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“Of course”

Whatever feelings had gripped hione, wiped clean Very well, if that is hoants it… Meg turned briskly toward the door and stepped into the Great Hall of Glen Dhui Castle with the former laird close behind her

Gregor felt distinctly odd as he strode into Glen Dhui Castle and back in time As if the past had shifted into the present

The Great Hall reared up about him, chilly and shadowy despite the tall candles and the fire in the big granite hearth The arched ceiling was in darkness above his head, but the stone walls gleas and other beasties captured in various hunts The wavering light caught a glassy eye here and a claymore there In the place of honor, in a walled case directly before hiift from Queen Mary herself

Gregor felt his heart stop beating, and then restart like a drued It was as if he had stepped out for a breath of air, rather than been gone for twelve long years

“Captain Grant?”

Her voice steadied him Held him safe fro down into Gregor turned his head, blindly, and found her She was standing in the door of the room his mother had always called the Blue Saloon The candles on the table beside her bathed her in their warlory of her hair There was coaze, a watchful sympathy It turned him cold He did not want her pity, he didn’t want anybody’s pity

“Whenjust as it stood,” she explained quietly “It see to replace as already here—the past, the memories, the history…”

She waved her hand aardly, indicating the Gr

eat Hall with its stone and dark-paneled walls and glea weapons “So he kept as yours, Captain He paid your ave my father pleasure and it did no harm I am sorry if it distresses you”

He shrugged as if it didn’t ht, better her father otten And yet it hurt, it felt as if soeneral are more than welcome to my disreputable ancestors and their spurious histories,” he said coldly

Her eyes flashed but she didn’t respond as he expected “We can talk in here,” she said with a polite sestured for him to follow her into the Blue Saloon

It was no longer blue

With a huge sense of relief, Gregor strode farther into the roo for one evening, and the changes were very welconized, but others were foreign, and the softly ticking clock that sat upon the h he turned and found Meg behind hi him

He wondered what she saw in his face He was not foolish enough to think she did not see so in hih there had been times when he wished it were so But whatever she saw and felt, she was not going to let hiain