“No … but in the end, the choice to leave was mine.”
Silence fell before he loosed a deep sigh. “Fear not, if Ma and I have words over this, they will be civil.” He paused then, a wry note creeping into his voice as he continued. “My mother is proud and fiery … but if I know her, she’ll already regret speaking out of turn.”
Spots of rain peppered Hazel’s face as they rode into Moy.
The day had started fine, but the farther south they traveled, the greyer it became. They’d retrieved her basket. It sat on the mossy bank of that burn where Macquarie and his men had found her. Picking it up, she’d glanced around, almost as if she expected more warriors to close in on her. But Hamish Macquarie was dead—and the surviving band of warriors who’d accompanied him, including his son, now languished in Moy’s bottle dungeon.
Ruadh clattered up the final incline and passed under the portcullis. Faolan bounded ahead, still full of energy despite the long journey.
Hazel squeezed Craeg’s hand then, nervousness twisting in her belly. “What will ye do with the Macquarie prisoners?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he replied.
“I wish to be present when ye speak to them.”
A beat of silence pulsed between them before he answered, “Aye.”
Relief fluttered through Hazel. She was glad he understood. Cameron Macquarie was her half-brother, and since Hazel was the person they’d been hunting, she wished to witness Craeg’s meeting with them.
Even so, she sensed Craeg’s tension, his simmering anger. The Macquarie chieftain was dead, but there was a part of him that still wanted reckoning against them.
She worried about where that road might lead him.
They drew up in the midst of the barmkin. Craeg swung down from Ruadh’s back and helped Hazel to the ground. By the time they’d dismounted, a stable lad had joined them, and a welcome party emerged from the tower house.
Lady Liza. Rankin. Lena. A tall leather-clad figure also swiftly descended the steps from the walls. Captain Black. Faolan raced up to Nat, tail wagging.
Hazel’s heart started to thump against her ribs. They wereallhere.
Lena rushed across the cobbled yard, dark hair flying behind her. She threw her arms around her brother first, in a crushing embrace, before grabbing Hazel and giving her the same treatment.
“He brought ye home!”
Hazel swallowed, a hard lump in her throat now. “Aye,” she said huskily.
“Loch Maclean has given us his blessing,” Craeg announced then, raising his voice so that it traveled to every edge of the barmkin, echoing across stone. “Hazel and I are free to marry … and we will.”
Silence followed this proclamation.
A crowd had gathered now, all gazes upon the Chieftain of Moy and the healer who would become his wife. Hazel’s cheeks grew hot under their stares, yet she kept her spine straight, her chin high.
A few stares wouldn’t harm her.
Moments passed, and then her gaze shifted to Lady Liza.
The older woman stood at the base of the steps to the tower house, her face unreadable. She looked every inch the Lady of Moy. Her grey-streaked dark hair was braided into an intricate crown. She wore a deep-blue surcote of fine damask over a butter-yellow kirtle.
Their gazes met, and Hazel’s stomach tightened. Aye, the only person she was worried about facing here was Lady Liza. She liked and respected Craeg’s mother and wanted the woman to think well of her.
Liza moved forward, her skirts swishing across the rain-spotted cobbles. She stopped before them and, for a long moment, said nothing.
“Ma,” Craeg said quietly. A warning threaded through that single word.
Liza cut her son a quick look before focusing on Hazel once more. “Ye came back.”
Hazel nodded.
“I didn’t think ye would.”
