Page 17 of Highlander’s Claim

He shoved her into a cell with metal bars and closed the door.

“Aulay, please!” she cried.

But without another look at her, he turned and left the dungeon. As the door closed behind him, so did her hope to return to her time and make it to her appointment.

Her only hope to have a baby.

CHAPTER 6

As Aulay descended from the main keep into the inner bailey of Dunyvaig Castle the next day, he kept thinking about the strange woman, Jennifer. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her from the moment he’d seen her back on the Isle of Achleith.

As he walked to the sword-training site, feeling the morning sun on his skin, he wondered how she’d spent the night in the dungeon. It was warm here, but down there, it was freezing. He greeted his clansmen, every one of them nodding to him. The air in his castle always smelled of the sea mixed with the scent of horse dung and wet earth. The heavy, wooden door of the main keep was cold as he pushed it open.

Last night, he’d broken down and brought her a blanket. He’d found her shivering on the sleeping bench, and as he’d handed her the blanket through the gaps in the grating, she’d started all over again about letting her return to Achleith. He’d seen that she’d lost one of her ridiculous shoes, so he’d brought a pair of shoes for her that had belonged to his niece Anna when she was younger.

The woman had accepted both and stopped talking. In the light of the single brazier, their eyes locked; hers were like amber with light shining through them.

“Thank you,” she whispered, as though stunned that an act of kindness like this could have come from him. He nodded and gave her a piece of bread and a horn flask of water. Then, before she could say anything else to break him down and let her out of the dungeon, he left and went upstairs to his bedchamber.

The training ground was already full of children who had just started learning sword fighting. Lads and lasses of ten to thirteen years of age. Some were from the orphanage Leitis had started, and the others were clan children whose parents did not have the time or skill to teach them at home. He admired women and knew that they could do so much more than cook and clean. Leitis and Anna had shown him that.

Mayhap it was the rebel in him that, at twenty-one years of age, had opposed his uncle and his despotic leadership, but he liked a person who stood up against norms. Against a bigger force.

That was why he supported the Bruce.

That was why he kept thinking about Jennifer. There was so much he didn’t understand about her. Last night, he’d had a dream about her. He had been lusting for her, and it was the first time he’d had a dream like this since Leitis. Those legs of hers, flashing in the sun—her sculpted, seductive calves, the skin white and smooth. God’s blood, he couldn’t stop thinking about her legs.

He came to a stop before the children who were talking, playing, and running after one another.

“Well met!” he cried, and, as one, they stopped what they were doing and turned to him, grinning.

“Well met!” replied an uneven chorus of a dozen children’s voices.

He grinned back. Something melted every time he saw them, the generation of MacDonalds that would remain long after his time had passed and make him proud.

“Stand in two rows facing each other,” he called.

They did so. The shadow of the curtain wall fell on the training grounds and shielded them from the summer sun. This was his favorite part of the day. To be with them, help them, train them, see them grow and improve.

They picked up their wooden training swords and held them vertically at their right shoulder. He cried, “Step forward and slash. Step forward and slash!”

As they kept going, a dull ache settled in his stomach with the wish that one of them was his own. A son or a daughter.

Colum came out of the main keep and waved at him, walking down the inner bailey and towards the gates.

If…most likely, when Aulay died childless, Colum would be an excellent laird. Aulay knew it, even though the clan still had their reservations about Colum’s true loyalty. They had found him in English armor with an English sword back in Berwick when they’d stormed it to free him. He had sworn allegiance to Edward I.

But when they came for him, he had renounced the English king and left with them. Colum had confided in Aulay that he’d hated himself for doing it, and there was a reason for his actions he couldn’t share. He’d never sworn that allegiance in his heart, and he’d done it to protect someone. But he still needed to prove he was loyal to his clan and to King Robert the Bruce before the clan would accept him as their laird.

As Aulay kept training the children, two young washerwomen stopped with their baskets full of laundry and watched him with smiles, whispering. He knew those glances. Many unmarried young women of the clan were watching him like this. Ever since Leitis had died, some of them had hoped he’d take them to bed or marry them. He supposed it was nice to know he still had women’s attention, even at fifty-one.

But he wasn’t the sort of man who wanted to bed a lot of lasses. He was loyal to the bone.

He wanted one woman.

But the thought of loving again and risking losing that person made his blood run cold. And he still missed Leitis. The thoughts about Jennifer Foster felt a wee bit like a betrayal.

Truth be told, he didn’t like keeping anyone in that dungeon, so he wished he could free Jennifer. But he hoped a bit of time in the dungeon would convince her to stop lying. So, he would just let her sit.