“Well, it’s too late for this battle,” Duncan retorted. “It’s turning into a rout. You’ve had it. I told you I was going to win.”
Edwina pushed away from the desk, her sense of fairness provoked by Duncan’s unaccountable display of aggression. “Bring out those men from behind the hill, Marsali,” she instructed her, her expression intent; Edwina was the unmarried daughter of an army general herself and had played more than one mock battle with her father.
“Leave her alone,” Duncan snapped.
“What men?” Marsali asked in puzzlement.
“The men under your skirts,” Edwina said. “No, don’t move them
that
way. Enemy encampment.”
“Go away, Edwina,” Duncan said with a scowl. “You weren’t invited to play.”
“I’m inviting her,” Marsali said, motioning Edwina to her side. “She’ll be my—what did you call it?—yes, my aide-de-camp.”
“Look, Marsali,” Edwina said, studying the floor, “you’ve got him outnumbered now. I think it’s time to take out your guns. Advance your rear.”
Duncan frowned across the carpet in fierce concentration. There was far more at stake than winning a game with Marsali than he cared to acknowledge, and being forced to play elbow to knee with her put him at an extreme disadvantage. Every time she stretched across the carpet he forgot the battle and remembered the exquisite pleasure of her soft body beneath his. Every time she worried her bottom lip with her teeth, he tortured himself with unspeakable fantasies about her soft red mouth. The poor bastard who married her had better be warned that his future wife was far more than the delicate creature she appeared to be.
For her part Marsali fought the remainder of the battle with a deadly resolve that took both Edwina and Duncan by surprise. The rudiments of warfare seemed relatively simple compared to the chieftain’s behavior. She pressed her belly to the floor, suppressing a shiver. The need in his eyes, the naked sexuality had aroused the wildest feelings within her. For a few wonderful moments she would have done anything he asked.
All in all, it was a very unsettling situation, which Marsali could control less and less. Clearly the chieftain desired her, and he resented her for the fact. She concealed a grin as she observed him from the edge of her eye. He was really going to lose his temper when she refused to marry the man he chose for her after all the fuss with suitors and seamstresses.
They battled fiercely for another hour. Edwina stood on the sidelines, offering snippets of advice, but Marsali waged her own brilliant war campaign. In the end, Duncan swallowed his pride and quietly requested a cease-fire.
Marsali nodded in dignified agreement and rose stiffly to her feet, her bedraggled headdress leaning precariously over her left ear. “Well, my lord,” she said with a pleased sigh, “I
enjoyed myself. We’ll have to play that game again some time. I’ve a feeling I might improve with practice.”
Duncan couldn’t bring himself to even pretend he was a gracious loser. He had underestimated both her intelligence and the depth of his affection for her. He got up and strode to his desk, plucking away the fishing bucket she had propped against the chair.
“I would like both of you to leave me alone now,” he said in a restrained voice.
Marsali edged around his desk, watching him in concern. “It was only a game, my lord. Better luck next time.”
Edwina waited for her at the door. “I don’t think he’s ever been beaten at soldiers before,” she said in an undertone as she ushered Marsali outside.
He hadn’t.
Duncan stared down at the disorder of his defeated troops on the carpet, shaking his head in bemusement. The girl had changed history. And she had won the only battle that haunted Duncan—the only battle he had come close to losing.
Cold terror washed over him. His instincts had proved true. Marsali had found the chink in his armor that so many of his enemies had sought. Her winsome charm was the most unbeatable strategy he had ever encountered.
The irony of his conflict was tearing him in half. He wanted to be the only man ever to touch her. At the same time he wanted to protect her from himself.
Because she was Andrew’s daughter, he could not have her. And yet it was the qualities that she’d inherited from her father that had attracted Duncan from the start. He craved not only her sweet little body, but her warmth, her honesty, her wild passion for embracing life.
Friday could not come soon enough.
F
riday had come too soon, and there was no reprieve from the chieftain’s heartless plan in sight. Marsali walked swiftly through the soft white sand toward the familiar figure gathering shells along the shoreline. The ball was four short hours away, and she had escaped the castle in a panic.
Duncan had been shouting at her from the battlements.
Edwina had chased her across the drawbridge with a pair of curling tongs. Johnnie had met her on the moor with a vague promise about the clan coming to her rescue.
“Dinna fret, lass. The clan has the matter under control. Ye’re not to worry about a thing tonight.”
“You’re not going to kill the chieftain, are you?” she asked in horror.
“We considered it, Marsali. We even got so far as to discuss what to do with his body, but then Owen and Lachlan came up with a better idea.” Johnnie gave her a reassuring grin. “ ’Tis all taken care of. The lads won’t let ye down.”
She’d been too afraid to ask what “better idea” he was blathering about. If her fate depended on the clan’s half-baked strategy, she was doomed.
“Uncle Colum!” She ran up behind him, splashing water all over his immaculate blue robe. “I’ve been trying to find you for weeks.”
“Summer is always a hectic time for a wizard, Marsali. Nature’s bounty is at her ripest, and I have to prepare for the dark months ahead.”
“Your spell didn’t work, Uncle Colum,” she said bluntly. “Time is running out. If I don’t get out of this mess the chieftain is cooking up, then I’ll be forced to defy him openly, and no one will ever respect him again.”
Colum tapped the cowrieshell against his ear. “Appearances can be deceiving. What has happened to your hair?”
“Lady Edwina tried to tighten the curls and tie them up with ribbons, and don’t change the subject. The chieftain didn’t go away, and his heart is still as hard as a cairn. Whatever spell you cast on him didn’t work.”
Colum slid his shell into the leather pouch at his waist, then began to stroll toward his shipwrecked home. “He’s treated you well enough from what I hear.”
