Highland Knight Of Dreams - Amy Jarecki Page 0,6
the food tent,” Eachan said, riding ahead. “Whatever they’re cooking is making my mouth water.”
MacGregor’s horse stepped up the pace as well. “Agreed. I’ve been starved since we left Inveraray.”
“You’re always hungry.” Intending to follow, Quinn slapped his reins. But when an elderly woman using a cane hobbled into his path, he quickly pulled his horse to a stop. “Whoa.”
For an instant, she looked startled, but her eyes quickly shifted to the rosebud he’d pinned at his shoulder with his clan brooch. “The flower has begun to open,” she said as if she had given him the bud herself.
Quinn immediately dismounted. “You know of this rose?”
“I do. ’Tis a damask rose. One that only blooms when it has mind to do so.”
Reins in hand, he glanced in the direction of the food tent. “You make no sense at all. Flowers don’t bloom whenever they feel the need.”
“I think I’m being perfectly reasonable, m’lord. In fact, all flowers only bloom for a reason. Though the damask rose is the rarest and most elusive.”
Quinn moved closer, his mind calculating. “And the woman who brought it last eve. Where might I find her?”
Thumping her cane on the ground, she snorted. “Ah, a young man chasing a bonny lass. Some things never change.”
“Do you know her?”
“Perhaps. Come with me, m’lord.” She hobbled toward an open tent, bearing a sign that read, “Asketh thy Seer”.
The woman seemed far shrewder than by first glance. It hadn’t escaped Quinn’s notice when she’d called him lord. She knew who he was, which he hadn’t expected. Certainly, he was the heir to the Argyll title, but he hadn’t been to Rothesay since he was a lad. True, he had come to the games to uphold the title he’d earned last year, but those events had been in Dalmally on Loch Awe.
“Who are you?” he asked, following the woman into the tent. “Can you divine the future?”
“Hmm. This is a fête and what would a gathering be without an old woman foretelling things that may come?” She sat in a rickety old chair beside a table, then gestured to a half-barrel on the other side. “Sit. Do not make me crane my neck.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Quinn sat on the barrel, so low, his knees came up to his chin. “Do ye ken who gave me the bud?”
“I have an idea.”
He shifted, sitting taller. “Do not be cryptic with me.”
The woman rapped his knee with her blasted cane. “And do not be domineering with me, young whelp or that rose tucked in your brooch will never bloom.”
Quinn rubbed his knee. “Why should I give a rat’s arse if it blooms or nay?”
“I beg your pardon, m’lord, but I am no wench who enjoys coarse language.”
“Forgive me.” He gestured to the flower. “Please enlighten me as to why I should concern myself with the welfare of this thorny rose.”
“Have the thorns pierced your skin?”
“More than once.”
“Good.”
“I think not—they gave me welts.” Quinn rubbed his sore fingers together. “Why is this bloom so important?”
“Your father is arrogant and self-serving. In my experience the acorn never falls far from the tree.”
“My father?” He shook his head and stared at the shrew. “Madam, your banter is making me dizzy. If you think so ill of the earl, then why are we having this discussion?”
“Because you are not beyond saving. Yet.”
“I’ve had enough.” Quinn pushed to his feet. “You speak in riddles and by the sign on the tent, I reckon ye are a witch. I’d watch myself if I were you.”
“Spoken like a true Campbell.”
“Bloody oath, woman. You have the most maddening way of raising my ire.”
As he started away, she caught his wrist with the hook of her cane. “He who dares grasp the thorn will become the instrument of peace, but he who shuns it will only serve to increase the hatred between clans.”
He looked her from head to toe. What was she about? Was she deliberately trying to unnerve him? And why was she mumbling all this rubbish about peace and hatred? Unless she was… “You’re a Lamont,” he growled.
With a gap-toothed grin, she leaned in. “Och aye, and do ye ken what happened in May four and twenty years past?”
Jesu, everyone knew of the Dunoon Massacre. It had posed a black mark on the Campbell name for two generations. Quinn’s grandfather massacred nearly the entire Lamont clan, including the chieftain. Only a few had escaped and those who did were thought to have fled to the Lowlands.
The way the