"Perhaps you do your woman an injustice, Scotsman. She may be tougher than you know."

Your woman. Were it his choice, it would be so. But seven centuries-and MacLeod's violent past -stood between them, along with several dozen broken laws of nature. "The only injustice I do is to wish for things that cannot be," MacLeod said grimly. "History and written books cannot be changed so easily. Meanwhile, the danger to her remains."

"Danger? The three crones told you of this?"

MacLeod nodded.

White lace fluttered as Adrian paced back and forth before the trees. "If there's danger to her, there is danger to the others, even to the child. This, I cannot tolerate."

"What can you do?"

"More than you might guess." Adrian's eyes glittered. "But I can take no action until I sense clear intent, and there is none yet. Did the crones tell you more?"

"They said their vision was blocked. They could do no more."

"Typical of them. No doubt they botched their preparations and turned some innocent rodent into a sack of potatoes."

"You'll not speak of them so," MacLeod muttered, reaching for Adrian's lapels. As before, his fingers slid right through the perfectly cut velvet. "By all the saints, what am I doing out here in the snow arguing with some fragmented part of my imagination?"

"Imagination? I'm beyond your imagination, mortal. In my day I was the confidant of kings."

"So was I," MacLeod countered flatly.

"Men quaked before me and women vied to warm my bed."

"Did it please you?"

"What has pleasure got to do with it?" Adrian thundered. "It was my due."

"Answer my question, ghost."

Adrian muttered angrily, his lace all awry. "Of course I enjoyed it. What mortal wouldn't? There was power, endless days of it. I had gold and laughter and endless praise. Women of blinding beauty." He stopped abruptly. "Yes, it was enough. For a while. Then I saw through the hollow laughter and the angry eyes. By then it was too late for changing." He laughed bitterly. "No, I did not enjoy it. But if you tell anyone I said that, I will haunt you for five centuries, Ronan MacLeod. I have a reputation to consider, after all."

"A dark one?"

"The very blackest. My legend is evil itself." He stared deep into MacLeod's eyes. "This is something that the King's Wolf would understand well."

MacLeod stiffened. "What do you know of that name?"

"Enough. Does she know of your black past?"

"She believes none of my stories." MacLeod bent down to the little tin star, twisted sideways on a clump of fir needles. Gently he pulled it free. "Hope thinks I'm a wounded soldier."

Adrian's keen eyes narrowed. "Aren't you?"

"Not the way she thinks. I'm from seven centuries in her past, wounded in battles she can only read about in books."

"And you enjoyed it?"

MacLeod spun around, a vein hammering at his forehead. "You want to know if I enjoyed the killing? If I liked the screams and the dust?"

"Did you?"

One of MacLeod's hands fisted around a fir bough. "It was...my duty."

"Did you?"

"The King's Wolf would enjoy such things. His legend was built on fear and revenge. They were his finest weapons."

"And what of the man behind the legend? The man who wore the silver wolf at his shoulder and bled when it pricked him?"

MacLeod kicked at the snow. "I cannot change what I am or what I have done. But there was no joy for me, if that is your question."

The fir bough snapped beneath his fingers. Green needles rained down on the drifting snow like fallen blood.

"Honesty at last. An excellent start." Adrian rubbed his hands briskly. "Now to work."

"Go away, ghost. I am tired." And I am afraid of believing in your dreams.

Adrian's brow rose. "Leave just when you're beginning to be interesting? Out of the question, man." He stared off to the north, where the dark outline of a cottage lay faint against falling snow.

"We have work to do."

MacLeod's brows snapped together in an angry line. "I am not staying. It is impossible. Do not torment me with impossible hopes."

"Nothing is impossible to an open heart. Oh, the things I could tell you, Scotsman, the places I have been. Miracles, some would call them." Adrian's lips curved. "But you're not impressed, are you?

The Kings' Wolf must have seen sights of his own."

MacLeod shrugged, hating the lurch of excitement he had felt at the possibility of staying in this place, this time.

With Hope. Because without her, all would be dust and noise and empty laughter.

"Tell me about...possibilities, ghost." He touched the tin star gently. "Tell me about things that are possible with an open heart."

"Rather be in a kilt, would you?" Adrian's eyes glinted. "That can be arranged, too." He murmured softly to himself, sketched a figure in the air.

MacLeod flinched in shock to find himself stripped of his jeans and wrapped in a heavy wool tartan with a leather tunic covering his chest. "Pie Jesu, how did you-"

With a clang, a pair of metal gauntlets slammed down on the snow before him.

"Sold them, didn't you? Had to buy things for Christmas. Oh, she'll be in a rare fury at that, my boy. Especially when she sees what's in that silver box of yours. Never try to understand a woman at Christmas, I warn you."

"She won't find out," MacLeod said grimly. He took a step, enjoying the freedom of the heavy wool, but half expecting the kilt to disappear.

"Oh, it's real enough, snatched off the display dummy in a darkened museum. Suits you, true enough. Women would swoon." Adrian steepled his fingers. "Now I need to think, so leave me."

