The Sinner

Alex waited for the relief he should feel upon learning that her request had nothing to do with him, but it didn’t come. A bad sign.

“Ye know verra well that I can’t just run off with ye across Scotland,” Alex said.

“Ye must,” she said, clenching her fists. “My da wants to marry me to Alain.”

Alex wanted to hit something. He didn’t have time for this, and her father hadn’t listened to him before, but he wanted to help her if he could. “Do ye know where your father is? I’ll speak with him.”

“Does my father strike ye as the sort of man who takes advice well?”

She had a point, but he said, “I can be verra persuasive.”

“So I’ve heard,” Glynis said with more than a touch of sarcasm. “But it will do no good. My father is too stubborn by half.”

As was his daughter. “Have ye considered a compromise? Is there no man ye are willing to wed?”

Glynis gave her head a firm shake and folded her arms. “Ye said ye would be my friend.”

“Stealing a lass away from her father is no being a friend,” he said, though his words felt hollow. Her mother’s family could hardly do worse by her.

“Take me, Alexander Ban MacDonald,” she said, her gray eyes turning to hard flint. “Or I’ll go tell the Maclean chieftain right now that I saw ye swiving his wife.”

“That wasn’t what it looked like!” Alex was so used to having committed whatever offense he was accused of that he hardly knew how to defend himself. “My clan needs ties to the Campbells, so I couldn’t offend her.”

“Ye sacrificed yourself for the sake of your clan, did ye?”

“I didn’t do what ye think,” Alex protested. “Though it wasn’t easy, mind ye.”

Judging from the grim line of her mouth, Glynis was not impressed with his forbearance.

“Catherine is close to her brothers,” he explained. “If you’ve forgotten, they are the Earl of Argyll and the Thane of Cawdor, so I had to be verra careful about how I told her nay.”

“It looked like ‘aye’ to me—your being naked and all.”

Ach, she was full of sarcasm tonight. Glynis took a step closer and tapped her finger against his chest. Despite the anger in her eyes, the point of her finger sent heat radiating through his body.

“How about I tell Shaggy Maclean what I saw and let him sort it out?” she asked.

God preserve him, she was a determined woman. If she went running to Shaggy with this tale now, none of the MacDonalds would escape tonight. Alex ran his hand through his hair. He could tie her up and leave her in the storeroom. But he didn’t like the idea of leaving her helpless, not knowing how long she might lie here—or who might find her.

“If ye tell Shaggy, he’ll kill me,” Alex said, attempting to reason with her.

“It wouldn’t be my fault,” she said. “A man should pay for his sins.”

Hadn’t Tearlag said something like that to him?

“Ye wouldn’t be that heartless,” he said, though Glynis was looking as if she damned well would. “And I’m telling ye, I didn’t sin with Catherine.”

Not this time, anyway.

“I’ll do what I must,” Glynis said with that stubborn look in her eyes. “There are hundreds of men here. My father won’t know it was you I left with, if that’s your concern.”

With her father attacking Mingary, he wouldn’t even know she was missing for days. Still, it was too foolish.

“The truth has a way of coming out.” Alex folded his arms across his chest. “Have ye thought of what your father will do if he finds out I’m the one who stole ye away? Angry as he would be, he’d demand a wedding.”

For the first time, Glynis looked uncertain. It grated on him that the possibility of being forced to wed him was the only part of her ridiculous plan that gave her pause.

“I’ll have to take the risk,” she said in a hard voice. “Now, do I go bang on Shaggy’s bedchamber door, or will ye take me?”

CHAPTER 10

Let’s go,” Alex said.

Glynis sucked in her breath as he pulled her tight against his side. Her feet barely touched the ground as they passed the kitchens and started up the stairs.

What was she doing, putting herself into the hands of a man she barely knew? What made her trust this too- handsome warrior from a different clan? He owed her no allegiance. And he was angry that she’d coerced him into taking her. He could abandon her in the wilderness.

This was the most outrageous thing she had ever done, except perhaps stabbing her husband. But sticking Magnus was something that just happened—she hadn’t planned it.

The cool night air hit her face as they left the keep, but Alex’s heat radiated through her. He had a warrior’s body, powerful and graceful, and he held her with a sureness that sent her heart hammering.

Would Alex expect to be more than her escort?

That might be a reasonable assumption for a man to make—especially if he was the sort of man who was accustomed to having women offer themselves to him. If half of what she’d heard about Alex Ban MacDonald was true, he was that sort of man.