"Mind your tongue, Lachlan. What a thing to say. And I'm not pretty."
Ilysa was a puzzle. When you really looked at her, you could see that her features were fair, but she tied that kerchief around her head so tightly it pulled her skin.
"What color is your hair under there?" he asked.
When he reached for her head covering, Ilysa slapped his hand away. "Stop it!"
He heard her gasp as a long blade flashed between them. Its point stopped an inch from Lachlan's throat. When he looked up the length of the blade, he saw Connor MacDonald at the other end of it.
"Is Lachlan bothering ye, Ilysa?" Connor's voice was as calm as the sea on a windless day, but his eyes were blue ice.
Lachlan did not move.
"No, he's not troubling me at all," Ilysa said.
"Ilysa is like a sister to me," Connor said. "If ye distress her, cause her even the tiniest bit of unease, you'll answer to me."
Like his sister, my arse.
"I don't want to leave any room for misunderstanding," Connor said, with the point of his blade pricking Lachlan's throat. "Have I been clear enough?"
"Aye, ye have," Lachlan said.
"I'm not certain I did right in defending ye to the chieftain," Ilysa said in a low voice after Connor walked away. "I want to trust ye, but you're hiding something."
"I spent the last two and a half years fighting the MacLeods," Lachlan said. "You've no right to question my loyalty."
"What have ye got against our chieftain?" she asked, undeterred.
"Nothing." Ach, she was as persistent as those wee dogs that bite at your heels.
"If ye endanger him, I'll kill ye myself." Ilysa got to her feet and looked down at him. "That's a promise, Lachlan."
Out of respect for her, he did not laugh. He had to admit that Connor MacDonald engendered loyalty from those who knew him well. That did not mean he deserved Lachlan's.
As his father so often told him, blood must be paid with blood.
Chapter 10
Luck was against them.
Connor cursed under his breath. This time of year, he should have been able to count on a heavy mist to hide the boat. Instead a full moon shone bright on the sea. Their galley would be visible to any MacLeod who might be watching from the opposite side of the sea inlet that separated the Trotternish Peninsula from the traditional lands of the MacLeods.
"Hug the shore as close as ye can," Connor whispered in the ear of the man at the rudder. The other MacDonald warriors in the galley were silent, keenly aware of how well sound traveled over water on a clear, cold night.
"That's the place," the man next to Connor said in a hushed voice as he pointed toward a dark cottage with a gray plume of smoke rising from its chimney into the star-filled sky.
Each night, Connor took a handful of his warriors out under cover of darkness to visit homes of MacDonalds who had not yet left or been forced out in the face of the threat from the MacLeods. This was the farthest they had ventured from the castle, and it was also the closest to the MacLeods' home territory, where they were strongest.
Connor felt his men's tension as their small galley glided to shore. He flicked his gaze up and down the shoreline, ready to give the signal to reverse oars should enemy warriors spring from the bushes shouting their battle cry. All he heard in the still night was the rustle of reeds brushing against the side of the boat and the flap of wings when a startled waterbird took flight.
The steel blade of his claymore made the familiar whoosh as he pulled it from its scabbard. He dropped over the side into icy water up to his thighs. With barely a ripple, his men followed him into the water. Together, they hauled the galley onto the shore and hid it under low-hanging trees.
All Connor's senses were alert to danger as he and his five men climbed single-file up the small bluff to the cottage. He neither saw nor heard anything suspicious. And yet, he felt as if someone was watching them from the darkness.
Once again, he wished Ian, Duncan, or Alex were with him. They had saved each other's lives countless times, and he could trust them absolutely. Though he had hand-selected the warriors who accompanied him tonight, he did not know them well, except for Sorely. He would have added Lachlan to the group, but he could not find him.