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‘Sometimes Ailsa, when I look at you, I feel something stir in that hollow,’ he said frowning. ‘It is a strange feeling and one I would rather not have.’
‘Then you must have taken a very hard blow to the head to talk such nonsense, Duncan.’
Ailsa looked down at the bloody rag in her hand, feeling his eyes on her. She wanted to run out of the hall so he would not see embarrassment redden her face. She struggled to hide the tangle of emotions at play there, confusion, anger, pity and something more, shy pride at his acknowledgement that she could arouse such feelings in a man. When she moved to wipe away more blood his hand shot out and stopped her short.
‘Enough, I can tend to myself now,’ he said quietly. He stood up unsteadily, pulling her to her feet and put his hands on her shoulders.
‘Thank you for tending to me. I know what it must have cost you in pride to help your enemy.’
He stood so close Ailsa could feel his breath on her forehead and smell the blood in his hair. Some strange compulsion to comfort him threatened to overwhelm the hate she bore him and it was with some effort that she quelled it.
‘You need to wash, you have blood on your hands,’ she said, removing his hold on her and then she walked away from him as fast as she could without breaking into a run.
Duncan sighed heavily. It was not the fact that she was beautiful that unsettled him, for he had known many such women. Her exterior was soft and lovely and he ached to his bones with wanting her but inside she had a core of steel, a fierce independence that he admired and yearned to conquer. Why couldn’t she accept his protection and warm to him? He suspected that were she ever to meet a man she wanted she would love him fiercely but that man could not be him.
Duncan had never allowed himself to need anyone, the idea appalled him. If he let Ailsa into his heart she would just be one more thing he would inevitably lose, one more hell he would be dragged down into. There was no future for them anyway, given the circumstances.
He had long since learned to keep a tight rein on his emotions. In the heat of battle, the noise, the terror, the confusion, survival often depended on it. But at that moment, in the quiet calm of Ailsa’s company, that control had all but come crashing down. Having her hands on him had been an exquisite form of torture. Her soft touch banished the pain from his wound and the awful memory of the day’s events, the dead and the dying, the fear and the blood. She had turned his mind and body to sweeter things, but having her so close, wanting her, yet doing nothing about it, well that was almost beyond his ability to bear.
Ailsa sat alone with her thoughts in the relative sanctuary of her chamber. Duncan’s wound had healed well over the last few days and there was no fever on him, though she only surmised this from a distance. Since that strange moment, she had barely seen him. She assumed he had been preoccupied with the arrival of his uncle, Hugh Campbell, whose visit had sent the castle into a state of feverish activity.
When she had finally been presented to Hugh, laird of the Clan Campbell, he had lived up to her late father’s assessment of him as a ‘slippery eel of a man and just as slimy.’ He had none of his nephew’s rough-edged charm and good looks. When he kissed her hand, his wet mouth lingering there a little too long, Ailsa struggled to choke back revulsion. In his shrivelled, age-ravaged face there was neither kindness nor pity, only the knife edge of ambition glinting in his bird-like, darting eyes. She had made a point of avoiding both Duncan and his uncle since then.
A manservant entered hurriedly. ‘My lady, your presence is requested in the great hall for supper.’
‘Why?’
‘Lady there is to be a victory banquet for Laird Hugh and you are required to attend.’
‘Tell the laird that I am indisposed and will most definitely not be attending.’
‘Forgive me, my lady,’ said the servant nervously, ‘but my Lord Duncan said that if you did not attend he would come to your chamber and carry you down to supper himself.’
‘Did he now? Well, tell him I am indisposed …and that he can go to the devil!’
The servant scuttled off no doubt dreading passing this message on to Duncan. Ailsa smiled. There was some fight left in her yet and why not cause a bit of mischief. Thwarting Duncan’s plans felt good. Maybe she wasn’t so powerless after all and it was about time she wiped that smug smile off his face with her defiance. Why on earth did he think she would agree to join this humiliating banquet and watch his disgusting relations revel in her defeat?
Duncan received Ailsa’s message with bad grace.
‘Dammit man, did you not tell her the consequences of refusing my invitation.’
‘Of...of course, but my lady Ailsa is indisposed,’ sputtered the servant in terror.
‘Be gone then’. Duncan dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
Hugh Campbell, Laird of Dunslair laughed. ‘It seems to me that the lady Ailsa has her father’s belligerence and a deal more courage than that brother of hers. Or have you so terrified and mistreated the girl that she is afraid to sup with you nephew?’
‘Hardly, it’s just that she hates me is all.’ His face twisted into a resigned smile.
‘Well this indulgence of yours must stop and she must learn to do as she is told. The girl will be brought to heel once she is your bride.’
‘My bride!’
‘Yes, your bride,’ Hugh replied in a voice of steel. ‘Your marriage will secure the allegiance of Clan MacLeod thereby strengthening our position. They will never accept you as laird unless you merge your bloodline with theirs. Get a son on her and all will be secure.’
‘God’s teeth will you never stop your plotting uncle. I’ve scarce drawn breath since the battle and now you wish to burden me with a wife and one who despises me at that’.
‘You have to marry; for a man in your position, it is not a choice. This is how you grow your power lad. You can’t go the rest of your life seducing village sluts and widows and throwing your seed to the wind.’
