“Chieftain Sutherland. Welcome back to MacKenna Keep. You took your sweet time getting here.”
Ronan forced himself not to outwardly flinch. It would not be manly. The old she-dragon herself had entered the room. He felt it even before setting eyes on her. With a deep breath, he slowly turned and offered his best smile to the tiny silver-haired woman across the hall.
The scattered groups of men around the high-ceilinged room went silent. They all shifted away, angling closer to the walls as the grand dame herself stepped slowly across the hall.
“All be a bit leery of her, ye ken?” Gray whispered from behind him.
Ronan ignored the chieftain’s comment. He politely bowed then strode forward to meet Granny Sinclair halfway across the room. “Good day to ye Mistress Sinclair. It is a fine pleasure to see ye looking so well.”
Granny pursed her lips, scowled down at Ronan’s extended hand, then clasped both of her pale, gnarled fists tight against her narrow middle. “Hmpf.”
Ronan offered his hand for a moment longer, then slowly let it drop. This did not bode well. He had known returning to MacKenna Keep would not be easy, but he had at least hoped for a bit more than this surly welcome. After all, It was Mother Sinclair’s granddaughter he was to wed.
So be it.Unpleasant or not, he needed information. He could not very well take control of his fate without the one prophesied to free him—and Granny Sinclair had that information. The elder might as well set her animosities aside. He’d be damned if he allowed her displeasure to deter him. “I shall not trouble ye with paltry niceties. Ye ken full well why I have come and you, of all people, know why I waited ’til this time.”
“You waited too long.” Her thin lips flattened into a damning frown. “In fact, you may have completely missed your opportunity.”
“Not here.” Chieftain MacKenna stepped between them and the growing number of individuals creeping ever closer to better hear the discussion.
Ronan stole another quick glance around the hall. “Ye canna speak freely within your own keep?”
The line creasing Gray’s brow deepened. “Not of late.” The way the MacKenna bit out the words coupled with the displeasure in his tone relayed the depths of the man’s concerns.
Granny Sinclair’s sharp look at Gray also worried Ronan. Even the fearless old she-dragon appeared uneasy. Had someone threatened the Sinclair women?
She lowered her chin with a curt nod. A disgruntled huff escaped her as she leveled her attention back on Ronan. With a narrow-eyed scowl, she jabbed a bent finger at the lad bearing a swollen skin of whisky and a pair of metal mugs. “None of that. No liquid courage until you and I have had our chat.” Without waiting for Ronan’s response, she clutched her dark woolen skirts high enough to clear the layer of dried rushes covering the stone floor and marched across the room.
May the gods protect him. With a longing glance back at the skin of whisky, Ronan reluctantly followed her. One good swallow of fine MacKenna whisky before facing off with the old woman would have been most welcome. He was not a coward but a wee dram never hurt when it came to fueling eloquence—especially against quick-witted Granny.
Mother Sinclair remained silent even after they reached the frost-covered garden. The slight woman kept her heavy skirts clutched in her knotted hands, striding with a quick step across the weather-bleached flagstones. Charging forward with determination, she wound her way around the raised islands of dried vegetation dotting the landscape. When she reached the reflecting pool, she came to an abrupt halt, spun, then settled her hooded cloak tighter around her narrow shoulders. “One month sooner. You couldn’t have made up your rabbit-assed mind and gotten here one month sooner?”
“Where is the Lady Mairi?” Ronan chose to ignore the insult. There was no use wasting the time nor the energy defending his personal timeline with Granny. No matter what he said, she would find him in the wrong. He saw the truth of it in her scowl.
She snapped her fingers, then jerked a hand toward the keep. “You can see for yourself she’s not here. And thanks to your continued absence, I have been unable to convince her to bring her stubborn tail back to the thirteenth century and grab hold of her destiny. If you would’ve shown up here just a month earlier, I could’ve finagled her into coming back.” Granny huffed out a hissing noise that sounded a great deal like a Gaelic curse word. “You left me without any damn bait!” The old woman’s pale blue eyes narrowed into threatening slits behind the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. “In fact, she’s having such a grand time in the twenty-first century, you’re going to have to go there and fetch her.” She turned away, shaking her head as she paced back and forth with short clipping steps. “I can’t believe a granddaughter of mine is refusing to jump across time. I’m going to shake that child the next time I see her.”
