Alasdair whistled, and Cuilean came running, panting joyfully. They’d been to the river and back, and now, as they made their way through the gardens toward the castle, Alasdair saw the long ladder once more propped up against that tree, where once he had watched Fiona high above him. Monty was slowly descending, rung by rung, and when he reached the ground he said in laconic acknowledgement:

“Morning, laird.”

Alasdair paused. Cuilean frisked round him, plainly wondering what next exciting adventure awaited them. Alasdair said, “So how are those eggs doing?” Never in his life would he have imagined he’d be asking after a nest of goldfinch eggs, but if Duff could shave off a beard he’d had for thirty-five years, anything, he supposed, was possible.

“Not eggs anymore. Hatched.”

Alasdair hesitated.

Monty said, “Want to see them?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Shall I hold the ladder steady, laird?”

“Monty, how long have you known me?”

“All your life, laird.”

“Have you ever held a ladder for me?”

Monty reflected. “Nay, laird, though there was that time when you were stuck on the roof.”

“You offended me grievously with your suggestion then also.”

“You were nine, laird.”

“I may have broken my collarbone jumping down, but my pride was intact.”

Monty smiled, ever so slightly, which for him was the equivalent of a face-splitting grin. “You were ever a game lad.”

“That’s one way to put it. My mother used to say that I was an imp from hell. And that’s when she was in a good mood.” Alasdair went to the ladder and swiftly climbed it. There, high among the branches, was a cup-shaped nest, and in it were five little —what were they called? Not fledglings, for the tiny fragile creatures had no feathers to speak of. They were covered in a fluffy gray down that made them look at once rather comical and, he thought in wonderment, incredibly vulnerable. Their eyes were black and bead-like and utterly without guile. New life, new hope. He found himself wishing with a startling intensity that they’d survive, grow, fly.

A little flutter from a branch some three feet away caught his eye. An adult finch. A nervous parent. At once Alasdair went down the ladder. Cuilean greeted him with as much enthusiasm as if he’d just returned from a long sea voyage, and Alasdair reached down to affectionately rub that rough woolly head.

“Mayhap,” said Monty, “we’ll see goldfinches more often now.”

Alasdair straightened. “What are the odds of that?”

“Time will tell.”

He nodded, and was just about ready to move on when Monty added:

“Always felt—” He stopped, looked meditatively up into the tree. “A shame about that accident on the loch. Never had a chance to change, and grow, as a family. Hard for you, being on your own.”

For Monty this was an epic speech, and Alasdair stared down at him, amazed.

“Aye,” he answered slowly. “A shame. Thank you, Monty.”

The older man dipped his head a little and cleared his throat. “Rosebushes need cutting back. If that’s all, laird?”

“Aye.” Alasdair watched him trudge off. Cuilean had gone to investigate an interesting smell underneath a hedge, but came instantly when Alasdair whistled, and followed obediently at his heel as he went into the castle and—to Cuilean’s disappointment —not into the breakfast-room but up the stairs and eventually to the Portrait Gallery.

Alasdair slowed as he came to the painting of his ancestor Raulf Penhallow, the savage medieval warrior-prince said to have been the terror of half the island. Very fine he was here, in his handsome tunic and leggings. Very arrogant and proud. There’d never been a need to wonder, Alasdair thought, how he had come by his dark-red hair. Raulf was sporting a full head of it.

As a child he’d never spent much time looking up at old Raulf, for by some devious trickery the artist had managed to render his eyes in a way that seemed to follow you about, with an expression in them that suggested ill intent. One of the pleasures of adulthood was that he’d become tall enough to meet Raulf face to face, as it were, without a superstitious chill running down his spine.

Alasdair lingered there, his gaze resting thoughtfully on that haughty countenance. Not only was Raulf renowned for his ferocity, he was also notoriously stubborn (which made all his sieges successful). But in the end, evidently, he was undone by his insistence on eating oysters brought in from Cairnryan—against the advice of his ministers, his astrologist, his surgeon-barber, his wife and his mistress, and his priest, for the distance was such to make consuming them hazardous.

He was dead within the hour.

“You bloody old fool,” Alasdair said out loud to Raulf. “Hoist by your own petard.”

He moved on.

