rendezvous with the MacLeod chieftain when the two clans were on the verge of war could mean anything except that she was disloyal.
Connor recalled how he had repeatedly given her all the reasons he could not wed her. Consorting with his enemy would be the perfect revenge, rivaling his mother's vengeful curse on his father's other sons.
Ilysa came to me a virgin. She chose me first.
Whatever Ilysa had done was his fault. She had come to him innocent, not just in body, but in heart and spirit. And he had brought her to this.
Chapter 38
Our warriors did what?" Connor thundered at Lachlan.
His head pounded from lack of sleep, and his temper was frayed. The first rays of dawn were slanting through his windows when he finally fell into his cold, empty bed. After a few hours of tossing and turning, he had finally fallen into a restless sleep. He was dreaming of Ilysa dancing around the MacLeod chieftain with sparks flying from her fingertips when Lachlan and Sorely banged on his door to report on their excursion.
The moment he saw them, he knew something had gone terribly wrong. The animosity between the two men veered to the edge of violence.
Connor shifted his gaze to Sorely, who had given a glowing report of their success, then back to Lachlan, who had spoken last.
"Our warriors chopped off the heads of the dead MacLeods," Lachlan repeated, "and sent them floating down the river."
After his night at the faery glen, Connor had mistakenly thought things could not get worse. He was so angry his vision went blood-red around the edges.
"We have every right to fight for the return of our lands," Connor said through his teeth. "But this sort of barbarism turns it into a blood feud. Our grandchildren will still be fighting because of what you've done."
"I knew ye would be angry," Lachlan said.
"Then why in the hell did ye not stop it?" Connor said, clenching his fists.
"I wasn't the one in charge," Lachlan spat out.
"Did the two of ye just stand by and let this happen?" Connor demanded, shifting his gaze from one to the other.
"I had my hands full keeping Sorely and the others from murdering a MacLeod farmer's wife and daughter, after they raped them," Lachlan said, his nostrils flaring. "I thought that was more important than saving the heads of those already dead."
"You participated in this travesty?" Connor said, turning on Sorely. When he saw the smirk on Sorely's face, he knew. "Christ, ye ordered it, didn't ye?"
"Ye said to rattle their cages," Sorely said with an insolent shrug. "That's what I did."
"Trotternish is not MacLeod homeland, so they would not have fought to the death for it as we will," Connor said. "Now that you've made it a matter of honor for them, they'll bring the full force of their fury upon us, and it will cost us many more lives."
"I fought under your father and your brother Ragnall for years," Sorely said. "This is exactly what they would have done."
"Not my brother, not Ragnall." Connor's anger was cold and hard, like ice in his chest at the accusation, though he could not say for certain that his father would not do such a thing.
"Ragnall was a fearsome warrior," Sorely hissed, "just like your father."
Sorely appeared to have no idea how close he was to being skewered with Connor's sword.
"Well, I am not like my father," Connor said, and for the first time he saw himself as a better leader than his father was. "I should have made my expectations clear. We do not rape women or defile the dead!"
"'Tis a mistake to show an enemy mercy," Sorely said, his face going an angry red. "Your father and brother understood that."
Connor picked Sorely up by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. "Get out of my sight before I order ye cast adrift at sea as my father did to the nursemaid you're so frightened of," he said between his teeth. "Unlike that lass, you'd deserve it."
"You'd best mind your back with Sorely after this," Lachlan said in a low voice after Connor tossed Sorely out the door. "Better yet, lock him in the dungeon."
He was tempted instead to hand Sorely over to Alastair MacLeod, who would give him a far worse death than casting him adrift at sea.
"Sorely is too loyal to my father's memory to go to Hugh, who was the brother my father hated most," Connor said. "I will deal with