Her father snorted. “An ancient aura styled by Maldred the Dire.” He grabbed her pony’s reins, drawing her close. “The magic he practiced was dark, lass. Blacker than the bottom of the coldest, deepest Highland loch. Dinna be fooled by girlish fancies.”
“I am not a girl.” Gelis raised a challenging brow. “I’m a woman full grown.”
Though she did havefancies.
Bold and exciting expectations she wasn’t about to share with her father.
Dreams and desires so deliciously wicked, they’d scandalize her sister but caused her own belly to flutter and her secret place to burn and tingle in anticipation.
Any man who called this wild and dark glen his home would be wild and dark in other ways, too. And she couldn’t wait to discover every one of them.
But when they rode through the pend of Castle Dare’s gatehouse less than an hour later, pulling up in the cold, mist-swept bailey, some of her bravura slipped.
The tongue-waggers hadn’t lied.
Castle Darewasa gloomy rickle o’ stanes.
Menacing, too, with unusually high curtain walls and soaring machicolated towers. Gelis shivered, her nape prickling when she caught her first glimpse of the great square keep. Its dark bulk frowned down on them, the thick walling relieved only by the narrowest arrow-slits. Silent, weapon-hung men-at-arms clustered everywhere, their gazes assessing, their steel gleaming in the smoking torchlight.
Like scores of unfriendly eyes, the cross-shaped arrow-slits seemed to assess her as well, their blank stares making her shiver again. She reached to pull her cloak higher against her throat, but the instant her fingers brushed against her breasts, she lowered her hand. Putting back her shoulders, she ignored her uneasiness and moistened her lips, wanting to look her best when the Raven strode out to meet her.
Not for nothing had she chosen her most flattering gown, a rich emerald-green affair, its dipping front piece made even lower by her own clever hand. Richly banded by an exquisite gold border, the bodice displayed the swell of her breasts in all their abundance, including a very deliberate glimpse of the top rims of her nipples.
She meant to whet the Raven’s appetite, not hide her charms beneath the folds of a heavy woolen cloak.
Even if Castle Dare’s forbidding countenance did send a few chills down her spine. Lucky for her, she’d been weaned on dark looks and scowls.
Glancing at her father, she wasn’t at all surprised to see him still looking as sour as if he’d bitten into something bitter.
“You could at least frown less fiercely.” She smiled brightly just to annoy him.
“Be glad I am only frowning.” He looked at her, his expression darkening even more. Dismounting near the keep stairs, he tossed his reins to a stable lad. “The Raven should have been on the steps to greet you.”
Gelis gave a light shrug. “He’ll be here anon.” She made the words a statement, swinging down onto the bailey’s wet cobbles before her father could contradict her.
Only the raven dared, staring down at her from his perch on a high turret, the piercing focus of his beady, black eyes leaving no question of his interest in her.
His intensity and need.
Then he vanished, his sleek black form swallowed by a swirl of mist.
Her heart thumping, Gelis hitched up her skirts and started forward, mounting the stone steps to the keep with a bold swiftness that carried her halfway up the stairs before the heavy, iron-studded door swung open and a huge, thickset man of years appeared, a wash of yellow torchlight spilling out from behind him.
“Ho! The MacKenzies — at last!” he boomed, planting his hands on his hips as he stood looking at them.
Strong-featured and with a shock of thick, gray-streaked hair and an equally wild-looking beard, he filled the arched doorway, his plaid thrown back to reveal a great, two-handed sword hanging at his side from a wide, elaborately tooled shoulder-belt.
“A fine e’en to you, my friends,” he added, his bearded face splitting in a grin. “Welcome to Dare. Lady Gelis” — he stepped aside, almost losing his balance as several large, shaggy-coated dogs shot past him, bounding down the steps to greet her, their plumed tails wagging — “you are even more sparkling than the prattle-mongers claim.”
“She is a maid beyond price.” Duncan placed a possessive hand on her elbow. “Only my honor brings her here, Valdar. As well you know. She knows it, too.”
The older man raised a brow. “Ahhh . . . so you told her of Corryvreckan?”
Duncan nodded. “She needed to know. Why I consented as well as what dangers lurk here. She also knows I view my debt as repaid by agreeing to this union.” Escorting her up the remaining steps, he paused on the landing, standing almost nose to nose with his old friend. “Know that, and be wary. If any harm comes to her, I will wreak a more terrible vengeance on you than even Maldred could have conjured.”
“Father!” Gelis could feel her face flaming. “You swore you wouldn’t —”
“Your father has your best interests at heart.” Sir Marmaduke joined them on the landing, his usually benign expression as grim as her father’s. “There were unholy things in that glen, and leaving you here, in the midst of such terrors, is beyond —”