At length he came to the portrait of himself and Gavin. How they’d hated standing still for so long! Also, he and Gavin had been in the middle of a long-running feud as to who was better at spitting their saliva the furthest, and the only way the harassed artist could keep them from breaking out into fisticuffs was to abandon his idea of posing them with their arms around each other. But the entire time he and Gavin had muttered crass scatological insults to each other.

Speaking of stubborn.

Suddenly Alasdair grinned.

Christ, maybe it all could have worked out all right, no matter what would’ve happened with Mòrag Cray.

Anything was possible.

His smile dimmed, and he reached out a hand to one of those faint discolorations on the wall.

Then he walked on to the laird’s bedchamber and into his dressing-room. On a low shelf in his armoire was a small box hewn from oak and fitted with ornamental brass along its curved lid. Inside the box was a steel key, and Alasdair took the key, went into the passageway, and stopped before the locked door.

Into his mind came little Sheila’s voice, that odd remark she’d made the day after his thirty-fifth birthday, right after Dame Margery had issued her stunning pronouncement.

A room with a door, a door with a lock, she had said in that dreamy way she had sometimes. An egg that won’t hatch, a bird that can’t fly . . .

There was no doubt about it, Sheila was an interesting child, with those pale blue eyes that could, apparently, see two things at once.

Alasdair unlocked the door.

Without windows, without candles to illuminate it, the room was dark, but Alasdair didn’t need such things to know what was inside.

A dozen portraits of his family, set carefully against the walls.

Father, Mother, Gavin, and himself: painted from the time of his own infancy until shortly before their deaths.

After they were gone, he couldn’t bear to look at these portraits. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to destroy them, and so had placed them in here. Not in the attics, where anyone might go and find them. Here, where they were concealed from prying eyes, and where they had been, undisturbed, for all these years.

Alasdair leaned against the doorframe, his eyes fixed on the dim shapes of the portraits. He felt it coming, the massive wave of grief, but he didn’t brace himself against it or try to fight it, or ignore it, as he’d done before.

Instead he let it roll through him, an overpowering rush of sorrow so intense that for a brief moment or two he wondered if it would kill him.

But it didn’t.

It rolled on and away.

Leaving him not empty, but filled with—why, it was love.

Love for Gavin, clever, mischievous, maddening, impulsive, merry, affectionate.

For Father, intelligent, kind, easygoing, maybe a little weak, but well-meaning and generous.

For Mother, brilliant and moody, a limited person, perhaps, whom he’d never fully understand, but she’d done the best she could, which is, in the end, all that anyone can do.

As for Mòrag Cray, what he felt wasn’t love, or even the remnants of a boy’s fiery infatuation, that was all in the past now, but he didn’t feel the old longing anymore, the dreadful insidious pull of what might have been.

The wave would come again, he was sure of that, but next time, he thought, it would be a little less intense.

More bearable.

It was, he thought, possible, just possible, that he had begun to heal.

Alasdair took in a breath, and slowly let it out.

Then he left the door open, put away the key, and went downstairs to the steward’s office, Cuilean trotting alongside him.

“Lister,” he said.

“Aye, laird?” Lister, at his desk, looked up, promptly set aside his quill.

“You know the rooms off my bedchamber?”

“Of course.”

“In one of those rooms are some portraits of my family.”

“Indeed, laird?”

Alasdair smiled a little. “Haven’t you been wondering, all these years, where they were?”

“It’s not my business to wonder, laird,” replied Lister piously.

“I’d like you to have the portraits put back in their place, in the gallery.”

“To be sure, laird, I’ll see to it.”

“Good. Have you been able to pay those old invoices of my mother’s?”

“Oh yes, it’s all been taken care of.”

“I’m glad. Thank you, Lister,” said Alasdair, and went on to the breakfast-room. If Cuilean had been able to form the words, he doubtless would have said, in a joyful voice, At last.

Late at night, wide awake, in her bedchamber Fiona took out paper, ink, and a quill. She sat at her old escritoire, wearing not only her thick flannel nightgown but also two of her heaviest wool cloaks and four pairs of stockings. Logan Munro was right: the keep was atrociously cold.

Not that it was news to her.

Was she going to marry Logan?

She dipped her quill in the inkpot and slowly wrote:

She paused.

So what if Logan’s chin was less than ideal? She herself, after all, was far from perfect. For example, she’d become so thin that the last time she’d gotten onto Gealag’s back, he’d inquiringly turned his head around to see if it really was her, or perhaps a scarecrow from the field which someone had set on top of him.

