Chapter Two
Gelis paused just inside the crowded bailey, her hand still on the latch of the postern gate. Chaos reigned, and she didn’t
need her newly discovered ability as a taibhsear to recognize that the turmoil was anything but the usual bustle and stir known to fill Eilean Creag’s vast, cobbled courtyard.
Not that the pandemonium ruffled her. Ever one to find a certain excitement in disorder, she put back her shoulders and ran
her still-frozen fingers through her hair, not surprised to note that nary a pin remained.
The image of the raven remained as well, the memory of his dark good looks and spellbinding intensity making her heart pound
and her blood quicken. Thinking, too, of the fierceness of his embrace, she leaned down to swipe at the wet sand and bits
of seaweed clinging to the lower half of her cloak, not at all bothered that her efforts made so little difference.
She had more important matters on her mind than caring if anyone glanced askance at her.
As for her ruined clothes, she’d apologize to the laundresses and see that they received a few ells of fine woolen cloth for
their trouble, if she could make her way to where they worked at a wooden trough across the bailey — a next to impossible
undertaking, considering the throng of kinsmen and servants.
She bit her lip and glanced round. Some of the garrison men tried to look busy though clearly doing nothing, while others
gathered in tight, noisy circles, their raised voices and agitation outdone only by the barking of the castle dogs. With the
exception of her father’s favorite old hounds, Telve and Troddan, every four- legged beast at Eilean Creag raced frantically
about, scattering chickens, annoying horses, and lending to the general air of madness and mayhem.
Something was seriously wrong.
Determined to get to the bottom of it, she started forward, only taking a few steps before Arabella squeezed through the crush
in front of her. Blocking the way, she reached out and gripped Gelis’s arm.
“I knew you’d gone to the foreshore.” Arabella’s nose wrinkled at the sight of her mussed and dampened clothes. “You picked
a fine day to go running about looking like a drowned fishwife.”
“And you look like a prune with your face all screwed up.” Gelis snatched back her arm. “It is a fine day. You won’t believe what —”
“ ’Tis you who won’t believe what Father has to say to you. He —”
“You told him about the scrying bowl.” Gelis could feel her face coloring. “Instead of helping Mother stitch pillow coverings,
you ran off to make trouble for me.”
“Och, ’tis trouble for you, to be sure, but not of my making.” Arabella grabbed her elbow again and started pulling her forward,
toward the keep. “A courier arrived while you were out splashing along the lochside. He brought an offer for you and Father
has agreed. He —”
“A marriage offer? For me, and not you?” Gelis stopped, shaking her head. “And Father agreed? Ach, I do not believe it.”
“Right enough ’tis for you. And, nae, I dinna mind. Not at all. Truth is, I would not want such a furor on my shoulders!”
Arabella looked at her. “Why do you think everyone is in the bailey? They’re hiding from Father’s fury.”
She jumped aside when one of the castle dogs shot past, chasing two goats. “See? Even the dogs have left the keep, except
for poor Telve and Troddan. And they’re both cowering in a corner of Father’s solar, looking frightened and with their tails
between their legs.”
“I don’t understand.” Gelis swiped at an escaping curl. “You said he agreed.”
“He did. But that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.”
Gelis was too stunned to think straight. “That doesn’t make sense. He’s never greeted such offers with gladness. He wouldn’t
accept one that makes him so angry everyone in the castle runs outside to get away from him.”
“Well he has.” Arabella flicked at a speck of lint on her sleeve. “I heard him arguing with Uncle Marmaduke. He said something
about his honor pushing him against a wall.”
“I see.” Gelis considered. “Whoever made the offer has Father by his danglers.”
“Gelis!” Her sister looked scandalized. “If you speak so crudely, no man will take you. Not even if he’s a two- headed ogre
or if Father presents you on a silver-gilt platter.”
Gelis started to laugh, but closed her mouth when a cloud sailed across the autumn-blue sky, its passage darkening the cobbles
and making her shiver. The raven’s shadow was following her. She could feel him with her, sense his great wings beating the
air. Glancing up, she saw only the cloud, but another chill rippled down her back. Whether she could see him now or not, her
heart knew he was there. In his raven-form, he spiraled over the bailey, hovering first, then swooping near, almost as close
as he’d been on the strand. Then he pinioned away, leaving only the bustling, sun-washed courtyard.
Her breath caught and a distinct tingle of anticipation fluttered low in her belly.
Exhilarating, and . . . delicious.
