He looked down at Sorcha, who had fallen asleep against him, and sighed. The deeper truth was that he did not want to give up his daughter. He never would have predicted that he would feel this way, but he did not question it, either. The problem was that he could not raise her alone—a girl needed a mother.

Alex tried mightily, but there was no avoiding the obvious conclusion. To keep his daughter close, he would have to shackle himself to a wife. He had been fooling himself, in any case, to believe he could escape matrimony forever. Neither his parents nor Connor would give him any peace until he stepped off that cliff.

He did not want a wife. But, like it or not, he had a sudden need for one.

The image of Glynis standing in front of rearing horses with a dirk in one hand and a bloody stick in the other came into his mind. She would make a fiercely protective mother. After Sabine’s indifference, that was precisely the kind of mother his daughter needed and deserved.

Múineann gá seift. Need teaches a plan. He could solve all his problems with one stroke—and the answer was riding right beside him.

Glynis was at the top of Connor’s list of marriage prospects, so Alex could do his duty by his clan and provide a good mother for Sorcha at the same time. And it didn’t hurt that he had this abiding itch to bed the very woman who would suit both purposes so well.

Glynis needed a husband, and he needed a wife. Alex was sure he could work out a sensible arrangement with her.

He turned and gave Glynis a wide smile.

As the saying went, get bait while the tide is out.

*  *  *

What was Alex doing, smiling and winking at her like that, for anyone to see?

“I’d like to sneak off with ye and share a blanket under the stars tonight,” Alex said.

Glynis glanced about her, blushing to her roots. Fortunately, the riders had strung out along the trail so that no one else was within earshot. Bessie appeared to be enjoying herself overmuch, chatting with D’Arcy’s manservant at the back of the group.

“Ye have your daughter with ye,” she hissed.

“I missed ye in my bed last night,” Alex said. “I couldn’t sleep at all.”

“Alex, hush!” she said. “I’m sure ye say that to all your women.”

“Nay, I never tell women I miss them.”

Glynis did not know what to make of that. Despite herself, she was flattered that Alex still wanted her. But then, they had a long journey ahead, and there were no other women, save for Bessie, who had a good twenty years on him.

“What happened between us should not have,” she said, turning to speak to him in a low voice. “And ye know verra well it cannot happen again.”

“Why not?”

What a maddening man. “I only did it because no one would ever find out,” she hissed. “And because I never expected to see ye again.”

“Ye do want to,” Alex said, giving her that smoldering look that made her chest so tight she could hardly draw breath.

His hair brushed his shoulders, and she remembered gripping it in her fingers. And how it felt to have him deep inside her, saying her name over and over.

Aye, she wanted to.

“It doesn’t matter whether I want to or no,” she said. “I cannot, and I will not.”

CHAPTER 26

Glynis sat with Sorcha on her lap while Alex fed sticks into the fire. After four nights, they had their routine. They ate supper with D’Arcy and his men around the main campfire, and then Alex built them a separate fire several yards away from the others. He had also fashioned a tent from extra blankets for Glynis, Bessie, and Sorcha, to give them privacy from the men. Bessie, who was not accustomed to long days of riding, was already asleep inside it.

The firelight glinted off Alex’s fair hair and the strong lines of his perfect face. Though it was growing chilly, he pushed his sleeves up, revealing his tautly muscled forearms. When he caught her staring at him, he pinned her with a sizzling look. Then he slid his gaze over her from head to toe, with pauses in between, making her feel as if he was running his fingers over her naked skin.

Glynis knew what he wanted because she wanted it, too. Her resistance had worn thin, riding next to him all day and then sleeping a few feet away from him each night. Traveling the same trail made her recall all too clearly how they had spent their nights on their way to Edinburgh.

She would not bring shame upon herself and her family by having an open affair with Alex. But she had come to the conclusion that if there was any way she could have a secret one again, she would. Since that appeared utterly impossible with the child and the maid and twenty men a stone’s throw away, Glynis resolutely focused her attention on Sorcha.

“One, two, three…four,” she repeated in Gaelic, as she held up the child’s fingers. “Five…six…seven…” Glynis felt Alex’s eyes on her and turned to him. “Stop looking at me like that.”

