It also made his face burn, much to his annoyance.
So he frowned. “That isn’t the part I mean — as well you know!”
“Ahhh . . .” Torcaill’s long white beard stirred in the wind. “Have you so soon forgotten what I told you about the significance of that touching?”
Ronan did his best not to give the druid a withering look.
He’d forgotten naught.
Would that he had!
“I see you do remember.” Torcaill looked at him down his overlong nose.
Ronan returned the stare.
The other’s certainty was grating on his nerves.
Even so, he had to know.
“The maid spoke true. And her ability to show you what her gift lets her see says much about her power,” the druid continued, clearly intending to needle him. “Only those most blessed can lay hands on a nontaibhsear and grant them such glimpses.”
“The image could have come from my own youth.” Ronan squared his shoulders, warming to the idea. “Maldred’s crest was not always as worn and indistinguishable as it is now. When I was a lad, it was —”
“Anything but ‘shimmering with a brilliance that hurt the eyes,’ ” Torcaill quoted him, looking superior. “Even then the stone’s carvings were showing their age. Nae, nae, laddie, ’twas a look into a more distant time she was giving you, for whate’er reason.”
“And you do not know that reason?”
The druid shifted in his saddle, his gaze — his suddenly wary gaze — sliding to a tangle of whin and broom a bit farther down the pine-clad knoll.
“Well?” Ronan didn’t hide his impatience.
Turning back around, Torcaill peered at him from beneath down-drawn brows. “Like as not, the maid has no idea her power is so great.”
“That is no’ what I asked you.”
“Mayhap not, but I have told you all I may.”
It was all Ronan could do not to grind his teeth. He did stiffen, and not in a way that was pleasurable.
Torcaill eyed him placidly, his hair and beard lifting in the wind. “It is not for me to question why the Old Ones let her show you what she did. I can only tell you that they will have had their reasons.”
“Think you I do not know that?” Ronan glowered.
The druid only arched a brow.
Ronan felt his restraint waning.
“If the Wise Ones had reason to send me a taibhsear as a bride, perhaps it would serve their purpose better if I were made aware —”
“You will know what you must when the time arises for you to know it.”
As I have told you before.
Ronan was sure he heard the unspoken accusation.
He choked back a snort.
His head was beginning to ache, so he did what he could, turning his darkest look on the heavens, the gray, lowering clouds scurrying past so swiftly. Pinning his stare on a particularly dark and thundery-looking cloud, he enjoyed his scowl.
There were satisfactions to be had in such small victories.
He didn’t dare aim such a glare at Torcaill.
Much as he’d like to!
He was about to give in to the temptation when a great gust of sleety wind whipped his hair across his eyes.
A splatter of icy raindrops stung across his face.
“Saints o’ mercy!” he groused, biting back a stronger curse as he swiped a hand across his brow.
Then he strove for patience.
Becoming riled would only serve to tighten the druid’s lips even more.
That much he knew.
Noting how clamped those lips already were, he tried to search the ancient’s face for answers.
But that, too, proved impossible.
Torcaill’s attention was already elsewhere. Once again, he was eyeing the thick growth of whin and broom crowding the lower braeside.
Ronan immediately saw why.
Something moved there.
Something unseen and . . . heavy.
He could hear it moving through the underbrush, its lumbering passage lifting the hairs on his nape. For a moment, he thought he caught a flicker of gray against the yellow of the whin and broom. But then the thing was gone, leaving nothing more ominous on the hill than the rustle of leaves stirred by wind.
“I’ll be away now,” Torcaill said, sounding distracted.
Ronan flashed a glance at him, the large gray something forgotten.
Especially when the druid slid a hand into the folds of his robes, then fumbled about until he withdrew a particular leather pouch. Age-stained, lumpy, and secured with an equally ancient-looking leather tie, the pouch boded ill.
Quite unperturbed, Torcaill hung the thing from his saddlebow.
