Page 32 of The Highlander's Virgin Nun
Caelan rested the bottle of mead on the log in between them like a spinning arrow ready to pick its victim. He gazed at her with excitement in his eyes as she relaxed and finally allowed her personality to shine through.
“A swig for every wrong guess,” she warned him, and he agreed.
She turned on her best Highland accent for the ancient rhymes.
“An’ it’s neither Peg, Meg, nor Magrit,
Me mammy’s name;
An’ it’s neither Peg, Meg, nor Magrit,
An’ yet thrice I’ve told her name.”
Caelan laughed, stumped as usual by wordplay. He recalled his father telling riddles to him and Alexandra as children. His sister had been so fast to solve them that he had never even had a chance to think up an answer, and so the skill had gone unlearned.
His mind went blank, as if waiting for Alexandra to jump in.
Rosaline watched him, her head tilted as if listening for his thoughts, a patient, gleeful look on her face. She looked as though opening her mouth for a single breath would let forth a wave of laughter.
“Ye’ve said the name three times?” he asked, still enamored with the wordplay.
“Aye, indeed.”
He pondered it a while longer, repeating her words over and over in his mind, searching for a solution. As he did so, he looked at Rosaline, trying to pull the answer from her mind. She watched him back, mischief flickering in her eyes and across her lips. Caelan got lost in her dark features, reflecting silver in the moonlight.
“Peg,” he guessed, taking a swig of the mead as she shook her head.
“Meg.” Another swig.
“Margaret.” And another.
Her head fell back and she started laughing. “All right, ye’re just tryin’ to get drunk. Come on, use yer mind.”
“I’ve got nothin’,” he said, throwing his hands up in defeat. He felt the drink warm his insides and dance in his tummy.
“Ye give up?”
“I give up. Tell me.”
“Her name is Anne.”
Caelan threw his head back and laughed, playfully slapping her knee, gentle but excited. Anything to touch her.
“Ye’re a jester,” he teased. “Too clever for me.”
“Ye’re only clever if ye ken the answer. Ye give me one.”
“All right then.”
Caelan traced his memories back to the campfire with his father and sister. He could remember all the riddles but very few of the answers. Finally, he recalled one.
“What is neither in the house, nor out of the house, but is still all around the house?”
“Hmm,” Rosaline mused, narrowing her eyes and gazing up at the sky as if to find the answer there.
He watched her concentrate, forget herself, and let the fur slip from her shoulders as her mind weaved in and out of the words.
Her dress slid down her shoulder, gradually revealing her collarbone. It glimmered in the light, still slightly wet from the river. She turned her head to the side, deep in thought, and he followed the line from her chest, up her neck, and behind her ear with his eyes, longing to trace it with his lips instead. Desire stirred inside him as he watched her, oblivious, until her head snapped back to him, and he pulled his eyes back up to hers quickly.
