Highland Seer (21 page)

Jamie had not returned, turned back from the pass, either, but Donal had not expected him to. If anyone could get through, Jamie could. He’d send help as he went from clan to clan, which meant they needed to be on the lookout for small groups of armed men to start arriving within days. Surely Jamie would have enough foresight to make sure there was at least one man in the group that Donal would recognize from the Lathans’ visit to their clan.

At lower elevations, Jamie would travel faster. Even with stops to invoke the treaty clans’ assistance, Donal gave him until the new moon to get to the Aerie and back again.

In the meantime, there was plenty here to keep Donal busy. The session with Fergus had gone well. The old man was full of information—exactly the sort Donal needed if they were to keep the whisky wagons safe and guard the keep. Old Fergus also shared his opinions about his laird’s estate. Ellie had not been pleased when Fergus brought up her lack of a prospect for a consort. Donal had taken pity on her and changed the subject, but Fergus had planted the idea in his mind and he could not shake it. She’d tried to tell him, but he’d refused to listen. Ellie needed a consort. Not a laird. That had never been in the cards for him, but as a consort to a laird?

Nay, he couldn’t waste his time thinking thoughts like that. Donal had been too long without a woman to ignore one as attractive as Ellie for long, not when she seemed bent on throwing herself at him. Allowing him liberties, even under the pretext of Nan’s insistence he care for her and put her to bed. She’d had no business refusing when he’d offered to call for a lass to stay with her. Not that he’d helped matters. He wanted, nay, needed to touch her. When she was in the same room he could barely control his desire to sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless. But he must not touch her. Never again. Ellie might be a pleasant diversion when he had things in MacKyrie territory under control, but now she was a distraction he could ill afford. The MacDuffs could stage a return visit at any moment. The next one likely would not be as peaceful as the last.

Besides, for Laird MacKyrie, even MacDuff would make a better match than he, though he swore he’d never let that bastard touch her.

He couldn’t get her out of his mind, though he should. Consort? She believed he would save her clan. Could he? Dinna be daft. Yer place is at the Aerie, no’ here. But the more he turned the idea over in his mind, the more it intrigued him. He looked about him at the well-maintained keep. This clan had everything it needed except a strong, steady hand—and a lot more men. Warriors, skilled artisans, tradesmen. MacKyrie had lost them all at Flodden. Ach, he was foolish to even consider this. But then he had to consider Ellie, as well.

When she wasn’t driving him mad with her kiss, she distracted him, irritated him, even angered him, such as when she’d touched him as they left Fergus’s room, thanking him for his respectful treatment of the old man. Why would he not? Fergus might be old, but he knew the MacKyrie holdings like the back of his hand. Donal would be a fool to ignore him. Donal was no fool. Except, apparently, when it came to her. Carrying her to her chamber was one thing. Stroking her leg to the knee while she moaned with the pleasure his touch gave her? How much more of this could he take?

Ach, Jamie, get back here soon, before I do something we’ll both regret, Ellie and I.

****

Two days later, Ellie awoke with the vision still in her mind of Donal reaching for her. She’d had the dream again, at last. This time, she’d seen his face clearly enough to recognize him. Or had she? As the dream faded, so did the man’s face. Nay, she believed her Sight had shown her Donal, not Bram. The few times she’s been in his company, she’d felt none of the attraction Donal stirred in her. Bram was a slightly bigger, somewhat younger version of Donal, an inspired fighter, like the rest of the Lathans, but for Ellie, he held no charms.

Donal, on the other hand, would not leave her mind or her heart.

She went through her morning routine in a fog, trying to piece together the puzzle her Sight had shown her, barely speaking to those she passed. She couldn’t think from moment to moment where she was or what she was supposed to be doing. But the face in the vision would not become any more distinct, no matter how she tried to concentrate.

Finally, she gave up and went to a window to look down on the practice yard Donal had set up in the bailey. The lads were having at each other with wooden swords and blunt-tipped pikes. Off in a corner, archery targets stood, their centers untouched. Some shots had found their mark around the edges, but a collection of spent arrows littered the ground, some broken, she assumed, by hitting the adjacent walls.

