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side or dead.”
    “I appreciate the warning.” They would all have to leave tonight, he to Edinburgh, and Duncan and the rest of their men to Skye.
    “Being Highlanders, these other chieftains will be all the more impressed if ye succeed in sneaking out of here under their noses,” the MacNeil said, and they both laughed.
    “They’ll never hear us leave,” Alex said with a wink. He was anxious to talk with Duncan, but that would have to wait until after the meal. “Shall we find your daughter and sit down?”
    “She’s sitting at the high table tonight.”
    Alex turned and saw Glynis was indeed at the high table, sitting next to the weasel with the weedy beard. “Who is that?”
    “Shaggy’s second son, Alain.” The MacNeil elbowed him. “He would be a good match for my Glynis.”
    “ Him? ” Alex stared at the pair at the head table for a long moment, trying to decide if the MacNeil chieftain was having a joke on him.
    “Aye,” the MacNeil said, nodding. “Alain is a chieftain’s son from a strong clan that supports the rebellion, and she’s known him all her life.”
    “He’s not a man I would trust,” Alex said.
    For a brief moment, Glynis met his eyes. But when Alex smiled and nodded, she turned her head.
    “And you are?” MacNeil asked him.
    “Are what?” Alex asked, with his gaze still on Glynis.
    “A man to be trusted.”
    That got his attention. Alex knew exactly what the MacNeil chieftain was asking him. He heard his mother’s voice in his head, as if she were standing right next to him. Ye will be just like your father!
    And Alex had turned out to be like his father. He enjoyed women, though never the same one for long. But in one regard, Alex was determined to be different from his father. He would not make the mistake of marrying a good woman and causing her to hate him.
    “Your daughter would have her dirk in me in no time,” Alex said. “And I’d deserve it.”
    “Alain will do,” the MacNeil chieftain said. “Of course, I’d prefer that she and Magnus Clanranald patched up their differences.”
    Alex spun around to stare at him. “Ye can’t mean it,” he said, struggling to keep his voice low. “Magnus is a vile man—and he’s a danger to her.”
    “Ach,” MacNeil said, dismissing this with a wave of his hand. “They got off to a bad start. A little time is all they need—and a babe, of course. A babe would solve the problem. Ye can’t blame Magnus for wanting an heir. Every man does.”
    He’d send her back to Magnus? Alex wanted to pound the MacNeil’s thick head on the table, but knocking sense into the man was clearly a hopeless task.
    Alex drank down his ale, wishing to God that Shaggy served whiskey instead.
     
    *  *  *
    The bar across the door creaked as Glynis slid it back. Over the pounding in her ears, she heard one of the women on the bed behind her sigh. Her hands shook as she waited for the woman to call out to her.
    There was a rustle of bedclothes, and she held her breath, waiting. Silence settled over the room again. Moving as quickly as she dared in the blackness, Glynis picked up the cloth bag she had left beside the door, lifted her cloak from the peg, and slipped out.
    Panic surged through her limbs as a large hand covered her mouth.

CHAPTER 9
     
    D on’t scream. It’s me.” Alex didn’t release his hand from Glynis’s mouth until she nodded.
    “I asked ye to meet me outside the kitchens,” she whispered.
    “Quiet. We can’t talk here.” He put his arm around her and swept her down the stairs before someone in one of the bedchambers heard them and came out to investigate.
    When they reached the main floor, he continued down into the undercroft. With so many guests in the castle, they could find servants sleeping or still working in the kitchens, so he grabbed a lit torch off the wall and shoved her into a storeroom.
    “What were ye thinking asking me to meet ye at this hour?” he said, as he rammed the torch into the