Page 6 of Twelfth Knight’s Bride

His horse, hooves fringed in shaggy feathering, shook his mane and tossed his head, grunting.

“He’s a spirited beast, lad,” James said to the young groom. “Ye got him?”

“Aye, mi laird,” the boy replied, but Aileana noticed James steadying his horse anyway to ensure it would acquiesce. A tiny kindness, as was the mindless tousle to the child’s head after he swung his leg over the cantle and jumped down with a firm thud.

She crinkled her brow. Softness? From this hardened warlord? And sakes, but his horse was a beauty—his coat so dark and rich, mane thick and windswept, muscles well pronounced. He must be nearly eighteen hands—

“Ye like my stallion, lass?” James wore a cocky grin, folding his arms. “I dare say ye’d have a hard time stealing him. His name’s Devil for a reason,” he taunted.

She scoffed and folded her own arms, glancing askance. “A fitting name for the Devil MacDonald’s steed.”

He stood to full height, towering over her, though now that he was on foot, she could see he wasn’t massive with muscle so much as he was bulky with tartan and fur. Rather, he was lean, like the Norsemen from whom he’d descended. And young. Mid twenties, perhaps.

“Disarm yerself,” Seamus ordered, and with a firm face, James complied, unstrapping his back sheath and depositing his claymore in her brother’s hands.

She sidestepped the men, allowing them to lead, as Seamus ushered him toward the keep. Guilt sliced through her like dirk blades for putting her brother and their clan in such a position. True… She had acted impulsively. And perhaps with a pinch of spite fueling her small act of retaliation.

The doors swung open, and James shook the snow off his furs on the top step, then stepped over the threshold.

So he does have some manners bred into that bull head of his. Aileana smirked, though the way in which he assessed their hall and sparse furnishings made her wonder if he was assessing the castle for more signs of weakness to exploit.

“Join me at the board, James,” Seamus began. “Supper will be served soon, and we can discuss over our victuals how I might make amends for my sister’s ill-conceived plot.”

“Mayhap ye can tell me why the lass is riding the countryside like a ruffian in the first place,” James groused. “Oughtn’t she be housebound with needlepoint or a lute to pass her time?”

He spoke with exaggerated enunciation, as if he wanted to get a rise from her. Ach, she couldn’t help giving it to him.

“My sister is—”

“No’ only would I nay be caught dead sitting on my arse whilst my people suffer,” she interrupted, “but we havenae the leisure or the money to buy such resources for needlepoint and music thanks to y—”

“Aileana has always been our wildling,” Peigi interjected with a sidelong glance, the soft edge of love coating her words. “Our dear mother tried to mold her into a lady, but she’s always been headstrong, and since our eviction two years ago”—Peigi’s implication was the closest thing her ladylike sister would make to an accusation, and James’s eyes cut back and forth between them as if bracing for an onslaught—“my sister has done everything she can, as have we all, to help uplift our people. She’s a skilled healer and prefers romping along the shores of Loch Ness or tending our parents’ graves in the cemetery or helping the peasants with their tasks. But a real asset, she is, for she’s never afeard of rolling up her dress sleeves to get work done. And she’s always been motivated by kindness and love.”

Aileana drew her brows together and gazed at MacDonald. “I suppose being like a lad has its benefits, eh? I make a good work mule, is what she’s saying.”

“’Tis nay, sister!” Peigi protested.

“Enough, Aileana,” Seamus said, with little conviction to his voice, as he dragged his hand through his hair.

The kitchen maids began delivering meager platters of flatbread and roughly hollowed wooden trenchers of watery broth and bits of floating vegetables. A cowbell was rung in the bailey, and off-duty servants and guardsmen hurried through the front doors, bringing a draft of cold air and sprinkling snow across the threshold as they cast wary glances at their supper guest. Pathetic, Aileana thought, feeling her throat thicken with emotion. Their meal was already so meager, and now they had to share it with the Devil MacDonald. He’d see firsthand how little they had to celebrate this Christmastide.

Aileana breezed around James, who examined the hall as if assessing the worth of it all, before sitting. Perhaps lamenting that he had missed his chance to own it when her brother had returned with the Earl of Huntly’s soldiers to evict the MacDonald squatters. His eyes cut to Seamus while he twisted the stem of his goblet, as if weighing options, and she squirmed with curiosity to know what he was thinking. His eyes lifted to hers as if sensing her stare. Aye, her guard rose. Without a doubt, he was scheming something.

The meal began solemnly, and Aileana tried to stare at her bowl instead. Watching their guest sent butterflies through her stomach with each searing gaze and did nothing to keep her nerves calm.

“And so, James,” Seamus addressed him, “let us discuss how to make my sister’s thievery right with ye.”

Just like that, her eyes lifted to the enemy’s again. She shivered. Watched him tear off a bite of flatbread, watched his jaw muscles bulge with each chew. His gaze held hers so tightly, she couldn’t look away. Another shiver washed over her, for he seemed ready to voice whatever he’d been thinking—

“I need a wife,” James said as if this somehow answered her brother’s question. Peigi gasped. Aileana’s stomach roiled. Silence fell like an iron gate upon the hall as utensils clattered down. “One of yer sisters will do.”

Trepidation washed over Aileana like floodwaters. She knew which sister he wanted.

Chapter Two

Ye’re a whoreson, James, for playing at such an intrigue. But this infernal lass, with the glossy voice of an angel belying her barbed words—and the Highland clans called him a devil—had given him an opportunity he desperately needed that he never thought he’d get. He desired his inheritance. And thanks to restrictions thrust upon him, more like a curse, the only way to claim four hundred pounds was to take a Grant wife and conquer Grant lands by his twenty-fifth birthday—which happened to fall upon Twelfth Night. Best never let her ken that I’m desperate for a wife, or she’ll be sure to rib me mercilessly.

The people of the western isles and Highlands feared him as a warlord dominating the MacDonalds of Clanranald, who’d claimed the Earldom of Ross. They needn’t know that while his castle coffers were rich, his personal ones were not, thanks to his stepmother—