Conall was trembling from deep inside his gut, nerves and excitement causing his heart to thrash in his chest. He nocked the arrow while the bow still lay flat in his lap.
He had but one shot. And whether he made the kill or nae would decide his course of action with Eve. Should he take the deer, they would both stay at the hut in the vale. Should he miss, he would relinquish her to the Buchanans.
He took a slow, slow, deep breath. Conall raised his bow in one fluid motion and let loose his arrow.
Evelyn raised her head from her arms after the short but intense crying jag to see two furry muzzles—one black and sleek, one brown and white and wooly—pointed at her over the edge of the ticking. Bonnie’s thick, rough tongue was licking at the woolen blanket and Alinor’s tail began to wag enthusiastically. Evelyn sniffed and pushed herself upright, not being able to help the watery smile that pulled at her mouth.
“Hallow, lovelies. ’Tis all right. Bonnie, naughty—don’t eat the bedclothes, please.” Evelyn swiped at her cheeks with the back of one hand and reached out with the other to pat the two animals in turn. “Move out of the way, then, so that I might get up.” She pushed herself to the edge of the box bed, her legs dangling over the side, and sighed.
Well, she’d done it now.
Not only had she humiliated and debased herself by allowing MacKerrick to kiss her, she’d worsened the situation by behaving like a crazed harpy and throwing him out of his own home. Yea, he was despicable and underhanded and possessed of some strange fear of Minerva’s cloak, but Evelyn had come to a sort of revelation after MacKerrick had left the hut—one she should have realized days ago.
Her life depended on his charity. Not only her health, which she had regained quickly thanks to MacKerrick’s knowledge and swift action, but her very survival in Scotland. She’d lied to him upon their first encounter, claiming to be of Buchanan blood, and that had bought her refuge, true. But Evelyn realized that the situation could be viewed as temporary by MacKerrick. Her behavior toward him thus far had been appalling. The hut belonged to his clan and he owed her neither allegiance or charity. Should he tire of her tantrums and demands, he could easily return to his village and be quit of her, taking sweet Bonnie and his precious supplies with him. Evelyn and Alinor and Whiskers would be left to starve. The horsemeat and stew were consumed and there was no more to be had. She could not hunt, and the rivers were thick with ice.
Or, worse, MacKerrick could take her to the Buchanans and leave her to explain her lie to a town full of strangers.
“Oh, hallow,” she said to the big black wolf. “I am Lady Evelyn Godewin from England. I accompanied your kin, Minerva Buchanan, to yonder forest where she died and I left her poor old body on a pile of rock. I’ve told the MacKerrick that I’m related to you, so could you do a lass a favor and play along?”
Alinor whined anxiously.
“Precisely,” Evelyn sighed. She rose from the bed. She was no lady in this land.
She needed MacKerrick—needed him for her own survival. She realized that now, and the truth was devastating. But how could she keep him at the hut? What could she promise him, what could she say?
Evelyn picked up Minerva’s cloak and held it before her, looking at the beggarly material and wishing for a bit of the old woman’s wisdom and cunning. But even though she concentrated with all her might, strained to hear a whisper from the beyond, all she heard was the clatter of claw and hoof as Alinor chased Bonnie around the fire pit.
Eve sighed and crossed the room, dodging the racing animals underfoot to hang Minerva’s cloak on a peg beneath the shelf. It just hung there, old and dirty and limp, but its very presence seemed to tease her.
Would that she were a Buchanan, with even a drop of Scots witchery in her veins! How much simpler it would be if she could babble a cryptic chant, cast bones for a spell, and have all her problems resolved.
But she didn’t know any magic chants. And the only idea that came to her caused horrifying images to bloom in her mind like blood soaking through linen. She tried to push that dark possibility away. MacKerrick would likely laugh in her face or, at the least, be highly offended at the suggestion. ’Twas scandalous, really, even for a Scot.
Although, what other choice did she have, but to at least try? She could claim no wealth to tempt him with, no royal favor. She no longer had even humble horsemeat to barter with.
Evelyn had only one thing to offer.
I won’t!her old self screamed in childish temper.
You must, Evelyn, the grown woman, answered.
Alinor suddenly charged the door and jumped, startling Evelyn from her thoughts. The wolf was rearing on her hind legs, tail swinging in a blur, Bonnie at her side.
Then she heard the highlander’s long, ragged yell. A chill raced up her damp back, climbed her plait like a rope, and crept across her scalp.
She crossed to where the animals paraded and buffeted them aside. Evelyn gripped the bar grimly and hoisted it from its brackets while Alinor raised one paw and scratched impatiently at the door.
Beyond the hut lay Evelyn’s future, likely to end in her own death by one of two bloody paths.
’Twas time to see which she would travel.
Conall could scarce believe his eyes when the deer fell like a stone to the ground. And so he sat like a ninny in the snow, staring at the spot in which it had fallen.
A part of him was afraid to go and look. Afraid that the deer was like the enchanted gray and would be vanished should he dare walk to the edge of the clearing to look upon it. But he heard Alinor’s muffled yelp from within the hut behind him and it stirred him from his superstitious hesitation.
Conall was on his feet and loping toward the wood, his heart beating in heavy rhythm with his footfalls. When he saw the small deer lying dead on its side—Conall’s arrow landed as perfectly as if he had walked up to the animal and drove it in with his own fist—Conall gave a triumphant whoop.
The animal would feed the hut’s occupants for weeks.
