“We can talk about my parents later,” he said, as he brought his lips to hers.
* * *
It was not like Glynis to go back on her word. All the same, Alex would not be content until he had a formal marriage contract with her father, and they had said their pledges before a dozen of their clansmen. If Alex could find a priest, all the better.
While they made love, his anger and resentment had burned away in the hot flame of desire. He was so lost in his passion for Glynis that nothing else mattered. And then after, as she lay in his arms, happiness took told of him for long moments, blinding him to truths he should not let himself forget.
But with the dawn, his caution returned with his resentment.
Alex knew he had no right to resent that Glynis only agreed to wed him after she learned D’Arcy was not offering her marriage. Nor should it have angered him that Glynis saw him as the least offensive of undesirable choices, for Alex had made that very argument himself. And if she also did it because she wanted to be a mother to his daughter, he should be glad of that.
And yet, all these things ate at him.
Alex had not wanted to marry any more than she did. But when he decided to, Glynis MacNeil was his first and his only choice. No one else would do.
And that troubled him most of all.
CHAPTER 33
Poor Bessie had shown herself to be a Lowlander by spending much of the long sail with her head over the side. While Glynis tucked a blanket around the sleeping maid, she heard Alex laughing and talking with the Campbell men who were sailing them to Skye.
The Campbell chieftain had provided a boat to take them home, and Alex had persuaded the Campbell men sailing it to let him take the rudder. Under his sure hand, the boat glided over the water and around the rocks as smoothly as a fairy flying through trees in a forest.
Glynis bit her lip and fixed her gaze on the Isle of Skye ahead on the horizon. Alex had not laughed with her once since they left Inveraray Castle days before. From the moment she had told him she would be his wife, he had lost his easy cheerfulness.
Clearly, Alex did not want this marriage. He
Wedded bliss, indeed. Misery seemed more the way of it. What had she got herself into?
Glynis sat back down next to Sorcha and combed the child’s windblown hair with her fingers. When Sorcha smiled at her, she was reminded that the marriage did have its good side. It brought her motherhood, a precious gift she had thought she would be denied. And Alex did not constantly criticize her and expect her to be other than what she was, as both Magnus and her stepmother had. He would protect her with his life, no doubt of that.
But Alex was bound to break her heart. When Magnus took other women, it had hurt her pride, but that was all. It would be different with Alex. When they lay together, he not only gave her pleasure—though there was plenty of that, to be sure—he showed her parts of herself she had not known before. After what they had shared, she could not bear to know he was going to another woman’s bed.
Because she loved him. God help her.
When Alex turned his sea-green eyes on her, the laughter left his face, and her heart sank. He gave the rudder to one of the other men, crossed the boat to sit beside her, and took Sorcha into his lap.
“The land to our right is the Sleat Peninsula of Skye.” Alex rested his hand on Glynis’s shoulder and tilted his head down to hers as he pointed. “And the castle ye see there is Dunscaith, my chieftain’s castle.”
Glynis’s body felt pulled to his. She longed to lean into him—but she did not.
“Dunscaith got its name from Scathach, the warrior queen who had her legendary school of heroes on the verra spot where our chieftain’s castle now stands,” Alex said, speaking first in French for Sorcha and then in Gaelic. “Those mountains ye see beyond the castle are the Cuillins, which are named for Cuchulainn, the most famous of the heroes Scathach trained.”
Glynis could not help smiling, for she recognized the start of one of his stories. She added Alex’s storytelling to her list of good things that the marriage brought her.
“Now, Scathach would only train the bravest and most skilled young warriors. To prove himself worthy, a man first had to penetrate her fortress, which had many defenses, including magical ones. Cuchulainn traveled here from Ireland as a young man, after the father of the lass he loved said he would only agree to their marriage if Cuchulainn was trained as a warrior by Scathach.
“Young Cuchulainn succeeded in getting inside the castle and was accepted by the warrior queen. Later, as part of his training, he helped Scathach subdue a neighboring female chieftain who was causing Scathach trouble. In the process of fulfilling this task, Cuchulainn had a child with the woman. And though his heart was always with the young lass he loved back in Ireland, he also became friendly with Scathach’s daughter. Unfortunately, he had to kill the daughter’s husband in a duel, which I’m sure he regretted. I believe it was after the daughter that Cuchulainn became friendly with Scathach herself.”
“What kind of story is this to tell to a wee girl?” Glynis interrupted.
“I can’t change the story,” Alex said, lifting his shoulders. “’Tis the legend of our castle.”
“The MacDonalds would have legends of philanderers and call them heroes,” Glynis said, folding her arms.
“Cuchulainn was no a married man at the time.” Alex cleared his throat and began again. “When Cuchulainn returned to Ireland, the lass’s father refused to let them marry, although Cuchulainn had fulfilled the condition. Ye see, the father never intended to allow the marriage and believed he had set an impossible condition. Well, that was a mistake for certain. Cuchulainn captured the father’s fortress, took the man’s treasure—and his life—and then he married his love.”
Glynis had been lost in the story and was startled when Alex stopped speaking. They were close enough to Dunscaith now that she could see the guards on the walls.
