Highland Wolf (Highland Brides, #10)(27)

Eventually though she did drift off to sleep.



“She’s asleep.”

Conall glanced to Roderick with surprise at that comment, and then shifted his gaze down to Claray in the dying light of day and admitted, “I thought she’d fallen asleep ages ago.”

Roderick shook his head. “I think that’s what she wanted ye to think, but she was grimacin’ and makin’ faces fer quite a while. Must ha’e been frettin’ on something.”

Conall’s eyebrows rose slightly at that, and he said, “I do no’ ken why she’d be frettin’. I’d think her worries would be over now.”

“Oh?” Roderick asked with interest. “And why would that be? MacNaughton is still a threat.”

“No’ once I marry her, and I told her that would happen once we reach MacFarlane,” Conall admitted quietly.

Roderick’s eyebrows rose at this news. “Ye told her yer true name, then?”

“Aye.”

“And ye’ve decided to marry her now?” he asked.

Conall nodded.

“And return to MacDonald to rebuild and rule it?”

Conall nodded again, though less enthusiastically.

Roderick considered him briefly and then merely said, “’Tis about time. Hamish and the others’ll be glad to hear it.”

When Conall glanced at him sharply in question, Roderick shrugged. “They’ve battled fer ye fer many long years. Those with wives and wee ones yearn to return to MacDonald to live, and those without would build their own homes, and start their own families. The announcement that ye’re finally givin’ up mercenary work and claimin’ yer heritage and theirs’ll be a relief to them.”

The words made him frown. Conall had started to work as a mercenary the moment he’d earned his spurs at sixteen. By eighteen he’d started gathering men to fight under him and begun contracting them out for jobs himself rather than work for others. They had been small jobs at first, but as the size of the men following him had grown, so had the jobs. Most of the warriors he’d gathered around him were MacDonald men whose families had been struck hard by the loss of their laird and lady, and had been forced to move to MacKay or other lands to find shelter and protection.

Some had struggled to continue on MacDonald land, but found themselves targets of bandits or attacks from other clans who knew they had no protection. With their crops and animals constantly stolen or destroyed, the younger men and even some of those older than Conall had turned to mercenary work to survive. He’d hired on every one he got wind of and added them to his ranks, training and paying them well to work with him.

Conall had never told them that he was Bryson MacDonald, son of their murdered laird and lady, and heir to MacDonald, but he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that most knew or at least suspected as much. Campbell’s slipping up and calling him Bryson in front of them more than a time or two had helped with that. But Conall knew he looked a lot like his father, and had noted an older soldier or two squinting at him with a certain look of recognition. No one had said anything though. At least not to him.

Aside from that though, Conall had never considered how his men felt about the life they’d all been forced to live—constantly battling for coin, spending months and sometimes longer away in battle with only very short visits with their families and loved ones between. Most of their families were sheltering with in-laws in their homes on lands other than MacDonald, he knew. But Conall’s main concern had been earning the coin needed to return MacDonald to its former glory and support everyone for a year or two until the fields were producing and would support his people.

At least, that’s what he’d told himself. Although if Conall were to be honest, he had enough for that now. Perhaps even more than enough, yet he’d intended to work another year or two. And the hell of it was, he couldn’t say why. Conall had no idea why he was so reluctant to claim his inheritance, and rebuild and rule MacDonald. He would have to do it now though, if he married Claray.

His gaze dropped to where she lay curled in his lap, the fox pup in her arms, and Squeak, who had climbed out from the plaid she wore, now sitting on her chest peering around. When he’d set out for her uncle’s to save her from the forced marriage Gilchrist Kerr and Maldouen MacNaughton had planned, she had been nothing more than a stranger. A name he’d heard repeatedly over the years, but not more than that. He hadn’t even known what she looked like. All the meetings her father had arranged to try to find out when he would claim her had taken place with his uncle at MacKay and without her present.

Conall had known that his dragging his feet was annoying her father, that Gannon MacFarlane was losing patience and ready to break the contract and find her another husband. He hadn’t really cared ere this. But that was before he’d tasted her passion by the river. And the moment she’d said she would join a convent or possibly marry Payton if his cousin’s kisses didn’t stir in her what his did . . .

Just the memory of her saying that made him grind his teeth. There was no way on God’s earth that he would allow her to marry his cousin. It would mean the end of their relationship. Conall wouldn’t dare risk being around the lass again after what happened at the river if she married Payton. That little episode had raised a thirst for her in him that was hard to ignore. Her being married to his cousin would not slake that thirst. If she were married to Payton, he’d have to avoid them both to avoid betraying his family and his own code of honor.