Ever.
He wanted a marriage.
A true marriage this time.
For all the right reasons.
He was cautiously optimistic. Maura’s lips couldn’t disguise her feelings. No, her response to him concealed nothing in her heart. She might deny it, but he knew better. There was every chance she might prove stubborn. Indeed, he expected it. She could be stubborn and fierce, his lovely lady.
But somehow he must find a way to convince her.
He understood her need, her duty to her clan and lands.
But she belonged to him.
She had to realize it sooner or later. And he would much prefer sooner than later. Indeed, he would prefer now.
He directed his steps toward the great hall. Afternoon sunshine splashed through the windows of the corridor, as if to light the way.
But all at once the sunlight vanished, with the suddenness of snuffing a candle flame. Alec stopped, looking up toward the sky.
A single, dark, threatening cloud obscured the sun. How curious. He could have sworn it hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
The thought scarcely flitted through his mind than the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled.
If he were given to such stuff and nonsense, he might have considered it the frosty breath of a presence that lurked directly behind him.
A distinctly ominous presence.
If he were given to such stuff and nonsense.
Which he was not, he reminded himself sternly. He lent no credence to such things. It was simply all this talk with Maura, with her curses and ancient relics.
He turned from the window to resume his way.
Only then, he realized, did he notice that the sunlight ceased before the portrait of James McBride, seventh Duke of Gleneden.
Alec stared at the portrait. It was just as he’d told Maura. He had always thought of this particular forebear as a nasty-looking chap.
No wonder Maura disliked him.
But he’d never before fancied that James, seventh Duke of Gleneden, was somehow gloating. His eyes seemed to glint.
The feeling grew stronger. With every breath. Every beat of his heart.
Alec’s gaze narrowed. He matched James McBride stare for stare.
Something gnawed at him. The feeling that something wasn’t right.
He scoured the portrait. James McBride stood next to a wide, rustic fireplace on the outer wall, one booted foot planted arrogantly on the hearth.
He and Maura had searched that room just a few days earlier; it was like a miniature version of the great hall, the ceiling and walls timbered and whitewashed. It had served as the counting room after Robert the Bruce gave title over to the first Duke of Gleneden.
It struck Alec now that in all those years, it seemed nothing had changed—since the time of Robert the Bruce and certainly not since James McBride had stood there, that smile on his lips. There was an air about the duke. Daring. Bold. Reckless.
Almost before he knew it, Alec was climbing the stairs to the third story and moving down the hallway to the room at the end. He swung the door wide and strode to the fireplace. The room had fallen into disuse long before his grandfather was alive, when the fireplace was deemed unsafe to burn.
Plagued with some strange sensation, Alec stood where James, the seventh Duke of Gleneden, had posed for his portrait. He placed his boot where James had planted his. Stood where James had stood.
