Rob leaned his shoulder against the doorway of the church. It was dark inside save for the soft amber glow of a few dozen tallow wax candles dancing along the polished pews. He didn’t need light to tell him Davina was here. Her whispered prayers echoed like harp strings beneath the cherubim-painted ceiling.

It had been three days since they’d arrived at Courlochcraig. Three days longer than Rob had meant to stay. The Reverend Mother had insisted he and his party depart the night they’d arrived, especially after two young novices caught sight of them and giggled all through supper. When Rob refused to go until he was certain they had not been followed, it was Will who’d argued with him first, insisting that if he was forced to stay in a convent for a prolonged amount of time, he could not be held responsible for any of the sisters’ broken vows. His warning nearly caused the Abbess to lose her composure, and Rob, the good graces of God.

Arguing with a Reverend Mother was a sin, to be sure, but Rob had made up his mind and only an act of God would change it. In the meantime, he promised to keep his cousin under control. The sisters, he’d told the Abbess, were her responsibility. She wasn’t pleased, but she had ceased arguing with him. She’d also refused to enlighten him about Davina, claiming she knew as little as he. When he asked how she recognized Davina when she saw her, the Abbess told him she had seen Davina once when she visited St. Christopher’s on retreat many years ago, and that the child was difficult to forget. As was the woman, Rob had thought silently and let the matter drop. He would get no answers, even if the Abbess knew them.

A movement along the church pews caught his eye now and he watched while Davina crossed herself and turned away from the altar.

He was becoming familiar with her habits. She prayed twice a day in the church, once in the morning with the other sisters, and after supper, alone. In between, she mended robes, tended the garden, chopped vegetables, and glanced at him often.

At first, Rob had tried to pretend he wasn’t watching her for any other purpose than to keep her in his line of vision should Colin or Finn call from the bell tower that horsemen were approaching. But after the first day, he could no longer deny that there were other, far more perilous reasons why he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. The way she drew in one corner of her lower lip, giving her full attention—or seeming to—to her sewing, made him long to feel those lips pressed to his. The way her gaze drifted off to another place, capturing the sunlight in vivid hues of blue and dazzling silver—despite the deep sadness that haunted them—drew him to move nearer, to look closer and find a way to comfort her. Her ethereal beauty mesmerized him, but it was the way she frequently sought him out, as if to convince herself that he had not left her, that tempted him to pull her into his arms and swear his life to her safety. She barely spoke to him in the evenings while she dressed his wound in the company of the other nuns. She did not smile when their eyes met across a table or a bed of geraniums. She had lost much, and soon she would lose him too. They both knew it. He could not remain here with her forever, though the thought was not an unpleasant one, and he would not jeopardize the lives of everyone at Camlochlin by bringing her there. Still, he could not bring himself to leave her yet. Not yet.

When Davina saw him in the doorway, she paused in her footsteps for a moment. Caught between shadows and light, she looked like a vision come to life from a dying man’s dreams. Rob swallowed, then pushed off the archway and waited for her to reach him.

“Do you fear for my safety even here?” she asked in that dulcet voice he was growing so accustomed to hearing. It wasn’t that she spoke often, but rather that she didn’t that made Rob incline his ear whenever she spoke to anyone.

“God has assigned me to the task.”

“So it would seem.” She tilted her head up and before he could guard himself against it, she smiled at him.

Rob was certain he heard the thrashing of his heart reverberating through the silence. He had the urge to pluck the thin veil that covered her silvery blond tresses from her head—a reminder that she belonged to another. One who knew all her secrets, all her fears, strengths, and desires. One she spoke to each day, and trusted beyond what she was willing to offer anyone else.

Before he could stop himself, he reached out and swept his fingers along her wrist. A forbidden touch, and more so here in her betrothed’s house.

She moved closer as if he had pulled her to him. “What do you pray for, Robert MacGregor?”

“My clan,” he told her and then, because he’d never had time to consider the woman he would choose to spend the rest of his days with until he met the one he could never have, he folded his hands behind his back and looked away. “And ye.”

“You have my thanks for that.” She continued to muddle his good senses when she laid her palm on his arm. “But even God does not expect you to remain here, forgetting your duties to your family.”

She was right, of course. He should leave her and return to his kin, where he belonged. “I have no’ fergotten my duties.” He returned his gaze to hers and marveled at the innocence in her eyes after all she had seen, and the strength in them to send away her only protection. “I am torn by them.”

“All the more reason to go,” she said, moving away to return to where he had found her.

Rob watched her sit and then followed her, slipping into the pew behind her. “Why did ye no’ leave St. Christopher’s when ye knew yer enemies were comin’?” He wanted the truth from her on this, at least.

She shrugged her shoulders beneath her robes. “We weren’t certain they were coming. The sisters would not have left, and I could not abandon them.”

