I don’t know which of the two disappoints me more, my lady.” Edward did not look at Davina the entire way back to the camp. She was thankful he didn’t, for his words and the tone in which he spoke them stung enough. “That you’ve surrendered your virtue to a man like him, or that you are foolish enough to trust him with your secrets.”

“How dare you speak of my virtue, Edward?” She didn’t realize the snap of her voice until he blinked as if she’d struck him. In the past she would have felt terrible for speaking so harshly to him, but not now. Not after such an insult not only to her, but to Rob, as well. She knew she’d been wrong to kiss the Highlander, but God have mercy on her, the sight of his hard body dripping wet and half naked was impossible to ignore. Still, she could have found the strength to do so if he hadn’t looked at her with such longing in his eyes… if he hadn’t vowed to find her if she left him… if he hadn’t asked her to trust him yet again. She had no idea what kind of man her father had planned for her if she lived, but she had known enough men to convince her that none could ever compare to Rob MacGregor. She wanted to toss her title to the four winds and live a normal, quiet life with a man who held her as if his very life depended on her. She wanted to be his. Just his and nothing more.

“It disappoints me, Edward, that rather than be thankful for all that a man like him has done for us, you look down on him as if you were that much better.”

Edward’s eyes finally met hers as they entered the camp. He looked far less repentant than she expected. In fact, the spark of anger in his eyes made her want to step back.

“Though my faults will no doubt become clearer to you throughout this journey, I will still be at your side, even after he abandons you.”

Davina blinked up at him, then looked the other way when Finn called her. Out of all the men there, she didn’t want a Stuart to see her mettle crumble to pieces. She wondered how it was only just now that she realized the full weight of the fear she had lived with for so long—fear Edward constantly perpetrated. Whatever his motives were all these years, it had stripped her of so much. With all her heart she wanted to give Rob what he asked of her, her trust. But the truth was too immense. She had learned well the value of her life as the successor’s heir to the throne. Rob, too, had seen the cost of it on St. Christopher’s front lawns. Would he be so willing to fight for her if he had to battle more than the Duke of Monmouth’s men?

When he stepped into the camp with Connor, she couldn’t help but look at him. His presence made her nerves tingle with life. The sight of his sculpted chest, glistening arms, and tight belly reminded her of how capably he’d fought Gilles’s men by the bridge in Ayrshire. He walked like nothing could stand in his way. He held her, both on his horse and off, like she was his woman. His kiss made her forget her past and her future.

As he passed her, his eyes, like two fiery jewels, slid to Edward’s and darkened at what he saw looking back at him. Davina turned in time to catch the challenge in Edward’s gaze and scowled at him. Was he mad? A fight between the two men would surely end in Rob’s favor. Thankfully, Edward’s confidence of a victory could not hold up against Rob’s and he dropped his eyes to his boots.

Soon, Davina’s attention was pulled to the men’s cheerful farewells. She was swallowed up in Connor’s surprisingly warm embrace first. When she faced Colin, she smiled awkwardly. She had shared many late-night talks with Rob’s younger brother, but he concealed well his impressions of her and her views behind his harshly chiseled features and watchful wolf-colored eyes. As she expected, he didn’t smile back.

“I’m going to speak to him,” he promised, striding toward her. “And I’m going to discover if he is deserving of yer esteem.”

Davina knew who he meant and nodded. “I pray that he is.”

Miracle of miracles, his mouth curled into a smile that Davina was certain would fell more lasses than Finn’s.

“So do I, fair lady.”

Davina let Finn take hold of her hand when the men finally left, and then she listened to him when he took his place at Rob’s horse’s flanks and proudly told her everything there was to know about the courageous Captain Connor Grant.

Edward rode at a distance behind them, but Davina could feel his eyes on her, hear his warning in her ear as clearly as if he was speaking into it.

Say nothing, else he will leave you.

And so, despite the desire to confide her most terrible secret to Rob, she told him nothing as they journeyed to Oban—and hated herself for it. Oh, when had she become such a self-serving, cowardly wretch? She was afraid he would leave her, but her fear no longer had anything to do with her safety. She was falling in love with him—hopelessly, maddeningly in love with him, and the thought of never seeing his face again, never feeling his arms around her, never kissing him again made her ill with despair. She didn’t want Rob, or anyone else to die because of her, but thanks to her champion’s skill and confidence she didn’t believe anyone would. It was a weak excuse, that, but convincing herself of it made it easier to remain silent as they boarded the English ship that would bring them to Sleat.

Normally, Rob didn’t enjoy traveling over water. He much preferred his feet firmly planted on solid ground. He couldn’t deny that the English ship was the finest, if not the largest vessel he’d ever been on, but it still pitched too much for his liking. To keep himself steady, he leaned his back against the foremast and braced his legs beneath him. His eyes settled, as they always did whenever she was away from him, on Davina. Against a backdrop of a vast azure sky, she stood like Calypso at the bow, her shoulders thrust back against the gale, her pale tresses whipping behind her like a pennant.

