Free The Highlander's Tempestuous Bride by Cathy MacRae Page A

between the two lairds. Murmurs rose in the room like the buzz of angry bees.
    “Enough!”
    Heads swiveled at the new voice. A heavy-set man with a bull-like neck climbed to his feet. Torchlight glinted from his partially bald pate above a retreating hairline, and thick tufts of red hair peeked from the neckline of his leine. With a glare from beneath bushy brows for both the Macrory and Macraig lairds, he turned to his host.
    “I dinnae come here to listen to the twa’ of ye fight over something long since done. The Maclellans have always profited from our alliance with the Macrorys. If the MacEwens are again raiding our shores to avenge such nonsense as young Acair speaks, then we will band with Laird Macrory to see it ended.” Laird Maclellan turned a pointed look on The Macraig. “Whether ye are with us or not.”
    Laird Macraig did not break his stare from Ranald Macrory’s face. The animosity between the two men was palpable and Ryan’s throat went dry as he awaited his sire’s next move.
    Drawing himself up to a regal height, the Macraig spat, “We willnae be a part of an alliance with a bastard Macrory.” With a swish of his plaide, he turned and left the room, men parting quickly to accommodate him.
    From the corner of his eye, Ryan caught a glimpse of burnished red hair and wide grey eyes as Gilda watched him from the shelter of a wide pillar on the edge of the hall.
    * * *
    Gilda stared in disbelief as Ryan’s gaze met hers and his step did not falter. How could he simply walk away? The plaide draped across his shoulder swayed with each stride and her skin twitched to remember the fine texture of the wool she’d pleated beneath her fingers as he’d kissed her.
    The Macraigs disappeared through the double doors of the great hall and into the night. Shouts in the bailey as they called for their horses sounded loud against the stunned silence of the hall. The great doors closed.
    Gilda looked over her shoulder. The Maclellan laird remained standing, arms crossed above his broad girth, feet planted wide, as though expecting further challenge. Light from the candles shone on his forbidding visage, and Gilda shivered. The menace radiating from the laird could not be mistaken. She would not like to be the man—or woman—who came against him.
    Laird Maclellan faced Laird Macrory. “How do we defeat the pirates?”
    Darting looks around the hall and at each other, the men returned to the business at hand. Gilda drew back into the shadows, her heart a sharp ache in her chest at Ryan’s easy betrayal. Panic set in. She needed to escape, to be anywhere but in this room.
    Her slippered feet flew up the stairs, a mist of tears veiling her sight, but she needed nothing more than the touch of a hand to the stone wall to guide her.
    “Where are ye going, Gilda?”
    She gasped and spun in the direction of the voice. She blinked as the twins’ faces peered at her from behind a tapestry.
    “To my room. And ye both were to be in bed an hour ago,” she retorted.
    “Och, dinnae fuss. We heard the stramash . What happened?”
    “Never ye mind. Get to bed. The both of ye.”
    “We’ll tell Ma ye were down in the great hall.”
    Gilda frowned. She was supposed to be confined to the upper hall while the men conducted their business. Her da did not allow unruly behavior or drunkenness in the castle, and men who approached that state were encouraged to recover their wits outside. But when a large number of men from other clans drank and feasted in the great hall, she knew her personal safety could not be ensured if she were so foolish as to wander about unescorted.
    She gave the boys a narrowed look and the smallest information possible to garner their cooperation against tattling on her. “There was a disagreement.”
    “Was there a fight?” The twins scrambled from their hiding place and jumped up and down the corridor in mock fighting stances. “Was there blood?”
    Gilda rolled her eyes and sighed. “There was