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Marion frowned. “You could,” she replied, disapproval evident in her voice and face. “Or you could slowly break down the wall to learn him. You will be forced to travel together, anyway. It would be fairly awkward to travel with a man by your side that you are determined to overlook. Take my word for this. I have tried it, and if you are drawn to the man, it’s impossible, truly. A woman’s body has a way of defying a mind’s wishes when a MacLeod man is involved.”
She thought about all she had learned. She knew what her heart wanted to do. “I wish to break through the wall,” she said, praying she did not regret the choice.
Marion smiled triumphantly, and Sorcha blinked in surprise. “Do ye ken that ye seem verra innocent, but I see now that ye’re rather devious,” she teased. “Ye were leading me to this conclusion.”
“Yes, I was.” Marion stood, stretched, and started toward the door.
“Where are ye away to?” Sorcha asked, springing up.
“Weare away to find Bridgette. If you are going to lure a man to let down his guard, especially one who fears doing so will lead him to ruin, you need an expert enchantress, and that is Bridgette.”
“I dunnae believe Bridgette will be willing to aid me,” Sorcha grumbled.
Marion made a derisive noise from her throat. “Once she hears about the prophecy, she’ll be wanting to help. Eolande’s prophecy for her and Lachlan almost destroyed her chance at happiness with him. I vow to you that nothing will please her more than helping to alter what Eolande has foretold for you and Cameron.”
“I pray ye are correct.”
“Oh, I’m always correct. I’m the laird’s wife,” Marion said with a wink.
Nine
Cameron was starving, yet he did not move to fill his plate from the trencher laden with food in front of him. Food was not what he needed. He needed to see Sorcha. He rolled her name around in his mind as he had done at least a hundred times since Marion had casually told him the lass he had called Serene had remembered her name—Sorcha.
It had taken a great deal of self-control not to go to her so he could see her smile when she told him of her recollection. But he had maintained control and kept a purposeful distance. Yet now—now—the need to see her clawed at him. He clenched his teeth against the urge. No, he did notneedto lay his gaze upon her; hewantedto. Need was for things one could not live without. One needed air, and food, and drink. One did not need to look upon a woman that made one feel weak. That was want, and want was for men who were not trying to prove they were worthy to stand beside their legendary brothers and represent their clan. To acknowledge the difference meant he could conquer the yearning that had been building in him since he last laid eyes upon her early yesterday.
After he had trained with his men for many grueling hours, he had started to search her out, but the way his pulse had sped at the possibility of seeing her, perchance even touching her as he trained her, made him realize he needed a bit more time to gain full control. Part of him wondered if it had been cowardly to ask Alex to find her this morning and learn what, if anything, she recalled of riding a horse and throwing daggers, but he ignored that part of him that doubted, and instead chose to think he was making wise choices. Men who knew their weaknesses and adapted to overcome them were being prudent, and that’s exactly what he was doing.
She was his weakness. It hadn’t taken a week or a month for her to seep into his mind and consume it, devil take it. It had taken one kiss. The great hall was full this night, and the hum of voices participating in conversations filled his ears. To his right sat Lena and to his left was Lachlan, both of them eating heartily from their plates. The dais, which was usually occupied by himself, his brothers, and their wives, was unusually empty. Iain had gone to attend to the tenant who had been attacked by a wolf, and Marion and Bridgette had not yet arrived at the great hall for supper. As if his thoughts conjured them, the great hall door opened and the two women entered the room, arms linked and conspiratorial looks upon their faces.
A smile pulled at his lips. His brother’s wives were very close and always into some sort of mischief. What would it be like if he had a wife of his own to watch stroll into the hall with a twinkle in her eyes and a grin upon her lips? The errant thought had him reaching for his goblet of wine and taking a long drink. He’d never once pondered what it would be like to have a wife. In truth, the idea had never held any appeal, yet now he could imagine it. He was not such a fool to ignore how the timing of this change within him coincided with meeting Sorcha.
Marion and Bridgette walked down the center of the great hall, giggling and chatting as they approached the dais. They quickly took their seats, and then Marion leaned around Lena and met Cameron’s eyes. “Have you heard about Sorcha?”
His pulse immediately leaped. “Nay. Is something amiss?”
“Not at all,” she crooned. “It seems she is even better at archery than at throwing daggers! She bested Alex in every shooting contest they had.”
Lachlan whistled, and Bridgette chuckled. “Ye should have seen my brother. He behaved as if he was so superior when he took her out to the woods—”
“The woods?” Cameron asked in a steely voice. “I told Alex to keep her close and to keep a watchful eye on her.”
“Oh, he did,” Bridgette said with smirk. “He kept her verra close and could hardly wrench his gaze from her. I think he’s smitten.”
“Ye think Alex wishes to lay a claim upon the lass?” Lachlan asked, surprise clear in his voice.
Bridgette nodded, without looking directly at her husband. Jealousy rushed through Cameron’s veins, and he had to fight to keep his fingers from curling into fists. Beside him, Lena drummed her fingers on the table. When he glanced at her, she had an agitated expression on her face, as if the news of Alex and Sorcha bothered her as much as it bothered him. Sometimes he thought his sister cared for Alex but didn’t want to, or perchance she simply did not know what to do with the feelings. Given her past and the abuse she had suffered from her first husband, he could well understand this. He set the thoughts aside.
“Where are Alex and Sorcha?” he asked. He was pleased with how indifferent he sounded.
“They should be along any moment,” Bridgette responded. “Alex insisted on attending Sorcha to supper.”
“Did he now?” Cameron growled, fighting the desire to rise and go fetch Sorcha himself.
When Lachlan shook his head at Cameron, as if reading his private thoughts, he drank another large gulp of wine and shoved some bread in his mouth, though he had lost any hunger he had possessed. As he chewed, the door to the great hall opened once more. Alex and Sorcha entered, heads turned to each other in conversation. As they walked down the center aisle, men paused to gape at Sorcha, but she did not seem to take notice. She walked without a hint of sway to her hips, as if she didn’t care to use the curves God had given her to garner attention.
Her seeming innocence appealed to him on a primal level. Had he been the first man to kiss her, to awaken the yearning and desire of her body? His own body grew instantly hard as he imagined schooling her in the wonders of what their bodies could do together, and all the air in his lungs whooshed out as he drank in the sight of her.
Her hair shone like spun gold cascading over her shoulders and hanging down to her waist. Her face glowed as if she had been out in the sun all day, and her eyes were luminous in her delicately sculpted face. His chest squeezed, and he moved his gaze lower to her shoulders. He froze with his goblet halfway to his mouth.
