difficulty. There are, as you must know, only two possible routes for a force of any size.”
“I know the one through Glen Garry. Is there another at this time of year?”
“Aye, sure, or so Comyn said. The other is through the Cairngorms to the east. Its snowy passes must be hazardous, but he swears that the route is feasible by now.”
“I’ve no intention of risking myself on such a route. This country needs me. But you will take my men and your own that way. If Glen Garry is the easier route, I’ll send the Earl of Douglas that way. He can gather his Border army quickly, and he has much the same reason as your own to interfere with any plan of Davy’s. After all, the Douglas’s sister is Davy’s unhappy wife. Also, Redmyre…”
“Aye,” the other man said, raising his eyebrows.
“If your men there can hold them for you, you know what will serve me best.”
“I do, my lord. I do, indeed.”
Satisfied, but not one to count a deed done until it was, Albany dismissed him.
Fin would have liked to go straight to his own bed, for although it was still relatively early, he had had his fill of emotion for the day. However, he knew that he would be wise to ask Rothesay straightaway for leave to take Catriona to Moigh and, if Davy would spare him longer, straight on to Tor Castle.
Finding the hall empty of everyone except those trying to sleep there, he went to Rothesay’s chamber.
The gillie who always slept on a pallet before the door was awake. Scrambling to his feet, the lad said, “My lord duke did say ye’d come, sir.”
“I want to see him if he is still awake,” Fin said.
“Aye, he said ye might wish it. But he said tae tell ye he’d be fast asleep by now.” Glancing toward the door when sounds came from within that included a feminine giggle, the lad said stoutly, “He’ll talk wi’ ye on the morrow, sir. Afore the wedding, he did say. Be there going tae be a wedding, Sir Fin?”
“Aye,” Fin said, wondering if the Mackintosh or Shaw knew that Rothesay had a woman in his bed. He hoped that she was as willing as she sounded and a maidservant rather than a noblewoman or a Mackintosh tenant’s wife.
On that thought, an image of the redoubtable Lady Annis rose in his mind, so he was chuckling when he added, “If you see him when he wakens, tell him that I do hope to speak with him privately before the ceremony. You may fetch me from my chamber as soon as he finds it convenient.”
Returning to his room, he woke the dozing Ian and informed him of the wedding and the journey to follow while Ian aided his preparations for bed. Having little to pack, he soon sent Ian to bed in the hall as usual, and put out his candle.
Lying in bed, he wondered if Catriona was asleep yet and how different things might have been—or if they would have ended up the same—had he insisted on continuing to Moigh the day they had met. If the arrow had killed him, he would never have met her. But what if the arrow had just missed him and he had returned to Rothiemurchus in a normal way after learning that the Mackintosh was there?
Would the Mackintosh ever have trusted him alone with her then? Or was it the fact that they had been alone in the woods that had made the man trust him?
As he tried to imagine how the order of things might have progressed, the images faded and dreams of Catriona in his arms replaced them.
When he awoke with the dawn, he was sweating, erect, and annoyed that a most satisfactory dream had ended moments too soon with the entrance into his chamber of gray, early-morning light.
The night before, the thought of marrying her had produced delightful, sensual anticipation. Now it produced a clearer, much more urgent desire for her.
Rising hastily, he dressed himself without waiting for Ian and waited impatiently for Rothesay’s lad to fetch him.
“Take off your shift for me, lass,” Fin said, smiling in much the same hungry way that Rory Comyn had always smiled at her. But Fin’s smile did not discomfit her… at least, not in the same way that Comyn’s had.
Feelings roared through her body much as the river Spey roared in full spate through Strathspey after a mighty rainstorm or when the high snows