“A sticky-fingered postulant.” The words slipped from Iain’s lips, though how they had, he didn’t know. His jaw surely brushed the cold stone of the cathedral floor.

Astonished, he stared at the plainly-dressed, travel-stained lass before him. The very one he’d just sensed as it…

Nae, not it.

A woman.

In truth, she was more than that…

His gut told him that he was staring at the source of his bedevilment. She was also the reason his entire body had tightened, the nearer he’d come to the cathedral.

To her.

A would-be nun and votive thief.

Now he knew he’d run mad. Or was spelled or cursed, even if he’d never believed in such foolery.

Something was happening, and he couldn’t explain it.

He did keep staring, stunned by his heart-pounding reaction. Sakes, she was so callous she’d steal from a tomb. The shrine of Glasgow’s own saint. Yet she’d bespelled him so thoroughly he could hardly draw breath, much less step forward and challenge her to hand over the silver whatever-it-was she’d plucked from the gates of St. Kentigern’s sacred resting place.

She took a backward step, her treasure clutched in a hand pressed against fine, high-set breasts. If her clothes were plain, she was striking. Not classically beautiful, but stunning all the same.

There was something about her.

He tried not to show any emotion, to ignore the sensation that he stood at the edge of a cliff, about to topple into an abyss.

She returned his stare from light green eyes, their gold-flecked depths mirroring shock and recognition. As if she knew who he was and reeled from the powerful attraction that leapt between them.

Or was he seeing her shame at having been caught at her thievery?

He supposed that was possible.

Either way, he was captivated.

Just then, a strand of glossy copper-gold hair slipped from beneath the hood of her cloak and tumbled against her cheek. She looked more like a startled doe than a brazen relic thief. Worse, she had the full, seductive lips of a temptress.

She pushed the curl back where it belonged, adjusted her cloak. The garment’s travel-worn folds couldn’t hide the lushness of her curves. Then a look of anguish flashed across her face and she was gone. She bolted through a break in the throng, taking his heart with her.

The very one he’d thought had withered and died.

A strange blend of amazement and denial swept him. A truth he could no longer ignore. Troubled, he rubbed the back of his hot and achy neck.

He knew what ailed him.

The MacLean Bane.

His blood iced, his throat going dust dry as his blood roared in his ears.

Already, his surroundings seemed to shift around him, changing subtly into a different place. A new world, and one that would require him to tread rough, unknown ground.

His staunchest belief had just been shattered.

He, Iain MacLean, younger son of the great House of MacLean, master of nothing, and sometimes called Iain the Doubter, could never again scoff at the notion of MacLean men being able to love, truly love, only one woman.

The legend wasn’t just a bard’s tale to be told before peat fires on cold winter nights.

It was true.

He now knew it with a certainty that rang with each thudding beat of his heart, his every ragged breath. For his ‘one woman’ had just crossed his path.

The tomb thief, gods help him.

A few hours later, but far from the pilgrims and splendor of Glasgow Cathedral, the power of ancient magic brought a smile to Devorgilla’s lips.

Most pleased, she bustled about her cottage, then hummed a merry tune as she paused to peer at her assortment of faery fire stones. She had a sizable collection and she kept them in a large wooden bowl on the table near her hearth. And although each stone possessed its own immeasurable value…

Just now, only two interested her.

Iain MacLean’s and his lady’s.

His new lady.

The lass meant for him since before the first sprig of heather bloomed in Scotland.

Clucking her tongue, Devorgilla shook her head. Much grief would never have come to pass if men hadn’t meddled into things best left alone. But they had, and so Iain the Doubter had entered into a political marriage to benefit the clan rather than the needs of his own braw heart.

For sweet-natured and comely as Lileas MacInnes had been, she wasn’t the one.

And none of the powers-that-be at the time had heeded Devorgilla’s reminders of the MacLean Bane.

The legend.

Not Iain’s late father, nor his council of elders. Nary a one of the better-knowing graybeards had listened to her. Even her more dire warnings went unheeded.

Worse, they’d called her a troublemaker.

There’d even been threats to banish her from Doon if she didn’t stop what they called her silly prattle.

Her brow creased at their foolishness. Greater powers than hers would be needed to undo ill-made choices of the past.

A wiser move would be to help along the future.

To that end, she leaned down and brushed a speck of lint off her red plaid shoelaces. Then, on straightening, she curled her fingers around the wooden bowl of magic stones and pulled it across the table until it rested at the edge.

Leaning forward, she brought her face to within inches of the bowl. She needed to be certain her eyes hadn’t deceived her.

They hadn’t.

Both stones, smooth and glistening Highland quartz, glowed with a finer luminosity than ever before.

Not yet the brilliance she hoped for, but with more inner fire than she’d expected to see this day. And they vibrated. Devorgilla fancied a faint humming came from within their depths.

She glanced at Mab, her cat, asleep before the cook fire. “‘Tis a fine start, eh?”

The tip of Mab’s tail twitched in answer.

Devorgilla beamed.

“I knew ye’d agree.”

A rush of excitement stole over her and she clapped her hands.

Indulging herself, she touched a fingertip first to the maid’s stone, then to Iain’s. At long last, the male stone had lost some of its chilly blue tint. Like the female stone, it now showed a point of reddish gold at its core.

Equally telling, the stone warmed her finger.

More than satisfied, Devorgilla straightened. For once she didn’t mind the creaks and pops of her aged bones.

Then she assumed a suitably solemn expression and spoke the words of power…

“One be you, and one be she. When your lady’s heart catches fire, you will recognize her.”

At once, and for the first time ever, the wee glow deep inside the female stone seemed to contract, then burst, allowing spindly rays of red-gold light to shoot outward, some reaching the edges of the stone before retracting.

An erupting firestorm by no means, but enough.

The time had come, and they’d met.

There could be no denying it. Faery fire stones always spoke true.

Pleased, Devorgilla allowed herself a moment of pride. Even her red plaid shoelaces sparkled, then rippled a bit as if in an unseen wind.

Her magic was working.

Iain the Doubter was a doubter no more.