Free To Desire a Highlander by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Page A

not, he stirred a heightened awareness in her. She had to resist the urge to smooth her skirts or worry a fold of the table linen. Never had a man so unsettled her.
    Worse, his mouth curved as if he knew.
    Keeping her chin raised, she sought composure. Deep inside, she secretly wished that the wind would indeed rush into the hall, catching him up in its chill embrace and sweeping him away. Anywhere but here with his dark good looks and savage masculinity making her feel more vulnerable than she would ever have believed, as if her body responded to his maleness, even clamoring for his attention.
    She inhaled deeply, half surprised she could even breathe in his overpowering presence.
    She knew he was watching her. He’d hardly looked elsewhere since they’d taken their seats. She tried to ignore him, sipping her wine and forcing herself to eat. But at times, she suspected he was smiling at her. His lips slowly curving in a disturbingly knowing manner.
    Yet each time she snapped her gaze to his, he only lifted a brow, his face expressionless.
    It was quite maddening.
    And all the while, everyone else ate, drank, and blethered on, unaware of her turmoil.
    Andrew, her youngest brother, leaned around Gowan then, catching Donell’s eye. “Our Gillian is a better hand on a galley than any of us!” he boasted, pride in his voice. “No one beats a gong better. She keeps perfect rhythm, and can even take the steering oar in a pinch.”
    “That is true,” Gowan confirmed. “She’s sailed afar with us, unafraid of rough journeys and no’ even blinking at the danger of places few men have seen and fewer know exist.” He leaned toward Donell, his face earnest. “Wild winds and rough, cold seas make her soul sing. She is a maid unlike any other. Her brothers and I, our whole clan, demand you treat her well.”
    “So I shall.” Donell lifted his ale cup to Gowan, drinking only when Gowan returned the salute. “When I come for her, to make her my wife, she’ll lack for naught. You have my word, before your family, and my own good men who shall guard this keep with me.”
    “We are glad to hear it.” Blackie, Gillian’s swarthiest, most good-looking brother, pointed his eating knife at Donell, then stabbed a choice piece of roasted venison as his brothers voiced agreement.
    “She’s waited long for happiness,” Boyd, another brother, declared.
    “So has our lord, dinnae doubt it.” A shaggy-maned, red-bearded man at the end of the table nodded, ignoring the dark look Donell tossed him. Conn of the Strong Arm, as Gillian knew he was called, turned to her. “Lady, I am the Valkyrie ’s helmsman,” he told her. “Ne’er have I heard of a woman on a warship. By the gods, no’ manning the steering oar.
    “ ’Tis a sight I’d like to see.” His blue eyes held interest at learning of her skills, softening Gillian’s heart, chipping at her defenses.
    She could like this man.
    And her betrothed clearly didn’t want him to admire her. He’d returned his attention to his roasted meat, his face set like stone.
    Ignoring him, Gillian smiled at the big helmsman. “Perhaps you shall see such a wonder. In the morn, when we sail for my home, the Isle of Sway. I shall take the steering oar if my father and my brothers agree.” She glanced at them, her spirits lifting to see the love and warmth on their faces.
    Only her father didn’t look pleased.
    Indeed, he avoided her eye.
    Donell MacDonnell appeared even more annoyed than before. No longer tearing into his venison, he now watched her over the rim of his ale cup, his gaze piercing. Gillian thought a muscle jerked in his jaw, but she couldn’t be sure because of his beard.
    Either way, Conn of the Strong Arm’s congeniality vexed him.
    Unable to resist rubbing salt into the wound, Gillian took a breath. “You see, Sir Donell,” she addressed him formally, her tone as strong and proud as she could make it, “we do things differently in the Hebrides.”
    “That, I