“ ’Tis me, sir.” Young Hector, his voice hesitant.
“Be gone with you, too, lad.” Ronan ran a hand through his hair, almost panting. “I’ll no’ be disturbed now.”
A pause.
But the kind that pulsed with someone’s presence.
With surety, no light footfalls could be heard padding away from the door.
“ ’Tis your grandfather, my lord,” the boy called. “He wishes to see you in his privy quarters.”
Ronan sighed. “Now?”
“At once, sir,” came the reply.
“Hells bells and damnation.” Ronan strode across the room and yanked open the door. “Whate’er bothers him that he canna sleep on it?” he demanded, trying his best not to glower at the lad.
Hector swallowed, his cheeks flaming bright as his carroty hair. “He wants to speak to you about the man who was here earlier. He says —”
Ronan’s eyes widened. “A visitor?”
Hector bobbed his bright head. “A courier, sir,” he embellished, his chest swelling a bit. “From the Black Stag, he was, come not long before the gloaming and bringing a letter for you.”
“Indeed?”
“So it was, aye,” the boy confirmed. “I saw the man meself, sir.”
“Did you now?” Ronan lifted a brow. “And you’re sure he was a MacKenzie?”
Once more Hector nodded.
“Then run down to my grandfather and tell him I’ll be there forthwith,” Ronan said, reaching to pat Hector’s shoulder.
But when the boy turned and dashed away down the torchlit corridor, he frowned.
By gloaming every MacKenzie in Kintail save his bride would have been huddled round Eilean Creag’s hearth fire gnawing well-roasted beef ribs and quaffing the finest of ales. Some, perhaps, with a plump, full-breasted laundress warming their laps.
Of that he was certain.
The visitor couldn’t have been a MacKenzie.
Likewise, whoe’er the mysterious courier had been, Ronan was sure he was up to no good.
Chapter Thirteen
AMacKenzie, you say?”
Ronan stood in the middle of his grandfather’s privy quarters, his hands fisted against his hips, and trying very hard to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
But it wasn’t easy.
Someone — aHolder, saints preserve them — had guised himself as a MacKenzie for the sole purpose of confusing an old man. And if he could get his hands on the dastard, he’d gladly spend his last breath to make certain he ne’er tried the like again.
Ever.
“Aye, I said he was a MacKenzie.” His grandfather remained stubborn. Oblivious to the truth. “Did you no’ hear me the first time?”
Ronan pulled a hand down over his chin, seeking words that wouldn’t alarm.