Fiona looked down at the sheet of paper on which she’d begun her list.

Stared at it for a long time.

She thought again about the things Logan had said to her in the stillroom. Then she pushed aside her list, and began writing them down on a new sheet of paper.

• The past is gone.
• Start over again.
• Second chances.
• The future.

At this she also stared for a long time. Logan had said all the right things. He really had. Her mind moved and leaped, reversed itself and jumped ahead, looping over and over as she studied these eleven simple words.

Finally she slid aside the paper, revealing another blank sheet.

Slowly she began to write again.

He was dreaming that he’d been very far down in the water, where all was icy blackness.

He dreamed that he had at last figured out which way was up. Where the surface was. With powerful strokes of his arms, powerful kicks of his legs, he swam up, the water around him gradually brightening, until, his lungs seeming about to burst, he broke through and out into the air and light of the world. He breathed. A few gentle strokes of his arms kept him buoyant. Not for him another descent into the watery soundless gloom below. Radiance everywhere.

And then Alasdair woke up.

It was morning.

He turned from his side and lay on his back, looking around his bedchamber.

Another morning.

Hours ahead of him, to fill as best he could.

What next?

He remembered, suddenly, the time he, and Gavin, and a group of schoolfellows had been taken to a zoo in Glasgow, one of the very first built upon modern scientific principles. He remembered standing in front of an enclosure, inside which a bear had been confined. It was a very large enclosure. It had obviously been carefully designed so as to provide a comfortable setting for the bear; there were trees, shrubs, a spacious pool of water. Still, the bear wasn’t free, and Alasdair had been almost unendurably sad to see it. Nonsense, said one of the masters, the bear is safe, it’s got no predators or hunters, it’s fed every day, what’s there to be melancholy about?

But still he remembered wondering, at the age of ten, is it better to be safe or to be free?

It occurred to him now that safety was, perhaps, overrated. And in the wake of that thought, his being was flooded again with the essence of his dream.

Radiance everywhere.

It came to him, all at once, with the ease of an obvious idea, what he needed to do today.

It really was time to move forward.

Yes.

How simple it all was.

Simple, and yet risky.

The outcome was uncertain.

But he was going to try.

That’s all he could do.

Alasdair got out of bed, pulled aside one of the heavy drapes, looked at the sky. There was snow in those low gray clouds. Well, it couldn’t be helped. He wasn’t about to let a little snow get in his way.

It had been a tedious morning. After nearly a week of mild sunshine, the weather had turned nasty. The oatmeal served at breakfast had been burnt, the tea tasted worse than usual, and Father had been grumpy. Mother was nursing a cold; Isobel had been solicitous until Father had snapped at her, reducing her to tremulous silence. Only Logan had been cheerful, relating amusing anecdotes about his tailor back home and regaling them with a few choice puns. Fiona had finally stopped listening to him, given up on the execrable oatmeal, and simply looked at how beautifully put together Logan’s features were (aside from his chin). She had never before noticed that his eyelashes were so long and lush that they actually curled. A woman might envy them.

After breakfast the ladies had escaped to the solarium, where the weak gray light of a cold, windy day seemed to fill it with a kind of hopelessness that not even the pleasant and colorful chaos within could overcome. Wrapped in an enormous tartan shawl, Mother had dozed on a chaise longue drawn close to the fire, and Isobel valiantly attempted, once more, to untangle various skeins of unruly yarn. Logan poked his head in but, as if sensing the gloom pervading the solarium, had not come inside, only smiled intimately at Fiona before retreating.

As for Fiona, she only stayed long enough to complete the set of embroidered linen handkerchiefs which she had been making. Very absorbent they were; wonderful for mopping up tears. She smoothed them together into a neat little stack, then placed it carefully on the table at Isobel’s side.

“For you, dear Isobel,” she said. “May you have little need of them.” Then she dropped a light kiss on the older woman’s forehead, and went quickly to her bedchamber to change into a heavy, thick old gown, a long wool pelisse, and stout boots. On her head she tugged down a sturdy, close-fitting cap that was quite possibly the ugliest headgear she owned. But what did she care? It was warm, and outside it was freezing.

In the Great Hall she crossed paths with Father, who carried a musket in each hand.

“Cleaning your guns, Father?”

He nodded. “Aye. Where are you going?”

“The sheep pasture.”

