“Are you going to jump?” John asked, keeping his tone bland.
“Would you feel the need to jump after me?”
John grimaced. “I’d rather stop you before it comes to that.”
Brave, foolish, faithful John. Didn’t he know Dair was already dead in all the ways that mattered? Still, he turned away from the cliff’s seductive edge. “There’s no point in your getting wet. I know how you hate the sea.”
There was concern in John’s eyes. “And I know how much you love it. If you were going to end your life, you’d choose this.”
Would he? Did he have the courage? “Not today.” Not yet, not until he’d choked the life out of the bastards who’d murdered Jeannie and his men.
“Your cousin’s coming,” John said, looking back toward Carraig Brigh, away from the nauseating sight of the sea.
For a moment, Dair’s heart leaped, and he turned, half expecting to see Jeannie, alive again, her skirts kilted at her waist, her feet bare as she raced across the grass toward him. She’d suggest climbing down the cliff path to the beach before the tide changed, to look for clams or swim . . .
But it was Logan, Jeannie’s twin brother, who was hurrying up the path, waving his arms and calling. Dair’s heart dropped to his belly, dead as a stone, leaving him breathless and angry. John went back to his seat on the rock, put his flute to his lips, and played a jaunty English tune. The wind caught the sharp notes of the flute, swirled them around Dair like Jeannie’s cries for mercy. The seabirds wheeled high above and laughed like her captors. He turned on John. “Stop playing that damn thing, can’t you?”
John looked at him blandly. “Perhaps a different tune would suit you better?”
Dair wrapped his plaid more tightly over his chest, not bothering to reply. Nothing suited him. He picked up the walking stick, leaned on it like an old man, and watched Logan come. The lad’s kilt flew around his strong legs as he ran, breath singing in and out of his whole, healthy body, his face and mind still wide and fresh and open to the joys of the world. Logan had the same golden hair as his sister, the same blue eyes . . . Dair gritted his teeth against rage and sorrow and guilt.
Logan arrived and bent with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
“The chief sent me to fetch you, Dair. He’s home.”
Dair looked over his cousin’s shoulder at the road leading to the keep, half-expecting to see a golden chariot climbing the steep hill in a beam of heavenly light, heralding the virgin’s arrival, but the road was empty. “Was his mission successful? Did he find a virgin?”
Logan grinned. “Aye—he came back with two MacLeod lasses.”
“Two? Was there a special price for doubling his order? My father always was a fine negotiator with a canny eye for a bargain. And I was foolish enough to think he’d not find even one unblemished lass willing to have me,” Dair quipped. John frowned, but Logan didn’t recognize the sarcasm in his tone—he laughed at the bitter jest. The lad was daft as a hare.
“Perhaps the second lass is in case the first refuses you,” John said, and Logan laughed again.
“How will I choose between them? Is one prettier than the other?” Dair asked his cousin. At twenty-one, Logan had a bold and eager eye for women.
Logan grinned. “Both are fair enough from what I saw, but your father sent me off to find you before I could get a proper look.”
“Ah, then you’d best hurry back,” Dair said. He put his good arm around the lad’s shoulders. “What say you go try them out for me and decide which one might suit me best? I could choose once I have your recommendation—or I could just take the one you don’t want.” He felt Logan stiffen, saw the surprise in his cousin’s eyes. Dair felt bitterness coil through his belly again. He stepped back and touched his hand to his forehead. “Och no, what am I thinking? Then she wouldn’t be a virgin any longer, and I’d still be mad.”
Logan’s grin faded. “Dhia,Dair. What if the old woman’s prophecy is true? What if they—she, or someone, a miracle—can heal you? Don’t you want that?”
Dair saw Jeannie’s ghost in her brother’s face, heard her voice asking the question. He closed his eyes, rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger to banish her. It was no use. He glared at Logan. “Don’t be stupid. There’s no such thing as miracles—even you know that. If there was—” If there was, then she’d be alive, here now, beside him. “It’s an idiotic plan. I wonder what my father told the lasses to get them to come. Or is it just that I’ve become such a curiosity that people are willing to travel all the way across Scotland to see the madman in person? We should sell subscriptions, serve ale and cakes while I foam and rant—”
He stopped when he saw the horror in his cousin’s eyes. It wasn’t new—everyone at Carraig Brigh looked at him like that, as if he’d killed them all with his own hands. He’d have done anything, given anything, even his own life, to save them . . . He forced himself to relax. “Never mind, lad. Go and make the lasses welcome, and I’ll be along soon.”
Logan nodded once, serious now, the joy gone from his day. “Coming with me, English John?”
“I’ll walk back with Dair,” the Englishman said. “We won’t be long. Save us a leg of virgin.”
They watched the lad go. “Perhaps we should have gone ahead and made him wait here. We’ll be a poor second act after they meet Logan,” Dair said.
John barked a laugh. “Speak for yourself. I intend to charm them.”
“I’ll wager you won’t. These are Scottish lassies. They’ll have been brought up to believe that Englishmen have long tails and cloven hooves.”
“I’ll be happy to prove there’s no tail on this Sassenach,” John said, grinning.
“Ah, but if they see you without breeches they’ll know the other wee rumor about Sassenach men is true. They’d certainly not have you then.”
