Cameron stared at her and for one eerie moment, she imagined that he had heard her thought, and despised her for it. Of course that was impossible. He had done no such thing.

But why did he still look at her as though she’d just confessed to a heinous crime? She might fantasize about her husband’s death on a daily basis, but she would never raise her hand against him. She would leave that to her beloved Bride.

“Your husband is Ferelei mac Uurguist?” There was a strangely dead sound to Cameron’s words. He hadn’t moved a muscle and yet she had the oddest feeling he had retreated.

“Yes.” She forced herself not to squirm under Cameron’s unblinking scrutiny, but it was hard. “We’ve been married for six years.” And it often seemed more like sixty.

His jaw clenched, and his glare remained unwavering. An unpleasant thought occurred to her. Had he met Ferelei? If so, it was clear Cameron despised him.

“Six years.” He ground the words between his teeth. “You must have been a child bride.” His outrageous remark and the damning accusation she heard in his tone struck her like a physical blow.

“Indeed, I was not.” She angled her jaw at him in a proud manner, a poor shield against the pain that squeezed her breast at his uncaring words. “I was fifteen and ripe for the marriage bed.”

Let him make what he wished of that. She hoped the word bed caused him masculine discomfort. MacNeil might consider himself above all Picts but like all men, there were times when his cock ruled his head. And at this moment, no matter that he hated it, she knew he wanted her.

An odd expression flashed over his face. But it wasn’t suppressed lust, or dark desire or any number of emotions she had half expected. With an uncanny shiver, she recognized the fleeting look as desolation. The same as when he’d told her about his sister.

Curse this Scot, why did he never behave in the way she expected? Instead of issuing a chilly good night and leaving him to his own barbarous devices, as had been her intention, she remained rooted to the spot. Unable to tear her fascinated gaze from him.

All because of her infuriating certainty that there was more to Cameron MacNeil than the surly façade he presented to the world.

“Princess Elise.” The Scots accent penetrated her mind, but it wasn’t Cameron’s voice. He remained silent and darkly brooding, staring at her, as unmindful as she of the approach of Ross MacIntosh.

With great effort, she relaxed her fingers around the stem of the goblet and turned to the other Scot. He was smiling at her, but tension sizzled in the air. He clearly now saw Cameron as a rival for her affections.

Irritation blazed through her. Could no man speak to her without also wishing to part her thighs? The knowledge had never troubled her before. Nor had the prospect of flirting with two men at the same time. Such pastimes were common entertainment for all involved and never taken seriously.

But Cameron did not flirt. And there was a gleam in Ross’s eyes that belied his light tone.

The prospect of an evening that involved Cameron and Ross vying for her favor caused a wave of distaste to roll through her. Except she knew Cameron would vie for no such thing. He would probably turn and march away. The only wonder was why he hadn’t done so already.

The notion he would so easily abandon her heightened the injustice bubbling in her breast. She inclined her head at Ross in greeting and lowered her lashes, so neither man could glimpse her true feelings.

“If your business with Princess Elise is concluded, MacNeil, we will bid you farewell.” Ross thumped Cameron on the shoulder. Cameron folded his arms, his goblet hanging precariously between two fingers and appeared unwilling to heed his superior’s unspoken demand.

Again.

Against her better judgment, Elise glanced at him from beneath her lashes. She couldn’t make him out. Why did he stay when he had no intention of initiating a clandestine liaison? Just because she wouldn’t agree to such a liaison was beside the point.

Cameron didn’t know that.

Her thoughts tumbled through her mind, tangled and senseless. Why was she so obsessed by what this particular Scot might or might not want? And why did she want him to acknowledge his lust for her when it could lead nowhere?

Goddess, her head hurt. The thought of enduring another hour or more of Ross MacIntosh’s practiced flatteries and evading his inevitable invitation to continue the night in the more intimate surrounds of her bedchamber made her feel ill.

“I fear I must leave you. The queen requires my presence.” The queen required no such thing, but it was the first excuse she could think of. She held out her hand to Ross and with obvious reluctance, he took it and brushed a chaste kiss across her knuckles. “I bid you a good night.”

She would not look at Cameron. And immediately did. His expression was curiously devoid of its normal glower, but he was still looking at her.

For a fleeting moment, she almost offered him her hand, too. But her nerve failed her. Instead, she swiftly turned on her heel, barely acknowledging Ross’ extravagant words of regret at her departure, and left the feasting hall.

Only after she reached the bedchamber she’d so recently shared with Aila did she remember her queen’s edict. And her own personal reasons for wishing to speak with Cameron MacNeil in the first place.

Droston. Heat washed through her as his beloved face swam into her mind. How had she forgotten to steer the conversation in the right direction? She’d remembered him only fleetingly when Cameron mentioned her royal sisters and then remarked on the lack of a brother. Injustice at Droston’s situation had momentarily cracked her façade.

That same injustice flooded through her once again. Droston, her half-brother, whose royal blood was a secret so tightly guarded even his mother’s husband was unaware of it. The son her father refused to acknowledge, the boy her mother despised with every particle of her being.

None of her sisters knew. And if they did, why would they care? Droston had been her childhood playmate, her confident. Her savior.

