Chapter Ten
While Emma had enjoyed Morgan’s kiss, it was time to stop this nonsense and go to the great hall and have her own evening meal.
She turned to leave, and Morgan grabbed her hand to stop her.
For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes.
Slowly Morgan moved his head closer to hers, most likely studying her to see if she would back up this time.
She didn’t.
With both his hands he cupped her face and covered her mouth with his.
His lips once again surprised her. For as firm as she’d seen them when he was angry with her, when they kissed, his lips were soft, moist, tender.
He brushed those lips over hers and then slid his tongue into her mouth, seeking, searching, touching, bringing her almost to her knees.
How could a man so strong, a hard warrior, be so gentle when he kissed her? His tongue swept through her mouth touching places he must have determined the last time were sensitive.
She felt her nipples tighten and dampness grow at the area between her legs. Her heart pounded and her clothes felt restrictive. Morgan moved one of his hands from her face and slid it down to cup her breast, kneading the flesh and running his palm over her nipple.
Instead of being shocked, which she assumed would happen if she were in her right mind, she pressed closer to his body, feeling his muscles twitch as she slid her hand over his chest.
“Ye make me crazy, lass. One minute, ye are annoying the hell out of me and then I wrap my arms around ye, and all want is to make ye mine.”
“Nay,” she said. She pulled back, her eyes closed as he continued to kiss her neck, behind her ear and now had the front of her dress down around her waist.
When did that happen?
“I must go. ’Tis time for the evening meal.”
“Nay, stay here with me, let me show ye how good it can be between a mon and a woman.”
Emma drew on all the strength she had and once again pulled back, but this time far enough that he could not reach her.
She gulped trying to get air into her lungs as she refastened her dress. “We will take a walk when I get back.”
Morgan stared at her and reached out. “Ye ken that’s no’ what I want from ye, lass.”
She shook her head and fled the hut, walking as quickly as she could away from Morgan, to the great hall filled with warriors, and clan members enjoying their food.
Daniel and Beth sat at a table near the back of the room, heads together, chatting away.
Emma slid in alongside one of the clan members, a young woman with her bairns.
Since she was wrestling with a few of them to get them to eat, Emma took the youngest one off the mam’s lap and fed him the soft food she’d been trying to get the bairn to eat.
She thought about what had just happened with Morgan. He wanted to make her his? Even if by some miracle Daniel let him return to Clyth Castle, where would that leave her?
Here, and brokenhearted, that’s where. The thought made her stop for a minute. Brokenhearted? Were her feelings for the fool mon that strong?
Just then Daniel and Beth walked past her. The laird laid his hand on her shoulder and said, “Once ye finish yer meal, I would like to speak with ye in my solar.”
Taken by surprise, she nodded at him.
The laird left her to eat her food. She assumed he was interested in information on Morgan, but he’d been in the healing hut before. However, this time, it seemed as though he wanted to speak about something he didn’t want Morgan to hear.
Her stomach twisted when the thought occurred to her that he might have made a decision about the warrior’s fate. Surely he wouldn’t put him in the dungeon after all her hard work. Her hunger—if she’d had any at all—seemed to disappear completely.
Then she wondered why she would care about the mon’s fate. He was just another patient.
As she stared at her food, she almost believed that.
*
Emma knocked on the laird’s solar door.
“Come in.”
She entered the room to see the laird sitting in his large, comfortable chair behind his massive desk. He waved at the wooden chair in front of it. “Please, Emma. Take a seat.”
She didn’t care for the look on the laird’s face. Pensive. Troubled.
Trying very hard not to wiggle like a young lass, she watched Daniel stand and move to look out the window. After a couple minutes, he swung around, and returned to his chair. He leaned both his forearms on the desk.
“A rider returned yesterday from Edinburgh.”
So many questions raced through her mind. Were Megan and Gregory in trouble? What of the warriors who went with them? Had the king denied Gregory’s marriage and given Megan to the Gunn?
It had been a while since Gregory and a group of men had left for Edinburgh to get Megan back, and now the look on his face made her quite nervous.
The laird released a deep sigh. “I’m sure ye are wonderin’ and I doona ken exactly what’s happening with Megan and the Gunn. I am sure we will have the whole story once she and Gregory return. It will probably be soon since the rider said they were behind him by a day or so.”
“So Megan was no’ taken from Gregory?”
“Nay, and as I said, none of us will have the full story until they return.”
She breathed a sigh of relief knowing that Megan and Gregory were safe and still together. However, it was apparent the laird was troubled. She waited—not too patiently—for the Mackenzie to continue.
“The information that the rider brought with him is that it was revealed at the hearing before the king that the Gunn and the Sinclair conspired together to have Sinclair’s nephew, Laird Robert Sinclair, killed in the border skirmish.”
Emma sucked in a deep breath. “Megan’s deceased husband?”
“Aye.”
Her heart pounded at the news. While she had seen the deep love between Gregory and Megan, it was still sad that her deceased husband had been purposely killed in battle.
Her attention went back to the laird.
Daniel took a deep breath and continued. “The king sent them to the dungeon to be hanged for their crime of conspiring to kill a laird.”
Emma thought for a moment. Then her heart skipped a beat and she licked her lips, her words coming out breathless even to her own ears.
“Morgan Gunn is his uncle’s heir, which was why the mon was so determined to marry Megan Sinclair.
He wanted to have a son to follow him.” She stopped for a minute to take a breath when she realized how all her words had run together.
“An’ that means Morgan Gunn, recovering right now in my healing hut, is laird of the Gunn clan.”