His lace fluttered and grew pale.

"What are you planning, Draycott?"

"So now you say my name. Interested in spite of yourself, I think. And afraid to hope that there could be miracles at work tonight."

MacLeod frowned. Life had taught him that hopes were useless deceptions meant to punish fools.

Maybe he was afraid to believe anything else. "Nothing real can come of dreams."

"You believe this?" Light glimmered around Adrian's slowly fading head. "Learn to hope, MacLeod. Learn to dream. What you find may surprise even you." His lace fluttered, exquisite as the drifting snow and as quickly fading. "Come, Gideon."

The cat stood, meowed low.

Somewhere far over the lonely glens, church bells chimed twelve times, then once more, a pure, faint peal that hung long in the chilly air.

Then the sounds faded. White lace winked out abruptly, and black velvet was swallowed up by the night. The Scotsman was left alone in the snow, alone in the darkness.

He looked down, fingered the heavy wool, studied the paw prints that had vanished at the edge of a snowdrift. Most of all he stared at a little tin star, wondering about lost dreams and open hearts.

"SOMETHING'S WRONG." Morwenna Wishwell paced anxiously, her eyes on the window.

"There's more snow than we usually have, and the wind is too strong."

"Do stop worrying, Morwenna." Perpetua tasted the stew steaming over the fire, added a pinch of bay and thyme, then nodded in satisfaction. "Perfect."

Behind her the wind howled around the eaves. The door shook twice, then banged open, revealing a tall figure in velvet as dark as the night that seemed to enfold him.

Morwenna froze, one hand clutching her chest. "Pet, look. He...he's found us."

"Of course, my dear. Are you shocked that your meddling did not go undetected?" Adrian Draycott strode inside, with his black cape flapping about his shoulders.

"Stop hounding my sister." Perpetua blocked his way. "A bully, that's all you ever were, Adrian Draycott. You don't scare me a whit."

"No, I don't, do I? Always had the spine of ten men, my dear." His eyes darkened. "But this time you have gone too far. You're dealing with a man, not some shivering rodent out of your garden."

"He knows," Morwenna whispered, white-faced.

"Of course I know," Adrian thundered. "You've dragged a poor mortal across the centuries to do your bidding. Don't try to deny it." He crossed his arms, glaring at Morwenna.

Perpetua stood her ground. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about Ronan MacLeod."

Perpetua hid her dismay with a sniff. "What was done was done by all of us, three as one. And you'll cool that sharp tone of yours or you'll leave this instant, Adrian Draycott. I'll see to that."

Adrian glared.

Perpetua glared back.

The fire hissed in the grate. Orange flames shot up the chimney.

Adrian began to laugh, a low rumble that climbed up his chest and filled the whole room. "As I live and breathe, you three have made a rare mess this time."

"You neither live nor breathe," Perpetua corrected irritably. "And we need none of your interference."

"No?" Adrian slid off his cape and held his hands out before the fire. "Cold as death out there.

Shouldn't wonder if this glen was haunted. Now, start at the beginning and leave out nothing. Some of that stew would be nice, too, for I'll need my wits clear about me tonight. No one ever made a stew as fine as you, Perpetua, my dear."

The woman in the shawl glared at him. "And no man ever knew his way around a compliment half so smoothly as you did."

Adrian raised one hand. "Enough bickering. Our battle's gone on long enough. Maybe together we can find a way through this muddle. You're certain of the danger?"

Perpetua nodded reluctantly.

"That settles it. I won't have my mortal wards put in danger. I am with you in this, like it or not."

He stared into the fire, his face a play of light and shadows, irritation and regret. "It's time we put the past to rest. Lives were lost and good men died."

Morwenna made a soft, broken sound and shoved one hand to her mouth.

"I've said I'm sorry, blast it. The choice wasn't mine, nor was the execution of it. It's what men do, how they live their life. War is in the blood."

"And they died for a few dreams, hunted down like animals," Perpetua said.

Adrian ran a hand across his brow. "It was...wrong. But they wouldn't have listened, no matter what I said. Glory can be a heady wine, especially to a Scotsman." He straightened his shoulders.

"We're wasting time. There is work before us." He took a chair before the fire and raised one brow.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Do you have any care for those you've meddled with?"

With an irritated sigh, Perpetua sat opposite him, followed by Honoria. Finally Morwenna followed, her face very pale.

Adrian settled back in his chair, hands held to the fire. "Now, tell me how you began. Leave out no word or detail. And then you had best pray that we are all very canny." His silver eyes gleamed as an owl called from the high woods. "For something is most definitely afoot in the night."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

GLENBRAE'S HIGH CLIFFS, usually angry and flat, were draped in silver. Winter stretched rich and silent, painting the glen an unbroken sweep of white.

Hope rubbed a haze of mist from the window, telling herself she wasn't waiting for MacLeod's quick step in the hall or the click of his hand at the doorknob. She wasn't waiting for his crooked smile and heart-stopping laugh.

Angrily she shoved back her hair. She was not going to lose her head over a handsome-as-sin soldier with gaping holes in his past.