“Careful?”
“Wi’ his coin and wi’ his affairs. I will no’ say overmuch, as he is my cousin.”
“Och, aye. I do no’ mean to offend.”
“Ye ha’ not. This is an old holding he got from his brother, who dropped down dead one day, unexpected.”
“A sudden illness, was it?”
Expressionless, Ardroch said, “A dirk in the back. I tell ye this only to warn ye, this can be a fractious sort o’ place. MacNabh has a temper and is no’ afraid to unleash it.”
A chill chased its way up Deathan’s spine. He did not want Darlei at the hands of such a man.
“I would,” Ardroch continued, “keep out o’ his way, if I were ye. In fact, I will no’ tell him ye are here. A few days work only, aye?”
“Aye. Is it a large family, in the house?”
“Nay. Just our laird’s old mother, thecailleach. The chief’s wife died last year and his daughters are grown and gone. But he has taken a new wife now, so who knows?”
“Ah. Ha’ ye seen her?”
Ardroch gave him a sharper look, as if that were a strange thing to ask. “Just a glimpse before the wedding. But I will tell ye—she is a Caledonian. One o’ them wild savages, ye ken. Supposed to be some kind o’ princess.”
“Och, I would like a glimpse o’ a wild woman.”
“Ye will no’ have it. Like I said, keep out o’ MacNabh’s way. Come on.”
The quarters were not good, and the work—a mountain of manure to be raked out and moved away past the retaining wall—hard and lowly. But Ardroch did feed Deathan first and allow his pony feed and a rubdown.
Deathan did not mind the hard work. He’d often done as much at home. But it took him behind the wall and out of sight of the stone house, where he had a hope of seeing Darlei.
Not much of a hope at all.
But she was here, and he could almost feel her behind the sheer stone walls. She rode the wheel of fortune.
He wanted to seize that wheel in both hands and drag it to a halt. Pluck her off.
How did MacNabh treat her? Had she been forced to lie with him? Frustration combined with the sheer torment of not knowing. If he could only see her with his own eyes.
Only he did not. Two days blurred into three. Ardroch must have liked the way he worked, for he kept him on and set him working with the ponies, bidding him only, “Keep out o’ sight. The chief still does no’ ken ye be here.”
“Understood,” Deathan agreed. But he wanted to storm that stone wall. He wanted inside. To see her, to save her.
For now, he was near her. He told himself it must be enough.
*
Darlei dreamed ofDeathan. Again and again, she did.
There was not much to do here at MacNabh’s stronghold but sleep. She and Orle were shut into her chamber all day and all night, and boredom fought with the sickening fear that MacNabh would come back looking for his rights.
If he did, Darlei just might have to kill him.
The anger had not deserted her, but it simmered like a covered pot on the fire. She had no weapon. She’d lost her small knife somewhere, possibly at Murtray, and MacNabh had taken the one she’d stolen from the cart. She and Orle both had searched the chamber for another, to no avail. Unless she wanted to bash MacNabh over the head with a filled chamber pot—a fitting end for him, in her opinion—she stood helpless. Armed only with this anger and the remnants of her pride.
So she slept away as much time as she could, and she dreamed of Deathan.
At least, she thought she dreamed only of him, though he came to her in more than one guise. The tall man she had seenbefore with the bright-hazel eyes and the auburn mane, a silver sword in his hand, riding aboard a chariot. The man from the wee boat with the rich brown hair and gray eyes, speckled with green.Her husband.The man she knew with the quick, rare smile, the gentle hands, and eyes that reflected the sea.
