Page 58 of The Wrong Bride
“Not always useless. Remember the little boy that everyone feared had fallen in the loch and drowned?Youknew he had not;youled the searchparty that found him huddled beneath a rocky cliff.”
Her cheeks pinkened even as she exhaled slowly. “They would have continued the search without me. His parents were desperate and weren’t about to assume he was dead.”
“’Twas winter, and if he’d have been out there all night . . .” Hugh let his words trail off. But his sister didn’t look any happier.
“’Twas a rare case. Mostly ’twas just my dreams giving me a fright. What good is that? Most of the time I felt like I helped no one, and all I received were wary looks and people warding me away like I had the evil eye.”
“Ye often got us away from our father before the worst of his drinking.”
She shrugged. “Not difficult to notice whenthatwas about to happen. Subtle, he was not.”
“Och, I don’t like to see ye disregarding your gifts.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to forget about a time when I thought I was better than everyone else, when I was so arrogant I thought God had gifted me alone.”
“Ye can say we all have our gifts, and maybe we do, but yours—”
“I’m finished with it, Hugh. I won’t be a seer people look at with a sense of doom.”
“So ye sensed nothing when ye met Riona.”
Hugh was watching closely, and he saw the curious glance at his betrothed that Maggie couldn’t quite hide.
“Nothing,” she insisted. “And I never did ‘sense’ things. I saw them in dreams.”
He let it go—for now.
“So . . . ye’ve put her in Mother’s former bedroom?” Maggie asked, her curiosity returning.
“Riona’s my betrothed, deserving of the best chamber in the castle.”
“And she can be close at hand.”
That conclusion was obvious, and certainly not the result of second sight.
“So ye have to work that hard to win her?” Maggie prodded. “She didn’t swoon at the sight of your fine face?”
Hugh took a deep sip of whisky and grimaced. “She’s a stubborn woman. Ye well ken how I took it when I found out I had no choice in my betrothed.”
“Almost got yourself killed, several times over.”
“She has that to work through, she does.”
“So she’s not doing herself harm trying to get away from ye?”
Hugh arched a brow at her sister.
She chuckled. “I did not think all was perfectly well, and ye need no second sight for that.”
“I came up with a plan that seems to be working.”
“And what’s that? I might want to use it myself some day.”
“Nay.” He spoke in his firm chief’s voice, forgetting whom he was talking to.
“Are ye saying nay tome? And what are ye doing that I should not?”
“We’re bundling.”