Ronan rested a hand on his own saddlebow and leaned forward. “Did you not say you’d accompany me back to Dare?”
“I have thought better of it.” Torcaill smoothed his robes, taking care — it seemed — not to look again in the direction of the whins and broom. “Perhaps I shall ride along the outer edges of the glen. Do a bit of circuiting. There can be no harm in refreshing my saining sites.”
Ronan felt his impatience returning. “Tilting, weather-pitted stones that have marked our bounds since before the first dew e’er wet Highland grass! Think you that mumbling a few words o’er their moss-grown faces will change aught?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“So be it.” Ronan nodded.
There was nothing else to say.
The druid’s straight back and the proud set of his gaunt shoulders tied Ronan’s tongue. Already he’d been more disrespectful than he would have wished.
But so much plagued him of late . . .
“I’ve refilled my pouch,” Torcaill was saying. He patted the pouch’s bulging sides, his hand then staying there, reverently. “Sacred ash gathered from the last Lammas fire and a few small fagots of rowan for burning, and a goodly supply of old bits of iron.”
“Then we of Dare shall sleep at ease this night!” Ronan put as much conviction into the words as he could, well aware that the druid meant to scatter his saining goods around the glen’s ancient boundary markers.
Mumble his spelling words, and wave his lit fagots in the air as he circled the stones.
Looking at Ronan now, his eyes gleamed.
“There’s enough should you wish me to ride past Creag na Gaoith,” he offered, patting the leather bag again. “Lammas ash is powerful. I could —”
“Nae.” Ronan shook his head, the gesture final.
Bitter.
He should never have encouraged the old fool.
And the last thing he wanted was the ancient — or anyone — going near Creag na Gaoith.
Rock of the Wind was a black place. A mass of towering broken crags rising high above one of Dare’s bonniest corners, half of the once-proud rock bastion now lay tumbled and moss-grown at its foot. The great fallen stones spilled into the sweet little lochan there, the sight a damning and permanent reminder of what lay beneath.
“She needs to be let go.”
Ronan almost choked.
He did blink, the druid’s words piercing him. “She has been gone . . . for years.”
Words so true, guilt shamed him to the core. Thinking of the rockslide that killed his first wife Matilda wasn’t why the dread name of the place sent such a flood of chills streaking through him.
It’d been the reminder of the cause of that tragedy.
He couldn’t allow the like to happen again.
Especially not to her.
His gut twisting at the thought, he shoved back his hair and set his jaw. “I’ll no’ have you or anyone poking around Creag na Gaoith.” He spoke the sentiment aloud this time. “No good would come of it.”
Torcaill drew himself up. “Perhaps you should ride by there. Lay your ghosts.”
Ronan scowled at him.
He didn’t have any bogles.
But a short while later as he somehow found himself riding ever nearer to
that once beloved spot, he couldn’t deny that something lurked in the bracken and heather hemming his path. Thick birches and bramble bushes grew there, too, almost impenetrable — just as he remembered — until the trees gave way to the peaceful little lochan, so hidden it didn’t even bear a name.
Whatever he’d spotted up ahead, large, gray, and moving slow, didn’t have a name either.
Saints forbid he encounter the beast.
His mood was too foul to cross swords with some bespelled creature sent by the Holders to torment him.
Ronan shuddered.
He pulled his travel cloak tighter about him, glancing from right to left as he rode, conscious now of every squishy, sucking clip- clop his horse’s hooves made on the damp carpet of fallen autumn leaves.
Then he heard it again.
A rustle of leaves as he’d caught back on the knoll. This time accompanied by the unmistakable snuffling and sniffing of a large animal. Its panting breaths as it moved stealthily through the undergrowth.
Ronan’s heart started beating slow and hard.
He drew his sword, holding it ready.
Then he rounded a great cluster of Scots pine and rowans and jerked his steed to such a jarring halt he nearly cut himself in the thigh.
A dog sat in the middle of the path.
