Page 11 of The Chieftain
“Leave your things. I can bandage my leg myself,” he said.
She started to argue, but he ignored her. Something out the windows on the sea side caught his attention. When he crossed the room for a better look, he saw three galleys sailing straight for the bay next to the castle.
***
Ilysa could not tear her gaze away from Connor’s tall, powerfully built frame outlined against the windows. Her cheeks grew hot as she watched the muscles of his back ripple beneath the neatly wrapped strips of linen. The white lines of his many battle scars only made him look more dangerous and fierce. Helpless to stop herself, she followed the long sinews down his back to the muscles of his buttocks, which were tantalizingly visible beneath his trews.
“Damn it, why has no one alerted me?”
Connor’s angry words jolted her attention. She tried to collect her thoughts while he jerked on his boots.
“I wish to God your brother was here,” he said and snapped up his shirt from the bench. “You can be sure the men would be keeping watch.”
“Let me help with that,” she said, fearing he’d dislodge the bandages.
While he pulled the shirt down over his chest, she held her hands inside it to keep it from rubbing against his wound. Ach, a lass could swoon standing this close to Connor with her hands under his shirt.
“What did ye see?” she asked, when she remembered there was cause for alarm.
“Three war galleys are about to land.” Connor grabbed his claymore and started for the door.
“Whose are they?” she asked as she followed behind him.
“They belong to Alexander of Dunivaig and the Glens.”
“Is he attacking us?”
“I don’t believe so,” Connor said as he pounded down the stairs in front of her. “I invited him.”
***
Men! Why did Connor not think to warn her that he had invited an important chieftain to the castle? Good heavens, what would she feed their guests? They had only just arrived themselves. At least she had set some of the servants to cleaning the hall and the bedchambers first thing.
She had not even had time to visit the kitchens yet. As the MacLeods controlled most of the countryside surrounding the castle, she suspected they barely had enough food to feed themselves. Three galleys full of warriors could clean out their stores in no time.
“When did ye invite him?” Ilysa asked as she ran to keep up with him.
“I told his son James when he visited Dunscaith a few weeks ago.”
“But this castle was still in the hands of the MacLeods then,” she said.
“I had confidence we would take it.”
Clearly. “But why did ye invite him?” she asked as she followed him through the door that connected the newer building to the keep.
Connor turned and raised an eyebrow at her before pushing through the door that led out into the courtyard. Apparently, the chieftain viewed that as one question too many.
Ilysa crossed the hall to another set of steps that led down to the undercroft. This was not how she wanted to do this. Her plan had been to tread softly and take her time winning over the servants of the castle, particularly the fearsome cook in charge of the kitchens. She’d heard murmurs since her arrival that he was the devil himself.
Though Ilysa had been only seventeen when she began managing the castle household at Dunscaith, everyone there knew her and had known her mother before her. For the most part, they had accepted her authority easily enough. Her Trotternish clansmen may know her brother and may have seen her at gatherings when she was a child, but that would not gain her much.
The cook, a sour-looking man in his fifties, glared at her the moment she came through the doorway to the kitchens.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“I’m called Cook,” he said as if he expected an argument.
“Cook, I fear we find ourselves in a desperate situation,” she said, standing before him with her hands folded. “The reputation of the clan depends upon you.”
