But before he could focus on this wonder, she took her hand from his face and the fleeting image faded, disappearing as if it’d never been.
Ronan blinked.
He put his own hands to his head, pressed his fingers against his temples.
“I canna believe you did that.” He looked at her. “How —”
She gave a light shrug. “I do not understand how or why such a wonder is possible. My mother warned me that it is so. ’Tis a marvel to be accepted, not questioned.”
“I should like to speak of it!”
She smiled, her eyes glittering with some wild, inner fire that put two spots of red on her cheeks. “Och, aye, we need to discuss many things” — she glanced at her hand, then back at him — “though I vow Maldred wishes —”
“That cloven- footed he-goat is naught but moldering bones. He is beyond wishes.”
“Has he told you so?”
“Nae. And I have no desire to ask him.”
“Perhaps you should.”
Ronan felt his brows shooting heavenward.
The notion of asking his long-dead ancestor anything was too preposterous to contemplate. Catching a glimpse into Lady Gelis’s vision was one thing. Conversing with his forebears — especially Maldred — was something entirely different, and he wanted naught to do with the like.
Resuming his pacing — and at a clip that would keep even a fleet-footed MacKenzie damsel at bay — he shoved a hand through his hair and strove to find the best words to explain things to her.
“Be glad he is naught but bone and bad memories.” He tossed her a glance as he marched past the windows. “His wishes, if you knew them, would —”
“All souls have wishes.” She looked more peeved than enlightened. “Hopes and dreams never leave us, even when our bones are no more.”
“Humph.”
“ ’Tis true.” She’d moved to stand by the hearth, her chin still stubbornly set and her arms folded. “If you call yourself a Highlander, you must know it.”
Ronan bit back another snort.
He was more Highland than she knew. Frowning again, he increased his step, not about to tell her. Such things didn’t need proving. Nor did he care to reveal that he’d seen more than his share of every string she harped on.
Hopes and dreams enough to fill a score of lifetimes. And bones — bones of loved ones — in such number he could scarce count.
“Do you think Maldred’s heart didn’t quicken to the same things you hold dear?” she persisted, proving she wished to torture him.
Bending, she snatched up a plump black peat brick from the creel by the hearthside and waved it in his direction. “The reek of peat smoke or the scent of heather, the howl of a winter wind and the crash of waves upon the shore, mist on the braes or a Highland moon sailing through wind-torn clouds.”
She tossed the peat onto the fire and dusted her hands. “All those things filled his days just as they do yours. Enduring, beautiful things capable of squeezing the hearts of the most hardened amongst us. Such are the things that bind Highlanders to those that have gone before. Not our great dignity and pride, but our deep love of these hills. Maldred surely felt it, too.”
“I am sure he felt a great many things.” It was the best Ronan could do.
His head was beginning to pound.
“And” — she drew a breath, clearly not finished — “without doubt, he had wishes. Perhaps one of them was to be remembered more kindly.”
Ronan smothered a word he’d not utter in front of a lady.
“You would think otherwise if you knew more about him. Greed and an unquenchable thirst for power were his only concerns.” A gust of wind rattled the window shutters. “He believed he was immortal. Truth is, he was a malevolent old sorcerer who —”
One of the shutters came loose and cracked loudly against the wall.
