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boys who came in answer to her call, and then hurried into the hall.
    Cordelia, Caradoc’s sister.
    Fiona recognized her by her manner as much as her looks and the raven hair. As a girl, Cordelia could barely sit still. She never walked, always ran, and teased her brothers unmercifully.
    Connor had teased back. Caradoc had looked pained, as if she gave him a stomachache, and he never said a word.
    She had assumed Cordelia would be married and gone from Llanstephan by now. Dismay filled her as she realized she was not, for she could well imagine that Cordelia’s reaction to news of her brother’s betrothal and impending marriage would not be cries of gladness.
    Another battle was probably going to be waged there, too.
    Sighing, she turned and leaned back against the sill.
    The marriage had not happened yet. She could always leave.
    And go to some strange place to be preyed upon by other men seeking only a rich wife?
    She pushed off the sill and marched toward her chest. She threw open the lid and yanked out a linen sheet.
    For good or ill, the bargain had been made and sealed. It would take more than a sister’s disapproval and a servant’s animosity to make her break her word and flee.
    A chill fog shrouded the stone buildings of Dunburn. The bell in the village church tolled a death knell, and a small group of the bereaved huddled in the churchyard. Otherwise, few souls ventured outside.
    However, neither the weather nor the solemn clang of the bell dampened the spirits of the boisterous band of young men whose sudden appearance on the main street shattered the hushed calm. Oblivious to the sullen mourners, they pulled their equally high-spirited horses to a halt outside a tavern near the wharf and wooden piers. Light oozed out of the small windows and beneath the rough door of the stone building and, like the laughter from within, was almost immediately smothered in the mist. They dismounted, their cloaks and feileadh mor swinging about their legs clad in buckskin cuarans .
    “Wait for me here. I willna be long,” declared one of them, his voice loud in the street. He was a comely fellow, with red-gold hair that waved about his face, and brown eyes that could be pleasant if he was happy, or cruel if he was not.
    “You’d better not be,” his stocky friend warned as he took hold of the reins of his friend’s horse to lead it through the wide arch to the stable in back. “King William expects us back ’ere the week is out.”
    Iain MacLachlann laughed, and it was boastful and vain, like the man himself. “Since he knows I’m bringing him a thousand marks from my bride’s dowry to buy back more land from that Norman bastard Richard, he won’t begrudge me the delay.”
    His companion made a low, appreciative whistle. “I ne’er knew Fiona MacDougal was worth as much as that,” Fergus muttered, “or I might have courted her myself.”
    “Aye, but you didn’t, and I did, so she’s going to marry me. I’ve made certain of it, too, so don’t go sniffing round her skirts.” Iain’s hand moved beneath his black cloak, toward the hilt of his sword.
    “No fear of that,” Fergus quickly replied. “No need for temper, either.”
    Iain smiled, but there was no mirth or joy in it. It was a threat, that smile, as much as if he held a knife to Fergus’s throat.
    “I willna be long,” Iain repeated before turning away. “I haven’t been here for over a month, and my bride-to-be will surely be missing me,” he finished with a hint of a smirk lifting the corner of his sensual mouth, which was almost feminine in its fullness. “Later, for King William’s sake, I’ll tear myself away.”
    Careful not to slip on the slick cobblestones, Iain started down the street. He wrapped his cloak tighter about himself and silently cursed the mist that dampened his hair and wet his face. Much better it would have been to rejoin King William’s court without stopping in Dunburn, but he needed to see if his future bride