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Forbes would not be bewitched. Nay. He would keep his head. She would ride the mare. And he would make her his wife.
     

Chapter 4
    “Ye canna pray all night," Leith said, squatting down beside the small, kneeling figure swaddled in woolen robes.
    They had ridden all day, stopping only for the nooning meal before hurrying on.
    Rose Gunther had not spoken or eaten, and now she knelt in the darkness, looking not at all like the enchanting bean-sith he had seen by the magical lochan, but more like a bedraggled martyr with pale face and waning spirit. Where had the bewitching little fairy princess gone? The unearthly, moon-gilded goddess who had ignited his imagination and inflamed his hope? Where was the lass who had made him believe in miracles, had made him certain she had been sent as a precious gift from the very hand of God Himself, destined to bring peace to the clan of the Forbes.
    He'd been sure such a creature could not be happy in the strict confines of an abbey—had convinced himself he would do nothing but good in taking her to Scotland. But perhaps he'd misjudged her. Perhaps it had only been a vision by the lo-chan, and this woman did indeed belong within the cloistered walls of a musty abbey.
    But blood stained Leith's hands. The blood of his own people and of the MacAulays. Blood that would be washed away once Laird Ian accepted the wee nun as the daughter of his own loins.
    'Twas true that Ian MacAulay was a wily bastard. But he was also old and tired of the feud, tired enough to offer his only child as the wife of the Forbes, if Leith could bring her back to Scotland.
    Leith tightened his jaw. He had found her—beneath an aged mound of dirt in an English graveyard. But his dreams had not died there. Nay, they had found new life in the pale, nubile form of an unclothed novice.
    A strange way indeed for the Lord to answer his prayers, but Leith was not one to deny a sacred gift. Rose Gunther was that gift. He knew it, just as he knew Ian MacAulay would accept her. Just as he knew she would be the bond that once again united the tribes torn assunder by Eleanor's death.
    "Come," he said, retrospect making his tone hard. "Eat before the food cools."
    Her face did not lift. Her hands remained folded. "I am fasting," she said in clipped tones.
    Damn it to unholy hell! Fasting! Out here in the wilderness where all the girl's feeble strength would be needed just to stay alive. Leith scowled. For a sacred gift of God she certainly was stubborn. He had no time for her martyred antics. But neither would it do him any good to take an unwilling lass to Glen Creag.
    Perhaps Colin was right. Perhaps he was wont to frighten the lasses with his dour looks. Leith Forbes, however, had little time for courtship or flattery. He was a man with the heavy responsibilities of his clan on his shoulders. And just now those responsibilities weighed like a stone about his neck, for he saw the possibility of great changes for his clan. Changes that would cauterize old wounds and forge lasting bonds—if only he could charm the kneeling woman before him.
    Leith took a steadying breath, remembering his promise to the chaplain, and settled back onto a hip and a palm. "Why do ye fast, wee nun?" he asked quietly.
    "Atonement for my sins," she said stiltedly, her head still bowed.
    "And what sins are those, wee Rose?" Leith asked, his tone as gentle as he could make it. "Surely ye are too young and frail to have transgressed too grievously,"
    Silence settled into this sheltered spot in the woods. In the darkness, Leith thought he saw the girl's jaw clench and when she finally lifted her face, her eyes flashed with a less-than-godly light. To his amazement Leith found he had not imagined their size or depth. They were indeed as wide and unfathomable as the deep, dark waters of Loch Ness.
    "Do you presume to know the extent of my sins then, Scotsman?" she asked finally, her small mouth pursed.
    "Nay," answered Leith, his burr soft and heavy. "I