Page 32

Was that good or bad?

Marjorie glanced at Bethea and then Keane but couldn’t determine from their expressions.

Thin lips pressed together, Dolag hobbled to the second bucket.

The guests had ceased eating, each transfixed on the frail woman’s bizarre ritual. Even the servants had paused in their duties and, eyes agog, peered at the crone.

Once more, Dolag dipped her gnarled hand into the cinders. As before, murmuring nonsensical gibberish, her features skewed in concentration, she sprinkled the ashes back into the waiting pail.

“Hmph.” A harsh sound reverberated in the back of her thin throat. Evidently satisfied, she brushed her blackened palms together, dusting off the worst of the residue.

Shifting her piercing regard to Keane, her surprisingly lucid gaze bored into his. Dolag’s attention shifted to Marjorie for a rather discomfiting moment. An intense few seconds that felt as if Dolag looked straight into her soul and saw every secret hidden there, before she gravitated her focus back to the duke.

Silent and perfectly still, her plaid gripped tightly about her thin form, she regarded Keane expectantly.

Charged with electricity, the air fairly crackled with anticipation.

Did she expect Keane to ask for her interpretation?

Perhaps that was part of the ritual at Trentwick?

Never having witnessed anyone reading ashes in all the time she’d been in Scotland, Marjorie had no idea.

“Will ye honor us this day, Dolag, and share what ye’ve seen?” Keane asked, a perfect balance of deference, respect, and ducal authority.

For several seconds, Marjorie believed Dolag might refuse his request.

Another few heartbeats ticked by before the seer gave the merest nod.

With a jolt, Marjorie realized she’d been holding her breath, her body tense with expectancy as she awaited Dolag’s reply.

Dolag’s watery blue gaze circled the room before she began. “Clan Buchannan and the Roxdale duchy will encounter much change in the year of our Laird 1721.”

Her quavering voice carried to the great hall’s farthest corners. Not a sound echoed in the eerily silent chamber. Eyes narrowed, only the irises visible, she stared at a point beyond Keane.

A point beyond this realm.

Marjorie’s nape hairs rose, and a shiver scuttled up her spine and down her arms. Rubbing her hands over the goose pimples, she eyed the other Kennedys.

Dolag held their enthralled regard too.

“I see great darkness, misfortune, and sorrow in the upcomin’ year.” Dolag flicked a boney finger at the first bucket.

The footman holding it paled and beads of moisture popped out on his forehead, and he gingerly held the container away from his body as if the devil himself had cursed it. Or mayhap, hid amongst the cinders, ready to pop out with the right incantation.

A chorus of gasps followed her dire pronouncement, and Bethea clasped Marjorie’s hand in her icy one. “Och, nae.”

Marjorie gave the girl’s hand a gentle squeeze, not ready to accept the sage’s prophecy as absolute truth but neither willing to dismiss it outright. There were too many things the Kirk couldn’t explain, and the Scots boasted a history rich in lore and mysticism.

At Dolag’s pronouncement, Keane’s hand upon Marjorie’s shoulder clenched for an instant, his fingertips pressing firmly into her flesh before he drew them away, leaving a peculiar bereftness in their wake.

Marjorie looked up at him through her lashes.

The slanting contours of his handsome face had hardened, but he presented a nonchalant mien, his mouth curved into a tolerant half-smile.

Did he believe what the ancient sage foretold?

“But…” Like a lightning bolt, Dolag’s voice cracked through the unnatural silence.