He nodded again, and so they parted in perfect harmony.

The wind whipped at her skirts, not playfully but in a grabby malevolent sort of way, as Fiona walked along a muddy track lined with trees stripped bare of their leaves. Winter was coming, that was for sure. Everyone said it was going to be a bad one this year.

She came to the pasture fence and leaned upon it for a while, thinking.

This past week had gone by so slowly.

More and more she had come to realize just how much she hated puns.

At breakfast Logan had said, Why is it dreadful to have carrion near?

And had answered himself:

Because it makes an offal smell.

He had laughed, and looked like he’d just thought of another one, and that was when she’d left off listening.

Fiona straightened, then nimbly climbed over the fence and into the pasture. There were only some three dozen sheep contained here, and they eyed her placidly; she was well-known to them.

“Hello,” she said, approaching them quietly, affably. A sharp gust of wind sent her skirts blowing wildly and doubtless revealed more of her legs than was seemly. Luckily there was no one out here to see it.

From behind her, however, someone said:

“Hello.”

Fiona wanted to spin around, as fast as humanly possible, but through an immense act of will she schooled herself. She turned very slowly, very carefully, as if by so doing she would ensure that the owner of that deep, masculine voice—that voice like molten chocolate—would still be there when she was done pivoting her body.

He was.

Oh, he was.

“Hello,” she said again, not to the sheep this time, but to Alasdair Penhallow, who stood just outside the fence in a dirty dark greatcoat. On his feet were tall, mud-spattered boots and his head was bare. He had an ugly gash on one cheek and his hair, longer than when she had last seen it, was a little rumpled. He was, without doubt, the most handsome, the most desirable man in all the great wide world. And his chin. So strong and so manly. She really could stare at it all day.

“So,” said Alasdair, casually, “what are you doing out here?”

“Oh,” she said, just as casually, “I had an idea the other day for treating bloody scours, so I tried it. I’ve come to see if it’s working.”

He looked interested. “What did you use?”

“I’ve been giving them a mixture of sodium carbonate in boiled water, with a pinch of salt and a little molasses.”

“And?”

“So far so good.”

“Excellent. I’ll be sure and tell Shaw about your idea.”

“Do.” The wind whirled viciously at her skirts and this time she was able to clutch at them and keep them from flying up.

Alasdair squinted at the sky. “Blustery today,” he remarked.

“Very,” Fiona agreed. “By the way, how did you know I was here?”

“Your father told me.”

“Oh? So you’ve met Father.”

“Aye.”

“And?”

“We had a pleasant conversation. He invited me to walk down to the bay with him, to see some fishing boats.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I would. After I had found you.”

“Do you know about fishing boats?”

“Quite a lot, actually.”

She nodded. Then she said: “I’m surprised my letter arrived so quickly.”

“What letter?”

“The letter I wrote to you.”

“You wrote to me?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a moment. “You wrote to me,” he repeated softly, as if he needed to hear it again.

“Yes. Isn’t that why you’ve come? You got my letter, and you’ve traveled very fast to get here?”

“We did travel as fast as we could, but there was no letter from you before we left.”

Now it was Fiona’s turn to be briefly silent. “So . . . you came without hearing from me.”

“Aye.”

“Ah.” She took this in, as might a parched land receive the sweet benediction of rain. Then: “You said ‘we.’”

“Duff and I.”

“Duff. Excellent. I’m so glad you had a traveling companion.”

“He insisted on coming with me.”

“Isobel will, I think, be very glad to see him.”

“I hope so. He hopes so. What did you say in your letter?”

Fiona looked into those eyes, all amber and citrine, that were fixed so straitly upon her. “I asked if we could try again.”

“Ah. May I tell you why I’m here?”

“Yes. Please.”

Alasdair smiled. At last he smiled. And at once she felt an answering smile upon her own face as he said:

“Why, I’ve come to woo you, lass.”

Fiona hoped she wouldn’t explode, melt, dissolve into a dew, from the joy that was filling her to the brim. A gust of wind tried to blow her over, but she wouldn’t let it. Slowly, unhurriedly, she walked over to meet him at the fence. “What do you mean, woo me?”

“You and I, Fiona Douglass, are starting over,” he said. “If you’ll have me.”

“Yes,” she replied instantly. “Yes, Alasdair Penhallow, I’ll have you.”

