The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(10)

“He has you there,” MacSorley said with a good-natured laugh. “Edward has quite a growing collection of Scottish ornaments adorning the gates of his castles.”

MacDonald gave his henchman a glowering look, but MacSorley just shrugged with an unrepentant grin.

The offer of marriage did not tempt Tor. He’d been married before and felt no urgency to take another wife. He had sons. His wife had died almost eight years ago while giving birth to their second son. Murdoch and Malcolm were being fostered on the Isle of Lewis.

If he married again, it would be to seek an alliance with the western seaboard—Ireland or the Isle of Man—to increase his clan’s power and prestige, not with the daughter of a Scottish noble. But not wishing to give offense, he turned to Fraser. “I thank you for your offer. I’m sure your daughters are very beautiful”—as all ladies of noble birth were in marriage negotiations—”but I’ve no wish to take a wife.”

Fraser nodded, but Tor could see his cursory dismissal had angered the proud nobleman. Something about the old warrior bothered him. In a room full of battle-hardened warriors, Fraser’s eyes burned too hotly. Emotion like that was dangerous; it had no place on the battlefield—or in the council chamber. Cool and controlled were the mark of a shrewd leader and warrior.

MacDonald leaned back and gave Tor an amused look, some of his earlier anger fading. “Perhaps you will change your mind when you meet them?”

Tor shook his head. “My mind is made up.” Unlike his brother, no woman—no matter how beautiful—would ever make him lay aside his duty. “You’ll have to find someone else to lead your secret band of Highlanders.”

Over the long journey from Stirlingshire to Islay, Christina had almost succeeded in convincing herself that it wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe Tormod MacLeod—she’d learned the name of the Island chief her father sought to wed her to—wasn’t a brute at all but a gallant and chivalrous knight.

The moment she arrived at Finlaggan, however, she knew her imagination had run away with her again. It was worse than she’d originally feared. Much worse. Never had she seen so many terrifying-looking men in one place. Nay, not men, but warriors. These Islanders looked as if they did nothing but fight. It was in their blood and bred into their bones—from the fierce, battle-scarred visages locked in perpetual scowls to their extraordinary size.

The latter proved truly disconcerting.

Even without chain mail—they wore shockingly little armor—the men from the Isles seemed taller and broader than their Lowland counterparts. Everywhere she looked stood men well over six feet tall, stacked with layer upon layer of bulky muscle. Their arms in particular—thick and ripped with rock-hard muscle—seemed built for wielding the terrifying two-handed swords, war hammers, battleaxes, and other instruments of warfare they wore strapped to their bodies. And it wasn’t just the men; the women, too, were tall and strong. A veritable race of giants, or at least it seemed so to her. Unlike her tall and willowy sister, if Christina stood on her tiptoes she was lucky to reach a hand over five feet.

They probably would have drowned her at birth.

The men wore their hair to their shoulders, some with braids at the temple, and a disproportionately large number were fair-headed.

Probably all that Viking blood, she thought with a shiver, feeling a sharp pang of empathy with her forebears. How terrifying it must have been to see those longships appear on the horizon and know that these fierce barbarians were bearing down on them to wreak havoc and destruction in their pillaging wake.

Christina felt that same helplessness and an overwhelming sense of impending doom. She knew she had to protect her sister, but her plan to entice the MacLeod chief to choose her and not her sister was a far more terrifying proposition now that she was here.

On the final leg of their journey by sea, however, another possibility had occurred to her. She realized how fast the sea roads were compared to their land counterparts. With favorable winds, long distances could be covered in hours rather than days. When one of the oarsmen had mentioned that he’d recently come from the holy Isle of Iona, the spark of an idea took hold: She and Beatrix could flee to Iona and take refuge at the famous nunnery.

It was a crazy plan—fraught with risk at every turn—but it was something.

This morning after breaking their fast, she and Beatrix had headed to the village to make initial inquiries, but Christina would have to return later at night to attempt to secure passage. A pilgrimage to St. Columba’s holy isle would not seem out of the ordinary, assuming no one discovered who they were.

The wind whistled through the reeds that grew along the stone causeway as they made their way back to the castle, the eerie sound utterly in keeping with the haunting majesty of this ancient stronghold but doing nothing for her frayed nerves.

Beatrix must have sensed her unease. Looping her arm through Christina’s, she drew her closer as they walked. “Are you sure about this, Chrissi? If father discovers what we are planning—”

“He won’t,” Christina assured her with far more confidence than she felt. The idea of defying her father terrified her. “We’re not doing anything out of the ordinary. There is no reason for him to be suspicious.”

It would be later at night, when she actually sought to arrange passage, that the real danger would come. But she dared not voice her fears to her sister. As it was, deception was utterly foreign to Beatrix; adding fear to the mix would be disastrous. They could do nothing to arouse their father’s suspicions.