaps going to breakfast with Colin was not a bad idea.

She gave him a bright smile and ducked out from under his grasp. “On second thought, food sounds enticing, but I’m afraid I don’t know my way around the castle.”

“Then I’ll show ye. First, we’ll start with the hall and where we’ll end…” A large grin spread over his face.

Mariel playfully laughed off his implication and followed behind him. She committed the path they took to memory this time. There might be a need for it later. If everything did not go according to plan, and she had to escape to Inverness to fight for Jack’s life, her mental map of the castle would need to be flawless.

Once downstairs, Mariel spied a door off to the side along the back of the castle. If her estimation was correct and it led outside, she would be exactly where she wanted to be. She slowed down and edged toward the door. Colin’s wide back continued ahead. He did not seem to notice she was no longer behind him and disappeared around a corner.

The unlocked handle opened easily in her hand, and she slipped from the quiet darkness into the blinding brilliance outside. Stars danced before her eyes as her vision adjusted. The wind slapped against her, ripping at her hair and tearing at her skirts.

Mariel pulled the shawl around her shoulders and regretted not having grabbed a heavy plaid instead. The MacDonald clan stood a stone’s throw away, still clustered together.

No one noticed her approach, and for that, she was grateful. She stood on her tiptoes to see over the towering clansmen, and frustration pulled at her patience. Were all Highlanders so tall?

And then the crowd broke for one brief moment, long enough for her to see Kieran, his expression fierce, focused as he drew his sword over his head.

People leaned closer, inadvertently clearing a spot for her. Mariel stepped into the open space lest it fill again and observed the melee before her. A young man lay on the ground, his dirty blond hair disheveled around his flushed face. Kieran stood over him, body tense and sword held aloft in warning. Though bested, the blond man held his weapon bravely before him, ready to ward off the bite of the threatening blade.

Kieran spoke in Gaelic as he growled, “Ye dare defy me?”

The defeated man’s voice was harsh with barely contained fury. “If ye would so easily forget the crimes the English have committed against us for that whore, then aye, I do defy ye.”

The wind sucked the air from Mariel’s chest, and the bitter sting of icy air dulled against numbed flesh. This was about her?

A barbaric cry erupted from Kieran. He whipped his blade through the air toward his opponent’s neck and stopped a hair’s breadth away from the tender flesh. The young man did not even flinch. “Dinna call her a whore,” Kieran said between clenched teeth.

She froze, stunned by his words. Kieran had defended her. In front of all of his people, he had defended her honor. No man had ever done such a thing. Why would they? Her deeds did not warrant the respect of any man.

Self-disgust rolled through her stomach. Certainly, she did not deserve the respect of a man as honorable as Kieran.

He held his blade over the man’s throat, and the muscles of his arm bunched under his leine. While Kieran was a solid wall of strength and authority, she remembered how gentle those powerful arms could be and how they’d cradled her when she had been wounded.

Guilt crowded her heart and breathing became difficult. She was not worthy of the affection he bestowed upon her.

Kieran looked pointedly at the crowd. “She stays at Caisteal Camus as a guest and is to be treated as such…by all of ye. Am I understood?”

The crowd murmured. In the excitement of the fight, no one had yet noticed her presence among them.

Kieran clasped the man’s forearm with his own and helped him to his feet. “Hamish, do ye understand?”

The man, Hamish, balled his hand into a fist and then unclenched it. “Ye stake the lives of yer people on her being here. After centuries of rape, treachery, and murder from the English, I ask ye again—do ye trust her?”