Chapter One
Dun Ara Castle, Isle of Mull
Eight months later
Ailis MacKinnon sat at the table on the dais, waiting for her father’s words. From his ruddy face and the way he kept starting and stopping, he was angry. Davina threw furtive glances in her direction, as though asking for her help. Ailis snorted. Davina, her stepmother and former closest friend would rot in Hell before Ailis helped her.
“Ye’re being willful, girl,” her father shouted. “Ye will accept this man!”
Silence reigned over the entire hall as all gathered there waited for the next argument between the chieftain and his daughter. Ailis knew it. Her father prepared for it. Even Davina saw it coming. It was Davina’s voice that gave her father pause.
“Husband,” she said, rising and walking to his side. “Mayhap we should discuss this in the solar?” Davina placed her hand on Ailis’ father’s arm. He took a breath, clearly considering his wife’s plea. For a moment, Ailis thought he might accept Davina’s suggestion but he shook off her hand and stomped his foot.
“Nay, Wife,” he said, “’tis too late for a private word on this matter.”
Davina startled at the sharpness of his tone and stepped back. Ailis watched as he grabbed Davina’s hand and tugged her closer to him. Tears burned in Ailis’ eyes as she watched, yet again, as her father softened for. . . her.
Ailis wanted to run. She wanted to leave the table, leave the keep and even her father’s lands. Everything in her life had fallen apart. There was no way to put the pieces back together. Her friend was happy. Her father was happy. She was desolate and no one seemed to notice or care.
“Ailis! Come here now!”
She’d not realized she’d turned away until his call turned her back towards him. Lord Duncan MacNeil stood at her father’s side watching the drama unfold. As she walked around the table towards them, she saw neither anger nor any emotion on the old man’s face. If he was insulted by her refusal, she cared not. Pushing her hair over her shoulders, she stopped before her father and curtsied.
She nodded at Lord Duncan, out of respect, truly. The poor man had no idea of what he’d agreed to in bringing his suit to her father. He likely believed his offer was a kind one for a nobleborn woman with such. . . deformities as she did. That thought made her tug the leather gloves higher onto her arms before she faced her father.
“Lord Duncan is of good standing with his chieftain and his king. A marriage like this will benefit ye. Ye will accept his offer of marriage.”
Ailis felt the eyes of those gathered moving from one to another as they watched this disagreement continue. A glance past her father revealed Davina’s concern. Ailis looked away from her.
“I fear I canna.”
The simple statement sent everyone into chaos. Shouts and whispers filled the air around them until her father waved his hand and everyone quieted.
“Ye seem to think this is a request, Daughter. Mistake not my resolve that ye will marry Lord Duncan.”
Ailis felt a small trickle of sweat run down her face and another on her back. Defying her father wasn’t an easy task, nor one she did lightly. But the thought of taking this man to husband when she had already promised herself to another was too hard, even if that man was now dead. Facing her father’s bluster wasn’t something she wished to do, even knowing he had promised her mother as she lay dying that he would never force their daughter to marry.
“Father,” she began, lowering her head and her voice. “I canna and willna marry this man.”
He reached out for her hands and realized his error before touching her. Instead, he lifted her chin with his finger to bring their gazes to meet.
“Ye must marry, Ailis. Ye will marry Lord Duncan.”
“Nay.”
Instead of the reaction she expected of her father, that of any irate man when faced with a recalcitrant and defiant daughter, the one she witnessed startled her. His gaze narrowed, he glanced from her to the man involved before huffing out a loud breath and walking to the table. Even Davina was surprised. She met Ailis’ eyes and shrugged.
Her father grabbed a goblet and filled it from the pitcher sitting there. He drank it down and filled it again. Turning to face them, he swallowed the contents in several mouthfuls and slammed the cup on the table. She jumped, Davina jumped and the rest gasped.
“Ye willna marry Lord Duncan then?” She shook her head. “Fine.” He walked to her and stared at her, his gaze softening for so short a time she thought she’d not seen it happen. “I have labored under a promise, sworn as all of ye ken, to my late, sainted wife not to force our daughter to marry against her will. A man of honor, I have upheld that promise.”
“Father—” she began. Mayhap she had pushed him too far? Glancing at Lord Duncan, she wondered if she should relent.
“But even my beloved dead wife wouldna expect this behavior in her daughter.”
Ailis gasped in shock and pain. Tears escaped before she could stop them. Her mother had passed before she had lost Lachlan. Her mother couldn’t have known how this would be for her. Or how hard it would be to watch her friend betray her and marry her father, fresh from her mother’s death. Now, ’twas clear that her father’s regard for her mother and the vow made was at an end.
“My late wife would understand there has to be an end to this and a way to give ye into the care of a husband.” She heard Davina’s whispered pleas and saw her father brush her words off.
“I will give ye a choice, Ailis,” her father said. “Consent to marry Lord Duncan now or ye will marry the man who next enters my keep.”
She couldn’t help herself. She looked to doors of the keep across the chamber. Closed because of the storm raging outside, ’twas almost as though everyone witnessing this expected the doors to crash open and a man to enter as if told beforehand to do so.
After that did not happen, she turned back to face her father. Certain that, if given time, she’d find a way to change his mind on this declaration, Ailis decided to agree with his demand. Aye, there would be time to allow her stepmother to soothe his temper as she seemed to in times like this one.
“I will marry the next man through the door, Father.”
’Twas her father’s turn to be surprised and his expression showed him so. Davina whispered out a warning, but Ailis would listen not. Ailis spoke her words louder so all could hear.
“I will accept the next man through the door.”
Would her father call her bluff or accept it? He stared for a long moment before nodding. Chances were that any man entering was someone in their clan and married already. Content that she would have more time to chip away at her father’s demands, she glanced at Lord Duncan.
God bless him, the man appeared relieved at this development. Ailis didn’t doubt that the man, nigh on sixty years of age, was silently thanking the Almighty for saving him. When her father took Davina’s hand and led her back to table, Lord Duncan followed. Ailis returned to her seat and held up her cup to be filled by the servant. She’d barely settled on the wooden chair when one of the doors blew open with a bang. Ailis jumped to her feet and wondered if the fates had called her to task for her bold bluff.
A form appeared there; tall, swaddled in layers of soaking plaid. She squinted across the smoky chamber, trying to determine who it was. Her father rose and called out.
“Come ye inside!” he said to the stranger. “Come ye forward into the light and the warmth of my hall.”
Her stomach roiled as the person walked slowly into the chamber. The gasps rippled as those closest got a better view of this man. All she could see was the plaid that covered his body and head. With the shadows thrown by the hearth and the lanterns around the hall, she could see little but his shape.
What had she done?
The world around her faded. She stared as the man approached. He could tear that world apart, she knew that much. When he reached the bottom of the steps, her father walked to the edge and called out.
“Tell me the name of the man who will call my daughter wife!”
“My lord?” the man said in a hoarse voice.
“My lord!” Davina called out as she rushed to Ailis’ side and pulled her close.
“Father!” she whispered as shadows as dark as the man before them rose up to claim her.