“Blazing heather!” Ronan’s brows shot upward; his jaw dropped.
He swung down from his saddle, starting forward in disbelief.
But there could be no mistake.
The great tongue-lolling, tail-wagging beast sitting before him wasn’t some mysterious denizen from hell.
It was Buckie.
Chapter Ten
By all the Powers!” Ronan stared at his dog, eyes wide. Disbelief and amazement buzzed in his head. “What mummery is this?”
A familiar bark tried to explain.
But Ronan only shook his head and ran an agitated hand through his hair.
The beast couldn’t be here.
Yet there he sat, head cocked and eyes bright. His bony haunches rested almost smack in the middle of a slimy red-green patch of sphagnum moss and his swish-swishing tail was more than a little mud-grimed, as were his legs.
Sticky bits of bracken clung to his shaggy, gray- tufted coat.
He smelled abominably.
Ronan hadn’t seen the dog look happier in years.
But he’d kill the miscreant who had set him loose.
Fury tightened his chest. His golden torque seemed to squeeze his neck, making it difficult to breathe. He started forward, hands clenched at his sides, the dog’s obvious joy at being out only flaming his anger.
After this, Buckie’s confinement to the keep would prove even more difficult than before.
And that was a crime beyond payment.
Ronan’s mood darkened and he stepped wrongly, his foot sliding on the slick dead leaves matting the narrow little deer track.
“God’s curse!” he roared, his arms flailing before he righted himself.
When he did, he scowled all the blacker, tried not to be moved by Buckie’s panting, tongue-lolling excitement.
Whether the foray pleased the old dog or not, he could have done irreparable damage to his hips.
Creag na Gaoith was a goodly distance from Dare Castle. The terrain between was rough and challenging. A man riding a sure-footed, stout-hearted garron required all his skill and several hours to reach the Rock of the Wind and its little boulder-rimmed lochan.
That Buckie had made it so far was nothing less than a wonder.
And — as Ronan had already decided — the sure death of whoe’er proved responsible.
Spurts of anger shooting all through him, he bent to scoop Buckie into his arms. If need be — and it appeared such was the case — he’d hold the aged dog clamped across his lap for the ride back to Dare.
It was then that he caught the scent of cookfires.
The mouthwatering aroma of choice sides of beef roasting slowly on carefully tended spits.
A faint tinge of Norse ale, and if his senses weren’t lying, a distinct whiff of fiery Highland uisge beatha.
Water-of-life, and every Highlander’s cure-all, the much-prized spirits had naught to do in this benighted place, the devil’s own playing ground.
Ronan frowned.
From behind, his horse nudged him in the shoulder.
Buckie barked and wriggled from his arms . . . then bolted off down the path before Ronan could seize him.
If anyone was of a mind to call the dog’s loping, loose-limbed, hinky-hipped trot a bolt.
He had other worries.
Vikings had settled in the glen!
The evidence was clearly visible . . . winking at him through the trees: a great and colorful sailcloth awning — the marauding Norsemen’s favored tent — curving proudly near the jumble of outcropping rock at the head of Creag na Gaoith’s nameless little lochan.
Boldly striped in red, blue, and gold, the shelter appeared open on one side, revealing — if he wasn’t mistaken — a crude wood-planked floor within.
A well-laden trestle table and a bench piled high with cushions.
“By all that’s holy!” He blinked.
Then he shook his head, knuckled his eyes.
The Viking tent didn’t go away.
Far from it, Buckie suddenly appeared from around one of the supporting poles. Capering like a hinky-hipped puppy, he put his nose to the ground, sniffing at a securely fastened tie-rope before bounding over to a well-doing cookfire close to the lochan’s edge.
The cook fire he’d smelled . . . complete with a haunch of spit-roasted beef.
Dare beef, like as not.
Determined to find out, he wheeled about and swung up into his saddle. He whipped out his blade, raising it high. But before he could spur his horse and thunder into the clearing, she stepped into his path.
