off his lap. Then she stood before him, hands folded in front of her, looking at him with her doe eyes and making him feel like dirt.
"Why are ye speaking to me this way?" she asked.
"Ach, I'm sorry." Connor went to the window and stared out at the black sea and sky. "I see ye with Lachlan and know he could give ye all the things I wish I could, and I'm so jealous I can't think straight."
He heard Ilysa's soft steps as she crossed the room to him. He felt the venom go out of him as she put her arms around his waist from behind and leaned against his back. Her kindness was a gift he did not deserve.
"Don't talk like that," she said. "What could anyone give me that I'd want more than being with you?"
I can't even give her that for much longer. Though it was true that he had suffered a bout of jealousy when he saw her with Lachlan in a quiet corner of the castle yard, it was the message from MacIain that made his jealousy so sharp that he lashed out at her.
Connor turned around to face her. There was no avoiding it any longer. He had to tell her. What would she do?
She would leave him.
"Come to bed," Ilysa said and took his hand - and he put off telling her a little longer.
They prepared for bed like he imagined a young married couple would. After helping her off with her gown, he watched her cross the room in her chemise to drape it neatly over a chair. He dropped his own clothes by the bed. He left the candles burning because he liked to see her and crawled in beside her.
As he held her to him, he closed his eyes, but he could not prevent the words of the message from blazing across his mind. It would be wrong not to tell her before they made love in case it changed her mind about wanting to be in his bed. But he was tempted.
"Mo chroi." He brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her forehead. "I have news I must tell you."
He felt her body tense in his arms, and she said, "I don't want to hear it."
"Niall brought a message from the MacIain chieftain," Connor said. "He writes that the Crown will look favorably upon a marriage between me and his granddaughter."
Ilysa seemed to fold in on herself. Though he understood why she was withdrawing from him, he hated it.
"What do ye intend to do?" she asked in a small voice.
"I sought this match," Connor made himself say. "Our clan needs the alliance."
He had racked his brain since reading the message, trying to think of a way to avoid the marriage. No matter how he looked at it, his clan could not defeat the MacLeods without the help of an ally, and his warriors' lives would be sacrificed for naught. As chieftain, Connor did not have the right to put his own happiness, or even Ilysa's, above the lives of his warriors or the recapture of their rightful lands.
"Does that mean it is settled?" Ilysa asked, and the slight catch in her voice plucked at his heart.
"MacIain is on his way now," he said. "He'll be here in a few days - with his granddaughter."
As the silence stretched out, Connor wished just this once that Ilysa was the sort of lass who yelled and threw things. Anything would be better than this terrible stillness that made him feel as if she were slipping away from him moment by moment.
"I have no choice," he said, "I must enter into this marriage for the good of the clan."
But you're the one I want. Connor did not say the words aloud. He had caused enough harm without begging her to stay and be his lover.
In her methodical way, Ilysa folded the bedclothes back in neat turns and sat up, leaving his arms empty of her warmth. The candlelight picked up gold and red in her hair as she sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him.
"If ye want to leave, I'll send ye home to Dunscaith tomorrow," Connor said, though he prayed she would not go.
He loved her so much.
* * *
Was her happiness to end this quickly? Connor called Dunscaith her home, but it could never be that without him. She had no home.
"What do you want me to do, Connor?" Ilysa managed to keep