am so angry with ye! It's full of pus," she said, glaring at the wound in his leg. "That was careless and irresponsible of ye, Connor MacDonald."
He snorted on a laugh, making the bed shake. No one ever called him careless and irresponsible. Ah, but he wished he could be sometimes. At the very top of his list would be making love to a woman until neither of them could walk. That was the second and the third thing on his list as well. In fact, there was nothing else on his list but rolling in the bedclothes, making love to a lass, over and over. Ach, he was as hard as a battering ram thinking about it.
"Ouch!" He was jolted from his thoughts by the hot, wet compress Ilysa laid on the wound. Jesu, it hurt.
"Ye deserve it," she snapped.
Her sharpness was out of character, and Connor realized she was worried about him.
"Don't fret. This is nothing," he said and covered her hand where it rested on the bed beside him.
The air vibrated between them, and his mouth went dry at the feel of her soft skin. Connor jerked his hand away. He should not be touching Ilysa - not even her hand - when he was lying naked in his bed thinking of endless rounds of hot, sweaty sex.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm a bit jumpy."
"I know it's painful," she said, drawing her brows together.
She had no idea how painful, and he did not mean the wound. He clenched his teeth and tried not to groan aloud as she rested her free hand lightly on his thigh and then - God, help me - on his stomach, while she wiped the wound clean and covered it with her poultice.
A little lower, please. He wanted to beg her to touch him, to wrap her hand around his cock and give him the relief he needed. Better yet, crawl into bed with him and let him...
If Ilysa knew what he was thinking, the poor lass's heart would give out. He looked at the delicate features of her kind face and then at her hideous gown and ugly head covering and wondered how he could be so depraved as to actually be thinking of seducing her.
Connor covered his face with his arm and commanded himself not to imagine what Ilysa looked like under that dreadful gown.
* * *
Connor MacDonald was not at all what Lachlan expected.
In the days since his arrival at the castle, Lachlan had watched the chieftain closely. Unlike Hugh, Connor met Lachlan's gaze directly and spoke to him with respect. Not once had he heard Connor make jokes at the expense of the lesser men or servants. In fact, his humor was self-deprecating, which Lachlan found disconcerting.
From everything his father had told him, he expected a man who carried the blood of the last chieftain to be a careless womanizer who was indifferent to the welfare of the lesser members of the clan. A chieftain had his choice of women, and Connor was undoubtedly handsome, judging by the way the women of the castle tripped over their feet watching him. The chieftain, however, did not appear to give any of them special attention.
Except for Ilysa.
Now, that was surprising. Ilysa was a funny, wee thing. Despite being highborn, she wore dull gowns that looked like hand-me-downs from an elderly relative twice her size. No, Ilysa did not look like a lass who would be sharing the chieftain's bed. If she were, Lachlan would have heard whispers about it by now.
And yet, there was something between them.
Lachlan watched Ilysa cross the hall, stopping on her way to say a kind word here and there and checking to see that all was well. Despite her youth and diminutive size, Ilysa controlled the household with a velvet glove. The servants would kill for her.
As she passed by, Lachlan put a hand on her arm. "You're always moving. Sit and rest a bit."
"I have a hundred things to do." She smiled as she made her excuse and started to move on, but then she halted and her smile faded.
There was always something in her eyes when she looked at him, as if she saw the blackness in his heart. Yet Lachlan never felt as if she condemned him for it.
After a moment, she perched herself on the bench beside him.
"Tell me why ye cover your prettiness," Lachlan said. "Is it the chieftain ye don't want to notice?"