“Oh, aye,” she said indignantly, hurrying after him. “He orders me around morning, noon, and night. He tells me what to wear, what I may or may not drink, who I’m to marry. He’s even confined me to the castle.”
“I can see that, Marsali,” the wizard said dryly, climbing over a huge rock that obstructed his way.
Marsali clambered after him, glancing up to see Eun
gliding down from the clifftops toward them. “Why are you being so obtuse about this, Uncle Colum? Why didn’t your magic work?”
The wizard balanced his feet between two upthrust rocks and reached down to help Marsali make the climb. “Sometimes a spell needs time to work. It would appear the chieftain is not the total blackguard you believe him to be. Is he not throwing a ball in your honor?”
“It’s more like he’s throwing me out of the clan.” Marsali froze in apprehension as Eun floated down toward her bare head. “He’s trying to get rid of me, Uncle Colum. Can you believe he thinks
I’m
a troublemaker?”
“I wonder what could have given him that idea.” He hopped down spryly onto the sand, leaving his niece stranded on the high rocks with the hawk perched on her head.
“Your magic never works, Uncle Colum!” she burst out in frustration. “I’m beginning to think you’re an old fraud.”
He glanced back at her with an enigmatic smile breaking across his face. “You’re going to be late for your party, Marsali.”
“Help me, Uncle Colum,” she whispered. “I need your power to battle him.”
He hesitated. Before he could answer, Fiona’s frantic voice rose from the porthole of the wrecked ship behind him. Black smoke billowed out around her frightened young face.
“Help me, Dad! I was practicing conjuring flames from my magic stones and something went wrong! My crucible exploded when I added the consecrated wine!”
The wizard raised his eyes skyward. “Why me? Did Merlin have his magic constantly interrupted by these petty concerns? Did Solomon? How am I ever to work on immortality when so many mortal problems disturb my concentration? How am I to contemplate the wonders of the universe when I have to squander my energies putting out a FIRE?”
He turned in a swirl of blue robes and sand toward the burning cabin, where Fiona was running up and down the deck, frantically pitching buckets of saltwater into the clouds of dense black smoke.
A wave broke against the rocks where Marsali stood. “Please, Uncle Colum. Please.”
He stopped. He gave her a pitiless look over his shoulder. “The power is within you, Marsali. All the magic you will ever need lies untapped inside your own mind. Use your strength of will. Help yourself.”
D
uncan had followed her, obviously afraid she would disappear and spoil his plans. She put her hand to her heart as she saw the dark rider thundering down the winding road that led to the castle. It wasn’t fair. Despite everything, the sight of his powerful figure astride the heavy war horse still sent fierce chills down her spine. She could hardly catch a breath as he neared, his stone-cast face riveting and merciless.
He reined the horse to a halt within an inch of where she stood, a sprite defying a soldier. She looked up steadily into his eyes. Her courage faltered. For a heart-stopping second she shared the same sinking sense of defeat that enemy troops experienced when they saw the famous warrior across the battlefield.
This man would always win. Who was she to challenge his will?
“My God,” he said softly. “Look at you. What have you been doing in that dress, lass? Running through a pigsty?”
Temper flashed in her eyes. Her fighting spirit flickered back to life. Her uncle was right. No Hay ever surrendered this easily. Hadn’t she always managed to emerge from her trials unscathed?
Except that this time the chieftain was her foe, and her weak human heart was the weapon he used against her with consummate skill.
Duncan shook his head at her woeful appearance: the defiant little face, the half-curled windswept hair, the gold tulle gown sopping at the hem and caked with sand. “I’m trying to be patient, Marsali. Edwina has explained to me that you’re very nervous about tonight and that I have been insensitive to your feelin
gs. I want you to know that…
”
She stared up at his face, not listening to a word he said. It was such a strong beautiful face. Her fingers ached to trace its angular symmetry, feature by feature. She loved his eyes
the most, though, the fathomless blue of the loch at midnight. She loved it when a flicker of emotion showed.
“And no matter what—” He broke off abruptly. “Are you listening to me?”
“Aye,” she lied, lowering her gaze.
“You’re going to have to change before the ball,” he said with a sigh. “And put your shoulders back, Marsali.”
She slumped like an old crone with the burden of the world on her back.
He leaned across the pommel. “Hold out your—”
Her head snapped up. “It
is
out, my lord,” she retorted, giving him a offended look before she stomped past his horse toward the dark brooding castle where her fate would be sealed before the day ended.
In a heartbeat he had wheeled his horse and blocked her way. Like a dark avenging angel, he plucked her up by the waist and settled her across his lap. She struggled, but he held her fast without straining a muscle. Her body fitted alarmingly into the haven of his, curves yielding to the hard contours. The blood in her veins hummed.
“Chin up, lass,” he whispered in mock sympathy as he touched his heel to the horse’s flank. “It will all be over by midnight.”
D
uncan rode back to the castle in bittersweet silence. This was the last time, thank God, he would hold the wee troublemaker in his arms. He inhaled the nostalgic perfume of sea air and heather that wafted from her hair. He savored the arousing warmth of her small body. He remembered the first day she had stood up to him and rendered him bare, as it were, to the world.
He realized grudgingly that she had been breaking down the barriers to expose his unsuspecting heart ever since.
He also realized, as the castle loomed into view, that Marsali’s submissiveness made him suspicious. It was almost too much to believe that his plans for tonight would not blow up in his face.
“I am the chieftain, Marsali,” he said in her ear, “and I’m warning you right now: It’s either a husband or a nunnery. If you embarrass me tonight, you’ll be embroidering Scripture on a sampler tomorrow.”
She vaulted off his lap the moment they reached the barbican. Duncan watched her race across the drawbridge, hoping his apprehension would prove unfounded. Years of instinct in assessing his rivals’ strengths and weaknesses warned him it would not.