Rob’s eyes softened on her, as did his heart each time he beheld her. And the closer they came to Camlochlin, the more of her he saw. ’Twas like watching a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon and slowly unfolding its wings to fly. Hell, he wanted her to fly. He wanted to fly with her. He hadn’t pressed her about what she wanted to tell him the morning Connor left. He could not force her to trust him with such a secret. He could only hope that with time she would.

When she turned and waved at him, her cheeks pink and her smile wide, his knees nearly gave out. Of course, it could have been from the ten-foot swell crashing against the hull. She laughed, mindless of the fathoms below. She might have spent many of her years afraid of an unseen enemy, but being tossed about on heaving waves gave her pleasure.

“Is that Skye?” she called out, pointing to a small isle to his left.

“Nae, ’tis Eig,” he shouted back, then clutched the mast above his head when the ship dipped to the left. Her laughter was snatched up by the churning wind as she bid him come to her. He shook his head, not really caring if she thought him foolish or afraid for staying so close to the foremast. He wasn’t about to go overboard for any lass—unless he absolutely had to.

She appeared as insubstantial as a feather when she let go of the railing and moved toward him. At that instant, the stem of the ship pitched upward, lifting the bowsprit toward the heavens. Instinctively, Rob reached for her with his free arm and pulled her against his chest. She landed with a thud that stole her breath—and his—for a different reason entirely. He stared down into her eyes, lost in their silvery blue depths, slain by a carefree smile as radiant as the sun peeking over the Cuillin hills.

“Careful, lass,” he said softly, deeply while her long hair coiled around him. “I dinna’ want to lose ye.”

“Nor I you,” she told him just as meaningfully and then drew her bottom lip between her teeth as if she’d said too much.

Damn his will to resist her. He’d given up that fight when she’d flung her arms around his neck the morning Connor and Asher found them together. He smiled, dipping his mouth to hers and his hand down her back. At the alluring indent just above her buttocks, he spread his palm wide and pushed her deeper against the crook of his thighs. He held her close while he took her mouth and the seas bucked and rocked beneath them. Softly at first, his tongue stole around her mouth, tasting, stroking her until she quivered in his arms. No man had kissed her before him, and none would ever kiss her after him. Each day that he held her in his arms was another test of his will not to caress her, claim her, and kill anyone who tried to harm her. But he was lost and would fight it no longer.

The sweet wantonness of her response made every inch of him grow tight and as he moved his lips over hers, devouring her now with need, he brushed his stiffness against the warmth of her niche.

She pulled back, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. Rob ground his jaw, for the apology he would have offered her felt trite and insincere. He was not sorry. Even now, he wanted more of her.

“My lady?”

Rob and Davina turned together to Asher standing just a few feet away, his hands rolling into fists at his sides.

“Are you all right?”

Glaring at him, Rob pulled Davina closer in a possessive gesture, and to help conceal her effect on him. He had been patient and as understanding as any man could be about Asher’s feelings toward Davina, but he was tired of her captain constantly wedging himself between them, and he refused to be insulted by an Englishman.

“She has no’, nor will she come to any harm in my care, Captain.”

The rigid pitch of Rob’s tone alerted Will that someone’s head was about to roll. Asher slanted his gaze in his direction when Will began to move forward. “You’ve no idea,” he said, turning back to Rob, “the force that will come against you.”

A force most likely led by ye, Rob thought, pushing off the mast and moving toward him. How easily he could toss Asher over the side of the ship and be done with him once and for all. Davina would hate him for it if he did. Rob knew Asher was jealous, but something about him had changed when he’d come upon them with Connor, locked in each other’s arms. Before, there had been caution and constant worry in the captain’s eyes, but since that morn, there was only black anger, and for the first time, Rob saw him as a threat. Would he alert the king to Davina’s whereabouts to keep her from him? “Let them come,” Rob told him, his jaw taut, and his gaze hard as granite, “and let them fear me.”

Asher offered him a pitying smile. “You may be skilled with a sword, MacGregor, but a few dozen Highlanders against an army is no match.”

Rob returned his smile with one riddled in arrogance. “Nae army will ever reach us alive.”

“Sentries?” the captain asked.

Rob shook his head and flashed him a cool grin. “Cannons.”

Finn’s shout from the fore top pierced the stunned silence that had descended on deck. “Land! ’Tis bonnie Skye ahead!”

Asher and Davina turned to look north at the Sleat peninsula rising from the waves. But Rob’s gaze cut longingly westward, beyond Loch Slapin, toward the misty peaks of Sgurr Na Stri and the Cuillin mountains. Home. The place of his heart. The thing he loved above all else—His eyes drifted to Davina rushing back to the railing—save for her.