Did she do it out of pride, or was this an indication she had decided to accept becoming his wife? If she’d made up her mind, he wished to God she’d tell him. Sleeping beside her every night without touching her was torture. If she made him wait much longer for their wedding night, it just might kill him.
“Wear your extra stockings today,” he told her. “We’ll see snow in the mountains.”
“Already have them on,” she said, and gamely lifted her skirts to show him.
“A bit higher,” he said. “I can’t quite see them.”
“You’ve seen all you’re going to see,” she said with a laugh. “Now, if you’re done lazing about, shouldn’t we be on our way?”
Despite the hardships, Sybil’s natural cheerfulness shone through now that they had put many miles between them and her former troubles. But they were in the Highlands now. Spring had not yet come this far north, and their route would take them into increasingly rugged terrain. He worried it would be too hard on her.
“I had no notion any place could be as beautiful as this,” she said, pausing to gaze at the shimmering surface of Loch Lochy and the rich green hills on the opposite shore.
When he stood beside her, she hooked her hand through his arm. Now that she was at ease with him, she touched him often without seeming to notice that she did or the effect it had on him.
“This is a bonny spot,” he said. “Almost as bonny as MacKenzie lands.”
“How long before we reach them?” she asked.
“A few days or more, depending on the weather,” he said. “MacKenzie lands are vast, stretching from sea to sea in the shape of a giant wedge of cheese, with the wide part in the west and the narrow point in the east.”
Sybil laughed and leaned against him. “To which part of the cheese are we going?”
“The west.”
The route east to the MacKenzie strongholds near Inverness would be easier than the mountainous journey west, for they could travel through the Great Divide, an endless valley and chain of lochs that ran at a diagonal across the Highlands. That route, however, would take them through Grant lands and directly past Urquhart Castle, the Grant chieftain’s fortress on Loch Ness. Rory intended to avoid the Grants until after he and Sybil were wed.
“We go west to Eilean Donan Castle,” he said. “My brother, our chieftain, should be there.”
Rory was anxious to make things right between him and Brian. And they needed to discuss how to mollify the Grants now that there would be no marriage between Rory and the Grant chieftain’s daughter to heal the breach between their clans.
As Rory turned Curan westward into the mountains, an uneasy sensation passed through him. His grandmother would say someone had walked on his grave. He thought he heard a voice chanting, but there was not another soul in sight on the barren, windswept hillsides.
“What’s wrong?” Sybil asked.
“Nothing at all,” he said to reassure her, but hekept a sharp lookout. As a warrior, he knew better than to ignore the unease that pricked like an itch on the back of his neck. Curan was on edge too.
A lone raven flew across the sky and cawed three times. The old folk said that was an omen of death.
***
Sybiltucked her chin down against the wind whipping at her face and pressed more tightly against Rory’s back as they rode. The plaid he’d wrapped around them kept most of the rain from penetrating her clothing, but the damp cold still seemed to seep into her bones.Ever since they turned westward, the journey grew harder each day.
By the time they finally stopped for the night, she could not feel her hands and feet.
“Ach, you’re shaking.” Rory enfolded her in his arms and rubbed her back. “I should have stopped sooner. Why did ye not tell me ye were frozen?”
“I didn’t want ye to think me weak,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
“You’ve too much pride by half,” he said, and kissed her hair.
After bundling her in a blanket, he quickly set about building a fire and preparing their dinner. Sybil felt too worn out from fending off the cold to make even a feeble offer to help.
“Rain’s coming tonight,” he said, glancing up at the sky.
Coming?It had been drizzling all day. Rory set up a makeshift lean-to with a wool blanket that had been treated with some kind of fat to shed the rain. She crawled under it and must have dozed off, for she awoke to the delicious smell of the rabbit cooking on a spit over the fire.
“Feeling any better?” Rory asked.
