Would that he’d been so careful with his daughter.
“Jamie would have brought his dog here with him,” she declared, her lips curving in another dazzling smile. “He ne’er takes a step without Cuillin at his side.”
Ronan humphed.
The admiration he heard in his lady’s voice annoyed him greatly.
His golden neck torque squeezed him tighter than e’er before.
Dog lover or nay, he was certain he didn’t like this Jamie Macpherson.
“I am sure I’ve heard of other suchdog-creels,” he lied, something deep and ridiculous pricked inside him, forcing him to undermine the other man’s brilliance.
“Indeed, I may have seen three or more such devices in Inverness,” he embellished, feeling the fool but unable to halt his tongue. “And perhaps another on Skye, last time I visited Aidan MacDonald of Wrath. That one, too, is well keen on his hounds.”
Lady Gelis’s brows lifted, her gaze teasing.
Teasing, taunting, and all-seeing enough to send his own brows dipping into a deep, down-drawn scowl.
“You needn’t be jealous of Jamie.” She laughed the words, her merriment making him frown all the more. “He was one of my father’s favorite squires. He’s newly married and happily settled at Baldreagan, his home. He would love Buckie.”
As if he knew he was being discussed, that long-eared brute trundled over to them. Looking quite pleased with himself, he eyed them, his bright gaze going from one to the other, his tail wagging furiously.
Then he was off again, hinking away to trot along the lochan’s shore, eagerly sniffing every rock and clump of heather he passed.
Jamie Macpherson faded from Ronan’s mind.
He looked back at his bride, shamed that — for a space, anyway — he’d thought her capable of allowing harm to come to the old dog.
He ran a hand through his hair, shamed, too, that his feelings for her would suddenly swell so fiercely in this of all places.
He bit down on the inside of his mouth, shamed even more that he wasn’t awash with guilt.
Far from it, very different emotions were whipping through him. Even when he slid a cautious glance across the lochan to where the worst jumble of stones hugged the foot of Creag na Gaoith.
No ghosts lingered there.
Only nothingness stared back at him.
The hollow whistling of the wind, the rattle of tree branches, his own thundering heartbeat, and — he still couldn’t believe it — Buckie’s excited snuffling.
“Well?”Shewas standing before him, poking his chest with a finger. “What do you think?”
“Lady, I am . . . overwhelmed.” He winced, hoping only he heard the thickness in his voice. “Truth is, I dinna know what to say.”
“Then say you are pleased.” She stepped back, attar of roses in her wake. “And” — her smile went wicked — “that you will not be wroth with your cook for helping me.”
“Nae — by Saint Columba’s knees! I am anything but displeased with you and I will go easy with Hugh — I promise you.” But his gaze went to her Viking tent, the sight of it sobering him.
The tent could so easily have belonged to some broken half- Norse Islesman, wandering the hills and aching for trouble.
Or worse . . . a trap laid by the Holders.
Ronan glanced at the sky, certain the clouds were darkening, their roiling mass closing in on Creag na Gaoith, their fast-moving shadows blotting the sun.
He looked back at her, wondering how she couldglowin such a benighted place.
“You are wroth.” She folded her arms. “I can feel it rolling off you.”
