She merited a kiss on her forehead for that. Fortunately, he had been able to bring her home quickly after the skirmish. Lachlan had also learned from his father where Hugh's boat was hidden a short distance up the coast. Despite Ilysa's foolish objections, Connor had carried her there on his back, and they had sailed home in their new galley.
They had found some of Hugh's plunder hidden on his boat, which meant Connor could make good on his pledge to Alastair MacLeod. He would give the remainder to the families whose homes had been raided or burned.
"Are ye finished yet?" Ilysa asked.
"A healer makes a poor patient." As he made the final knot in the bandage, his gaze drifted to where her pink nipples showed beneath her chemise.
"Ye do take good care of me," she said, and from the heated look in her eyes, she didn't mean just the bandage.
"Ye know me - I take my duty seriously," he said as he ran his finger along the curve of her cheek.
She moved his hand to her breast and pulled him down for a long kiss. After one turned into several, she asked in a breathless voice, "Do we have time?"
"I'm chieftain, aren't I?"
Just as their lips touched again, the door banged opened. Connor sighed as women and small children burst into the chamber like a spring flood.
"You'll have plenty of time for that after the wedding," his sister Moira said. "Out with ye now. We've come to help the bride dress."
Before he could greet Alex's wife, Glynis, who had arrived with their newborn son, one of Sileas's twins climbed on the table and the other escaped up the stairs to the tower. If those wee red-haired lasses were half the trouble at sixteen that they were at two, Ian would grow old long before his time.
"I'm glad I had the masons narrow the tower window." Connor exchanged glances with Ilysa, who had thought the measure he had taken to protect their future children a tad excessive. If he could have, he would have removed the nursemaid's ghost as well, though Ilysa assured him she was harmless.
"Your brother Lachlan is a fine-looking man," Moira said to Flora from where the two of them stood at the window overlooking the courtyard. "We must find a wife for him."
There was a general murmur of assent from the women, as if that were an obvious conclusion.
"Will ye find a wife for Niall, too?" Connor asked out of curiosity, which made the women laugh.
"Niall's not ready," Sileas said. "And when he is, he won't need our help."
Joking aside, Flora would be needing a new husband to help her with all those children, after her grief over Malcom eased. Connor intended to hand over that particular chieftain's duty to his wife, although Ilysa had expressed the strange notion that Cook was just the man for Flora.
"Go," Moira said, with a hand on Connor's back. "Everyone's waiting."
"I'll see ye in the hall," he said to Ilysa and leaned down to give her a last lingering kiss.
When Moira cleared her throat, they broke the kiss and smiled into each other's eyes.
The sound of pipes and the buzz of voices filled the stairwell as he descended. As soon as he entered the hall, the crowd began chanting his name and stomping their feet. The clan was in the mood for a celebration. Connor raised his fist in acknowledgment, and the crowd roared.
By good fortune, Father Brian had arrived for his annual visit, which ensured the festivities would go on for days. Today was devoted to the chieftain's wedding, but the priest would later bless all the babes that had been born and the marriages that had taken place since his last visit.
With all the greetings and wishes of good fortune, it took Connor some time to reach the far end of the hall where his cousins and Duncan waited, dressed as he was in their best saffron shirts and plaids. At Duncan's signal, the boisterous crowd parted down the middle and went quiet, save for the occasional voice of a child.
Connor stood with Ian and Alex on one side of him, and Duncan on the other, as he waited for his bride. It was right that these men, who were his close companions since childhood and who had each played an essential part in restoring their clan, be at his side on this special day. The four of them had accomplished what they set out to do