Free Teresa Medeiros by Whisper of Roses

going to happen when the rest of your clan marches out of the mountains and lays siege to Cameron? More fighting? More dying? If you’d only give my father time to prove his innocence, you’d be able to convince your clan of it as well. They’d listen to you. You’re their chieftain now. If you weren’t so blasted stubborn—”
    A choked sound from the cell stopped her. Morgan had covered his head with his folded arms. His big shoulders quaked. He threw back his head and roared with a laughter so black and devoid of mirth that it raised the hairs at Sabrina’s nape. Tears streamed from his eyes, but when she saw the hopelessness reflected in their depths, she wondered if they weren’t tears of another kind altogether.
    “The
rest
of my clan?” he echoed. “Oh, that’s rich, lass. It seems the Camerons will have the last laugh after all, because there are no more of us. Those prancin’, pipin’ fools on the hill are all that’s left. All died off, the others have, and now my own da’s gone to join them. He’s probably wenchin’ in hell right now and havin’ a good laugh at my expense. I’m the chieftain, all right. The chieftain of nothin’!”
    Sabrina was stunned. She couldn’t even fathom the death of her clan. Clan Cameron numbered in the hundreds, each man farming his own plot in the glen, swearing fealty to her father, even taking his name as their own before God and man in a ceremony as quaint and timeless as that of the tenderest wedding.
    To be clanless in the Highlands was to be no less than the basest of outcasts.
    Morgan’s gaze met hers. “I believed I wouldn’t crawl, but I was wrong. I would have crawled for them.I would have died for them. They’re all I have. All I am.”
    Would any man ever declare himself for her with such passion and fervency? she wondered. Her heart lurched to realize Morgan wanted peace even more than her father did. His very existence depended on it. And now all his hopes had died at the brutal, cunning hands of Angus’s murderer.
    She started for the cell, wanting to offer him comfort even if it was only the press of her fingers through the bars.
    “Don’t
!” he roared.
    Sabrina froze. Here at last were the grief and rage he’d kept leashed inside him, boiling from his eyes in molten warning. His chains rattled, the manacles no more than fragile iron bracelets as he flexed his mighty arms.
    “Don’t,” he repeated. “Don’t come near the bars.” Then more softly, “Don’t you know what I could do to you?”
    Sabrina thrust her hands into her pockets to hide their trembling. A faint warmth still emanated from one of them. She drew out the linen package she had wrapped with such care.
    Morgan stood unmoving as she took one step toward the bars, then another, refusing to meet his eyes lest she lose her courage. Another step would put her within his reach.
    She took it, bracing herself for the whip of the chain around her throat. When it didn’t come, she knelt and laid her offering just outside the bars, where he could reach it without straining. The angular flare of his calves and wide-boned feet filled her vision.
    She smoothed back the edges of the crested napkin, freeing the spicy aroma of ginger and molasses. “I remembered how gingerbread was always your favorite. You used to drive the cook mad, stealing it from the kitchen before it cooled.”
    Fearful of the scorn she might read on his face, she turned and started up the tunnel. A mouse was already creeping out of his nest to investigate. He stoodup on his hind legs, whiskers twitching as he whiffed the air. At least someone would benefit from her folly, she thought, dashing away a stray tear before Morgan could see it.
    Morgan’s fingers bit into the bars as he watched Sabrina go. His gaze dropped to the generous slab of cake at his feet, then shot back to the end of the tunnel, where Sabrina paused to peer both ways before plunging into the darkness. His gaze drifted to the cake again.