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Deirdre shifted the weight of her sleeping daughter in her arms. "But she'll want to say farewell."

She knew it was a pitiful excuse, but she was running out of better ones. Since she'd been roused from sleep an hour before, she'd used every argument she could think of to delay her departure. None of them had earned her more than an impatient answer from either Alistair or Ronan. Now that the two of them had joined forces, Deirdre was definitely outnumbered. Alistair didn't even bother to answer as he jerked his head toward the horse.

"Fernan and McTavish and I will ride with ye a time," he said and her heart lifted a bit.

Ronan heaved himself aboard his horse with a martyred sigh, and Deirdre felt a pang of guilt. He seldom stirred before the morning was far gone, yet for her sake he was doing this without complaint.

Alistair kissed Maeve's forehead, then handed her to Deirdre. "Give her my farewells," he said, a suspicious roughness in his voice.

"Alistair, I still think—"

"Aye, I ken what ye think. But you're going just the same."

Deirdre glared at him with impotent anger. Damn him for his pride, for his twisted sense of honor. Damn him for being everything she had ever wanted and was about to lose forever.

As he tucked the cloak more firmly about Maeve, she caught his wrist. "When you've done what you must do here, come and find me. Do you hear me? You come to Donegal and I'll be waiting."

"I fear 'twill be a long wait, Deirdre," Alistair said, so matter-of-factly that tears rose to her eyes.

"How gallant," Ronan drawled.

"Shut up!" she cried, rounding on him in sudden fury. "You know nothing about any of this."

"I know that we had best get moving before those knights drown," Ronan replied, nodding toward the two figures huddled stolidly in the downpour.

And then, before Deirdre could think of anything else to say, they were out the door and the rain was beating down upon her hood. They rode out of the stableyard and over the drawbridge, the horse's hooves hollow on the wood. Then they were in the lane, and the rain began to ease into a drizzle.

The fog was so thick around them that Deirdre could scarcely see two paces ahead. The world had drawn down to herself and Alistair, riding side by side, through an eerie landscape that didn't seem quite real. It was more like a nightmare where monsters lurked unseen. She tried to shake the impression off but her unease grew with every step. Unconsciously she clutched her sleeping daughter closer as her eyes darted this way and that, finding blank whiteness in all directions.

Ronan began to sing, but Alistair stopped him with a sharp command. "Sound travels in the fog," he said and for once Ronan made no argument. Perhaps he sensed it, too, the menace in the mist, and his song was but a whistle in the dark.

The rain had stopped completely by the time they turned into the lane and a little breeze tore ragged holes in the fog. The ground dipped sharply and the fog enveloped them again.

"There is the road," Alistair said, pointing. "Turn right and follow it straight to Annan. Go on," he added sharply as Deirdre hesitated.

She looked as though she might speak, but in the end only nodded and turned her horse's head. Long after she had vanished into the fog Alistair still sat, staring after her, clenching his jaw against the impulse to call her back, to beg her not to leave him...

Deirdre would be safe now, he reminded himself fiercely. This was the right—the only—thing to do. But though that belief had sustained him through the past days, all at once it rang hollow in his mind.

Oh, he had removed her from one potential danger, but the world was filled with countless others that she must now face without him at her side. How could such a thing be right?

Before he had an idea what he meant to do, he had kicked his horse into a trot and was heading down the road to Annan. Fool! He raged at himself. You weighed the facts, went over every option, and came to the only possible decision. You know that. Deirdre will be fine without you; 'tis naught but your own pride that makes you doubt.

He urged his horse into a canter, cursing himself with every step. He would turn back, he must; it would be wrong and selfish to keep her at his side. Then Germain was galloping headlong down the road and Alistair was urging him ahead, for he knew that whatever might come of it, he could not let her go.

Fitzgerald turned his horse sharply at Alistair's approach, a long knife glinting in his hand. When he realized who it was, his face grew dark with anger.

"Deirdre!" Alistair cried, "Wait—"

Deirdre whirled, her smile blazing across the distance between them.

"I knew you wouldn't—" she began, but Ronan cut her off.

"Listen," he ordered. "Do you hear it?"

And then Deirdre did hear the ring of bridles in the distance. Her mouth fell open as a strong gust parted the fog before them and she could glimpse the force of men coming down the hillside.

"Maxwells," she breathed. "Good God, how many are there?"