Page 13 of Rory

Ava folded her arms around her waist. “Did you use any other equipment inside the castle?”

“I took a couple stills.” She offered her a smaller gadget, which the other woman examined. “If you want to see those shots, press the little rectangle with the triangle inside it.”

The laird’s wife handed it back to her. “Would you try and take a photograph of me and my man?”

“Sure.” She stepped away and focused on them. “Say cheese.”

Harper pressed something on the device, which made a snapping sound. She then repeated the action. Rory noticed the tension in her shoulders and back, and the peculiar easiness of her expression, which didn’t match that of her body. Why was she fearful now, when she had shown only anger after being repelled from leaving by the spell trap’s enchantment?

Her big eyes shifted to Rory, and for a moment it seemed as if she wished to speak by thought alone to him. She then checked something on the device before walking over to show it to Ava and Tasgall. Rory joined them, startled by the miniature portrait of the laird and his wife on the gadget’s tiny door.

The laird peered at the display as if fascinated. “’Tis as if the thing contains two wee poppets made exact to us.”

“Images, not poppets,” Ava told him. Instead of looking relieved she appeared even more worried now. “None of the phones or other devices that have been brought into the spell trap from our world have ever functioned. At dawn they’ve been flung out through the entry, too.”

“Do you think that’ll happen to my stuff?” Harper asked, frowning.

“It’s the fact that it hasn’t yet that concerns me.” She looked at her husband. “Tas, we should go and talk about this to Alec and the watch captains.” Her gaze shifted to the windows, which were lightening as the dawn arrived, and said to Rory, “Would you show Miz Ensley to the kitchens? She’s likely hungry by now, and Doon will have some food already prepared for the men ending their duty.”

After Tasgall and his wife left, Harper tucked away her device and gave Rory a rueful look. “You don’t have to play tour guide anymore if you have something better to do. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll find my way there.”

She always seemed in a hurry to rid herself of him, which Rory shouldn’t have resented. Even if his size didn’t trouble her, his silence and his strangeness often made mortals uneasy. At the same time it disappointed him that she so readily rejected his company. Did she have no interest in him at all?

“I shall go with you,” he murmured to her.

Along the way to the kitchens Harper remained silent, sometimes stopping to greet the clan’s dogs that wandered out to sniff them. She also smiled at everyone they passed, which caught the attention of more than one guard. He noted Sawney, one of the McKeran restored to life by the damaged enchantment, seemed particularly interested in the lady. So did every other big man they passed, often with a definite carnal look in their eyes.

She’s no’ a wee lass they’d fear harming in passion, Rory realized. Was Harper’s fate to be openly pursued by every male in the clan? How could he hold back and watch this woman being romanced by the likes of Sawney and their other brothers?

“I get that you have to be quiet because of your wrecking ball voice,” Harper said, stopping in the passage outside the kitchens. “But glaring at everyone who says hi to me is not helping.”

“Forgive me.” That he had to whisper the words made his frustration grow. It also reminded him that he had no claim to this woman, and would only endanger her if he tried to become closer. His heart would ever and always belong to Inga. “The kitchens, they’re just there ahead. I must return to the forge. Fair day, my lady.”