Gelis swallowed, any words she might have said lodging firmly in her throat.
So greatly did he affect her.
Something flickered in his eyes then, and he lifted a hand, bringing it almost to her cheek as if to dash away the dampness she was trying to so hard to ignore.
But before his fingers touched her, he lowered his hand, turning away so swiftly she wondered if he’d even reached for her at all.
Indeed, she blinked and found herself alone.
From somewhere, she heard the hollow clatter of hooves on cobbles, the sound moving away from her and into the mist and dark beyond Dare’s walls.
Even Valdar was nowhere to be seen, though she couldn’t blame him for seeking the comforts of his hall on such a chill, damp morn.
Not now that all the excitement was over.
But then, as she turned to make her own way back into the keep, she did spy another soul remaining.
Buckie.
And the sight of him caused her heart to wrench.
The dog sat in the lee of the gatehouse wall, staring fixedly into the shadows of the tunnel-like pend. His head was lowered, his ears hanging, and his great plumed tail flat and unmoving against the wet cobbles.
“Buckie!” Gelis called to him, but his only response was a single twitch of one tatty-looking ear.
“Come, old boy,” she tried again, crossing over to him. She stroked his head, laid on her most coaxing tone. “I’ll give you a fine meat-bone to chew beside the fire.”
He looked up at her then, his milky eyes sad.
“Och, Buckie, please . . .”
But the dog refused to budge. With a pitiful groan, he returned his attention to the empty gatehouse pend, once more ignoring her.
“You love him that much, eh, Buckie?” Gelis bit her lip, shoved a mist-dampened curl off her brow.
She also blinked hard, fighting another ridiculous attack of the stinging heat that seemed wont to jab at the backs of her eyes this morn.
“As you will then, laddie, I’ll leave you be.” She gave the dog one last head-and-ears fondle, then turned and strode resolutely across the bailey.
Gathering up her skirts and lifting her chin — just in case anyone was watching her — she mounted the keep stairs, ascending them with a studied grace that would surely have impressed her sister.
She spared a glance at Maldred’s heraldic shield as she neared the landing, but in the gray morning light, the stone’s ancient engravings appeared even more worn and age-smoothed than before.
Squinting up at the thing, she could barely make out the lines of the raven’s sculpted wings.
No matter.
She reached for the hall door’s heavy iron latch, letting herself into the warmth and firelit coziness of the great hall. The day was young, and it was time to see to the first stages of her seduction plan.
But first she needed to find her shoes, do something with her hair, and then make a quick visit to the kitchens.
If the fates were on her side, Ronan MacRuari would learn the mettle of a MacKenzie woman.
And that she — Gelis MacKenzie — wasn’t one to accept defeat quietly.
As Gaelic winds blow, strong and fey, about the time Gelis hurried up Castle Dare’s winding turnpike stair, her mind busy with herplan, another soul bustled about a tiny, thick-walled cottage on the Hebridean isle of Doon.
That sweet isle, little more than a deep-blue smudge against silver-misted skies, was a different world. A nigh-mythical place that — to most — proved difficult to reach due to the isle’s high black cliffs and the treacheries of its surrounding waters.