Bram and Donal stood together between the two groups, talking and pointing to one lad or another. They made a fine-looking pair, golden strands in their hair glinting in the morning sunlight, shoulders and arms flexing beneath their shirts as they gestured. Bram laughed. Donal lifted a corner of his mouth. She wondered what could be so funny. Aye, Bram had a nice laugh, but Donal’s expression, while a much more subdued reaction to the humor they shared, riveted her attention to him. Subtle. Would he smile? Nay, he was back to frowning.

Suddenly, he shouted and moved quickly to two of the combatants. They watched with quizzical expressions as he began to correct their technique. Though the light wooden sword must feel like nothing compared to the weight of weapons he usually wielded, his muscles flexed and bunched as he moved smoothly through the maneuver he demonstrated. Ellie sighed again. Bram helped another lad nock his arrow and aim. But Ellie’s gaze kept returning to Donal, who now stood with arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed as he watched the two he’d corrected play out their mock battle.

Standing here mooning over Donal was not getting her anywhere. She had work to do. But something kept her rooted in place as Donal began to walk around the training ground, saying something to one pair of combatants, simply watching another. Finally, he looked up. Their gazes met and a bolt of icy green lightning arced from his eyes to hers. Hot shivers ran down her ribs to her core. She couldn’t break her gaze away, not that she wanted to. She lifted a hand and placed her palm on the window. Whether she meant it as a greeting, a supplication, or a gesture of defense, she didn’t know. Finally, he nodded, acknowledging her, then turned back to his charges. Ellie sucked in air and lowered her hand, suddenly aware she’d been holding her breath the entire time he’d captured her gaze. It had to be Donal in her dream, else why would she react to him this way?

She shook her head and turned away from the window, suddenly unsteady on her feet. She reached for the wall as she fought for balance. Breathe. Just breathe. In a moment, her equilibrium returned and she heaved a deeper breath in relief. Enough of this. She could not let Donal’s merest glance chase every thought from her head. She’d best go on down to the kitchen to check on the preparations for the midday meal. Those lads would be hungry.

Ellie finished setting out bread just as the mob poured noisily into the hall, shouting and laughing, full of exuberance over the battles they’d won and lost this morning. Bram entered next, then Donal. She gestured them to seats at her table, then went to alert the kitchen to start serving, if the noise hadn’t already done that.

“We’re comin’,” Cook told her. “We’re comin.’ Even the dead could hear that lot.”

Chuckling, Ellie returned to the hall and took her seat.

“Laird MacKyrie,” Bram said by way of greeting. Donal nodded, but didn’t speak.

Ellie’s determination to draw him out suddenly knew no bounds. “This morning’s practice went well, aye?”

“As well as can be expected,” Donal replied, arching an eyebrow and fiddling with his ale cup.

Ellie scooted her chair a bit closer to Donal and leaned toward him. Now or never, Ellie told herself. Let the seduction begin. “What were the lads doing wrong when ye stopped their swordplay?”

She dared not say “when ye saw me at the window.” That moment had been too profound, too fraught with a connection between them she dared not name, not in so public a place. Not where he could easily turn away from her and refuse to acknowledge what had arced between them. Aye, he’d felt it. She’d seen him start to uncross his arms when he’d noticed her, seen her hand upon the window glass. Would he have reached out to her as he did in her dream? But nay, he’d recalled himself and merely nodded, then turned away. It was a start.

Instead, she used the tabletop to draw imaginary positions the lads had been in, trying to capture Donal’s attention with a subject he liked, while leaning into his space and inviting him to do the same. “They crossed like this,” she began, crossing her index fingers.

Donal shook his head and took her hands in his. Her heart stilled at his touch then picked up beating again. She didn’t dare meet his gaze, but kept her eyes lowered. His hands were large and his rough calluses sent tingles shooting up her arms as she remembered their caress on her foot and leg, and imagined him touching her elsewhere.

“Nay, more like this.” He moved her fingers into the position he wanted, then held them in place. “If they cross too high, they’re vulnerable to an undercut with a dirk, like this.” He traced a line along her exposed palm.

