Page 31 of Her Highland Prophecy
Diana seemed to be enjoying herself as well. She had turned her face up to the sky, her eyes closed against the sun and her face held a peaceful expression. If it wasn’t for the bright smile, he would have thought her sleeping.
He whispered, “Diana?” not sure if she had actually fallen asleep.
“Hm?” she responded opening one bleary eye. He pointed across the river.
“Look.”
She looked confused for a moment, sleep still lingering in her eyes. She looked at the Castle again as if she wasn’t sure what he was showing her. Her expression cleared a moment later and she sat up straight.
“Castle Lovat?”
“Aye,” he confirmed.
She looked at it almost hungrily, her eyes devouring over every detail that she could see.
“It’s so big,” she breathed. “And look how tall the tower is. It’s such a pity that they are taking it apart.”
“Aye, it is. The Laird sold it to pay for his debts.” He hoped that they would not be forced to do something similar to Sutherford Castle.
As if she sensed where his thoughts were going, she placed a hand on his arm.
“We won’t let that happen to you. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it. I promise.”
“Thank ye,a nighean.”
They rode away from the castle, going north into familiar territory. Gordain had travelled those parts so often that he could have found his way home from there blindfolded, so he and Diana spent their remaining time refining their plan.
“My surname is Huntington,” she said. “My father told me once that my family had been in the trading business since the sixteenth century which means that they are somewhere in England now.”
Gordain was surprised when he heard the name. “Huntington? There is a Lord Huntington in the North of England, nae far from Edinburgh. Do ye ken if that is him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember. I only know that they traded in all of England, so maybe? But if he is a Lord, he is probably not a merchant.”
“Nay, but most Lords have branches of the family that arenae considered lords or ladies themselves. We can say that ye are a cousin, some times removed, from the merchant part of the family.”
“Why not say that I am a lady directly?”
He was shaking his head before she even finished speaking. “What if someone in me Clan has kent him? Me Faither has many dealings with the Lords in the north. One mistake and they would ken we are lying.”
“All right then. And how did we meet?”
“That is far simpler,” he said. He had spent some time thinking about it the night before.
“It is? How?”
“We stick as close to the truth as we can.”
“So we tell them that I used a medallion a gypsy gave me, ended up two hundred and fifty years in the past and was then attacked by highwaymen who wanted to steal my virtue before I was saved by a dashing Scotsman who brought me back to his clan to marry him?”
When she summed up the events of the last few days like that it all sounded completely ridiculous, and he couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him at the completely straight-faced way she delivered her words.
“Maybe we shouldnae share quite that much. But we can tell them that I saved ye outside in Ballachulish where ye were with yer Faither or yer brother, and that we asked permission to be wed after that.”
“Again, do people agree to marry each other after meeting one time? How does that work exactly?”
He didn’t respond as he guided Taranis across a pond.
“Sometimes they do. Does that nay happen in the future? Two people that ken the moment they meet that they should be together?”
