THE GIFT: A Highland Novella Read Free Page B

spoke about his journey in the same breath as the clan ’ s need for a seer, he had been alert to the possibility of meeting a seer while he traveled through the Highlands on his way to the Douglas stronghold. As soon as he crossed into the Lowlands, however, he put the idea out of his head.
    The Sight was a magical gift, so it never occurred to him that the gift would be strong in a Lowlander. An English seer seemed an utter impossibility. No one lacked imagination like the English.
    Yet he could not dismiss the notion that this lass dressed in breeches could be the seer his grandmother foretold. Finding an English lass lying on a Scottish hillside so many miles from the border was strange enough to have a touch of magic about it. When the lass awoke in his arms, her vivid green eyes cast an enchantment upon him, for certain, though he suspected that was the common sort of women ’ s magic that caused men trouble every day.
    He considered asking her outright if she had The Sight , but he did not believe she ’ d be forthcoming about being a Seer. Even in her weakened state, she had been careful not to tell him why or how she came to be wandering alone through Scottish hills.
    “ What is your name, lass? ” he asked, deciding to start with an easy question and work his way up to it. “ I am Roderick, son of Te à rlach of the MacDonalds and Muireall of the Clanranalds. ” He left out prior generations, though being a good Highlander, he could recite them back a couple hundred years without straining his memory.
    He leaned to the side to get a better look at her as he waited for her to respond in kind. She had a soothing stillness about her that he admired, but he wanted answers now.
    “ Lily, ” she said.
    A lass who would not even share her family name had secrets she intended to hold on to.
    “’ Tis a lovely name, ” he said. “ Where is your home, Lily? ”
    She paused so long this time that he had given up expecting a response when she said, “ London. ”
    “ London? Ach, that ’ s a fair distance. ” He had assumed she lived near the border. Now it was an even greater mystery how she had come to be on that hillside. “ I fear it won ’ t be easy to get ye home, lass, especially with the winter storms upon us. ”
    “ I can wait. ”
    She must be running away from something. Or someone. She had put a good deal of distance between herself and London, and she was not anxious to return home.
    “ What am I to do with ye in the meantime? ” he asked, though he was already forming a plan.
    “ Set me on a road to Northumberland, ” she said. “ I have a friend there. ”
    “ Are ye dimwitted? I ’ m no ’ leaving ye along a damned road to die of the cold, if you ’ re not murdered first. ” He took a deep breath. “ Northumberland is a long way from here, and I ’ m traveling in the other direction. ”
    “ Then leave me in the first town we come to, ” she said. “ I ’ ll do fine anywhere there are folk who need healing and are willing to trade for it. ”
    “ Hmmph. ” As if he could leave her to fend for herself among strangers — and Lowlanders at that.
    “ I ’ ll have ye know that I ’ m a much sought after healer in London, ” she said.
    Then why did she leave? And why, after nearly meeting her death here, was she not begging to go home? Once again he wondered what awaited her in London that she preferred to risk her fate with strangers.
    He took this as another sign that she was, indeed, the lass he was supposed to bring home to serve his clan. Whether she was or not, he was responsible for her now.

CHAPTER 3
     
    “ Time to wake up, lass. ”
    The low whisper in her ear woke Lily with a start. It took her a long moment to recall how she came to be leaning against a man ’ s chest and why the seat beneath her was rocking. She could not say which surprised her more — that she fell sound asleep on a horse ’ s back or that she did it enfolded in this huge Highland warrior