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all-seeing eyes were the same.
    His indulgent childhood nurse, a woman who’d filled every hour of his earliest years, shielding him from his da’s temper and spleen. Soft-hearted for all her bluster, she’d been the mainstay of his youth, lavishing him with warmth and love, salving his boyhood hurts.
    And now she stood clutching the window ledge and gawping at him with such moony-eyed astonishment, Jamie felt a surge of warmth and pleasure.
    He shook his head, his heart clenching.
    “Ach, Morag, is it yourself?” he managed, but then his throat closed and her beloved face blurred before him.
    Not that he minded, for in that moment, she whirled from the window and, almost at once, the great spike-tipped portcullis began rattling upward.
    That sweet sound ringing in his ears, he spurred beneath, riding straight through the gatehouse arch and into the torch-lit bailey, the chill, cloudy night and even the red-ribboned rowan promptly forgotten.
    He was home.
    Nothing else mattered.
    And if his father’s welcome stood in question, Morag was clearly pleased to see him.
    Swinging down off his garron, he lifted Cuillin from his basket, then caught the old woman to him in a close embrace.
    “Holy saints, Morag, you do not look a day older,” he vowed, holding her tight until she pulled away to beam at him, tears spilling down her face.
    “Come away in,” she urged, dabbing at her eyes, then grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the keep where the massive double doors stood wide. “Praise God, you came,” she added as they entered the great hall. “Your da grows more muddle-headed by the day and all in this hall would agree with me.”
    She squeezed his arm. “’Tis more than his fool ghost talk and losing your brothers that ails him,” she confided, lowering her voice. “He’s old and knows he split this clan asunder the day he sent you away. He yearns to make peace with you, even if he doesn’t know it.”
    Jamie stopped.
    He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Across the hall, on the wall above the high table, two well-flaming torches framed the Horn of Days, his clan’s most prized treasure, and he had the most uncomfortable sensation that the thing was staring at him.
    Waiting.
    Or, better said, assessing and challenging him.
    Exquisitely carved and banded with jewels, the ivory horn had been given to Jamie’s grandfather by Robert the Bruce after the great Scottish victory at Bannockburn. A gift made in appreciation of the clan’s support and loyalty.
    A celebration of days spent in faithful service to the crown and days filled with prosperity in the clan’s future.
    Recognition, too, of each new clan chieftain, with the horn now passing with great ceremony from one laird to his successor.
    A family tradition that should have honored Neill.
    Now the horn would be Jamie’s.
    Staring at it now, its gleaming jewels still seeming to bore holes into him, Jamie put back his shoulders. He’d accept the horn’s challenge and prove himself worthy.
    Even, no
especially,
to his father.
    Turning back to Morag, he addressed his first hurdle. “So it’s as I thought?” he pressed, not forgetting she’d stated his father wished reconciliation even if he didn’t know it. “My father did not send for me?”
    Morag glanced down, fussed at her skirts.
    The clansman crowding around them averted their gazes and even those clustered before the hearth looked elsewhere. Those sitting at the nearest trestle table busied themselves making a fuss over Cuillin. Others took great interest in their ale cups or the wisps of smoke curling along the blackened ceiling rafters.
    No one met Jamie’s eye. But, he would’ve sworn their cheeks flushed crimson.
    He lifted a brow. “So it was Matheson’s doing?”
    To his surprise, his kinsmen’s bearded faces turned an even brighter shade of red.
    Only Morag had the steel to look at him.
    “His doing and ours,” she admitted, leaning heavily on her crummock, the same hazel