Page 18 of It’s in his Highland Kiss

“Ye have more?” Marion asked. That somehow shocked her more than seeing Eiric’s own raven fly onto his hand right in front of her eyes.

“Aye, we have plenty,” he told her. “Dinna be afraid, lass. Mungo is verra kind. He willna peck ye.”

Somehow Marion doubted that, but she tried to listen to Eiric and push down her fears. After all, her fears had been cultivated by none other than her father, who didn’t want any pets in the manor. Marion remembered being a child and begging for a dog, but her father had been adamant that she could never have one.

With a hesitant hand, Marion reached for the raven, and though for a moment it seemed as though Mungo would fly away, Eiric hushed him, and he stayed still. She petted the raven’s head gently with a knuckle of her finger, and immediately, she was in love.

She had no reason to be afraid; Eiric had been right.

“How did you even come to own ravens?” Marion asked. “I . . . I’ve heard about pigeons being used as messengers, but ravens?”

“Me great-great-grandfaither was the first to do this,” Eiric explained to her. “He loved ravens, me faither says, and he found out a way to train them. We’ve been doin’ it as a clan ever since, though some of us have more success than others.”

Eiric dipped his hand and then raised it again, and Mungo flew away, disappearing in the sky. It seemed like something out of a fairy-tale to Marion, and she spent several moments looking at the sky, searching for the bird.

“He’s out there somewhere,” Eiric assured her. “And he’ll come back whenever I call him.”

“Do you think that I could learn how to do this?” Marion asked. “Train ravens? With you?”

Marion had realised in her second day at the castle that she would need to find something to do soon, something that would occupy her when she had no other tasks to complete. Raising and training ravens seemed as good a hobby as any. In fact, it seemed more interesting than most things she could do in that castle. She was sick and tired of embroidering and sewing; she needed some adventure.

Besides, if Eiric would agree to teach her, then she would have the chance to spend more time with him, something that was always at the back of her mind, a nagging thought that wouldn’t let her rest. The two of them still spent time together, several days after Eiric’s return to his home, but it simply wasn’t the same as when they were alone on the road.

It was something that had kept Marion awake at night. Sleeping all alone after spending so much time falling asleep next to another person was difficult, as was not being around Eiric for the biggest part of the day. A part of her felt lost in that big castle, as though she was always trying to find her footing, as though she was suspended over a step on a staircase, waiting for the moment that she would fall.

Everyone was perfectly pleasant, of course. Everyone seemed to like her and enjoy her company, but everyone also had responsibilities, each with their own role in the clan. Marion couldn’t possibly allow herself to become a burden to them.

“That’s why I brought ye here,” Eiric said. “So that I could teach ye how to do this. It’s a very valuable skill to have, Marion, and these ravens, they are very helpful to us. Our enemies dinna expect us to use them to communicate, and so our messages are never intercepted.”

Marion couldn’t help but wonder what kind of enemies the MacLeod clan had. As far as she knew, the clan had alliances with all the neighbouring clans, and they all lived in peace, save for the occasional argument between hot-headed clansmen.

Who were the clan’s enemies, so powerful as to be able to intercept every other message save for those sent by ravens?

Marion didn’t ask. She didn’t think that Eiric would tell her the truth even if she did.

There were some things, it seemed to her, that forced Eiric to shut down when mentioned. He didn’t like to talk about clan business with anyone, let alone Marion, and she tried to respect that as much as she could.

Perhaps he sees me as an outsider. I wouldn’t blame him . . . I hardly even know anything about Scotland. I’m not one of them.

She wondered if she ever would be one of them, if she would ever truly be part of the clan if she stayed in the Highlands. The only thing that she had been seeking in her life was family, and now it seemed to her as though she was close to having it, but there was still something stopping her.

Surely, no one else minded that she didn’t speak like the people around her, that she didn’t act like them, that she didn’t have the same upbringing. But Marion minded; she minded enough to think that excluding herself was perhaps the best choice she had.

“There are many things that I would like to teach ye, Marion,” Eiric said then, pulling Marion out of her thoughts just as she was about to get too deep into them. “I was thinkin’ . . . I could teach ye how to fight and how to spy. I could teach ye everythin’ that me faither taught me. I ken that me maither has her own plan for ye, but if ye seek somethin’ more than how to dress and how to speak to the other noble lasses, then there is so much that I can show ye.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second,” Marion said with a small, grateful smile. “And I would like that, Eiric, I really would. But I don’t want to take up any of your time if you have more important things to do. You’re the son of the laird . . . I’m sure that there is much you have to do, many responsibilities that you carry.”

“Ach, it’s fine,” Eiric assured her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I have time for everythin’, dinna ye worry about me. Besides, there’s always Edan.”

Marion clenched her jaw so hard at the mention of Edan’s name that she feared she would break her teeth. She knew Edan, of course; he was Eiric’s best friend. In fact, she knew more about Edan than she would have ever liked to know, simply because the man didn’t know when to stop talking.

When she had gasped at his narration of a particularly raunchy personal story, he had called her a prude. Marion hadn’t appreciated that comment, nor his entire demeanour.

“I ken, I ken,” Eiric said, perhaps seeing the disapproval written on her face. “I ken that ye dinna like him, but he likes ye. He can be . . . difficult, at times. All I’m askin’ is that ye give him a chance.”

Well . . . everyone seems to like Edan. Perhaps I am the one who has misunderstood him. Perhaps it’s because of our different upbringings.

And it made sense, of course, that her mother would have raised her to be a prude. In fact, her mother took pride in it, and so had Marion, for a long while. But now, surrounded by all these people who didn’t consider it rude or improper to discuss such matters, or even to do simple things like drink wine, she couldn’t help but feel as though she was the one in the wrong.