He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “All right. I’ll have Cook pack something for breakfast and we can leave right away.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she let out a long, slow breath. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said wryly. “It’s quite a way to North Cove, and the roads are bad. By the time we get there, ye might well be cursing me instead.”
*
Rose’s prediction provedto be true. It had turned into a bright, sunny morning with a fresh breeze blowing in off the sea. If she didn’t have so much playing on her mind, it could almost have been pleasant.
She and Cailean had left Dun Mallach behind, he riding Arrow, she riding a docile white mare called Snip, and they’d eaten breakfast as they rode.
Rose didn’t know what the little pastries filled with nuts and raisins were called, but they were delicious, and she helped herself to four of them from the packet in her saddlebag as they wended their way along the coastline, heading north.
At first, the area around Dun Mallach had been heavily populated, and they’d passed through several villages where the inhabitants came out to call greetings to their laird and stare at the MacFinnan spellweaver in their midst. Rose did her best to set them at ease, waving and smiling, and calling out a hello to show she was just a normal person like them, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded. Most of themstared at her with something approaching awe. This adoration was, she thought, going to take a bit of getting used to.
But as they’d traveled farther north, the settlements had become sparser and the country more rugged and broken. Here, the few settlements they spotted were farther inland and consisted of isolated crofts surrounded by rocky fields dotted with sheep and Highland cattle.
Cailean was a towering, silent presence at her side as they rode, his dark eyes scanning the terrain continually, as if alert for danger. He’d donned a huge sword, which he wore strapped across his back, and she knew he also had daggers tucked into the tops of his boots. He looked like a man expecting trouble.
But, she reflected, watching him surreptitiously as they rode, he seemed like a man whoalwaysexpected trouble. He rarely smiled, but on the odd occasion when he let his guard down, such as around his daughter Catriona, he seemed a different man entirely, one whose eyes shone with amusement and whose warmth was plain to see.
She would like to seethatCailean MacNeil more often.
“How long until we get there?” she asked him.
He turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised. “That’s the third time ye’ve asked that question.”
“It is not.”
“It is so, and the answer remains the same. We should be there by midday.”
Midday? Aargh! That was ages away! Already her backside was beginning to ache from the hard saddle. While she enjoyed riding, and Snip was an exceptionally friendly and docile mount—a deliberate choice on Cailean’s part, no doubt—her muscles were no longer used to riding, and she suspected she’d barely be able to move come the morrow.
This was your idea, she reminded herself.So you’d better stop complaining. After all, the company could be worse.
She found herself studying Cailean again. The sea breeze was sending his hair whipping out behind him in a dark cascade, and his cheeks had a faint blush from windburn. He rode his horse with the ease of someone who had grown up in the saddle and seemed utterly at home in this wild landscape.
“So,” she said, looking around. “This is Barra, huh?”
Cailean followed her gaze, his dark eyes trailing the outline of the land. His harsh expression softened a little. “Aye. This is Barra. A more beautiful place ye willnae find in all of God’s creation.”
Rose had to agree. On a day like today, with the sun glinting off the sea to their right and the glens and hills to their left sparkling like emeralds, she could well understand why Cailean’s voice throbbed with pride to call such a place home.
“And this must have been your stomping ground when you were a kid?” she said, giving him a grin. “Aww, I can imagine a little Cailean running around here looking cute.”
“Cute?” he snorted. “Hardly. When I was a lad, I was a terror. I used to sneak away from my tutors at every available opportunity and spend my time out here hunting and fishing and exploring all the places I wasnae meant to go. The more forbidden or more dangerous, the better. I think I turned my parents’ hair gray before its time.”
Rose’s grin widened. Hewouldhave been a cute kid, no matter what he claimed. With that thick, dark hair, those big eyes, and high cheekbones, he would probably have gotten away with murder. And as a young man, he’d no doubt had the lasses of Barra swooning all over him.
“Sounds like you were the opposite of me,” she said. “Out of my sisters, I’ve always been the sensible one. While Elise was out causing mayhem and Sarah was busy putting the world to rights, I was usually at home studying.Iwouldn’t have snuck away from my tutors to go exploring. I would have been more likely to ask for extra homework. Yep. You could say I was the dull one. Still am, really.”
“Dull?” Cailean said, his brows rising in surprise. “Nay, lass. Dull is the last word I would use to describe ye.”
“Oh?” she said in a teasing voice. “Then how would you describe me? Charming? Absolutely bloody amazing?”
His dark eyes fixed on her face. “Aye, lass,” he said softly. “I would describe ye as all of those things.”
Rose went still. She’d meant it as a joke. She knew she was none of those things. But there was no amusement in Cailean’s expression, no hint that he was teasing her. Her stomach fluttered.
