Bride For A Knight Page 0,35

the last time she'd looked upon the still, shining waters of Loch Duich was more important than filling her lungs with fresh night air.

Air she knew she'd need as soon as the door flew wide and she came face-to-face with Duncan wearing his most thunderous expression.

An unpleasantness that was about to crash down upon her, for she could hear angry voices and the sound of hurrying feet pounding up the turnpike stair. Two sets of heavy, masculine feet.

Accompanied by two identical glares, for Robbie would be with him and equally displeased.

Then, before she could even smooth a hand over her hair or shake out her skirts, the door burst open and the two men swept into the room. Chill night wind from the stairwell's arrow slit windows gusted in as well, its rushing draught gutting a few candles and making the torch flames flicker wildly. But not near so wild as her husband looked.

Frowning darkly, he strode forward, sword-clanking and windblown, his eyes blazing. "Saints, Maria, and Joseph!" he roared, staring at her. "Tell me you haven't sent my daughters to the north. To anywhere. And without my consent!"

Looking equally mud-stained and disheveled, Robbie shook his head, his expression more of disbelief than fury. "Surely we misheard." He glanced at his father. "Juliana would ne'er ride off without telling me. If she had need to make a journey, she would've waited until I returned from my own."

"She went because I asked her. She - " Linnet broke off when Mungo streaked past her to hurtle himself at Robbie's legs.

Scooping him up, her stepson clasped the little dog to his chest, some of the darkness slipping from his face, washed away by Mungo's excited wags and yippings, his wet slurpy kisses.

Duncan snorted.

His brow black as his tangled, shoulder-length hair, he ignored his son and the squirming dog and glanced around the fire-lit room before heading straight to a table set with cheese and oatcakes, an ewer of heather ale. Helping himself to a brimming cup of the frothy brew, he downed it in one long gulp, then swung back around, looking no less fierce for having refreshed himself.

"God's wounds, woman, I have loved you for long." He narrowed his eyes on her, his stare piercing. "But this is beyond all. I canna say what I will do if aught happens to either of my girls."

Linnet clasped her hands before her and lifted her chin. "Our daughters are well able to look after themselves," she returned, meeting his glare. "They are escorted by a company of your best guardsmen. Juliana" - she glanced at Robbie -

"accompanied them for propriety's sake."

"That doesn't tell me why they are gone," Duncan shot back, looking at her long and hard.

"You know I would have known if danger awaited them."

"Faugh." He folded his arms. "'Tis still a bad business."

Linnet held her ground, flicked at her skirts. "I sent them away for a reason."

Duncan arched a brow. "And would that be the same reason you've barricaded yourself in here with all the shutters drawn tight? You, with your love of fresh air and open windows?"

"To be sure, I would rather have the shutters flung wide," Linnet admitted, lowering herself onto her stool. "I - "

"By the saints!" Robbie's voice echoed in her ears, already sounding distant, hollow. "Father, do you not see?"

Vaguely, Linnet was aware of Robbie setting down Mungo, then grabbing his father's arm, shaking him. "She's closed the shutters to block the view of the loch!

Like as not, she's had another one of her spells. The taibhsearachd ... "

But Linnet heard no more.

Truth be told, she wasn't even in the lady's solar anymore, but standing on the parapet walk of Eilean Creag's battlements, enjoying the wind in her face and a splendid Highland sunset.

A glorious one, with the still waters of Loch Duich reflecting the jagged cliffs and headlands, the long line of heather and bracken-clad hills rolling away beyond the loch's narrow, shingled shore.

Only then the open moors and rolling hills trembled and shook, drawing ever nearer until the vastness of Loch Duich narrowed to a treacherous defile. A deep, black-rimmed gorge hemming a rushing, raging torrent, all white water, rocks, and spume.

Linnet cried out and reached for support, her legs threatening to buckle as she clung to the parapet wall and stared down at the vision before her, the most-times tranquil loch's dim-shining waters nowhere to be seen. She saw only the steep-sided ravine and the churning, boiling water. The deadly, racing cataracts and