slow-witted. "But ye must be on your guard with such men, for it's not marriage they seek."
"I have been watching out for myself since I was eleven," Ilysa said, biting out the words. "You were all gone, so I did it without your help or my brother's or anyone else's."
"I can see that it's fortunate we are leaving tomorrow," Connor said.
Ilysa never got angry when she argued. She had always found it far more effective to face opposition with perfect calm, but she was failing at that now. Luckily, they were interrupted before she resorted to raising her voice.
"Pardon me," a tall, curly-haired man said as he took her arm, "but this sweet lass made a promise to sit with me at supper."
Ilysa was inordinately pleased that he was not just the son of any clan chieftain, but the son of the Earl of Huntley.
"Thank ye kindly for your advice, Connor," she said over her shoulder.
* * *
"The MacLeod galleys are gone," Connor said when he met Duncan at their camp.
"Yours is loaded, and the men ready to set sail," Duncan said, anticipating that Connor would want to return to Trotternish at once.
"Unless I send word that the MacLeods have attacked earlier, come to Trotternish Castle on Beltane and be prepared to fight," Connor said.
"Hmmph," Duncan grunted in acknowledgment. Instead of looking at Connor, he folded his arms and stared out at the water.
"Bring all the warriors ye can spare and tell Ian to do the same," Connor continued. "I'll send word to Alex."
"Hmmph," Duncan grunted again.
Connor had failed to make a marriage alliance. His sister was barely speaking to him. He had made Ilysa angry, a monumental feat. And now, for the first time in his life, he felt discord between himself and Duncan, his best friend from the cradle.
"What's troubling ye?" he asked. "Come, Duncan, tell me."
"I don't like my sister living at Trotternish with ye," Duncan said, still staring out at the water.
"Why not?" Connor asked.
"People will talk."
"Talk?" Connor asked.
"They'll say she's warming your bed as well as keeping your household."
Ilysa warming my bed. Connor could not let himself think about that.
"Ilysa has kept my household since I became chieftain, and you've never mentioned this before," Connor said. "Besides, no one would think that Ilysa and I are..." It seemed too dangerous to say the words, but they blazed across his mind: lovers, bedmates.
"The men look at her differently now," Duncan said. "And they will think it."
"They wouldn't dare," Connor said. "Ilysa is your sister."
"Aye, she is." Duncan turned and met his gaze. "She thinks the world of ye, and you're her chieftain. It would be easy for ye to take advantage of her."
"By the saints, Duncan, I've been as celibate as a monk," Connor said. "It hasn't been easy, but ye know I've held out this long because I won't risk having a babe with any woman but my wife."
"Sometimes things happen between a man and woman, despite their intentions," Duncan said, his gaze still locked on Connor's. "See that they don't with my sister."
Chapter 22
Connor forgot what he was saying when Ilysa passed through the hall balancing a basket on her hip. He knew she must have passed through his hall several times a day over the past two and a half years. And yet, he had never been aware of her movements until their return from the gathering.
The problem was her new manner of dressing. Although she did not wear anything remotely inappropriate, her new gowns did not hide the feminine lines of her body. As she re-crossed the hall, Connor's gaze followed the graceful curve of her neck and the swell of her breasts. Before he could stop himself, he imagined the slender, shapely legs beneath her skirts.
When he finally tore his gaze away, he realized the men were waiting for him to continue whatever in the hell he'd been talking about. He began again but found himself straining to hear her soft voice as she spoke to one of the women.
This could not continue. He was chieftain, and the future of his clan was in his hands.
"We'll speak more of this later," he told the men. "Sorely, lead the practice, and I'll join ye shortly. Our foes do not rest, and neither must we."
Leaving them with that trite admonishment, he strode across the hall to where Ilysa appeared to be in a struggle to the death with a torch that had been rammed too forcefully into a sconce in the wall.