The only reason her mother had finally told her the truth was because she had constantly called Droston’s name while in the grip of delirium. Her mother had feared one day Elise would take Droston as a lover. Blood oaths had been sworn as soon as Elise’s life was out of danger. She could tell no one the truth. Not even her half-brother.

She let out a silent breath. No, she could tell no one. But she wouldn’t forsake him. Bride had brought Cameron MacNeil to her, and it didn’t matter if the Scot troubled Elise in a way no other man ever had. He was the one who would help her. Her goddess had decreed it.

Elise would simply have to endure MacNeil’s presence and find a way to encourage him to share whatever knowledge he possessed on the fate of the Pictish hostages.

She had no choice.

***

Cam woke the following morning with a fearsome headache and flung his arm across his eyes in a futile effort to stop the sun from blinding him. He couldn’t remember returning to camp the previous night. He couldn’t remember anything much after Elise had left the great hall, except that he’d ignored Ross’ pointed glare and then proceeded to down five tankards of ale in quick succession.

But it didn’t matter how much he’d drunk. All he could hear reverberating around his head was Elise telling him Ferelei mac Uurguist was her husband.

His stomach heaved. No amount of ale would ever drown that knowledge from him. The man who had ruined his sister was married to the woman he couldn’t shift from his mind.

Did she love the bastard? He tried not to let his thoughts wander further, but it was impossible. All he could see between the crimson ribbons that ripped through his head was Elise, naked, her hair surrounding her like a golden river. And mac Uurguist touching her with his foul, decrepit body.

“Good morn, fierce Scot warrior.”

The husky whisper, in accented Gaelic, shocked the image of Elise from his mind. His arm slid from his eyes and he squinted at the woman who leaned over him, her dark auburn hair tumbling over her naked shoulders.

His heart slammed against his ribs. He had no recollection of bedding a woman last night. Who was she? Where was he? Because now his senses were returning it was clear he wasn’t in the camp.

Neither was he slumped in some flea-ridden tavern room. As the woman smiled and the tip of her tongue slid over her lips, the truth hit him with the might of a fist between his eyes.

God Almighty. He’d spent the night with a Pictish noblewoman.

She gave a soft laugh he imagined she thought seductive. Except it grated on his nerves. Who the fuck was she? But even he, with his deplorable social graces, knew better than to ask her outright.

“Do not fear, Cameron MacNeil.” She smirked down at him, but even though her accent reminded him of Elise’s, her voice didn’t cause his gut to clench or blood to heat. And the way she said his name served only to irritate him.

Why didn’t it irritate him when Elise addressed him so?

The woman swayed over him, so that her hair drifted across his jaw. “Your secret is safe with me,” she said. “But now I believe you owe me for what you promised last night.”

His secret? What promise? A terrible thought assailed him. Had he, in a drunken stupor, told this woman of his thirst of vengeance against mac Uurguist?

He shoved himself up against the pillows, inadvertently pushing the woman back onto the bed. She kneeled beside him and regarded him with a faintly bemused frown. It was clear she was unaccustomed to men not falling at her feet.

“Secret?” His voice was raw. He felt like shit. And he still couldn’t remember a thing that had occurred since leaving the great hall.

Her frown faded and she smiled at him again. “The ale affects a man in such a manner. So I have heard.” She languidly brushed a length of hair over her shoulder, exposing her breast to his view. “But no matter. The morn is still young.”

He stared into her face as his addled brain attempted to process her words. “We didn’t fuck?”

Her smile faltered and a faint blush heated her cheeks. It was obvious she wasn’t used to being spoken to so coarsely. And had she taken any of his fellow warriors to bed they would never have used such words in her presence.

But if she’d taken any of the other Scots to bed, this conversation would never have occurred in the first place.

Relief flooded him. He might not recall the last few hours but at least he’d betrayed neither his principles nor his private vendetta.

He pushed back the bed covering. He was fully clothed, apart from his boots. It appeared after reaching her room he’d collapsed, unconscious, on her bed. He hoped to God none of the others found out, but there was little he could do about it if the auburn haired seductress chose to mock his lack of prowess in public.

“What are you doing?” She sounded astonished and he turned to look at her. She had dragged the sheet around her and was clasping it to her breast. Strangely, the sight of her discomfiture touched him in a way her provocative pose had not.

He rubbed his hand over his roughened jaw. How best to tell her he had to leave, without wounding her feelings?

But his mind was a blank when it came to such matters. He’d never been in this position before. He doubted any warrior of his acquaintance had been in this position before. What man in his right mind would leave a woman who looked like this one, when she was offering blessed relief?

He cleared his throat. “I need to—” The words lodged in his throat. He needed to what? Take a piss? Stick his head in a bucket of iced water in the hope it cleared his brain?

Find a way to scrub Elise from his mind so she was not an exasperating distraction every hour of the day and night?

It was no use. He could think of no pretty words with which to flatter this woman. “Go,” he said, and before she could hurl angry words at his head, he picked up his boots and left her chamber.

As he closed the door behind him, he let out a relieved breath. And saw Elise standing not an arm’s length away from him. Staring at him with her lips slightly parted, as though she could not believe her eyes.