"None, lass, the rope ladder rises with the boat upon the water. Do my powers of reason convince you that I am not mad?"
She regarded him strangely. "Your reasoning abilities seem untouched by your peculiar… illness. So what is 4,732.25 multiplied by 7,837.50?"
"37,089,009.375."
"My God," she said, looking simultaneously awed and revolted. "You poor thing! I asked the first question mostly to see if you were thinking clearly, the second to see if the first had been a fluke. But you did that math in your head in five seconds. Even I can't do it that fast!"
He shrugged. "I have always had an affinity for numbers. Did your questions prove anything to you?" They had proved something to him. Gwen Cassidy was the most intelligent lass he'd ever met. Young, seemingly fertile, an extraordinary mating heat between them, and smart.
His certainty that fate had brought her to him for a reason increased tenfold.
Mayhap, he thought, she might not fear him after tomorrow eve. Mayhap there was such a love for him as his father had known.
"Well, if you're a candidate for bedlam, you're the smartest madman I've ever met, and your delusions seem confined to one issue." She blew out a breath. "So, what now?"
"Come, lass." He held his arms out to her. She eyed him warily.
"Och, lassie, give me something to hold in my arms that's real and sweet. I will not harm you."
She trudged to his side and sank down in the grass beside him. She kept her face averted for several moments, gazing up at the stars, then her shoulders slumped and she looked at him. "Oh, bother," she said, and stunned him by reaching out to cradle his head in her arms, pulling him to her breast.
His slid his hands around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. "Lovely Gwen,'tis thanking you once again I am. You are a gift from the angels."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," she muttered against his hair. She seemed awkward holding him, as if she hadn't had much practice. Her body was tense, and he sensed if he moved suddenly that she would jerk away, so he breathed slowly and kept still, allowing her time to grow accustomed to the intimacy.
"I guess this means you won't be able to prove anything to me tomorrow, huh?"
"As promised, on the morrow I will prove to you my story is true. This changes nothing, or little. Will you stay of your own volition? Mayhap help me explore the grounds tomorrow?"
Hesitantly, she slipped her wee hands into his hair and he half-sighed, half-groaned with pleasure when her nails lightly grazed his scalp. "Aye, Drustan MacKeltar," she said, with as good a lilt as any Scots lass. "I'll be stayin' wi' ye'til the morrow."
He laughed aloud and pulled her closer. He craved her touch, wanted desperately to make love to her, but sensed that if he pressed her now, he would lose the comfort of her embrace. "That was fine, lass. Yer no bampot, and I'm thinkin' we may make a wee douce Highland lass out o' ye yet."
* * * * *
Gwen slept that night curled in the arms of a Highlander, in a field of sillar shakles and gowan, beneath a silvery spoon of a moon, peaceful as a lamb. And if Drustan was feeling wolfish, he bid himself be content merely to hold her.
* * *
september 21
10:23 p.m.
Chapter 9
They searched all day but didn't find the tablets.
When the sky darkened to indigo, pierced by glittering stars, Drustan gave up and constructed a bonfire within the circle of stones so he would have light by which to perform the ritual.
If the worst occurred tonight, he wanted her to know as much about what had happened to him as possible. And her backpack would be an added boon. While digging in the ruins, he'd told her everything that had transpired just prior to his abduction.
One disbelieving brow arched, she'd nevertheless listened as he explained how he'd received a note bearing an urgent summons to come to the clearing behind the little loch if ye wish tae ken the name of the Campbell who murdered yer brother. His grief fever-hot, he'd donned his weapons and rushed off, without summoning his guard; the thirst to avenge his brother's death had overridden all intelligent thought.
He told her how he'd grown light-headed and weary while racing toward the loch and that he now believed he'd somehow been drugged. He told her how he'd collapsed just outside the forest on the banks of the loch, how his limbs had locked, his eyes had closed as if weighted by heavy gold coins. He told her he'd felt his armor and weapons being removed, then symbols being painted on his chest, then felt nothing more until she'd wakened him.
Then he told her of his family, of his brilliant and bristly father, of their beloved housekeeper and substitute mother, Nell. He told her of his young priest, whose nagging, fortune-telling mother was wont to chase him ceaselessly about the estate trying to get a look at his palm.