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However, according to his dear departed granny, he was also a seer and possessed gifts beyond his imagining.
    He drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. What did he have to lose? He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the woman in his bed.
     
     
    The voice was calm and soothed her fears. It wanted her to emerge from the screen of darkness she was hiding behind. It wanted her to return to the land of the living.
    A layer of darkness peeled away, but that was as far as she was willing to go. For a little while longer, she wanted to hide in the cocoon she had made for herself. There was no cold here, no pain, and no shame.
    Where had that last thought come from?
    She gave a little shiver and turned into the woolly blanket that she was snuggled against. A warm tongue licked her face, and she smiled involuntarily. The voice spoke to her again. It was a lovely sound and brought to mind the hot chocolate she used to spoon into her mouth when she was a child. A spoon made the chocolate last longer.
    “You’re safe now,” the voice told her. “My dog found you. He won’t let anything happen to you, and neither will I. No need to be afraid of me. We met at Juliet’s wedding reception. I’m Gavin Hepburn, and I have a place on Feughside, on the other side of the Dee. I want you to wake now.”
    She remembered Gavin Hepburn. He was a character from a gothic novel. If he went away, she would be lost. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
    She moved restlessly and reached for him. He didn’t disappoint her. His warm hands closed around hers. The voice was speaking to her again. She didn’t understand the words, but she heard the compassion behind the velvet. She did not care if she never wakened, just as long as she heard his voice.
    The voice changed, became harsher, insistent, and another layer of darkness peeled away. She waited for the velvet voice to speak again, but there was no sound, only silence. On a panicked cry, she opened her eyes. Fluttering above her head were ghosts or angels. It took her a moment to realize that the ghosts were nothing more sinister than laundry hanging on a pulley to dry. She turned her head on the pillow and looked into the bluest eyes she had ever beheld, not blue like the sky, but the midnight blue of a Scottish loch, fathoms deep and impenetrable.
    In a matter-of-fact voice, the man with the blue eyes said, “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”
    When he spread his fingers behind her neck and raised her head, she winced in pain. Her head ached, her shoulder ached, her eyes ached from too much light. But worst of all was the dryness in her throat. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth.
    He put a cup to her lips, and she drank greedily. Hot sweet tea, she thought. When she drank it to the dregs, he refilled the cup and offered it to her again. All the while, her eyes were moving around the cramped interior. For a moment, she thought she might be in one of her father’s estate cottages, but this one was smaller.
    Dark rafters crisscrossed the ceiling. The fireplace was an immense affair with a stool at either side for, she supposed, the children to sit and warm themselves. One wall was taken up by a dresser and table. The other wall was taken up by the bed she was lying on. A long rug of indeterminate pattern covered the stone floor. She could smell the pleasant scent of peat.
    As she slowly came back to herself, she recognized her dress hanging to dry on the pulley and became aware that she was in a strange bed with nothing more substantial than a flimsy piece of fine linen to cover her nakedness. Her eyes focused on the man hovering over her. Gavin Hepburn was the man whom Juliet had warned her against. She had never felt safer in her life.
    When he turned away to tend to the fire, she allowed herself to drift into a blessed unknowing.

Four

    The sound of his voice penetrated the haze in her mind. She wouldn’t have cared if he had spoken to her in