His face—his dear, beloved, familiar face—lit up. He looked so happy that even though she hadn’t thought she could possibly feel more joyful, she did. Don’t explode, she warned herself. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

“Fiona.”

“Yes, Alasdair?”

“Must I kiss you with this fence between us?”

“Nothing more between us, I say.”

“I agree.” He put one hand on the top rail, vaulted over the fence, and stood before her, the hem of his dark greatcoat rippling in the wind.

“You may get sheep dung on your boots.”

“Think you I care about that?”

No, he wouldn’t care. Of course he wouldn’t care. Fiona lifted her face invitingly. Alasdair stepped close and gently set his big hands on her shoulders.

“You,” he said softly, “are so very, very beautiful,” and then his lips were on hers, and he was kissing her, in exactly the way a man might kiss a woman for the very first time, as if each sensation was new and wonderful, as if the taste of her was the most delicious thing in the universe and he was hungry, so hungry, but he didn’t want to rush through the meal. He kissed her as if he never wanted to stop.

It was only when a strange sensation of being intently watched came upon Fiona that she finally drew back a little. She turned her head.

Said: “Dear me.”

And laughed.

The entire flock of sheep had drifted near and together they had the rapt air of an audience at the theater for whom an enthralling performance was being enacted. But not, Fiona thought, Romeo and Juliet. Rather, a play in which the lovers are to live happily ever after.

Alasdair was laughing, too.

Then he turned to her and said, “I almost forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

He reached into an inside pocket of his greatcoat. “To woo a maiden properly, gifts must be tendered.”

“I like gifts as much as the next person, but they’re really not necessary.”

“Don’t subvert the wooing process.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Good girl. Here.” He gave her a small, tightly stoppered jar. In it was a thick golden substance. “This is from Monty. It’s —”

“Honey!” she exclaimed. “From our hives?”

“Aye. From our hives. You and Monty have worked miracles.” Smiling, he reached into his pocket again. “And this is from Sheila.”

It was a sampler, not entirely clean, but clearly the product of concerted effort. Around the edges had been embroidered a simple, pretty floral pattern, which framed these words in black thread:

thy wood is a lamp unto my foot.

“It’s lovely. Absolutely lovely.” Ignoring the misspellings, with great tenderness Fiona folded the grubby square of linen and put it, and the precious jar of honey, into a pocket of her pelisse. “What wonderful gifts. Did the whole clan know you were coming here?”

“Aye. The word spread quickly. Cook would have sent you entire meals had I not persuaded her of the impracticality of such a scheme.”

“How kind,” Fiona sighed happily.

“I’ve one last gift. I hope you like it. Give me your hand, please.”

Fiona obeyed. Alasdair gently turned it until her palm was revealed, and upon it he placed a ring. It was made of gold and it was fashioned, without ostentation, around a sapphire—square-cut, beautifully faceted, of a blue so exquisite, so pure, it made Fiona’s breath catch in her throat.

“Sometimes your eyes are that color,” he said.

“Are they?”

“Aye.”

“What color are they now, Alasdair?”

“Like that sapphire, lass.”

She nodded. My cup runneth over. I’ve never really understood that expression before. Now I do. Don’t explode, you, she told herself.

“Do you like it?”

“The ring?” she asked, a little dazedly.

“Aye, the ring.”

“Yes. So very much.”

“It was my mother’s, given to her by my grandmother. Who had it from her mother. And so on. I should have presented to you, before, all the Penhallow jewels, as was your right. But somehow it never happened.”

“There were distractions.”

“Too many. Let’s have a simpler life from now on.”

“I’d like that. Alasdair, is this a betrothal ring?”

“What do you think?” He smiled warmly at her.

“I think—yes. But I need to know for sure.”

“You can be sure.”

“Will you say the words?”

“Of course. Will you marry me, Fiona? This time for real? For ever? No matter what that damned Tome might reveal tomorrow, next year, or fifty years from now?”

“Yes, Alasdair, I will.”

“I’m glad, lass. Glad beyond words.” With a reverence that brought a rush of happy tears to Fiona’s eyes, Alasdair took the ring and slid it onto the fourth finger of her left hand.

“It fits,” she said softly, admiring the sapphire’s fiery sparkle.

“As we do.”

He leaned his head down to kiss her again, and eagerly did she return his kiss. He pulled her close and she slid her arms tightly around his neck and they stood there in the sheep pasture, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. Despite the cold unfriendly winds buffeting them, Fiona was sure she’d never felt so warm before, so completely connected to another person. So safe.

