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nearly fifty. Only at his temples was there a little dusting of white. His eyes were as clear and as blue as hers.
    Her mother had, in fact, been rather plain, and her sisters all resembled their mother. Elspeth did have their father’s blue eyes and a slight tinge of red in her brown hair, but Margaret and Fiona had their mother’s lackluster pale blue eyes and plain brown hair. Sheena had often wished she looked more like her sisters. Being called a beauty could be a cursed nuisance.
    The rift between Sheena and her sisters was deep and very close to hatred. It didn’t bother Sheena terribly, however. She had never been close to them. As the firstborn, she had learned skills at her father’s side that he would not have taught her if Niall had been born sooner. Dugald had taken her fishing and hunting. When Sheena was five, after Fiona was born and Dugald had despaired of having a son, she got her first pony. Her interests did not include her prissy sisters, who flocked about their mother. The breach between them widened as the years passed.
    Sheena still could not blame her father for the pain he was putting her through now. The clan came first. She understood that.
    She was also in the sewing room because it was the last place William MacAfee would look for her. She still didn’t know exactly what it was about William that she so disliked. He had a decidedlymean look about him, a subtle cruelty in his face that she had noticed even as a child.
    His interest in her had started when she was only twelve. He was always pulling her aside to talk to her, scolding her for this or that, interrupting her play with Niall. When she was sixteen he had asked her to marry him. She had been as disgusted and as frightened of him then as she was now.
    William held too much influence over her father, that was certain. And once her father made a decision about something, he was seldom swayed. That had worked against William when Dugald decided Sheena would marry The MacDonough. But Dugald’s mind could be changed if the persuasion was powerful enough. Until she was married to Alasdair MacDonough, hateful though that idea was, she would not be safe from her cousin.
    William and her father were, even now, below in the hall discussing how to contact the MacKinnions to demand the prisoner’s ransom. She hoped Niall was with them, so that he could tell her what they discussed.
    As if her thoughts had summoned him, Niall burst into the room. “So, here you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I never thought to be finding you in here.”
    Sheena grinned. “Well, you have. What are you so excited about?”
    Niall looked at the two servants, and Sheena dismissed them.
    “Well, now, what has you in such a bother?” Shepatted the chair beside her, but Niall was too agitated to sit.
    “I wasna to tell anyone!” he burst out, his light blue eyes aglow. “But I canna keep it in. I have to tell you, Sheena, but only you.”
    She smiled at his exuberance. Niall could get excited over the smallest thing, and each small thing was of great importance for a while.
    “I’ve been to the dungeon!”
    “When?”
    “Very late last night.”
    Sheena was not amused now. “You know you shouldna have, Niall.”
    “I know, but I couldna help it,” he confessed. “I had to see him.”
    “And did you?”
    “Aye.” Niall grinned now and rushed on. “And you wouldna believe the size of him, Sheena! And he has such a mean look about him. He talked to me like a man—well, most of the time he did.”
    “You talked to him!” she gasped.
    “Aye, I did, and for a long time, too. But that’s no’ what I have to tell you, Sheena. ’Tis James MacKinnion we have in our dungeon. The MacKinnion, not one of his men, but him! And he’s as bold as they say.”
    Sheena felt cold, and suddenly it was as if she couldn’t breathe. But Niall turned even colder and they both started as, behind them, Margaret Fergusson echoed, “ The MacKinnion!” The