A slow smile spread over his face. “Like I want ye? I can’t help it, Glynis. I do.”

“Watch what ye say,” she whispered. “Ye don’t know how much Gaelic the child understands already.” Despite the fact that Sorcha’s head lay heavy against Glynis’s chest and her eyelids were drifting shut, Glynis continued. “Eight, nine—”

“For God’s sake, Glynis, let the poor child sleep.” Alex scooped Sorcha up in his arms, then he paused and looked down at his daughter with a soft smile. “I’m looking forward to taking her sailing. Ye can see that the Viking blood is strong in her, just as it is in me.”

“Aye,” Glynis said, thinking they made an extraordinary pair with their fair hair shining in the firelight. “And when ye took her in the loch today, she swam like a wee fish.”

Alex laid Sorcha inside the tent next to Bessie. When he returned, he sat close enough to Glynis that his sleeve brushed hers. She stared into the fire and tried to make herself breathe normally.

“I have a proposition for ye,” Alex said.

Glynis’s stomach did a little flip. “A proposition?”

She hoped her voice didn’t sound as stiff and prim to him as it did to her. Did he have to put it to her formally? This would be easier if he sneaked off with her into the darkness, swept her into his arms, and covered her with kisses. But it was like Alex not to let her pretend he had seduced her. Nay, he would make her acknowledge that she chose to sin with him.

“I want to.” She was gripping the skirt of her gown so tightly that her knuckles were white. Could he not just get on with it?

“I haven’t told ye the proposition yet.”

“Must ye always tease me?” Glynis was so embarrassed she could not look at him. “I told ye the answer is aye. But not now—we must wait until we are certain all the men are asleep so no one sees us.”

Alex touched her elbow, sending sparks of heat up her arm.

“I don’t mean to tease ye,” he said in a low voice that reverberated through her. “And I’m not propositioning ye, if that’s what ye think.”

Heat drenched through her. It was ten times—nay, a hundred times—more embarrassing to say aye to a proposition that was not given, than to one that was.

“Wait,” Alex said, holding her arm as she tried to pull away.

She felt hurt, as well as humiliated, and she wanted to be away from him.

“Glynis, listen to me.” She struggled against him, but he held her in a firm grip. “I do want to bed ye.”

This was too mortifying. “Let me go, Alex.”

He turned her face toward him. “Believe me, I do want ye.”

The roughness in his voice and the heat in his eyes made her feel confused and flustered. Did he want her or no?

“Bedding ye is part of what I’m asking ye,” he said, his green eyes intent on hers. “But it’s no the most important part.”

There was something more important to Alex MacDonald than swiving? Now there was a surprise.

“What else do ye want of me?” She could not think with him so close.

Alex released her and cleared his throat. For a man who was usually so at ease, he suddenly seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. All her instincts were on alert, telling her to be wary. Whatever Alex was about to ask her, he surely did not want to.

“Marriage.” Alex said it on an exhale, as if forcing the word out. “That’s what I’m asking.”

“Marriage?” Glynis could not have been more astonished if a dozen fairies had joined them at their campfire.

“Ye will have to take another husband,” Alex said. “Surely ye can see that now?”

She had been trying to reconcile herself to the notion since discovering that her mother’s family was just as adamant as her father was about seeing her remarried. But it was a bitter medicine to swallow.

“As distasteful as it is to me to wed again, I admit that I may have no choice in the end,” she said. “But you, Alex, ye cannot seriously want a wife.”

“My daughter needs a mother,” he said.

Of course, that was what prompted this. Why had she not thought of it at once?

“Why me?” she asked. “There are plenty of women—including chieftains’ daughters—who want a husband.”

“Sorcha warmed to ye from the start,” Alex said. “She’s become attached to ye, and I believe ye have to her as well.”

An unexpected swell of disappointment filled Glynis’s chest.

“You’d be a good mother to her,” he said.

“And that is the reason ye ask me to be your wife?” Her voice was sharper than she intended.

“We get along well enough.” Alex shrugged and gave her his devilish smile. “Especially in bed.”

“So going to bed with ye would be part of my duties, in addition to playing nursemaid?” she snapped. “For how long, Alex?”

When his eyes darted like a trapped animal, Glynis felt as if her heart were being squeezed by a fist.