Page 104 of Enchantment of a Highlander

Celia frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand. You are beautiful and have the strong MacDougall name in your favor. Why do you need a love potion?”

“Have ye no ever been in love?” the woman asked, her gaze pleading. “Where all ye can think of is the way the man looks and smells and…” Her face fell. “And he canna bring himself to look upon ye. I’ve been in love since I was a child and he doesna give me the time I deserve.”

Alec surfaced in Celia’s mind. Tall, strong, ice blue eyes hot with passion. She didn’t have to close her eyes to remember how he smelled or how he felt. All of it was locked in a special place in her heart, never to be forgotten.

But to imagine feeling so and not having such emotions reciprocated would be painful indeed.

Celia studied her enemy’s young daughter, noting the sheen of tears in her eyes that once glared, the quivering lip on a mouth that spoke so sharply.

For all her nastiness, she was still a girl with feelings and for one small moment, Celia wished she had the power to make her man fall in love.

“Please,” the woman said. “After all these years, I want Alec to love me.”

Celia’s heart crashed erratically against her breast. “Alec?”

The noblewoman’s chin rose with an arrogant lift. “Aye, Alec MacLean, of course—my betrothed.”

Nausea squeezed Celia’s stomach and left her cool skin prickling with sweat.

Alec, betrothed.

To the daughter of the man who wanted Celia dead.

Pain sluiced through Celia with the memory of how she’d rejected him.

He’d obviously gotten over her quickly.

The thought ripped through her mind, but even as it did, she knew it as false.

Obviously he didn’t care for this woman if she went to such lengths to secure a love potion, and doubtless this would be an advantageous match for Alec.

The night from the forest flashed through her mind, when Alec stated there was a way to save his people, but that he would have to give up something dear.

Had he meant her?

Had he meant this?

“Will ye do it?” MacDougall’s daughter asked, drawing Celia’s attention to her determined blue gaze.

“Forgive me, my lady, but I am no witch. I am a simple healer who works with herbs from the ground.” Celia lowered her gaze lest the other woman see the show of emotion in her eyes and suspect the reason for Alec’s disinterest. “You ask what is not within my ability.”

Silence followed her declaration. The wind whistled across the thick grass and sent the trees chattering.

“Hamish!” the noblewoman shrieked.

Celia looked up to find a balding guard answering his mistress’s call at a full run. MacDougall’s daughter turned away, but not before Celia heard her orders. “The witch has confessed. Kill her and we’ll return her body to my father to be burned.”

Celia’s pulse raced and every sense in her body became more in tune with her surroundings. The chill of the breeze on her face, the odor of the man’s sweat as he approached, the cry of a seagull in the distance.

The guard’s step faltered. “But, my lady—”

“Do it!” The woman’s voice carried on the wind like the crack of a whip.

The man slipped his blade free of its sheath and stalked closer, his gaze fixed on Celia.

Chapter Thirty-One

Celia froze beneath the advancing guard’s stare. Her fingers went to her belt on instinct and met the empty sheath where her dagger had once been.