“Clever, quick minded. You’re canny, ye ken,” he added.
“Ken?”
“Know. If you don’t know, you’d say I dinnae ken.”
“I dinnae ken if I can manage all this,” she said. “I did not expect to be learning another language this week! I was just trying to not marry a nasty old man.”
“Dinnae fash yeself, Heather. Whit’s fur ye’ll no go past ye.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, hiding a laugh. Heather realized with a start that she had great fun with Niall. He had already become so easy and comfortable to be around, almost like her dearest friends from school. Other than the wee fact that he was a man…and a distractingly large and handsome one too. That is, he wasn’t exactly handsome. (NowRose’shusband was handsome, with the sort of face and form that had women fainting in his wake. It was ironic, really, that he’d ultimately fallen for a woman who was blind, and thus he couldn’t rely on his looks, but rather had to prove himself a good person to catch her attention.)
So Niall wasn’t the sort of man to swoon over…though he was ridiculously tall and strong, with a broad chest and shoulders and arms that looked as if he still swung a broadsword every day like his ancestors must have done. No one would accuse him of having brooding good looks. Ginger-haired men with sparking bluey-greeny eyes were not natural brooders.
What Niall did have was a sense of humor. He loved jokes and wordplay and he seemed to always be ready to be amused by life. Heather had rarely laughed so much as on this trip north. Of course, she’d had very little to laugh about over the past months. Perhaps she was just giddy.
* * * *
It took several more days to reach Niall’s home. Each night, Niall went out of his way to locate lodgings where Heather had her own room, or shared with other female travelers. While they were in public, he never said a word about being married, and (if anyone asked) he often gave the impression that she was a sister or cousin of some sort, without actually lying outright. He also purchased not one but two pairs of shoes for her as a wedding present, which made the both of them laugh hysterically for some reason.
She appreciated his discretion, but did rather wonder if she’d ever experience another kiss like the one he gave her at the blacksmith’s.
The roads got narrower and rougher, and the land grew wilder. They were in the Highlands at last, passing by mountains Niall called the Cairngorms, and then west and north and west again, to a country that seemed to be all mountains and woods and hidden rivers, and sudden, tantalizing glimpses of the sea.
After noon on the final day, Niall was peeking anxiously out the window every other moment. He pointed to random houses, explaining who lived there (as if Heather could ever remember). Or he gestured to mountain tops or little lakes, giving names that were usually in Gaelic. Every time, he had a story to go with the name. And he kept pointing out that, spectacular as all these sights were, they paled in comparison to his home.
Like a little boy awaiting his birthday, she thought. Niall was sometimes just an overgrown puppy, clumsy but sweetly sincere in his excitement.
Heather was recalling the names of his siblings once again, determined to get the names correct when she met them. As a pretend wife, she ought to show interest in the family…otherwise they’d get suspicious. It was Ian, Maeve, Robert, and Fionnuala…
Just then, Niall took her hand as he pointed out the window to the right.
“Look, Heather, there it is! Carregness. Isn’t it bonny?”
She looked, and saw a structure that rose up and up at the end of the long, narrow lake (loch, she reminded herself). Its grey weathered stone was broken only by narrow windows, and slender towers flanked each corner. Shocked, she whispered, “Niall! This is a castle!”
“Aye, so it is,” he agreed. “Quite impressive to look at, but don’t think for a moment it would do the job it was built for. It was designed to withstand sieges of a year or more. But gunpowder would level this place in a day.”
“Not once did you say you lived in a castle!”
“A castle is just a croft with towers in the corners,” he said, waving the matter away.
“Tell that to those living in the crofts.”
“So it’s a bit bigger. But honestly, it’s not much grander.” He sighed. “Must be a disappointment to the ancestors floating around the halls.”
“Ancestors? Who are you?”
He looked over, caught her eye, and grinned. “I’m Niall MacNair, of Clan MacNair. There’s a lot of MacNairs, but my father is laird—meaning the MacNair. So was his father before him, and so on and so on.”
“Is a laird the same as a lord? What is his rank?”
“He’s the MacNair,” Niall repeated, seemingly puzzled by the question. “Oh, you mean does he have a rank in the English sense? Well, he’s also Earl of Carregness. But laird means more than lord…around here, anyway.”
“He’s an earl?” Heather asked, more alarmed than before. “Who is to be the next earl? One of your brothers? You said Ian is the eldest.”
Niall looked a tad sheepish now. “Well, he’s the oldest…after me.”
“You’re theheir?”
