Free Highland Surrender by Dawn Halliday

eyes, a circle of white hair his crowning glory.
    Tapestries draped the stone walls of Cam’s bedchamber. Midday light filtered in through a single window, conveniently placed in a location to make full use of the sun’s trajectory. On the rightmost wall, two doors flanked a massive stone fireplace.
    “Och,” Duncan murmured gruffly, “here they are, then.”
    Ceana turned to the entrance of the room as four men appeared bearing the earl on a stretcher. He leaned up on his good elbow, scowling. When the men jerked to a halt just inside, he caught sight of Ceana, and his scowl deepened. “I can walk.”
    She shrugged. “I’m here to ensure your welfare.”
    Beside her, Duncan snickered silently. At least he was on her side.
    Oh, but she’d see to Cam’s welfare. She’d see to it so well and so thoroughly, he wouldn’t be able to endure it. And in a day or two he’d throw her out of his castle, and she would be free to go home. She didn’t like the message she sent by staying at Camdonn Castle: that the earl’s well-being was more important than anyone else’s in the Glen.
    But beyond that, for some reason, this place discomfited her greatly. Here, she was ultimately at the earl’s mercy. She didn’t like being under anyone else’s power. She preferred to be queen of her own tiny domain rather than a servant in someone else’s massive one.
    “My welfare isn’t dependent upon my being treated like a goddamn invalid.”
    Good . Her plan was already working. She gave him a serene smile and gestured to the bed. “Take him over there,” she instructed the men. She knew one of them—Bram MacGregor—a tenant of the earl whom she’d nursed through the ague when she’d first arrived in the Glen. She smiled at Bram, but he didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he gazed at Cam with open dislike as the four men laid the stretcher at the edge of the bed.
    “Should we move him over onto ’is bed, Ceana?” one of the men asked.
    Ceana opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, Cam interrupted in a growl, “I shall move myself, thank you. Now leave us, all of you.”
    Duly dismissed, the four men and Duncan strode out, Duncan grinning and two of the other men raising sympathetic brows at Ceana as they passed her. She marched to the bedside, hands on hips. “You are a surly patient.”
    “Do you know Alan pinned me down on that damned stretcher so they could carry me up here?” he grumbled.
    “Only because I asked it of him.”
    “You didn’t treat me like a piece of glass yesterday.”
    “I’d no choice yesterday. I had to make you walk through the forest to save your sorry life. Today, however, I have everything I require to heal you quickly at my disposal.” She cracked her knuckles. “And I intend to make use of all of it.”
    His lips twisted. “Sounds to me like you’re preparing to inflict torture.”
    “Ah, well. Sometimes healing can be a kind of torture. Especially for men of action, such as you.” She allowed herself a drifting gaze down the length of his body. “Well, I assume you are, in any case. You might be one of those noblemen who sits about all day drinking brandy and gazing at your beautiful visage in a gilded mirror.”
    He raised a single black brow. “You think I’ve a beautiful visage?”
    “I didn’t say that,” she snapped.
    A shadow cast a pall over his face, and his gaze skittered away from her until it came to rest on the opposite wall. “I shouldn’t taunt you.”
    Needing to occupy her hands, Ceana turned to her medicine trunk. She’d brought more than Cam would require, for she suspected Cam wouldn’t be the only one to request her healing skills at Camdonn Castle.
    “That kiss . . . at your cottage . . .” Cam’s halting voice came from behind her, and, squatting before her trunk, she paused.
    Without looking back at him, she said, “It was a mistake.”
    “Yes.” He sounded almost relieved.
    “You are betrothed.” She tried—and failed—to