A sudden sensation of the air being squeezed from his lungs settled like a dull ache in the center of his chest. Ronan flexed against the disturbing mix of emotions—the greatest of them being a dark sense of disappointment. Perhaps he had pinned more hope than he realized on the fact that the Lady Mairi might be the one.
Or could it be the fact that the old woman had just said she expected him to jump across time and bring her granddaughter back as though it were merely a day’s ride across the Highlands? His mind reeled at the absurdity of Mother Sinclair’s suggestion.
Surely, she jests. Surely, she is but testing him.“The twenty-first century? She abides in the future. Unprotected? Ye expect me to believe ye allow her to live in the future with no hint of family to care for her?” The old woman had to be lying. He knew Mother Sinclair. She valued her family above all else. This had to be another of her manipulations. The conniving matriarch was known for twisting words to turn things to her advantage. He turned and searched the darkened windows of the keep. Surely, Lady Mairi was merely hidden from view. This was some dark game. Some strange ploy to test him.
“You are an idiot if you think I would allow my granddaughter to live anywhere unprotected.” Granny slowed her pacing back and forth in front of the pool, pausing every now and then to shake a warning finger in his direction. “And you’re an even bigger fool if you think a Sinclair woman lets anything as paltry as someone’s opinion stand between her and something she decides she’s going to do.” Granny snorted a disgusted huff. “It pains me to admit that the Sinclairs are slightly hardheaded.”
Slightly hard-headed?The memory of dealing with another of Granny’s granddaughters, Kenna who was now happily wed to Colum Garrison, triggered an involuntary shiver. Slightly hardheaded did not begin to describe the Sinclair women. The old woman’s words stung his already raw emotions, but out of respect for her age and level of wisdom, he let them pass.
He closed his eyes against the dismal outcome of the day. Perhaps It was all for the best. All things happen for a reason.Perhaps the Lady Mairi preferring life in the future was Fate’s way of telling him she was not the answer to his riddle—she was not the one after all. The prophecy—the key to breaking the witch’s curse—was apparently meant to remain unsolved.
He turned away and scrubbed his knuckles against the center of his chest. Damn the soreness that the place stirred within him.If the Lady Mairi was nay the one, then why had this sudden feeling of bleak emptiness taken hold of his core and set to aching?
Ronan scrubbed his breastbone harder and gritted his teeth. Nay. He could not veer from this course so easily.She was the one. He felt sure of it, and Granny knew it as well. He would not be deterred. His heart and soul would never allow it. Ever since Mother Sinclair had shown him the vision of Lady Mairi in the reflecting pool, he had known the truth of it. The knowing had calmed him, settled across him like a soothing caress as soon as he had seen her image.
“And now you’re just going to give up?” Mother Sinclair clapped her hands sharply to shake him from his thoughts, startling several nearby birds into flight. “If you’re that easily swayed, then you don’t deserve my granddaughter. It takes a brave, tenacious man to capture and hold a Sinclair woman’s heart—”
“Enough!” He clenched his teeth against the urge to growl obscenities at the Sinclair matriarch. Instead, he leveled an accusing finger at the old woman and slowly marched toward her. “Ye have no idea how I weary of this search and I refuse to listen to any more of yer judgmental nattering. Accept the fact that I am here now and either help me find a way to the Lady Mairi or get the hell out of my way. The choice is yours. But know this, old woman: I shall stomach no more of yer disrespectful tongue.”
Granny’s pale blue eyes widened and her thin white brows shot up to her silvery hairline. She stood silent for so long, he thought surely that the gods had struck her dumb. Finally, her thin pale lips trembled at the corners.
May the gods forgive him.The old woman was about to weep. Shame settled over him as his mother’s teachings and sense of honor condemned him for the insensitive rant.Máthairwould surely be ashamed of him for speaking to Mother Sinclair in such a way.
