“Lady, wha’ be yer name?”
“Rhian. I am Rhian MacBeith.”
As beautiful as she was.
“I am Leith. Leith MacLeod. Wha’ d’ye mean to do wi’ me?”
Her gaze moved over his face and, incredibly, lingered on his lips. “Do wi’ ye?”
“Will ye call your guards? Let them finish me off like the others?”
“Nay.” She shook her head.
She still held him, which meant her breasts were pressed into the side of his chest, her mouth a mere whisper from his. No lightness here, no banter or teasing. What he felt was serious as life itself.
“Can ye stand on yer feet? Can ye walk on yer own?”
“I do no’ ken.”
“Go, if ye are able.” She released her hold on him. He stumbled and nearly fell.
Go,she said. Out into the darkness where, aye, lay still another barrier to home. The broad expanse of the loch, which he could not cross in his condition. He might not make it.
Yet her mercy allowed her to offer him the chance.
He took one last, long look at her as she stood there, watching him. He memorized her features and wondered again at the color of all that hair.
“Thank ye, merciful angel,” he whispered, the last words to pass between them.
*
She should nothave done that. Rhian knew at once she should never have let the man go. Yet she stood quite still and watched him stumble off into the gloaming. She should have called her men. Because he—he was the enemy.
Leith MacLeod.
She hadn’t known that when she first found him, and him so soaked with blood she could not see the pattern on his tartan. Once she’d tended him, bandaged his wound, looked into his eyes—how could she let the men even now searching through the dark come and snatch his life?
Yet he was dangerous. A MacLeod warrior. One who could go off and lick his wounds, grow strong again, and return to harm what she loved. And och, aye, she loved. She loved the very stones of this place and those who lived in it. She might not express it often, she being a woman who looked after her emotions the way she looked after her duties. No one would ever accuse Rhian MacBeith of being exuberant. Calm, aye. Practical. Even serene at times. She remained devoted to this place, however, and those in it.
As she watched Leith MacLeod disappear through the gathering dark, however, shefelt. Not calm nor practical. Definitely not serene. Shaken. Moved beyond all reason.
Aware of him as a man.
Which was pure foolishness. She had tended him because he’d been in need, nothing more. She would do the same for most anyone, be it man, woman, child, or animal. She rarely revealed the depth of compassion in her heart. That did not mean it failed to exist.
She would not, though, knowingly extend care to a MacLeod. That thought came to her, strong. Not if she knew. How could she provide succor to a member of the clan who had cost her brother, Arran, his life? Stolen her da from her, and harmed so many others?
Och, what had she done?
She turned back toward the keep, away from the darkness, thinking about her sister Moira. Of the three sisters MacBeith, Moira was the eldest, strong and valiant. A woman who had, herself, only recently lost her heart to a MacLeod.
Aye, so, it was the talk of the clan. Moira had assumed leadership after Da’s death and, with the help of their war chief, Alasdair, done a braw job of leading them. But she’d fallen in love with a MacLeod prisoner seized during a raid—the very man who had struck their father down.
Rhian could not comprehend it. She understood love, aye. Or perhaps she did not, for she’d never yet fallen into that state. It seemed to her a woman should be able to put such feelings aside for the greater good.
Moira had not done that. Instead she’d brought the man, called Farlan, to live with her, and planned to wed with him. Even though he’d renounced his name and his place as a MacLeod for Moira’s sake, and sacrificed his birthright, the MacBeith clansfolk knew him for the man who had killed their beloved chief. They’d near beaten him to death for it.
They did not want to accept him here at Moira’s side. In fact, ’twas still to be decided whether she would be allowed to keep her place as chief if she did not part ways with him.
