Free Prisoner of Love by Jean S. Macleod

sure. A new honor, perhaps.
    She had no idea when Julius would return, but it did not seem possible that he could come back before the following day. Twenty-four hours stretched ahead of her. It was a windless day with a high, bright sun in the sky and a lark singing its heart out far above her. Her own heart lifted at the sound of it and she walked with a light, quick step, taking the only road there was. It penetrated deep into the narrow glen that ran down to the Loch.
    She had walked for over a mile without seeing any sign of human habitation when, far up on the hillside, she saw the blue reek of peat smoke and smelled its scent after a while, borne on the wind. It was a smell that would always remind her of these first days at Dunraven, she thought .
    The hidden house up there among the pines would be the lodge where Julius hoped to bring his patients, but she could not attempt to reach it. Julius had made it forbidden territory, much as he might have put it out of bounds to a schoolgirl.
    Biting her lip, she tried not to feel annoyed by the fact, but the thought that she was not entirely free to please herself irked her.
    A vague path that was no more than a sheep track wandered off at a tangent, and without thought, she began to follow it. All the way up among the pines the birdsong had delighted her, but here on the edge of the open moor, there was only the cry of the peewit, lonely and rather desolate under a cloudless sky.
    But the moor itself held beauty. When she stumbled upon a hidden lochan it was aglow with yellow waterlilies, and heavy-headed reeds nodded in the breeze about its edge. There was color, too, in the bright pink stars of the bog pimpernel and the purple of small marsh orchids close beside the path. The ling was coming out and bees and a dozen species of butterfly were busy above it.
    Then, high above her, a dark shape hovered into view. For a moment it seemed to come between her and the sun, shutting out all light, and then she saw it for what it was. A large bird of the hawk type—probably a kestrel—swerved and hovered above an unseen object on the ground. Its wingspan appeared to be tremendous, and suddenly there seemed to be nothing else on the moor but the unidentified plunderer and herself. Her heart began to hammer madly, although she knew that the bird was far too intent upon its prey to trouble her. It rose and swooped and there was a high, terrified squeak of surprise and fear as the unsuspecting victim was carried away.
    Laura was too far away to discover what it was, but the incident had unnerved her and she turned abruptly to retrace her steps, only to find the path by which she had come guarded by two sleek gun dogs.
    Behind them at some little distance walked a man with a third dog, which he appeared to be training.
    “Down, Roy! Down!” he commanded as it sprang toward her. “Don’t worry,” he called when he saw that his command had been ignored. “He’s very young and this is no more than a friendly overture!”
    The pup had reached Laura and almost knocked her down, but she was no longer afraid. She suffered the welcome for a second or two before echoing his master’s command.
    “Down—good boy, down! We’re sufficiently introduced now, I think!” she said.
    When she looked up the dog’s owner was no more than a yard away. At that first meeting she thought Zachray MacKeller small and almost insignificant looking, yet when she looked again she was instantly aware of his eyes. They were wide-set and very dark, with a depth to them like the pool beneath the Measach Falls that first day when she had stood there looking down into it with Julius by her side. They were the clear mirrors of a deep integrity, giving character and individuality to a face that might otherwise have been plain almost to the point of ugliness. The smile behind them was friendly and warm.
    “I see you’re not in the least afraid,” he said, “although you had every right to be with Demon and