Chapter Two #2
That there is a connection, I’ve no doubt.”
“Is this the missive with my marriage offer?” Gelis snatched the scroll off the floor, almost dropping it when the smooth
parchment snapped around her fingers, seeming to grip her hand. “I — oooh!” She jerked, the dangling wax seal brushing against her wrist, its touch sending flickers of heat across her flesh.
Just enough to let her know that the scroll did indeed have something to do with the raven.
She doubted anyone else could infuse a mere piece of parchment and a bit of melted wax with so much power.
The notion made her tingle, and in places and ways wholly inappropriate for the circumstances.
Well aware that her cheeks were flaming, she set the parchment on the table, then smoothed her palms on the damp folds of
her skirts. Even then, the prickling little tingles remained, tiny licks of flame streaking up her arms and spilling clear
down to her toes.
“So you do know,” her mother was saying, watching her intently. “Did you speak with the MacRuari courier in the hall, then?”
“No, Arabella told me.” Gelis shivered, the strange prickles reminding her of how she’d felt when her future love-mate stepped
through the shimmering gap in her vision’s mist, no longer a raven, but the most dashing, compelling man she’d ever seen.
She looked at her mother, her father, and her uncle, wondering if they could hear the thunder of her heart.
Sense her excitement.
“So he’s a MacRuari.” She made the words a statement. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Would that you needn’t now.” Her father started pacing, his hands clenched in white-knuckled fists. “I would give anything
to prevent this union, lass. Anything I own.”
“But not your honor.”
He shot a look at her, a hard glitter in his eyes that she’d seen only when he’d been about to go warring. “There will be
safeguards, ne’er you worry. I may be honor-bound to accept this offer, but once I have agreed, I am freed of my obligation.”
He paused, his expression not even softening when Telve shuffled over and leaned against his legs. “Thereafter, if even a
shade of harm comes to you, I will see the Raven and Clan MacRuari wiped off the face of the Highlands.”
“The Raven?” Gelis almost forgot to breathe. “The man who offered for me is called the Raven?”
Her father jerked a nod.
“The man you are to wed, yes,” her mother clarified. “His given name is Ronan MacRuari. The offer came from his grandfather, Valdar, the MacRuari chieftain. Your father’s connection to this man is the reason he can’t object
to the marriage. You’ll understand once he’s explained.”
But rather than enlightening her, his jaw went tighter and his mouth compressed into a firm, hard line.
“You must tell her, my friend.” Crossing the room, Sir Marmaduke offered him a brimming cup of uisge beatha. “She deserves to know.”
Duncan snatched the cup and dashed the fiery Highland spirits onto the floor rushes. Slamming the empty cup onto the table,
he glowered at his friend. “How would you tell one of your daughters she’s to wed the scion of such a blighted clan? A family
so scourged ’tis said the sun even fears to shine into their glen?”
Sir Marmaduke stared right back at him. “ ’Tis simple. I would start at the beginning.”
“ ’Tis simple.” Duncan’s eyes flashed. “Were that so, think you I would be so wroth? Telling the tale from the beginning or starting with
the arrival of the offer makes nary a difference. The chance of harm is the same.”
“You’re fashing yourself for naught. I won’t be harmed.” Gelis was sure of it. “Whatever darkness surrounds his clan, the
Raven won’t let anything happen to me. I know that from the vision I had on the lochside. Ronan MacRuari isn’t a fiend. He’s
a man whose soul is aching. He needs me. And he wants me. He’ll treat me —”
“He’ll treat you with all the chivalry and respect a man owes his lady wife.” Duncan started pacing again. “I ne’er said he’s
a fiend. And his grandfather, Valdar, has more honor and heart than any man I’ve ever known. Excepting one.” He tossed a look
across the room to where Sir Marmaduke once again lounged against the table. “Be that as it may, there are unspeakable dangers
at Castle Dare. The MacRuaris are not fiends. What they are is cursed.”
“Then they need someone to uncurse them.” Gelis plucked a drying strand of seaweed off her skirts, twirling it around her fingers. “I have reason to believe
that someone is me.”
Duncan scowled at her. “Dinna make light of dark deeds that stretch back to a time when these hills were young. For centuries,
every MacRuari — or those close to them — who thought he could rise above the curse fell to a tragic end. And if he survived,
his remaining days were so plagued with horror that he wished he had died.”
“I see.” Gelis tossed the bit of seaweed into the hearth fire. “That does rather change things.”
Duncan cocked a brow, looking skeptical.
