Slamming down the lid of his coffer, he sank onto his bed and drew a long, frustrated breath. His grandfather’s tidings had been anything but joyous.
The imminent arrival of the Black Stag’s daughter wasn’t a reason for celebration.
It was a disaster.
Perhaps the worst to befall Dare in centuries.
Chapter Three
Not long after noontide the next day, Ronan descended the tightly winding stair to Castle Dare’s great hall, only to stop halfway down, blessed inspiration hitting him like a fist in the gut. Overwhelmed by the simplicity of the solution, he leaned back against the stair tower’s cold stone wall and released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
The infernal aching in his head left him as well. Praise be the saints. Swiftly and nigh completely, the fierce pounding receded, almost as if he hadn’t spent the entire night tossing and turning.
Seeking answers that seemed impossible.
A way to appease his grandfather, keep peace with the all-powerful Duncan MacKenzie, not shame the man’s daughter, and, above all, not endanger her.
“Your bride approaches, sir. The MacKenzies have been sighted!” Hector, one of the kitchen laddies, burst around the curve of the stair, his freckled face flushed with excitement. “A great party of them. Word is, they’re just now riding through the glen.”
“Are they now?” Ronan’s mouth twitched in what he’d meant to be a frown before he caught himself. Nary a single visitor had entered Glen Dare in all of Hector’s years. The boy deserved his pink-cheeked enthusiasm.
Not wanting to spoil it for him, Ronan forced a smile. “Why don’t you take yourself off to the kitchens and tell Cook I said to give you sugared almonds for Lady Gelis. When she arrives, you may present them to her.”
“Aye, sir.” Hector bobbed his head, his grin spreading ear to ear.
“And, Hector” — Ronan reached to tousle the boy’s head — “be sure to have Cook give you a portion as well. And a custard pastie.”
Hector’s eyes widened, his face glowing brighter than a candle flame. “I will do, sir, and . . . thank you!”
Then he was gone, hurrying away on his skinny, nimble legs. Ronan stared after him, more aware than was good for him that the lad’s smile was the first real one he’d seen at Dare in longer than he could remember. That Gelis MacKenzie’s arrival should be the cause of such an event, inadvertently or not, pinched a place too close to his heart for comfort.
Not that it mattered.
Now that he knew what he had to do, it made no difference how many MacRuaris might fall under her spell.
Frowning all the same, he took the remaining stairs two at a time, not surprised to find the hall filled to its smoke-blackened rafters. His grandfather’s men crowded everywhere, talking among themselves, quaffing ale, and, he was sure, speculating. As were a few men he’d swear he’d ne’er seen before. Herders from the looks of them, quiet-living souls who preferred the boulder-strewn slopes on the edges of MacRuari lands to the cloying mists of its verdant glen.
Almost envying them, Ronan glanced deeper into the hall, letting his ears adjust to the din. A great babble that shook the walls, with all trestle benches occupied and those celebrants who hadn’t found a seat cramming the aisles or jostling for space in the corners. Chaos reigned, but as soon as he stepped through the door arch, silence fell and all eyes turned his way.
Their stares stabbed him, the curiosity on their faces reminding him of how recently he’d sworn ne’er to take a third wife.
“The Black Stag’s own daughter?” A man standing in the light cast by a wall torch thrust out a hand, touching his sleeve. “Is it true?”
Acknowledging the speaker with a nod, Ronan strode past him, making straight for his tall-backed oaken chair on the dais. His grandfather was already there, enthroned in a similar chair, waiting.
Ronan bit back a curse.
He, too, waited.
His heart pounded in slow, rhythmic beat. And with each step he took toward the high table, the heavy, rune-carved torque about his neck grew tighter. Its gold seemed to heat until it was all he could do not to glance down just to be certain some dark magic hadn’t transformed the bit of ancient Norse frippery into a flaming, viselike ring.
Reaching the dais, he willed away the sensation, schooling his features into a mask of indifference as he clapped a hand on his grandfather’s shoulder in greeting before claiming his own seat.
For the moment, all was well.
And if none of the craning-necked long- noses gawping at him from the trestle tables called for a bedding ceremony, all would remain so.
He hoped.