“My husband — I greet you!” She beamed up at him, all light and laughter, her amber eyes dancing. “I dare say you took your time in getting here.”
Ronan nearly choked.
Worse, he could hardly breathe.
Full of vigor and feminine spirit, she peered up at him. “I’d begun to despair that you’d come.”
“You, my lady, look anything but despairing.”
“So I would hope!” She hitched up her skirts and twirled. “Though I am not exactly dressed for a feasting-in-the-wild, having left Dare in such haste this morn,” she announced, laughing.
“A feasting?” Ronan could scarce get out the words.
Her smile dimpled.
“Our nuptial celebrations,” she emphasized, pointing to the striped sailcloth awning. “Meats, libations, and more await your pleasure.”
My pleasure would be knowing you safe within Dare’s walls.
The words jammed in his throat.
His fool arm appeared stuck as well, frozen in place above his head, his fingers clasped tight around his leather-wrapped sword hilt, the long steely blade shining in the wood’s dim lighting.
He winced, wishing he could sink beneath the nearest bog pool.
She rattled on, clearly unaware of his discomfort. “Every succulent delicacy that was tossed out our bedchamber window is on yon table,” she enthused, looking more fetching than ought to be allowed. “I went to the kitchens and secured the untouched remains from your cook.”
Ronan looked at her, his surprise complete. “The meal I’d ordered for —”
“For me, aye, but now for us both to enjoy! We have” — she lifted a hand, began ticking off viands — “thick slices of cold roasted mutton, the very same spiced salmon patties and jellied eggs, and even Hugh MacHugh’s ginger-dusted honey cakes.”
Ronan’s brows arched.
“And not just that.” She flicked another glance at the well-spread table board. “There are additional savories as well.”
It was all Ronan could do to keep from telling her that she was the savory.
Blessedly, speech failed him.
> She flashed a dimpled smile. “Hugh MacHugh was generous.”
Ronan could only goggle.
She was beyond all, a vision against the cold gray of the wood, the dark trunks of the great Scots pines crowding the little path.
Behind her, mist and cloud swirled across the jagged face of Creag na Gaoith, but — as if to bedevil him — a single shaft of sunlight slanted through the trees, the golden light falling directly across her, gilding her.
Not that she needed any such embellishment.
Prominent and well-made, her breasts swelled above a tighter-fitting, lower- dipping bodice than he’d yet seen her wear, and her flaming hair had loosened from its braid to hang about her shoulders.
Not even attempting to tame her wild tresses or right the front of her gown, she held his gaze. Her eyes smoldered, their gold-flecked depths proud and full of challenge.
The top rims of her nipples were plainly visible.
Ronan swallowed.
His jaw went so slack he doubted he’d e’er be able to firm it again.
Another, more self-minded part of him twitched and jerked.
No danger of slackness there.
Indeed, if he ran any harder, the wretched thing might just snap in two.
Ignoring it, he finally managed to lower his arm and shove his fool sword back into its sheath. He dismounted and made a bit of a show brushing at his travel cloak, flicking its folds into place.
Ne’er had he felt more like a bumbling, witless bravo.
It was unthinkable that he had nearly gone charging through the underbrush, brandishing his sword and yelling for Vikings to come out of their hidey holes and fight like men.
The near shame of it coursed through him.
He gritted his teeth and drew a tight breath. He would not redden in front of her.
Nor would he let her see how deeply she affected him.
Unfortunately, from the look she was giving him, he suspected she knew fine.
“Of course, you were startled.” She came closer, her red-gold curls swinging about her hips. The scent of roses swirled around him. “It was my intention to surprise you.”
His nose quivered, her perfume almost overwhelming his senses.
“To be sure, and you did, just! Surprise me.” He eyed her sharply, scarce able to think straight. “But did you no’ consider Buckie —”
Seducing a Scottish Bride Page 16