A surge of triumph filled her and she pressed a hand to her breast. He was her intended, she was sure of it. Either the marriage bid came from him or he was letting her know it would come to naught.
A man as powerful as the raven wouldn’t let her be given to someone else.
On impulse, she seized her sister’s arms, squeezing tight. “Whoever has offered for me won’t be a two-headed ogre. I am certain
of it. He will be the perfect husband for me. You will see.”
“How I wish it for you!” Arabella shook free and dusted her gown. “But perfect husbands don’t usually hail from obscure, dark-doomed
clans. I heard Father say the man —”
“Pah!” This time Gelis did laugh. “As a man who’s been called a devil all his life, he ought not waste his breath railing
over others.”
“He sounded genuinely worried.”
“Well, he needn’t be, because I am not.”
Arabella frowned. “You were born tempting fate. I just hope it doesn’t whip around and bite you this time.”
“It won’t.” Gelis reached out and tweaked Arabella’s cheek. “I have seen my fate. That’s why I’m not afraid.”
The words spoken, she hitched up her skirts and wheeled around, dashing up the keep steps before her sister could reply.
Those few souls still in the hall started when she tore past them. Jaws dropping and heads swiveling, they stared after her
as she raced along the hall’s center aisle, making for the corner stair that led up to her father’s solar.
A comfortable, tapestry-hung room where she would not only reveal her astonishing new talent, but also hear the most monumental
news of her life.
Or so she imagined until she reached the tower’s uppermost landing and burst into the solar, expecting to find her father
prowling about, his eyes flashing and his fists clenched as he visited a litany of curses upon the head of her suitor. Instead,
heavy silence greeted her, and it took her a moment to spy her father slouched in a chair near the hearth fire.
Gelis skidded to a breathless halt, some of her bravura leaving her.
Duncan MacKenzie wasn’t a slouching kind of man.
Nor was he one who accepted defeat.
Yet that’s exactly how he looked at the moment. Weary, numbed, and utterly defeated.
He leaped to his feet the instant he saw her, his usual fierce mien snapping into place as if it’d been there all along. “By
all the saints, lass, where have you been?” He came forward, gripping her firmly by the shoulders. “If I didn’t know you better,
I’d think you’d taken a swim in Loch Duich.”
“Be gentle with her.” Her mother stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the hearth. “Something has clearly upset
her. Your bluster and scowls will only make things worse.”
“That one doesn’t know the meaning of gentle,” Sir Marmaduke drawled from where he leaned against a table across the room.
Her father’s best friend and Gelis’s uncle through marriage to her mother’s sister, Caterine, he slid a pointed glance in
Linnet’s direction. “Perhaps you, my lady, should be the one to tell her.”
Her mother looked uncomfortable, her eyes filling with sympathy.
A bad sign if ever there was one.
“None of you have to tell me anything.” Gelis slipped from her father’s grasp and unfastened her cloak, tossing it onto a
bench near the door. “I already know,” she blurted before her mother could try to explain. “At least, I think I do. Something
happened down on the lochside. I had a vision and —”
“A vision?” Her mother’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?”
“Just what you think.” Gelis tossed back her hair, excitement making her heart pound. “I have your taibhsearachd. Who would’ve guessed, as there’s been no sign of it until now, but it came over me when I was walking on the shore. At first
I was terrified because everything went black and I thought I was going blind. But it was a vision, just like yours.”
She paused, trying to ignore that her father’s left-eye twitch was starting up. “It happened quickly. I’d been watching this
raven, circling above the loch, and suddenly he flew right at me, wrapping his wings —”
“Good God!” Her father’s brows nearly hit the ceiling. “A raven?” He threw a glance at her mother and Sir Marmaduke. “Are you certain? Sure you didn’t fall asleep on the strand and dream
this?”
“Gelis? Asleep on the strand?” Sir Marmaduke shook his head in mock confusion. “For all the years I’ve known her, getting
her to sleep at all has been a trial.” He gave her father a sage, all-knowing stare. “You’d best heed her words, my friend.
They do give the matter an interesting twist.”
“An interesting twist.” Duncan flashed him a glare. “No one asked your vaunted opinion, Sassunach. I say she was dreaming. Or she imagined it.”
“Stop it, both of you.” Linnet stepped between them. She spoke calmly, her composure recovered. “Twists and turns in life
usually happen for a reason.”
Duncan snorted. “If there is a reason, it canna be a good one.”
Linnet’s gaze lit on a rolled parchment on the floor rushes beside his vacated chair. “For good or ill, we have yet to judge.