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stood before them.
    "Ladies," he said in the fluid tongue of the Highlands , his voice deep and smooth.
    Her own tongue too clumsy to form the simplest response, Catherine slid a glance toward the hearth, hoping support from Sir John , the only person at hand who loathed the English as soundly as she, but the sore-battered lord had slipped from the hall. The deep shadows where he'd stood loomed black and empty.
    Wishing she could vanish as well, Caterine peered up at her sister's ill-chosen champion. "Good sir," she managed, her voice declaring her wariness despite the genial greeting.
    Their eyes met and held, and a strange giddiness tripped through her. A curious breathlessness she'd never before experienced. Light from a nearby torch cast a sheen on his dark hair and glanced off the steel rings of his mail shirt, gilding them in such a way that his powerful arm and shoulder muscles appeared all the more pronounced.
    Faith, but he unsettled her.
    "... ill suits you ..." he was saying, but his proximity flustered her so thoroughly she caught but a snippet of what he'd said.
    She blinked. "If what ill suits me?"
    "If he speaks with you," Rhona answered for him.
    Not heeding her friend, he gave Caterine a half-smile, and in the flattering play of light and shadow, that one brief smile clearly revealed that Sir Marmaduke Strongbow, late of England and soon of
Balkenzie
Castle
in the west, had once been a very handsome man.
    A very handsome man indeed.
    "I said I regret if speaking with me ill suits you, but, nevertheless, we should do so," he said, his tone brisk, less warm than she remembered. "Now, before I join my men on the ramparts."
    He studied her, and the intensity of his perusal gave Caterine the disturbing impression he peered into her very soul, saw all her deepest secrets.
    Her dreams.
    And laid them bare one by one.
    Something ... anger? frustration? ... flashed across his face, but vanished before she could decide. "Lady, I assure you my intent in coming here was not to aggrieve you."
    Heat surged up the back of Caterine's neck. "I know full well why you are here."
    "But you did not expect a Sassunach."
    You did not expect a man whose visage would give you worse nightmares than those already plaguing you.
    "I did not expect any man," she said, surprising him. Pushing back from the table, she stood. "Aye, we must speak, but not here. I will accompany you to the ramparts."
    Marmaduke didn't flinch when she ignored his proffered arm. "After you, my lady." He made her a stiff bow instead, carefully hiding how deeply her slight had stung him.
    Calling on every shred of his hardihood, he followed her through the darkened hall, pausing only to retrieve his fur-lined cloak before ascending the curving stairs behind her. When they reached the top landing, he swirled his heavy mantle about her shoulders.
    "It will be cold on the parapets," he said simply, his fingers brushing the smooth warmth of her nape, the silken weight of her braided hair cool against the back of his hands.
    To his relief, neither of the two men he'd sent to patrol the ramparts watched this segment of the wall-walk. Naught but the chill dark and countless winking stars greeted them.
    The night sky, a frigid wind, and the steady thumping of his heart.
    Going straight to the crenellated wall, Marmaduke rested his hands on one of the square-toothed merlons and gazed out at the sea. A crescent moon rode low on the horizon, its pale glow casting a thin ribbon of silver across the night-darkened water.
    Gripping the cold stonework, he let the wind's stinging bite ease the tight knot of heat Caterine Keith's rejection had put at the base of his neck.
    Steeling himself, he turned to face her. "Your sister sends you warm greetings and bade me to assure you she is well," he began, purposely omitting any mention of Linnet MacKenzie's tender state, as had been the lady's express wish. "She would like—"
    "I doubt, sir, that you wished to speak to me about