Goose bumps broke out on her skin. She risked a glance at his face, but his gaze had not shifted from their hands. Then he looked at her. The boisterous noise in the hall faded to nothing. She was dimly aware of the kitchen staff moving around, setting out platters of food, but no aromas registered. Only Donal’s icy, light-green eyes.

Someone reached past her and Donal released her hands. The noise in the hall rushed back into her awareness. Scents of roasted meat and warm bread assaulted her nose. Donal turned away to thank a serving girl who had set a platter before them. Ellie shook her head to clear the cobwebs, sat back in her chair and took a breath. She pasted a benevolent smile on her face and looked out over her clan. Everyone was eating or talking, paying the laird’s table no attention. Good. Perhaps no one had noticed her momentary thrall.

Perhaps not even Donal. He sat beside her, calmly eating his meal. As she must also do. Ellie bit into a piece of bread. How could she seduce Donal when it seemed every time she tried, he ended up seducing her? One touch and she was helpless against him. Yet he seemed unaffected, eating steadily while he listened to Bram chatting away on his other side.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn away from Bram and look at her. She met his gaze.

A speculative gleam shone in his eye that had not been there before he’d held her hands in his. Perhaps her plan was working after all.

She gave him a confident smile and turned back to her meal with renewed appetite.

She could do this.

She would.

Chapter 14

That evening, Donal could avoid it no longer. Sitting in the hall at a lower table with the other Lathans, he left his evening meal mostly untouched while he sipped his ale and watched Ellie converse with Micheil at the high table. Every now and then she looked his way, but never for long. Her glances teased at him, drew him in, had him waiting almost eagerly, damn it, for the next time she noticed him.

After he ignored several verbal jabs from his companions at the table, they left him to his thoughts and finished their supper. They knew his moods. Out of the corner of his eye, Donal saw Bram nod to him as they stood to leave, cut his glance to Ellie and then back to Donal. Aye, Bram knew—or suspected—there was something going on between them. Donal wished he knew what that something was. Ellie was convinced she knew. Her visions told her the future. Some of the time. If she could discern their meaning. How much of her certainty was Ellie seeing what she wanted to see in those dreams? Seeing him?

His thoughts ran wilder the more he drank. He’d never met a woman who’d had him on tenterhooks the way Ellie MacKyrie had him. She turned up everywhere he went, speaking to him with that soft, sensual voice. Touching him with hands too warm to be real. Her touch set his skin afire and tightened his chest and groin with need. He knew what she was up to. He had to put a stop to it. She was the MacKyrie laird, damn it. He couldn’t take much more of this.

He served as arms master to clan Lathan, aye, an important and honorable position. But that didn’t change the fact that he was practically clanless, since he hadn’t returned to MacNabb lands in more years than he cared to count. His middle brother held the lairdship now, his da and oldest brothers lost at Flodden. But with two more brothers in line before him, the MacNabb lairdship would never be his. There was nothing for him there.

He had nothing to offer her but his strength and skill in battle. No lands, no castles, nothing to increase the value of her holdings. Nothing but this fire in his belly that burned for her. He shook his head. Nay, he was not the man to marry her.

She needed a marriage that brought with it a powerful alliance to benefit her clan, not a landless man little better than a soldier-for-hire.

A movement at the head table brought him back to the present. Ellie stood and walked across the hall, done with her meal and headed for the stairs to her tower. Micheil moved to the fire and settled on a bench with some of the other MacKyries.

Donal downed his ale in one long gulp. Might as well get this over with.

He caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs. “I’d like to speak with ye privately, Laird MacKyrie.”

Ellie faced him. “Laird MacKyrie? Is this so serious, then? I thought I was Ellie to ye.”

Donal didn’t reply. What could he say? Any response would open the floodgates of uncertainty he fought to control inside himself.

Ellie pursed her lips, then nodded. “Very well. Let’s go to the solar.”

As she led him up the stairs, her backside swayed above him, a beautifully full curve that begged to be touched. He could reach out and fill his hands with her softness.

He kept his hands to himself. Instead, he followed her into the solar, where she indicated he take a seat. The fire in the hearth lit the room with a soft glow that made the windows darker even than the night they revealed. The waning moon would not be up for hours yet. The thought of the moon gave him pause. Where was Jamie?