“In truth.” She nodded. “And there are stores everywhere that sell anything you can imagine.” She decided not to mention the internet or Amazon.

“Do you miss your home, daughter, your family?” Lady Madelyn asked as they stared at her.

“Honestly, Mother, I don’t. I love it here…and my family is gone. My parents and my aunt were all that I had, and they died over two years ago.”

“The prophecy spoke of your mourning, Gwen,” Gavin said.

“You’d think”—Gwen glared at Greylen—“my husband would have told it to me by now.”

“You’d think,” Greylen growled, “my wife would know her place by now.”

“You’ve shown me often enough,” she muttered back.

“Please recite it, Greylen,” Isabelle pleaded, then rolled her eyes for emphasis. “Or I may vomit from your love-play.”

Gwen refilled their goblets as Greylen continued to glare. It killed her to pretend indifference. But she’d be damned if she let him see it. Insufferable beast.

Greylen watched his wife. The woman was practically bursting at the seams. He finally laughed. “Sit, wench, you’ll have your words.” He waited until she took her seat again, then he touched their goblets together and began.

“To the greatest Highland clan he is born…” He winked at his mother.

“From a different time, first she must mourn…” He squeezed Gwen’s hand, then stood playing the grand storyteller.

“Two souls forever joined, still so far apart…” Hand over his heart he looked to his audience, caught in the words himself as they came from his lips.

“Yet the reason is clear, she mends his broken heart…

“A great storm will rage, the eve of his thirty-third year…

“On her twenty-eighth, when the path is then clear…

“Once they touch, ’tis forever, their bond is the key…

“Once together, they shall remain…for infinity.”

Isabelle stood, clapping in excitement, while Greylen bowed before looking back to Gwen. His eyes narrowed as he noted her demeanor. She sat completely still, a blank stare on her face. Then she reached for her goblet and drained its contents.

“Again, Greylen,” she said, looking to no one, her tone flat and her voice tight. She clearly braced herself for the retelling.

He had no idea what upset her, but he’d never seen her as such. He began again, less boastful this time, and watched her intently with each word he spoke.

Her face remained impassive until he recited, “Yet the reason is clear, she mends his broken heart…”

Gwen stood so quickly the chair fell. Her goblet empty, she reached for his and drained it. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said.

Then she was gone.

She was halfway up the stairs when he caught up to her. “Gwen, what’s wrong?” he asked, taking the steps three at a time to keep pace.

“I…I—” She stopped only a second to look at him. “Oh God, Greylen, I can’t.”