Free Celtic Bride by Margo Maguire Page B

you going?”
    He bent toward the boy. “I’m just—just going outside to have a look around. To see that the horses are secure.” He patted the boy’s head and let himself out.
    The Wrexton knights had extended the mule’s shelter with canvas from their tents, and the horses were tethered there, out of the worst of the rain.
    There’d been no signs of interlopers, and Marcus thought it unlikely that the Celts would be wild enough to attempt travel in this weather. Even the animals of the forest sought shelter when it was this foul.
    Marcus trained his thoughts on “normal” things. The horses, the weather, the provisions. He hoped Nicholas Hawken managed to stay ahead of the storm. He wondered if the bishop of Chester had left for Wrexton yet, or if the storm had held him up.
    Mayhap he should ask Lady Keelin.
    Damnation!
    He could not avoid thinking of it any longer. What Tiarnan had said about Keelin’s uncanny ability was true. She had premonitions, and they were accurate.
    What sorcery was this? Or was it sorcery at all? Could Keelin’s power be a blessing, as Tiarnan had claimed? Was it a gift from God, or was she cursed?
    Marcus had seen nothing to indicate bedevilment. Nothing in any of Keelin’s actions smacked of witchery. She had been caring and kind with Adam and the wounded men, then had gone so far as to make the sign of the cross before attempting to set Edward’s leg bone. Would a woman who was an instrument of the devil do such a thing?
    Marcusdid not know what to think.
    One thing was certain. His reaction to her was anything but commonplace. She had somehow managed to enthrall him quickly and completely. But how had she done this, if not by sorcery? Why was he unable to remember the faces of any of the young women at the wedding he’d just attended? Surely his memory was not so poor that he’d forget them in the course of a day. And how had she contrived to make it possible for him to speak to her without stammering? To touch her? Kiss her, even, and hold her body close to his through the night?
    He still felt her presence acutely—a few minutes ago, he’d felt as if he were smothering in the close quarters of the cottage. He’d had to get out of there, to get away from her.
    Marcus disliked the idea of bewitchment, but there was no reasonable, rational explanation for his wild attraction to the lovely black-haired lady who, even now, carefully tended his men’s ills.
    “Ye realize, of course,” Tiarnan said, “I won’t be goin’ back with ye.”
    “Back? To Ireland?” Keelin asked as she spooned more stew into her uncle’s bowl. Lord Marcus’s men lined the floor, wrapped in blankets. Some were dozing, some sleeping deeply. Snoring. Keelin kept glancing toward the door, expecting Marcus to come through at any time.
    Expecting to see disgust and distrust in his eyes.
    “Aye,” hereplied. “Even the distance to Wrexton Castle may be too far for an old wreck like me.”
    “There’ll be no more talk of leavin’ ye behind, Uncle.”
    “Keely lass, ye must be reasonable about—”
    “Nay,” she said. “There’s nothin’ reasonable about leavin’ ye here alone to fend for yourself.”
    “Keelin—”
    “Besides, I’ve a feelin’ about Wrexton. And you.”
    “Oh?” Tiarnan asked, curious about Keelin’s “feeling.”
    “’Tis only an inklin’, mind you,” Keelin said, her eyes losing their focus and turning inward, “but I see contentment for ye at Wrexton. A lovely, wee garden…with a stone bench. Sunshine…and you, Uncle. Ye’re sittin’ on that bench and it’s springtime. All the green things are the tiniest shoots….”
    Tiarnan lay back and closed his eyes on the vision Keelin presented him. ’Twas enough to give him the hope he needed to go on.
    Night fell, and Marcus de Grant did not return. Keelin wrapped up in a blanket and made herself comfortable against the wall near Adam’s bed, in case he should need her. She was weary after a long day of