Behind her, Rob moved forward slightly to inhale the sweet fragrance of her hair beneath her veil. “Does a wee lass raised in a convent have more courage than a man raised fer battle, then?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to imply that!” She swung around and almost bumped noses with him before he shifted back. “I don’t doubt that you are courageous. But I am not your charge. There is no reason to put your life in jeopardy for me.”

There were more reasons than Rob cared to admit to her… or to himself. He leaned back instead and folded his arms across his chest. “My life is no’ in jeopardy, Davina. ’Tis likely that the men who wanted ye dead think ye perished in the fire. They will no’ look fer ye here.”

“Then why have you ordered both Colin and Finn to keep watch from the bell tower, and why is Will stationed at the gate day and night?”

Rob bit down on his jaw, not liking how quickly she caught the contradiction and called him on it.

“’Tis my nature to be vigilant.”

“You’re brooding again.”

He shot her a dark glance. “Woman, I dinna’ brood.”

“Sulk?”

“Same thing,” he mumbled under his breath.

She shrugged, turning forward in her seat. “Pout, then.”

Rob stared at the back of her veiled head. Did she jest with him? If so, ’twas the first time he’d ever seen this side of her. He wasn’t certain he liked her teasing him, but it was far better than accusing him in earnest of being sour. When she slanted her gaze over her shoulder and flashed him a smile, he decided that he could live with some teasing.

“Is the Abbess aware that ye’re no’ as innocent as ye look?”

She turned to face him again with laughter in her eyes and held her finger to her mouth. “I’ll have penance for a se’nnight.”

“And ’twill be well deserved.”

Against the candlelight, her eyes gleamed with mischief, and her mouth was wide with a smile so bonnie Rob had no trouble understanding why God had chosen her as His own. What had caused this change in her? Had God heard her prayers and lifted her grief? Rob had thought he might never see her smile, never hear her laughter. But here it was, as unexpected as the summer rain and just as refreshing.

“Had I known how sensitive Highlanders were, I would have held my tongue.”

He smiled. “As sharp as it is, lass, I fear ’twould have cut through yer lips.”

Davina looked pleasantly surprised. Rob realized an instant later that it was part of the sting when she sweetly said, “You’re not as thick-skulled as I first thought.”

Narrowing his eyes on her, he shook his head. “Och, lass, ye’re as ruthless as Mairi.”

“Your sister,” Davina said, resting her arm on the back of the pew and giving him her full attention. “The one who cannot keep silent else she would have found a husband by now?”

Rob nodded, a bit surprised that she remembered their talk of Mairi so clearly. “She is venomous.”

“But you love her.”

“Aye, I love her.

Her smile turned wistful. “Tell me about your family,” she asked, tucking her hand under her chin and getting more comfortable for the tale.

An hour later Davina knew more about the MacGregors of Skye than they probably did. She enjoyed hearing about Maggie the most, which pleased Rob, since his aunt held a special place in his heart. When he told her how his father had saved his mother from the MacColls and then carried her home to Camlochlin, she sighed with delight, making Rob want to prove to her that he was as valiant as his sire.

“Those were dangerous times fer my parents. My mother is a Campbell, and—”

“A Campbell?” Davina cut him off, that wary glint returning to her eyes. “Then the Earl of Argyll is your kin. Why did you not tell me this sooner?”

“Because I dinna’ consider him kin,” Rob explained in a quiet voice. “My Uncle Robert was the eleventh Earl, but he was killed almost a decade ago by the Fergussons. He died childless and the title went to Archibald. I dinna’ know the exiled earl, nor do I want to. Ye have nothin’ to fear from me, Davina. I swear it.”

She nodded, but didn’t look entirely convinced. “But your uncle was a Protestant. All Campbells strongly oppose royal authority and legitimate succession—especially when succession to the throne involves a Catholic monarch.”

“And what does that have to do with ye?”

“Nothing,” she hastened to tell him. “It has nothing to do with me, save that I support my king and his beliefs. Your family does not support the Protestants, do they?”

“Nae,” Rob assured her, curious of her keen knowledge of things no other lass he knew would care one whit about. “We are Catholic.”

Her taut features relaxed a bit. “That is good to know.”

Why, he wanted to ask her? Why was it good to know? And what had driven her to learn so much about the workings of the kingdom—and the beliefs of the men who controlled it? Was it her faith, under the threat of becoming a crime, or her new king that fanned the passion in her eyes when she spoke of either one? But he did not ask. It no longer mattered to Rob why men were out to kill her, only that they were. He would make certain they did not succeed.

“You’re brooding again.”

He blinked, realizing when his brows relaxed that he was. Well, he had his reasons, and looking at her was one of them.

“’Tis God.”

She gave him a startled, questioning look, tilting her head to follow him as he rose to his feet. “What do you mean?”

Rob glanced at the huge cross at the altar, then at the veil covering her glorious mantle. “He has chosen a most pathetic man to look after ye.”