Yet it had not been mere terror she felt while in his arms.
“Saerla? Are ye quite well?” Rhian paused in her chatter and gave Saerla a closer look. “Does your head still pain ye?”
“Nay, no longer.” Her heart pained her. And—and another part of her body with which she was much less acquainted.
“Would ye like me to mix ye a draught?”
Saerla gazed back at her sister somberly. She’d never seen Rhian look so well. Despite being displaced from home and her own hearth, she was blooming, her body lush and her cheeks full of color. Carrying a child suited her. Carrying Leith’s child most of all.
“Rhian, I had a chance to kill him—well, to attack him—and I failed.” Saerla had not told Rhian about the kiss, did not know if she could.
Rhian’s brow wrinkled in concern. “Aye, well—”
“He stood close to me at one point. As near to me as ye be now. I did no’ pull the knife.”
“’Tis no’ an easy thing to do, to slay a man in cold blood.”
His blood had not been cold. It had beat hot under his skin. As had hers.
“It does no’ matter. I ha’ felled men on the field. Why no’ him?” It was that which truly bothered her. Why not him, who most needed to die?
“He is strong and could well ha’ overpowered ye once he spied the knife.”
“It does no’ matter. I should be willing to pay any price in order to wound him.” Saerla seized Rhian’s wrist. “We need him dead so Leith may become chief, and the child ye carry after him.”
“Aye.”
She would have to get near Rory MacLeod again, near enough to let his blood. It struck her suddenly that perhapsthatwas what the Vision had foretold. She had been looking at it the wrong way around.
The two of them twined together in passion. The strength of him overwhelming her. Perhaps in that Vision the power had in truth been hers, rather than his.
Mayhap she needed to seduce him.
The prospect made her draw an unsteady breath. Quite plainly, he had an attraction to her, though she had no idea why. A man like him—strong and dominant—could have any woman he chose. Beautiful women. In fact, it astonished her that he had not taken a wife already and gotten an heir of his own.
Perhaps he was accustomed to taking a woman, any woman he chose, and doing as he wished with her. His arrogance would argue it.
It should be easy for her, then.
Panic fluttered up through her, a wild bird trapped in her breast. Nay, it would not be easy. She had never seduced any man, never done more than smile at one in friendship. Could not imagine taking off her clothing for one. Lying down with him. Allowing him to—
Well, but she would have to keep her clothing on, would she not? If she meant to pull a knife from her pocket and slit Rory MacLeod’s throat.
She would need to act in that moment of passion before she—or he—removed her clothing.
Heat singed her all over. She saw again the bright gleam of passion in green eyes.
She could not do this. Shemust.
“Saerla, love, what is it? Somewhat bothers ye.”
“Moira could muster and attack at any time.”
“Aye, so. Leith says Rory’s men keep watch continually for any such movement. He has been up on watch himsel’.”
“She may persuade the council. And Alasdair. I hope Alasdair is all right. That terrible wound o’ his—”
“He should no’ march out wi’ a sword in his hand, nay. But he is stubborn to the bone.”
