“ No-o-o!” She bounded down the steps, her heart’s wild hammering a great roar in her ears until she saw her father — andhim— sitting their mounts a bit to the side of the gatehouse, apart from the general hubbub.
Her father looked carved of stone. Braw and impossibly well-favored for a man of his years, the rigid set of his jaw and the way he held his shoulders would have sent her fleeing in the opposite direction did she not know what a loving heart beat beneath his fierce exterior.
Would that she could say the same for the Raven!
Looking equally tense, his bold stare blazed right at her, its ferocity almost burning her. Unblinking, he watched her, his dark eyes narrowed and his silky blue-black hair lifting in the breeze. His golden torque gleamed at his neck and he wore his great black travel cloak, the one she’d found tossed across a bearskin rug.
Garbed thusly, he reminded her so much of the raven of her visions that she almost stumbled on the stairs.
Chills rippled down her back and her senses sharpened. Her pulse leaped and her skin began to tingle, awareness of him singeing her.
A man should not be allowed to be so compelling!
So blatantly . . . sensual.
His stare intensified and he seemed to grow larger, the bailey around him to dim and recede.
The air between them crackled, almost as if charged by trapped lightning. But then her uncle Marmaduke rode into view, his arrival shattering the spell.
He drew up beside her father and the Raven. Holding his sword a mite too casually, at least to the eyes of those who didn’t know him, he watched the goings-on carefully, his scarred face revealing naught of his true emotions.
Save for a flicker of concern when he spied her tangled, unbound tresses; her bare feet flying over the slippery wet stone of the stairs.
Gelis’s heart squeezed.
Once again scenes of home seized her.
She hitched her skirts, hastening down the last few steps much faster than she should have, caring only to reach her loved ones before it was too late.
Torcaill the druid was there, too.
Well mounted and looking proud, the ancient jabbed a tall walking stick into the air. His voice rose above the pandemonium, calling out blessings as the contingent of MacKenzie warriors spurred their beasts, surging as one through Dare’s yawning gates.
Her father turned in his saddle to watch them go, his own great warhorse beginning to sidle and fret, clearly eager to be gone.
“Wait!” Gelis careened across the cobbles, dodging dogs and leaping over chickens. “You cannot go until —”
“Ho, daughter! I’m no’ going anywhere — no’ yet.” Her father swung down from his steed as she drew near, striding forward to sweep her into his arms. “No’ before I’m assured that you” — he threw a glance over his shoulder, his dark eyes narrowing suspiciously on the Raven — “passed asatisfactorynight!”
Resplendent in his gleaming black mail and hung about with more steel than was surely necessary, he set her from him. “I’d hear the truth, lass.” His gaze bored deep. “ ’Tis no’ too late for you to return with us. Your uncle and I —”
“Ho, indeed!” Valdar’s bearlike figure stepped out of the shadows. “I told you fine that all went well with them.” He hooked his hands around his sword belt, looking pleased. “I saw the lad racing up the stairs to join her late last night — saw him with my own two eyes.”
Sir Marmaduke lifted a brow, his doubt only increasing the old man’s mirth.
Valdar wriggled his own brows in Sir Marmaduke’s general direction. He hooted heartily, his great barrel-bellied girth jigging with merriment.
“Och, suffering saints save me!” he burst out, eyes dancing. “I saw it all, I did.”
“You have a crafty tongue in that head of yours, MacRuari.” The Black Stag eyed him, clearly rankled. “Many sets of feet tramped up those stairs last night. That two of those feet belonged to your grandson means naught.”
Gelis felt her face warm.
The Raven was still watching her, his gaze sharp.
“Means naught, eh?” Valdar rocked back on his heels. “Mayhap not that he ran up the stairs, I’ll agree. ’Twashowhe was running up them that makes the difference!”
His point made — leastways to him — he looked round as if awaiting accolades.
