There were things a man could do with such tresses.
Things that had scarce little to do with long-dead ancestors and their hoary resting places.
Ronan shoved a hand through his hair and bit back a groan. He didn’t want to talk about old bones and burial grounds. Not with her looking so fetching in his plaid that he couldn’t think straight.
She, however, seemed determined.
And she’d definitely taken up Maldred’s torch.
Her sparking eyes and the jut of her chin proved it.
“I once crept inside the family tomb at Eilean Creag.” She started walking around the room, her steps making her breasts bounce. “I was young, and — and I wanted to see bogles. They hid from me, as ghosts are known to do, but Ididget a good look at the tomb.”
Ronan folded his arms. “That changes naught. Maldred wasn’t buried in a tomb. He —”
“I know what I saw.” She halted in front of him. “He was in a small stone chamber, dark, cold, and airless,” she said, emphasizing each word with a finger-jab in his chest. “It could only have been his tomb.”
Ronan drew in a great breath and let it out slowly. “You’ve seen the man’s grave, lass. ’Tis a table grave in the family’s oldest burial ground. All that remains to mark where Maldred lies is a broken stone slab. It ne’er was a tomb.”
“He’s in one all the same,” she insisted. “And his Raven Stone is there with him. That, too, I saw. He held it out to me and told me to ‘free the raven.’ ”
“He what?” Ronan’s heart stopped.
He’d never told her the full tradition of the stone.
And he could tell she didn’t know.
If she did, her triumph couldn’t be contained.
“He told me to ‘free the raven,’ ” she repeated, pacing again. “I think he was assuring me that by loving you, I will free you of the curse you think you carry. That Dare will then be —”
“He didn’t mean me, sweetness.”
Ronan turned to the nearest window, hoping the chill night air seeping through the shutter slats would restore the color to his cheeks.
He was sure all the blood had drained from his face.
He’d felt it happen.
Just as he could no longer deny his lady had truly seen Maldred, wherever the knave held himself.
Even more alarming was the soul-piercing possibility that the maligned old goat wasn’t quite the malefactor everyone thought.
At the very least, if his bogle did exist, the centuries might have made him a bit repentant.
There seemed no other explanation.
Not that this one wasn’t enough.
Already, the weight of it made the floor dip and roll beneath his feet.
“Ach, nae, lass.” He shook his head, the words coming hard as gravel dredged from a burn-bed. “I’m no’ that raven.”
His chest oddly tight, he stepped closer to the window and reached for the shutters, needing air. But before his fingers could close on the latches,shenipped into the space between him and the window arch.
“I don’t understand.” She grabbed his arms, her fingers strong. “You are the Raven, are you not?”
“I am one of many Ravens.” He looked down at her and immediately wished he hadn’t.
