“I haven’t misled her.” In fact, he had made her an honorable proposal.

“Yet, I do not believe you have told the lady your true feelings,” D’Arcy said, studying him with narrowed eyes. “If I’d known them myself, I would never have approached her.”

*  *  *

Sorcha hid behind Bessie’s skirts when she saw the black-eyed woman coming toward them. Sometimes the woman looked at Sorcha like a mean dog that bites.

“You can go,” the woman said to Bessie. “I’ll take her to her father.”

“The mistress told me… ,” Bessie started to say, but her voice faded.

Sorcha understood how words could get stuck inside you.

Bessie left them with a long look over her shoulder. When the woman took Sorcha’s wrist, Sorcha tried to pull away, but the woman gave her that mean-dog look.

“Don’t fuss,” the woman snapped, and started dragging her down the path.

Sorcha wanted to call out for her father or Glynis, but her throat was closed tight.

“Do ye understand a word I say? Ach, how did a clever man like Alex sire an idiot?”

The woman’s voice was like her eyes, full of jagged teeth.

“The man dotes on ye like a pet,” she said. “I can’t have my husband putting his idiot child before me and the children of Campbell blood that I intend to give him.”

CHAPTER 30

Glynis stared out the bedchamber window at the distant hills as she brushed her hair. Like a child, she had spent the entire afternoon in here to avoid seeing either Alex or D’Arcy before she made up her mind. Although she knew it would be the sensible thing to do, she could not quite convince herself to give D’Arcy permission to approach her father to negotiate a marriage contract.

From the corner of her eye, Glynis caught a flash of hair the color of moonbeams. She stepped closer to the narrow window for a better look.

What was Catherine Campbell doing leading Sorcha down the path that ran along the loch? The child missed Rosebud and Buttercup, as they all did, so Glynis had sent her with Bessie to see if Alex could take her for one last ride before the horses’ owners came to claim them. Alex must have let Catherine take Sorcha for a walk instead.

This was a ploy of Catherine’s to win Alex, for the woman did not like the child. Glynis had seen how Catherine looked at Sorcha when Alex was not watching. To be charitable, perhaps Catherine was attempting to forge a bond with the child.

But there was something about the determined way Catherine was walking that made the hairs on the back of Glynis’s neck stand up. And the child was dragging her feet. When Glynis saw how Sorcha kept glancing over her shoulder, she dropped her brush and flew out the door.

She was probably being foolish, but fear pulsed through her veins, urging her feet faster. When she reached the hall, she forced herself to slow to a fast walk and took care not to meet anyone’s eyes, lest they try to speak with her. She could not see Sorcha and Catherine when she stepped out of the doors of the keep. Sweat broke out on her palms.

As soon as she reached the bottom of the keep steps, Glynis picked up her skirts and ran across the castle yard, through the gate, and down to the loch. She continued running along the path that disappeared into the tall brush by the loch. Though she had no reason to suspect Catherine would harm the child, Glynis could not talk herself out of her fear. She ran faster, heedless of the briars that tugged at her gown. Branches slashed at her arms and face.

When she reached a split in the path, she paused, heart racing. One fork went up the hill, while the other continued through the thicker vegetation along the shoreline. She took the shoreline path, instinct telling her the greater danger lay in that direction.

When she still did not see them, panic pounded through her veins. Had she taken the wrong fork? She started to turn around when she thought she heard something.

Glynis paused to listen. At first she could hear nothing over the thundering of her heart. But then, she heard it again. A child’s whimper.

“Your father will be disappointed,” she heard a woman’s voice, cajoling, “when I tell him ye are afraid of the water.”

Sorcha did not fear the water—Glynis had never seen a child less afraid of it.

Glynis left the path and pushed her way through the brush to the edge of the loch. The sight that met her should have been a peaceful image: a beautiful dark-haired woman leading a fair-haired child out for a swim in a quiet loch on a golden afternoon.

The water was up to Sorcha’s chest. Instead of splashing and playing in the water as she did when Alex took her swimming, her slight body was stiff. Catherine was pulling on her arm.

“Can I join ye?” Glynis called out, as she pushed her way through the last of the bushes. “There’s nothing I like better than a swim in the late afternoon.”

