More surprise for Mhairi. When a flush rose in the Mackinnon's cheeks, he looked more like a charming boy than her ruthless enemy.
"He shouldnae have said what he did about me being his bride," Mhairi said, which transferred Jean’s disapproval from the laird to her.
"Aye, and ye shouldnae have treated the chieftain with such disrespect. Ye left the laddie nae choice but to put you in your place."
"And my place is in his bed?" she asked in a cutting voice.
Jean raised her eyebrows at the frank question, but she answered with equal bluntness. "Aye, why no’? He's a good lad. Ye could do worse."
"He stole me away from my father."
"Aye, perhaps that wasnae the best way to start a courtship, but before that, he tried to win ye the honorable way. The Drummond was too stubborn to give him a hearing."
Mhairi cast the Mackinnon a quick glance under her eyelashes. Jean was right. Her father was stubborn and wedded to the old Highland ways, where blood feuds persisted into eternity. Perhaps his time had passed, and the new century called for a new accord in the glens.
The thought struck her as painfully disloyal. But she couldn’t help wondering how she’d have reacted to Black Callum Mackinnon, if he'd come to her as an acceptable suitor, wooing her with her father's approval.
The Mackinnon was handsome. Even a woman who hated him saw that. When he wasn’t trampling all over her pride, his manners were elegant. More, she'd given him ample cause to punish her, yet he’d reacted calmly, almost kindly, to her defiance. Even when she'd challenged him with that glass of wine in the face, he'd been angry but he'd controlled himself. He hadn't carted her off to his chamber in a fit of white-hot outrage. He'd carted her off because any other reaction would undermine his power as laird.
Her father and cousins were all hot-tempered men, inclined to use their fists first and count consequences later. Because she was her father's darling, she usually escaped chastisement, but the atmosphere at Bruard was always alive with the promise of violence. The atmosphere at Achnasheen…wasn't.
She’d soon noticed the laird's easy way with his people. In other circumstances, she might admire it. Her father was a respected leader, but he used fear to rule. Callum Mackinnon didn't, yet he held his clan under as firm a sway as her father did.
Could there be another way for her kinfolk to live beyond reeling from murder to raid to another murder? The idea was appealing. She'd seen too many Drummond women mourning sons and husbands and brothers not to understand that constant warfare did more harm than good.
Perhaps if the Mackinnon had approached her like a gentleman and spoken of peace between their two families, she would have listened.
He tried, an unwelcome little voice said in her head. Your father wouldn't give him the chance.
An even more disloyal thought, curse her. And curse the confusion that set up home in her heart.
Mhairi stepped closer to the window. If only she could run across the hills to escape these traitorous thoughts. If only she could run all the way to Bruard Castle where she was safe from doubts and where she knew her place in the world as Mhairi Drummond, the Rose of the Glens.
She was yet to spend a night at Achnasheen. Already she questioned everything she’d been brought up to believe.
Troubled to her soul, she stared out the window. In the twilight of a north Highland summer night, the setting’s extraordinary beauty was undeniable. Achnasheen rose above a sea loch spread out before her as smooth as a mirror in the quiet evening. In the distance, the Cuillins rose in rugged splendor. Bruard deep in its rolling hills had its own beauty, but nothing to compare with this.
Another disloyal thought. At this rate, she might as well marry Black Callum. She verged on betraying her Drummond blood and becoming a Mackinnon anyway.
Mhairi waited for the idea to spark sick horror, then was dismayed when it didn't. She’d never forgive the Mackinnon for compelling her to his will. But now she came to know him better, it was difficult to cling to her conviction that he was a mindless brute with no trace of compassion in his veins.
Which didn't mean she was ready to wed the devil.
"Are ye plotting some horrible fate for me over there, lassie?" her bugbear asked from across the room. "You've gone gey quiet."
Mhairi turned to face him. He stood near the table, and amusement set attractive creases around his dark eyes. She realized with another shock that he'd been watching her for a while, and even more astonishing, she didn’t mind at all.
Jean had set out the meal which smelled wonderful. Now she pottered around the chamber, tidying up after the Mackinnon's wash. Mhairi tried not to think of how the breath had jammed in her chest when she’d seen her captor without his shirt. She hadn’t been able to look away when he rinsed the wine from that thick tumble of black hair. There was something irresistibly intimate about watching a man washing.
Black Callum might be a beast, but he was a superb-looking beast, plague take him.
"I’m in favor of a truce between our two clans. You’re right to seek peace."
Both Mackinnons stared at her, open-mouthed with astonishment.
"What did ye say, lassie?" Black Callum asked after an extended silence. "That sounded like a concession."
Sending him an impatient glance, Mhairi sat at the table. She opened her folded napkin with an irritated snap. "I'm no’ stupid. I dinnae like all the killing either."