“Ye expect me to allow her into my keep—an enemy?”
“I do. And I intend to wed wi’ her, if she’ll ha’ me.”
Those gathered went dead silent, each one right down to the guards freezing in place. At that moment it seemed the very air of Glen Bronach stilled to listen, as if the fate of the future hung in the balance.
Rory quivered with rage, and the look in his eyes turned savage. He thrust his face into Leith’s as he growled, “O’er my dead body.”
He stalked off then, anger in every line of him. Leith gazed into Rhian’s face. “Do ye? D’ye mean to stay wi’ me?”
“I do.”
“Will ye wed wi’ me?”
“I will.”
“Och, God. ’Tis a miracle.” He closed his eyes in fervent gratitude, only to open them and look at Farlan. “How can I thank ye?”
“No need. Be happy,” Farlan whispered before he brushed his fingers across Rhian’s arm and looked at Leith. “Both o’ ye.”
He walked away, and Rhian watched him go. Moira would be glad, so glad to have him back.
She turned and gazed into the face of the man she loved.
Who promptly sank to his knees in the turf.
They still had an audience. Rory had gone, aye, but members of the guard lingered out of curiosity or caution.
Leith disregarded them. Taking both Rhian’s hands in his, he gazed into her eyes.
“Merciful lady, I do no’ deserve ye. And I do no’ ken quite what magic has brought ye here to me. But I will strive every day o’ my life, with all that is in me, to mak’ ye happy and prove worthy o’ this gift ye bring to me.”
Tears clogged Rhian’s throat. She could not speak.
“Rhian MacBeith, d’ye swear ye will be mine forever and always?”
“I am already yours, Leith MacLeod. And the gift lies between us.”
He got to his feet and bent his head over her hands. “So it does, merciful angel. So it does.”
Hand in hand, with Rhian carrying the future, they walked away from Rhian’s past and toward MacLeod’s stronghold.
Epilog
Leith shifted inthe warmth of the bed, half dazed by wonder at having Rhian once more in his arms. From the moment the alarm had been given and he’d run out to behold her walking toward him across the green turf with Farlan, he’d suspected he moved in a dream.
But aye, she lay with him here in his bed. In his arms. He could smell the fragrance of herbs coming off her hair—by God, he loved her mop of wild hair. He could still taste her on his tongue. And aye, he had only recently been inside her.
Where he belonged.
Now they lay naked. Sated in body and spirit. He ran his hand—his left hand, for that still served him better than the other—over the satin of her skin and across her belly.
Into her ear he whispered, “Is he well, my son?”
“Very well indeed.” She purred like a cat when contented, did his Rhian.
His touch on her belly grew protective. “I will do all I can for him. And for ye.”
She swiveled in his grasp, and her lips slid across his in a fleeting caress. The heat inside him, so recently banked, flared to life. “Ye will ha’ to tell Rory about him before I begin to show.”