When Catherine looked up, Glynis pretended not to notice her furious expression and gave her a bright smile. But her heart turned in her chest when she saw that Sorcha’s eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

“Oh dear,” Glynis said, looking about her as if she were dimwitted, “it looks as if ye forgot to bring dry clothes.”

“A maid is following with them,” Catherine said. “I don’t know what’s keeping her.”

“Ach, maids,” Glynis said, shaking her head. “It appears she has forgotten, so you’d best come in. Alex MacDonald is verra protective of his wee daughter, and he won’t be pleased if she catches cold.”

Catherine looked down at Sorcha. “I’ll bring ye back another day, I promise.”

As soon as Catherine released Sorcha’s wrist, the child ran out of the water and straight into Glynis’s arms.

“Such a fearful child,” Catherine said. “Ye can tell she was not born a Highlander.”

A murderous rage pounded through Glynis. But while in the heart of the Campbell stronghold, it would not pay to call the chieftain’s sister the liar that she was.

Pretending nothing had happened while she walked beside Catherine and held the shaking child in her arms was one of the hardest things Glynis had ever done. If she had not left her dirk in the bedchamber, Catherine’s dead body might well have been found on the path later that day.

Clearly, Catherine had decided she wanted Alex—and not his child.

“As ye say, Sorcha was not born a Highlander,” Glynis said. “I fear she will have a difficult time adjusting to Alexander MacDonald’s home. ’Tis a lonely, desolate place.”

Of course, Glynis had never been there. If she could dissuade Catherine from pursuing Alex, however, Sorcha would be safe from her.

“What is Alex’s home like?” Catherine asked.

“It sits on a high cliff facing north over the sea, where the wind is always blowing.” Glynis shuddered. “They don’t get many visitors there. Ye could go weeks without seeing a soul outside the household.”

Catherine frowned. “How many are in the household?”

“I fear the family has hit on hard times,” Glynis said, and shook her head.

“But Alexander’s cousin is chieftain, and he holds Alex in high esteem.”

“That is true enough, but the chieftain must keep all his warriors at his own castle, Dunscaith,” Glynis said. “Unfortunately, he can offer little help when pirates attack, as they frequently do. And then, of course, there are the MacLeods.”

“Ach, you’re just jealous,” Catherine said, a smile curving her lips. “I’ve seen how ye look at Alexander.”

Damn, Glynis was never good at lying. What else could she do to protect the child? If she told Alex what she’d seen, he would not believe Catherine intended to murder the child. And she could not blame him, for no one would. And yet, Glynis had never been more certain of anything in her life.

Glynis kept her gaze fixed ahead as she marched along the path. Her skin itched from the child’s damp heat soaking through the front of her gown. Though her arms grew weary, she held Sorcha tight against her. When they reached the fork in the path, Catherine stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Let go of me,” Glynis said, her façade breaking.

“I’m doing ye a favor, Glynis, for we both know ye couldn’t keep a man like Alex satisfied,” Catherine said with her cat’s smile. “He’ll be in my bed tonight—and he won’t want to leave it.”

With that, Catherine turned and started up the fork that climbed the hill, her wet gown clinging to every curve.

Glynis understood why Shaggy had left the woman on a tidal rock.

*  *  *

Alex was in a foul mood as he waited for the guards to admit him into the Campbell chieftain’s private chamber. By now, D’Arcy would have told Glynis of his true intentions. Alex had put off visiting his daughter because he didn’t want to find Glynis weeping her eyes out over the Frenchman.

“The chieftain is ready for ye,” one of the guards said. “I’ll take your weapons.”

The Campbell chieftain had hundreds of warriors at his command and far more guards protecting his person than the regent had. Parting with his claymore and dirks worsened Alex’s mood. He never felt right without his weapons close to hand.

Inside the chamber, the Campbell chieftain and his brother John, the Thane of Cawdor, sat on ornately carved chairs with rich tapestries hanging on the wall behind them. Alex needed to keep his wits about him. This pair had proven they were crafty enough to hold on to power in the ever-changing currents of royal and clan politics.

The Campbell chieftain waved for his guards to leave the room, a symbolic gesture of trust. Unlike Alex, the two Campbells wore their weapons.

“My sister Catherine tells me you are the one who saved her from drowning,” the chieftain said when Alex had sat down in the single chair opposite them.