“Rhona.” Caterine closed the short distance between them. “What are you doing?”
Rhona straightened and whirled about, almost tripping over Leo, who ran in gleeful circles around her, barking his excitement. “Mercy, but you startled me.” Her eyes wide, she stared at Caterine, a large wooden bowl clutched in her hands.
A wooden bowl with a round, cloth-covered lump inside it.
The Laird’s Stone.
A near perfectly round stone of dark gray granite speckled with crystal quartz.
A magical stone said to weep, its tears filling the bowl, each time a master of Dunlaidir died, then again, this time for joy, when a new laird took his place.
Or so the legend claimed.
Caterine had never seen it happen.
“What are you doing with that?” she prompted when Rhona continued to stare at her, gog-eyed and blushing.
She reached for the bowl, but Rhona cradled it protectively against her middle. “I wanted to see if the stone had wept for James yet,” she said, back-stepping toward the bank of arch-topped windows behind her.
“Come, Rhona. You know it’s just a stone. The legend is nonsense.” Caterine struggled against a frown. “Foolery spun by some long-dead storyteller to fill cold and dark winter nights.”
“I saw it shed tears when Laird Keith passed.” Rhona set the cloth-covered bowl on the cushioned seat of the window embrasure and folded her arms. “You saw the water in the bowl. Everyone did.”
“Aye, after you fetched the silly stone,” Caterine reminded her. “Perhaps you poured water over it.”
“You think I would stoop to such trickery?”
“Who do we have to thank that an English champion now dwells within these walls? A Sassunach I am soon to wed, in large part because of your trickery.”
Rhona’s brow knit. “I thought you were coming to favor him?”
“He is English.” Caterine glanced away before her friend read too much into the heat blooming on her cheeks. Emotions did whirl inside her, so she fixed her gaze on the familiar expanse of sea and sky beyond the tall windows.
The well-cherished view calmed her as soundly as the cold salt air streaming through the opened windows cooled her burning cheeks.
“Your champion is a gallant, my lady,” Rhona persisted. “So tall and strong, his muscles-”
“His muscles do not interest me.”
“I do not believe you.” Rhona tsked. “You must like him, even the teeniest bit?”
“Whether I like him or not, the Laird’s Stone and its legend has no more credence than any other bard’s tale,” Caterine said, her gaze on the wind-whipped sea. “Sir Marmaduke is and shall remain an Englishman.”
And I am not woman enough to follow the yearnings of my heart. The ghosts of too many other Englishmen stand in the way.
Squaring her shoulders, Caterine turned back to her friend. “Tradition, fanciful or nae, deems a laird’s worthiness must be recognized by the stone before it will weep.” She locked her gaze on Rhona’s. “Even if the legend were true, do you really think the stone would welcome James as new lord withhimbeneath our roof?”
She waved a silencing hand when Rhona started to protest. “I do not believe such folly, but you do. So how can you expect the stone to honor James as Dunlaidir’s new master when one so brave and bold-”
“So you are falling under his spell.”
“Most assuredly not. I just see…” Caterine trailed off when Rhona’s mouth crooked in a knowing smile.
“Youdofavor him.”
“He intrigues me,” Caterine admitted, not willing to say more. Taking the younger woman by the elbow, she escorted her across the rush-strewn floor and out of the chamber. Only when she closed and barred the door behind her, did she release the breath she’d been holding.
Across the room, the wooden bowl and its cloth-covered contents beckoned. But at the moment, she’d rather plunge her hand into a pit of hissing adders than peek beneath the harmless-looking cloth.