Her mother appeared relieved. “If you desire, I’m sure we can find a way to decline the offer,” she said, glancing at her
husband. “Old ties or nae.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Dropping into her father’s hearthside chair, Gelis settled herself, making ready for a long, comfortable
sit. “I am not afraid of the MacRuari curse and I certainly do want to marry the Raven.”
Linnet’s brow furrowed. “But you just said —”
“I meant that, hearing all this, I can’t just ride off to wed the man as I was fully prepared to do.” Leaning back in the
chair, she smiled. “What I meant was that I now need to learn everything I can about the clan and their curse before I meet
the Raven. Only then can I help him.”
“Help him?” Her father looked as if the two words tasted of ash.
“So I have said.” Gelis smiled. “And I can only do that if you tell me the tale. All of it and from the beginning, just as
Uncle Marmaduke suggested.”
As she waited for her father to begin, she strove not to appear smug. But it was hard. Difficult, too, to smother the laugh
bubbling in her throat. Gelis MacKenzie, the Devil’s own daughter, afraid of ancient curses and dark glens. Hah!
Truth was, she was anything but afraid.
She was eager.
Days later and many leagues distant, in a dark and still corner of Kintail, Ronan — the Raven — MacRuari lit the wall torches
in his bedchamber, his mood worsening when the additional light failed to banish the room’s shadows. A good score of fine
wax candles burned as well, as did a particularly fat hearth log, its crackling, well-doing flames only underscoring the futility
of such measures.
At least here at Castle Dare.
His family’s home since time uncounted and a place so blighted that even a candle flame burned inward, keeping its light and
warmth to itself and letting the castle residents shiver in the gloom.
A plague and botheration so vexing he burned to tear down the entire stronghold, stone by accursed stone. The saints knew,
the reasons for doing so were beyond counting. Unfortunately, so were the circumstances that made him banish the thought as
quickly as it’d come.
Clenching his fists, he closed his mind to the blackness and glowered at the thick gray mist floating past the windows. Impenetrable
and cloying, each billowing drift filled the tall, unshuttered arches, curling, fingerlike tendrils seeping over the stone
ledges and into the room, penetrating just enough to annoy him.
Ronan set his jaw, his entire body tensing. Once, in younger years, he’d whipped out his sword with a flourish and leaped
forward, lashing at the window-mist only to watch the cold, damp tendrils slither away over the sills like a swarm of writhing,
translucent snakes.
Now he knew better.
All the massed steel in the Highlands couldn’t stand against such unholiness.
He bit back a curse, refusing to let the darkness win, even if a stony-faced mien was a notably hollow triumph. Unclenching
his fists, he ran a hand through his hair, not surprised to catch the smell of rain in the air. Elsewhere in Kintail, he was
sure, good folk were enjoying a fine autumn afternoon, a notion that squeezed his heart and caused a tight, pulsing knot to
form in his gut.
He, too, would revel in standing on some mighty headland beneath a blue, cloudless sky, the wind fresh and brisk around him.
Or, equally tempting, riding hard and fast along the edge of a sea loch, free of cares and curses, sun-blinded by the light
glinting off the rippled water.
Light he meant to bring back to Castle Dare. If the sun had ever even touched its oppressive walls.
Which he sorely doubted.
What he didn’t doubt was his ability to break the curse.
His face still grim-set, he cast a glance at the iron-banded coffer across the room. It was time to put his plan into motion.
But before he could stride over to the chest, the dust-covered receptacle of his traveling clothes, the door to his bedchamber
flew open and his grandfather burst in, a wine-bearing wraith of a serving wench close on his heels.
“Ho, lad! I bring good tidings.” A big burly man, fierce-looking for all his shaggy, gray-shot hair, he swept past Ronan,
his great plaid swinging about his knees, his long two-handed sword clanking against his side. He made straight for the windows,
the mist-snakes retreating at his approach. “Pah! Do you see? Even they know when to cede defeat.”
Ronan resisted the urge to arch a brow. Seldom were the times the dread malaise didn’t withdraw when Valdar MacRuari entered
a room.
Loved by his clan or nae, the old chieftain’s fearsomeness could chase the shadows off the moon.
“Well?” he boomed, proving it.
“Man or mist, ’tis a wise soul who recognizes the time to depart.” Ronan watched the last finger of mist slip over the window
ledge. “I, too, have news —”
“Naught so joyous as mine.” His grandfather swelled his chest, then turned a bushy-browed look on the large-eyed serving lass
hovering at his elbow. “If Anice will stir herself to pour our wine, we’ll drink to your good fortune.”
Ronan frowned.