When at length they pulled away a little, he said, “I love you, Fiona.”

“I thought—I hoped you did,” she answered, still a little breathless from that long, that delightfully long kiss.

“I’m sorry for my blindness, for my stubbornness, and my fear.”

“I’m sorry for my own, and for my haste in leaving you. For running away. When Isobel and Duff found the second decree, I felt I had to go.”

“Naturally you did. I’d hurt you. I was a fool.”

“No. Not a fool. But—I think we both had to grow a little?”

“Aye. Do you still love me, Fiona?”

“Yes. I love you, Alasdair. More, I believe.”

She could feel his arms tightening around her again, and she smiled at him. She reached up a finger and lightly traced the firm curve of his chin, and those delicious lines bracketing his mouth. “What happened to your cheek?”

“Oh, a mountain lion came at me near Golspie,” he said, nonchalant.

“But how dreadful! Have you other injuries? Is Duff all right?”

“No other injuries, lass, and Duff is fine. Although he did get soaked to the bone when the bridge on which he was riding collapsed and he tumbled into a stream. I haven’t seen him laugh so hard in years. He’ll tell you, however, that he had more fun the day before last, when we were set upon by a pair of brigands in Brora, and that he whistled all the way through a snowstorm in the Grampian Pass.”

“Gracious, what a journey,” she said, twinkling up at him. “It’s all deeply romantic, and Isobel will be so pleased to think of the travails you and Duff overcame on our behalf.”

“Knights in shining armor, that’s what we are!” Alasdair said, much struck. “I wonder I didn’t think of that before. How I shall puff myself about. I suppose I’ll be completely insufferable by dinnertime.”

Fiona laughed. “Won’t you come back to the keep, and let me put some of my salve on that wound?”

“If it will make you feel better, lass.”

“It will.”

Hand in hand, they strolled along the muddy path as if bathed in mild spring sunshine. Fiona told him about Nairna. Then, when her sadness lifted, she described her unavailing efforts to convince the cook to try some new recipes, and also about a harrowing birth in the stables at which Father had managed to save the lives of both the mare and her foal, now a healthy, promising colt for which Father had great hopes.

Alasdair in turn told her all about a fascinating book he’d been reading (the subject being an ingenious new plow he wanted to try in the spring), his suspicion that Cuilean had sired a large and thriving litter of pups by one of Shaw’s retrievers (Shaw had offered to give her one), and also about the rumor going around the castle that Dr. Colquhoun had secretly proposed to Mrs. Allen. And of course he told her about the goldfinches.

“Oh, I can’t wait to be home again,” said Fiona fervently. “When can we, Alasdair?”

“Whenever you like, lass, although I must admit I’m keen to have you there sooner rather than later, and feed you Cook’s good food myself if I have to. You need fattening up.”

“Let’s get married tomorrow, then.”

“I brought your wedding ring. Just in case.”

“A short betrothal.”

“And a long marriage.”

They laughed.

“Alasdair,” Fiona said, “do you like puns?”

“You’d have to tie me to a chair to make me listen to them. Why?”

“I was just wondering.” Fiona couldn’t help it, she gave a little skip of joy, and together, hands still warmly clasped, they kept walking.

In the Great Hall they found a scene of genial confusion. Duff had wasted no time in gaining the hand of his Isobel (who, weeping happily, was successfully deploying one of her large new handkerchiefs), Mother was fluttering about still wrapped in her enormous shawl, Father had emerged from his gun room with one of the deadly-looking muskets grasped absentmindedly in one hand, his dogs were taking advantage of the disorder and boldly licking crumbs off the table, and Logan Munro stood close to the roaring fire, slavishly attended by two eager housemaids anxious to offer him tea or ale or whatever—whatever —he liked.

Alasdair was introduced, wedding plans put forth, Father’s assent given, Mother joined Isobel in happy crying, and Logan, seeing that he was beaten, gave in with good grace, shook hands with Alasdair, congratulated him on his good fortune, and promptly made himself scarce, leaving the keep quietly the next morning and his absence mourned only by the maids—even Mother, the most good-natured person imaginable, privately confessing to Fiona that she’d gotten tired of having Logan lounging around the solarium, talking, and all too often interfering with her naps.