and bringing them home, no matter how handsome and strapping and well-hung they are.”
“Tildy!” Evina turned on her with a scowl. “What he looks like and how he hangs had nothing to do with it. I brought him home to tend Father.”
“Well, a bloody lot of good he’s going to be at tending yer father, unconscious as he is,” Tildy pointed out with disgust.
Muttering under her breath, Evina grabbed up the pitcher of ale she’d set on the bedside table and turned to pour it over his head. This was why she’d stopped to grab the ale to begin with; she’d hoped it would help revive him . . . and it appeared to be working, she noted as the man came to sputtering, cursing life.
Conran was dreaming he was frolicking with a redheaded beauty with blue eyes when liquid splashed over his head, tearing him from his dream girl’s embrace. He wasn’t happy about that and came to roaring life, cursing and bellowing as he lunged to his feet, only to fall silent and still as he found himself staring at the very same redheaded beauty he’d just left.
Well, not quite the same, Conran realized as he looked her over. She had the same face with full, luscious lips that gave him ideas, and bright blue pools for eyes. But instead of long, flowing, dark red hair and a lovely gossamer gown that revealed her round, burgeoning breasts and the curve of her hips, this one had her hair tugged back tight in a bun and wore a filthy, plain, ill-fitting dark blue gown that seemed to emphasize the shadowed hollows of exhaustion under her eyes.
Movement drew his attention to the pitcher she was even now setting on a bedside table and Conran scowled and ran his hands quickly over his face to wipe away the liquid dripping down it. Ale. He could smell and taste it. Not bad ale either, he acknowledged as he licked it off his lips. But a damned rude way to wake him.
“Where am I?” The question popped out as he scowled over the group standing around him—a poor copy of his dream woman, an old female servant and two soldiers, he noted—but paid them little attention, instead scanning the room quickly. It was a bedchamber, but not one he recognized.
“Maclean,” the younger woman said. “Ye’re a guest of the Macleans.”
“Guest?” His voice was dubious. The last thing Conran remembered was a naked man attacking him while he was bathing. Well, no, he realized, his eyes narrowing on the redheaded woman again. He also recalled her, riding up on a horse while he grappled with his attacker in the river. She’d slammed a damned sword hilt into his head, he remembered, his eyes narrowing on her. “Ye knocked me senseless.”
“Ye were drowning our Gavin,” she responded abruptly, but didn’t even bother to look at him as she said it. Instead, the lass turned to peer worriedly toward the bed.
Conran followed her gaze, but all he saw was a mountain of furs piled on it. Mouth tightening with irritation at her lack of attention, he growled, “If yer Gavin is the fellow who molested me while I was bathing, he deserved it.”
She finally deigned to give him her attention then, but Conran barely noticed. A muttered curse had made his head swivel toward the two soldiers in the room. His eyes narrowed on the smaller one this time. He looked somewhat familiar, but with his hair dry and clothes on, it took Conran a minute to recognize him as his attacker. Once he did though, he growled, “You.”
The man shifted uncomfortably. “I was asked to fetch ye out o’ the water. Me apologies, m’lord, if ye mistook me intentions and thought ye were under attack.”
“I was bathing, alone, naked and without me weapon when another naked man suddenly appeared and grabbed me,” he pointed out with disgust. “O’ course I thought meself under attack. Any man would.”
“Really?” the girl asked, and Conran watched the larger soldier glance her way and nod. He didn’t bother to look, but heard the frown in her voice as she asked, “Well, why did ye no’ tell me that?”
“The situation was somewhat urgent,” the larger man reminded her in a deep rumble of a voice. “We needed to hurry and could no’ wait for him to finish his ablutions.”
“Right. Urgent,” the girl muttered, and turned to peer at the bed once more.
Conran followed her gaze, wondering what she found so