Before he made a sound or uttered a word, her sharp eyes lifted, blue as the winter sea, and she regarded him with knowing intensity, as if she’d already sensed his coming. He felt the penetration of her gaze like a knife in the gut.
Slowly he approached, taking in her overall appearance, while avoiding the obvious reason for her arrival, which he was not yet ready to confront.
Her russet-colored hair was tidy and clean. It fell past her shoulders in rich, curly waves. If not for the tattered woolen gown of faded umber and the complete absence of jewels, she would look as proud and superior as any woman of noble heritage. Everything about her conveyed an impression of pompous arrogance, but it was all a pretense. A clever affectation. For her upbringing was anything but regal.
Having been born with an unnatural gift of sight, she had spent the whole of her life as a social outcast, living in a grubby thatched hut on the outer fringes of the world. Her notoriety as a witch had even reached the Scottish mainland. People feared and despised her. Some said she had the mark of the devil etched on her skin, while others pitied her and prayed for her mad, tragic soul.
Her family origins were unknown. She was raised on the Western Isles by an eccentric old woman who died when Raonaid was eleven. Whether or not the woman was her mother, no one knew—not even Raonaid, who chose to remain on the islands after her caregiver’s death, seeking comfort in her strange collection of bones and potions. Eventually she matured into a resourceful young woman—attractive and sexually alluring—but no man wanted her, nor did she offer herself to anyone.
Her only comforts and pleasures came from her visions in the stone circles. Sometimes she saw the future. Other times she saw herself living a parallel life in a different world.
Until Angus entered her life.
He had not feared her, as others did.
Dabbing at her mouth with a napkin, Raonaid set down her spoon. She slid off the stool and approached him.
He had not forgotten how beautiful she was. A man could stumble and fall into that lush cleavage and disappear for a year.
“It took you long enough,” she said. “Do you know what your guards put me through? They weren’t even going to let me through the gates.”
Lachlan interrupted. “They won’t make that mistake again, Raonaid. They know who you are now, and won’t soon forget you.” He nudged Angus in the side. “She told one of the guards that she was seeing his future, and he should expect all his hair to fall out before Christmas.”
Angus shook his head. “Raonaid, if you’d been patient, I would have come to greet you properly.”
“Just listen to you,” she said, with a snide look in her eye.
Returning to the table, she picked up her spoon and resumed eating.
Angus and Lachlan stood in silence, watching her.
“Is that it?” Lachlan whispered, leaning close. “After smashing half the kitchen to bits, that’s all she’s going to say to you?”
Angus watched her for a long, tense moment, then approached. “What brings you here, Raonaid? You said you’d never leave the islands, and you also said you were overjoyed to see the arse end of me when I left.”
“I was,” she replied, “and I don’t want you back, if that’s what you think. I came here because of what I saw in the stones.”
A cold knot tightened in his stomach. Raonaid’s strongest visions had always come from the standing stones at Calanais. She was often drawn to them by dreams. It was there she had seen his father’s death, predicted Lachlan’s arrival, and foretold Angus’s ultimate triumph over the MacEwens at Kinloch.
He recalled also, however, a promise he had forced her to make—that if she ever sawhisdeath in the stones, she would come to him.
“Are you here to fulfil your pledge?” he asked.
“Aye.”
He swallowed hard, then spoke matter-of-factly. “When? How much time do I have?”
“Weeks. Maybe a month, at most.”
He had often wondered how he would react to the knowledge of his imminent death. He’d imagined he would accept it with a sense of calm, for he was not without courage. He was a warrior, and had lived a violent existence. For that reason, he always imagined his life would end in an instant, and there would be no time to contemplate much of anything.
In this strange moment, however, he could think of only one thing—Gwendolen—and how he was not yet ready to leave her. He had only just found her, and what if he had put a child in her womb? He could not leave this world if he was about to become a father. He could not leave them alone.
A terrible panic erupted inside him, and he had to fight against the overwhelming urge to vault over the table and shake Raonaid senseless, to demand that she confess that this was a trick—a cruel joke for her own twisted amusement. But he knew she would never leave the Hebrides and journey across the Highlands for a mere moment’s entertainment. She was not that easily amused.
“How much do you know?” he asked. “How will it happen?”
She slid off the stool and sauntered around the table. “You’ll die by the noose,” she told him.
