‘And you are the healer,’ he said. She didn’t act like Lochmore’s healer with her gentle ways. Ailsa was fierce. She’d likely stab Death in theheart before it came to take her clansmen away. Anyone she truly cared for she’d most likely... Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Or were you close to one of the McCrieffs?’
‘I’m close to every McCrieff. I care for them all.’
Not a lover or a husband, then. Still, her pacing seemed to increase as he asked his questions. There was more here. As the son of the Chief, he, too, cared for his clan, but losing a clan member would be different from losing Paiden. If that had occurred, it would be a loss he would roar against until his dying day.
‘Did you lose someone else?’
She suddenly hugged her body, her hands roughly rubbing her arms as if she was chilled. ‘We should be talking about my father’s proposal for us, not my childhood.’
‘Your childhood?’
She made a sound of frustration, of anger. ‘You don’t deserve my secrets, but know that I have just cause for my reservations about this marriage,’ she said. ‘But even then, I ask you, can you not see the benefits?’
His body recognised the benefits. His desire couldn’t avoid them. That red hair and rosy lips. Those blushing cheeks. Her fiery temper.
Even now when he was refusing suchconnection to her, his body conjured images. How he’d wrap the flames of her hair around his fist as he plundered those lips, as he coaxed her to her knees...
Hands suddenly greedy, he clasped them before she could tell what was truly in his thoughts. Her. She talked of past deaths and he could only think of her. Her father was foolish or maybe wise to leave them in this room together...alone. The small unadorned room only highlighted her worth and he kept noticing it.
‘You don’t want more deaths, Ailsa. I understand. But your father prevented McCrieff deaths when he confiscated our weapons,’ he said. ‘Of course, he could kill us. How would I know, since this is our first meeting?’
‘As if you’d simply let him. You’re wasting time, Lochmore.’
Until her father’s return. Her father had made it all too easy for them to come to McCrieff land. Now he understood why.
Sighing, Ailsa continued, ‘We know nothing of each other, but that matters not when it comes to our clans. If we marry, no one dies.’
‘Perhaps today, or for the next sennight, but distrust and animosity between our clans runs too deep,’ he stated.
‘Marriage is permanent. The change would be permanent,’ she said.
‘One was tried before and failed. And we all know whose fault that was.’ Legend had it that a woman who had promised to marry a McCrieff had married a Lochmore instead. True or not, it was also well known that the McCrieffs retaliated and relations deteriorated from there.
A slight frown. ‘What is known and what is speculated does not matter. The fact is we can start anew.’
If she had experienced the deaths of people she cared for, how could she believe so naively? Frederick, the Tanist, proposed it, but he also said he would remain Tanist and that nothing was a guarantee. ‘Did you not hear your father? This is not about starting anew. This is about preserving McCrieff power.’
‘That’s why you care,’ she said. ‘Not for lives, but for power.’
Power was everything. Lochmores were given McCrieff land because they held more power. For once, he’d like control of his life. With power, he could.
‘Don’t you care about it? You want to marry and, by doing so, you preserve the land you have regardless if the King says it is Lochmores. I could not wage battle against your family.Further, you also probably prevent King Edward from taking any more away.’
She opened her mouth, closed it abruptly.
‘You didn’t think that?’
‘I told you why I want it. For lives, which appears to be nothing you care about.’ She fingered the shears around her belt. ‘It doesn’t matter. In the end, the outcome is the same. Two people who have...position and influence in both clans marry.’
‘You think I gain power by marrying you though your father said otherwise?’
‘You certainly don’t lose it. There would be no fight over the land by the border.’
‘I’m Lochmore’s Chief, I could marry anyone and gain other lands.’
‘But none closer or convenient. And for that matter, none merely handed to you.’
Ailsa’s beauty was one thing, her unexpected intelligence was another. Everything about her was unexpected. She was fair of face and body. Mere hours in her presence and he knew she had a fine mind as well. There would be no burden to marry her.
