Eilidh had found the name familiar, but she hadn’t been able to place it.
“Ye know him then?” she prodded.
She’d pushed aside the thought for the time she’d spent cradling her nephew, but now mention of the stranger had roused her hunger to know about him anew.
“I ken thename,” he clarified. “I’ve nae met the man before today. But he’s a famed warrior, for all that he’s young for such renown.”
Ailsa looked thoughtful. “I may have met him once,” she reflected. “When we were both children, before the rebellion. Graham would have a clearer memory of it, but the Gunns came to trade with the Donagheys. Our families had dealings with one another for years.”
“Aye,” James contributed, as if suddenly recalling something. “That would be how he got the horse, would it nae? The beast itself is known, too. Shadowbane. Gunn rode that mount through the Jacobite fires and came out the other side.”
“The Gunns are known for having old blood,” Ailsa said by way of agreement. “Old and strong.”
Eilidh knew they would no doubt tease her for being so romantic about things, but she couldn’t help clasping her hands together.
“That sounds like something out of a legend,” she said.
Oh, she could just see it. The legendary hero who fought for his country against the tyranny of the English, devastated by the turmoil in the homeland he’d fought so hard to defend. He would have gone for a long ride on his trusty steed, certain that he could figure out a way to make things better for the people of the Highlands. Only he’d been waylaid by dastardly bandits and barely escaped with his life. But fate—and Shadowbane’s instinctive connection to the family that had raised his dam and granddam for too many generations to count—had brought him here, to Eilidh, no matter that she wasn’t in her ancestral home any longer.
“Or,” Vaila interjected sourly, “it’s a trap. I wouldnae put it past Gordon to find some sneaky way to turn an old ally against us.”
Eilidh felt a sudden flash of anger as her romantic vision of Ciaran atop Shadowbane, mane and cloak rippling in the wind as he looked broodingly out over the moors, disappeared. Her sister’s dour expression was much less pleasant.
“It’s nae a trap,” she insisted, crossing her arms. “If ye had seen him, ye would know that. Nobody gets themself beaten within an inch of their life just to set up a trap.”
Vaila mimicked Eilidh’s posture. “Unless it’s a very good trap,” she countered. “One designed to trick gullible wee lassies like yourself.”
Eilidh scoffed. “I’m naegullible. Just because I am nae suspicious of everyone, likeye.”
“Girls!” Ailsa snapped the word and, for a moment, she sounded so much like their late mother that Eilidh was practically transported back in time. Lord above, she even looked like their mother, all frowning and stern, when Eilidh and Vaila looked sheepishly in her direction.
“We are not going to fight amongst ourselves,” she said in her bestLady of the Keeptone. “That’s the kind of thing that Gordon wants. We willnae give it to him. Besides.”
She reached out her arms for wee Jamie, and this time Ewan handed him directly over. The baby immediately nuzzled his face toward his mother’s breast, evidently hungry.
Ailsa regarded her son with an expression that was so tender that it shattered Eilidh’s ire like a hammer brought down sharply on glass.
“We have more important things to protect now,” she said, a smile on her lips as she looked at the babe. “There is too much to lose for us to risk losing ourselves.”
When Ailsa looked up, Eilidh knew that her cheeks were burning with shame at being so childish when Ailsa had just gone through one of the most challenging days of her life.
“We’ll write to Graham,” their eldest sister decreed. “He will know what to do.”
“Aye,” Vaila agreed, looking just as sheepish as Eilidh felt. “That’s a grand idea. I’ll write the letter; dinnae fash, Ailsa.”
Vaila and James went off to write the report to Graham, and Davina wandered off to find her husband, Arran McPherson, who was scheduled to return from a scouting trip at any moment. This left Eilidh at odds, as she often had been ever since Davina’s marriage.
She resolved to go down and check on Ciaran merely for something to do, though she found him asleep, as she’d expected.
Eilidh briefly watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest, reassuring herself that he was still alive, then turned out toward the stables to check on his legendary horse.
She was happy for her sisters and their grand love matches. She truly was. But, as she wandered out across the yard, seeking Shadowbane, she couldn’t help but reflect on how different things had become between the four of them in the past year.
A year ago, they’d all lived at Castle Dubh-Gheal with their parents. Yes, Graham had been missing, and Eilidh knew that if she lost him now, she would be devastated. But before Gordon had come into their lives, her long-lost brother had been little more than a wisp of memory to her, as she’d been so young when their father had conspired to fake his death. She hadn’t known what she was missing then, but she knew what she was missing now.
She missed her mother’s perfect hugs and the way her father would wink sidelong at her as he snuck her treats. She missed life when things felt simple and safe. When she knew her place in the world.
Now, her sisters had new places with their husbands.
