Chapter 3

She took a deep breath. For five years she had been dead inside. And what had it taken for her breath to rush through her nostrils like this? Her heart to hammer? It was what had cost her so far. So this unfortunate turn in events?She forced her lips to cinch.

"Lord McDunnagh, please, I am a stranger here, so it is very unkind of you to jest in this manner."

"On the whole that's not something I do. Do you have any idea of the amount of breath it wastes?"

"Perhaps. But, it occurs to me, that in addition to my noble lords and advisers back there, these women who I have brought all the way from my father's castle are my maids—"

"Maids? Hmm …"

She could barely credit the audacity with which he crooked his lips.

"You should have more care for their welfare then, if that's what they are, Princess. Because that's not how they'll stay for very long in this glen."

She flinched. Dear God. So it was true? Every word of it. How could she have shamed Lachlan's memory by imagining their son, her son, Arland, on this rapacious bastard's shoulders? And not just that. A rapacious bastard who thought it was just fine. Look at him grinning to himself as if it wasn't just fine, it was funny.

"Sir, you cannot mean this to be a McDunnagh affair entirely. I won't have it. It's ridiculous."

His casual regard turned speculative. He expected an argument, and she was appalled that the snarl issuing from her lips meant he'd gotten one.

"That's too bad. With the amount of McDunnagh bastards about, there's not much room for anyone else. Your prospective stepchildren will soon fill both sides of the church if that's what's worrying you."

"My—"

This would, of course, make it easier to sleep with him. Firstly, for a woman of her experience, to fight was to suggest she was terrified. When secondly, she had already sworn to guarantee her and Arland's futures by sleeping with him, if necessary. Something her sisters, Kertyn and Ardene could not have done, would not, when they thought he was a troll and had run screaming about the castle, saying they'd sooner die.

Thirdly, it was spy for a few days, a week, at most, not live happily ever after, examining his sterling qualities as a husband. Nothing she had not sworn. Nothing she could not do. Well, fourthly? Was it?

"Very well. Although I must add, that is not the agreement between our clans. The McGurkies were to be honored."

The glob of spittle sizzling through the snowbank to his right said what he thought of that. Indeed it said what he thought about her.

He wiped a hand across his mouth. "You and me must be reading from two very different books."

She swallowed. Reputedly the only thing that made Ewen McDunnagh vitriolic was getting to the bottom of a whiskey flagon. Much as she was tempted to glance around, she very much doubted there was one in sight, full or empty. Yet if his brows dropped any lower, his eyes would disappear.

"Sir …" Clearing her throat, she attempted a note of honeyed sweetness. Lord Ewen's rage would be nothing to her father's, if he now sent her packing. "My father was assured, despite past enmities, enmities I know and understand your older brother, Callm, the Black Wolf, suffered—"

His jaw tilted. "Just you be careful there."

"Me? Be careful? Why, just hark at that."

"My ignorance isn't as spectacular as yours."

"Well, it looks to me as if it's more. Her name was Morven, and she was his wife. So you see, I do know. But that deed, reputedly anyway, is in the past—"

He huffed harshly through his nose. "Just you keep telling yourself that. Now, come." He clenched his lean hand on her reins with such ferocity, she expected them to snap in two.

"Not until you give me what was agreed by proxy."

After all, it was best to start as she meant to go on. If she let him bully her like this, what would be next? Something she did not want to think of here?

"Now that would be difficult. Maybe you do that kind of thing over in your glen, but with all these people watching here, you'd be asking for trouble. Your damn crowd of thieving Irish tinkers would want to join in for a start."

"Excuse me?"

"Once we get to McDunnagh Castle you can ask the man who will. You can even show him your credentials too. He'll like that."

"My—Lord McDunnagh?" She almost fell off her horse. "You mean you're not Lord McDunnagh? I thought … I … Why, you told me to stop in his name."

He jerked his head. "You see that man there?"

"Who?" She peered through the whirling snowflakes."Him?"

"That's Wee Murdie. You see that deer on his shoulder?"

"I'm hardly blind. But what does a deer have to do with anything?"

"A wager. That's what. That we could have this little bit of fun first."

Kara's stomach flipped all the way down to her boots. If he now said, See your retinue being herded back down the pass, she couldn't bear it. The anger, the humiliation, the way this had all gone wrong. And herself, not even in Lochalpin yet.My God.

"But Lord Ewen swore. He swore to my father he would meet me here, and together … "

"Well, he couldn't. I think you'll find Lord Ewen has more important matters than to meet you here or anywhere else."

By which he probably meant drinking and wenching. She shut her mouth with a snap. Was it so bad if Lord Ewen cared less about the wedding than she did herself? It might even be he had no interest in bedding her. For that she should be grateful because it seemed her sisters' reactions were the right ones. But if this man wasn't Lord Ewen, then … ? She jerked her chin up. Her breath frosted the air.

"And here was me laboring under the misapprehension my fame was legendary, Princess."

Legendary? One only had to look to know why Kendrick had tried so hard to get her attention earlier. However much was said of Ewen McDunnagh, whatever affront he desired to offer her, his plaid wouldn't look as if it cleaned Lochalpin glen and every other one in the vicinity on a daily basis. He wouldn't be surrounded by this bunch of bandits. Or have that hellhound with him. Or bead his black stallion's mane with animal skulls.

But there was one man who would. How could she be so stupid when she was meant to have married him five years ago?

She lowered her eyelashes. "A pity the same can't be said of your modesty."

"I hardly see you're in much of a position to go talking of such maidenly virtues."

"And you're not one to talk, sir. Period." Despite feeling a blush spread to the roots of her hair, she muttered."Ogling what you can't ever have. Isn't there a word for that?"

"Hell, now let me think." He creased his lips, creating ridiculous dimples on his cheeks. "Nice?"

"Sir, you should have made yourself—"

"And miss what you showed me?"

Just the same. Callm McDunnagh, the Black Wolf. Lochalpin's famous guardian. The man who didn't let the rain into Lochalpin Glen on a wet day. Why, his hair wasn't even black. And he didn't look anything like the kind of ruthless, bloodthirsty monster who'd sold his soul to the devil. Stupid of her really. When she'd looked at her reflectionin the well at her father's castle this morning she'd still seen a woman. Arched, beetle-black brows, chalk-white face, thinner, drawn, harder,but essentially, a woman.

If she went on, she'd need to be more careful. Whether man or monster, intelligence said the Black Wolf could not be bought, bargained with, cajoled, or duped. Indeed, it was said he'd cut the throat in five seconds flat of anyone he suspected of the merest hint of duplicity.

So now he'd disposed of her retinue, she needed to start praying to the god she'd abandoned that he better not find out the real truth of why she was here. And why her father had ordered Morven's murder.