out, he had left home for schooling at St. Andrews.
Catriona kept silent while he collected his boots, and remained so when the two of them turned toward the castle gateway.
“What are you thinking, lass?” he asked.
“I was wondering what my grandfather might say to you,” she said.
“He will give me permission to walk with you round the loch,” Fin said.
“You are exceedingly confident,” she said tartly.
“Will he have broken his fast yet?”
She glanced up at him. “Do you think I ken his every move?”
“I think that a man who has bells rung to tell people when to eat will likely be most regular in his habits. He did not strike me as a slug-a-bed.”
Her eyes twinkled, and she looked away as she said, “Nay, he is not.”
“Then I will don proper clothing and approach him at his breakfast table.”
They parted at his door, and she went to her room, telling herself that Fin of the Battles was about to lose one and wondering why she felt less than certain of that.
Ailvie awaited her with a fresh kirtle of yellow camlet in hand. “Where ha’ ye been so early, m’lady?”
“Outside, walking on the shore,” Catriona said as she cast off her blue kirtle and accepted the yellow one. “Just brush my hair, Ailvie, and confine it in a net,” she added. “I’ve not yet broken my fast.”
When the maidservant had finished, Catriona hurried back downstairs. Her mother and grandmother were at the high table, as was her grandfather.
Fin entered shortly afterward and paused to speak briefly with one of the gillies before taking his own place.
Noting the speculative look that her grandfather shot him, Catriona suspected that the Mackintosh knew that they had met on the shore.
She settled herself to await events.
As Fin approached the dais, he also eyed the Mackintosh, trying to gauge the older man’s mood without blatantly staring at him.
“Good morrow, my lord,” he said when he reached the dais. “I hope I have not overstepped my role as a guest. I asked yon gillie to fetch me a mug of Adam’s ale instead of the ale and whisky that he said the jugs on this table contain. In my experience, such beverages do naught to aid an aching head. And although mine is fast mending, it does keep reminding me that healing takes time.”
“Sakes, lad, in my experience, good whisky will heal aught that ails a man. As for water, for all that they may call it Adam’s ale, it did nowt to keep Adam in his garden, now, did it?”
Smiling at the old sally, Fin said, “As you say, sir. I trust you slept well.”
“Longer than ye did, I’m told,” Mackintosh retorted.
“Then you have heard about my swim,” Fin replied as he sat and his host signed to the gillies to serve him. “Your loch is wondrous refreshing.”
“As was your conversation with our Catriona, I trow.”
“That was also pleasant,” Fin agreed. “She was kind enough to tell me something about the loch, and she agreed to show me more of it. Just nearby and with the dog to guard her, as I am sure you would demand. She did say that we required your permission, sir, but I’d have asked you myself, come to that.”
Mackintosh looked at Catriona. “Be ye willing to take him about, lass?”
Fin could tell that she had not expected the question, because her eyes widened. She kept them fixed on her grandfather and did not even glance at Fin.
“I’d be fain to show him, sir, if you do approve such a plan. He wants to see the burn that runs out of the loch. We would take the coble across to the landing.”
“D’ye trust yourself not to overturn it with the man and the dog?” he asked. When she nodded, he said, “I did hear that ye’d brought the two of them over in that wee thing. I’ll own I was surprised ye did not sink it. Ye might take one of the bigger boats an ye let a pair of our gillies row it.”
“I don’t mind the rowing, and all three of us can swim,” she said, confirming Fin’s earlier deduction.
Mackintosh turned to him. “Can ye no manage a pair of oars yourself, then?”
Fin smiled. “She would not let me.”
She said, “With Boreas in the stern, as he must be, Fin is too heavy to—”
“Ye should properly call the man Sir Finlagh, I’d wager,” Mackintosh interjected, turning back to Fin. “Ye have won your knighthood, aye? As puffed up as your