Page 51 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

“Of course.” She smiled and took his hand, dropping her talon, and allowed him to lead her to the bonfire.

“Ye look lovely, lady,” he said as he slipped his hand into hers. A shiver scuttled over her. He was fit. Fair. Handsome. She’d seen him compete in the corn cutting. He and Laird Lindsay hadn’t been far behind her brother and Tormund. But his eyes seemed cold and detached, always eyeing the periphery, always on guard.

“My thanks.”

He led her into a reel. They hopped to the rhythm. And then his arms slipped about her waist.

“I noticed ye with the MacLeod.”

She tensed. “When?”

When they’d delivered goods to his people? At the corn cutting? Or as they rode away in secret toward the sea? Or perhaps that first night, when they’d hidden behind masks?

“Do ye think it wise to give him yer winnings from the race?”

He’d spied her and Torm on the roadway arguing for him to take the coin? Why had he been watching her then?

“It’s the least we MacDonalds can do for having burned his crops. And I am heartened to see that these latest winnings will further help his people.”

He spun her around when she caught sight of Reaper, Tormund’s man, slouched against the ale cart, a tankard hanging unused in his hand as he stared hard at something. Instinctively her gaze darted to James, except Reaper’s eyes were roving, following someone moving through the fair alone… Lady Peigi? Peigi was smiling surreptitiously. Reaper seemed transfixed. Curious.

“Yer warriors burned his crops?” Alasdair said, distracting her.

She tensed further at his searching question. “Did ye nay ken this?”

His silence was an answer in itself.

“I am glad my brother could be part of the reparations by working with Tormund to win.”

His hand tightened on her waist as they spun. “After what Owen did to yer sister, ye wish to help him?”

She bristled now. She knew such was an untruth that had already made its way into common knowledge, and felt an unusual urge to defend Tormund.

“I believe his brother loved my sister, thank ye. And I wish only to be fair and just.”

He lifted her, spinning her again, and as he set her down, he leaned in close. “That’s an interesting necklace ye wear, my lady.”

Her talon. She didn’t like the way he was leering at it.

“Be careful who ye align yerself with, lass.”

Was that a warning? Or a well-meaning caution? It was hard to tell by his tone. “Why?”

“There are folk who’d nay understand.”

A breath released from her lungs as she extricated herself from his touch. Begging fatigue, she backed away from his company but in truth, she needed to ride, to pound out this mounting unease in her belly at MacNicol’s questions and Tormund’s cold shoulder and disappearance.

She made her way to James through the crowded bodies against the castle’s wall, as Alasdair trailed after her.

“…I need this marriage, man. For Alasdair,” Laird MacNicol was saying. “’Twill protect Lady Brighde from MacLeod, too, I swear it.”

Brighde’s stomach dropped and she paused behind the nearest cask, straining to listen. James wouldn’t consider a marriage to Alasdair, would he?

“Damnation, MacNicol, ye press me on this as if ye have something at stake in the matter.”

She stepped out from behind the cask and strode up to James. Laird MacNicol fell silent at her approach, but he, too, was looking at her talon.

Placing her hand on James’s forearm, she said, “I’m going to tack Sunshine for a jaunt.”