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Chapter

K ieran could not turn away.

Since the moment he’d walked into the inn, her presence had intrigued him. Though she had not once looked his way, Kieran preferring to sit unnoticed in a corner with patrons filling the hall between him and the woman, he had not taken his eyes from her.

He’d thought nothing could possibly bring his mind away from the events of the last two days, his entire life having been upended, but Kieran watched as she navigated what appeared to be an uncomfortable situation.

As if he needed a reason to challenge Duncan MacBrannigan.

“Who is she?” he asked the serving girl, who had been giving Kieran not-so-subtle hints of her interest in him since he’d arrived.

Frowning, the young woman all but crossed her arms at his question. So she was jealous, and with good reason. None could deny the other woman’s appeal. The confident way she walked through the hall. The flip of her hair or sway of incredibly luscious hips.

“The innkeeper.” Kieran’s serving girl refilled his ale, the answer he sought coming reluctantly.

He would have asked the innkeeper’s name, but the girl scurried away, seemingly annoyed by his disinterest.

Intriguing.

He’d met alewives before, but never a woman who ran an establishment such as this. And even more interesting was the way she kept returning her gaze to MacBrannigan. Clearly the innkeeper was leery of him, and with good reason. He was an enemy to Kieran’s own clan.

Nay, not his clan.

Kieran had always thought he was the son of Duncraig’s clan chief.

Adopted son. But still, a son.

No longer.

Shaking his head to clear away such thoughts, ones that made both fists clench in a display of anger befitting his brother, he refused to dwell on the fact that Niall was not, in fact, his brother.

Instead, he watched as Duncan tracked the innkeeper. He seemed decidedly annoyed, which made little sense. What could the beautiful innkeeper have possibly done to elicit such a response?

Kieran followed Duncan’s gaze toward a group of English knights she spoke to. Ahh, so the men were her sword arms? But why? What was her relationship?

“Best stay away from it.”

The serving girl was back with his meal.

“Tell me,” he said in the tone his father—nay, the chief of Clan Duncraig—used often. One that got her to speak, and quickly, because something was indeed about to happen.

“The chieftain,” the girl muttered. “He has twice been removed by my lady. He harbors a deep resentment for it and comes only to try her.”

“Try her?” Kieran asked. Such could be taken many ways.

“Her patience. And whatever else he might take,” the girl said, shrugging.

Kieran cared little for the girl’s apathy as she spoke of her mistress’s rape. Did the innkeeper know she kept such a disloyal servant?

“You care so little for your mistress?”

The girl seemed genuinely surprised. “Why do you say so?”

Kieran watched Duncan, who did not yet move. “You speak of an assault on her as if it means naught?”

The girl laughed. “He willnae assault my lady. Many have tried, none succeed.”

“How is that possible?”

The girl waved her arm toward the hall. “You are not from Elmswood then?”

“Indeed. I am not.”

“Nor have you traveled through here before?”

There was a good reason why he had not; this region was one Kieran had been to only once in his lifetime. That he knew of.

“Nay, I have not.”

“If you had,” the girl said as Kieran continued to watch Duncan, “you would know well my mistress’s reputation for venison pie and an intolerance of men who think to claim her, in any way.”

He was about to ask how a woman who would likely only reach his chin managed such a thing when Duncan MacBrannigan’s hand shot out to grab a serving girl, one even younger than the woman Kieran spoke to now.

She’d managed to move out of his way, but he was not to be dissuaded.

MacBrannigan reached again for the girl’s arm and pulled her onto his lap.

He’d come only for a room, a haven from the family he’d left behind. A place to stay as he considered what to do and where to go. Instead, it seemed, Kieran found an outlet for the anger that had been brewing for days. Part of him had wished for a fight.

Now, it seemed, he had found one.