Kiss of the Highlander

She gave him a brisk nod. “Good.”

He could tell that she didn’t wish to discuss it, and rather than accuse him of being deluded when he was clearly distraught, she was going to scuttle around it in some circuitous manner. He narrowed his eyes, wondering what she was up to.

“Drustan, I memorized your poem, now it’s your turn to grant me a favor.”

“As you wish, Gwen. Only tell me what you want of me.”

“A few simple questions.”

“I will answer them to the best of my ability,” he replied.

“How much dirt is in a hole a foot wide, nine inches long, and three and a half feet deep?”

“That is your question?” he asked, baffled. Of all things she might have asked…

“One of them,” she said hastily.

He smiled faintly. Her question was one of his favorite puzzles. His priest, Nevin, had agonized for half an hour trying to calculate exactly how much dirt would be in such a space before seeing the obvious. “There is no dirt in a hole,” he replied easily.

“Oh, well, that was a trick puzzle and doesn’t tell me much. You may have heard it before. How about this one: A boat lies at anchor with a rope ladder hanging over the side. The rungs in the rope ladder are nine inches apart. The tide rises at a rate of six inches per hour and then falls at the same rate. If one rung of the ladder is just touching the water when the tide begins to rise, how many rungs will be covered after eight hours?”

Drustan ran through a swift series of calculations, then laughed softly, at a time when he thought he might not laugh again. He suddenly understood why she had chosen such questions, and his regard for her increased. When an apprentice petitioned a Druid to be accepted and trained, he was put through a similar series of problems designed to reveal how the lad’s mind worked and what he was capable of.

“None, lass, the rope ladder rises with the boat upon the water. Do my powers of reason convince you that I am not mad?”

She regarded him strangely. “Your reasoning abilities seem untouched by your peculiar…illness. So what is 4,732.25 multiplied by 7,837.50?”

“37,089,009.375.”

“My God,” she said, looking simultaneously awed and revolted. “You poor thing! I asked the first question mostly to see if you were thinking clearly, the second to see if the first had been a fluke. But you did that math in your head in five seconds. Even I can’t do it that fast!”

He shrugged. “I have always had an affinity for numbers. Did your questions prove anything to you?” They had proved something to him. Gwen Cassidy was the most intelligent lass he’d ever met. Young, seemingly fertile, an extraordinary mating heat between them, and smart.

His certainty that fate had brought her to him for a reason increased tenfold.

Mayhap, he thought, she might not fear him after tomorrow eve. Mayhap there was such a love for him as his father had known.

“Well, if you’re a candidate for bedlam, you’re the smartest madman I’ve ever met, and your delusions seem confined to one issue.” She blew out a breath. “So, what now?”

“Come, lass.” He held his arms out to her.

She eyed him warily.

“Och, lassie, give me something to hold in my arms that’s real and sweet. I will not harm you.”

She trudged to his side and sank down in the grass beside him. She kept her face averted for several moments, gazing up at the stars, then her shoulders slumped and she looked at him. “Oh, bother,” she said, and stunned him by reaching out to cradle his head in her arms, pulling him to her breast.

His slid his hands around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. “Lovely Gwen, ’tis thanking you once again I am. You are a gift from the angels.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she muttered against his hair. She seemed awkward holding him, as if she hadn’t had much practice. Her body was tense, and he sensed if he moved suddenly that she would jerk away, so he breathed slowly and kept still, allowing her time to grow accustomed to the intimacy.

“I guess this means you won’t be able to prove anything to me tomorrow, huh?”

“As promised, on the morrow I will prove to you my story is true. This changes nothing, or little. Will you stay of your own volition? Mayhap help me explore the grounds tomorrow?”

Hesitantly, she slipped her wee hands into his hair and he half-sighed, half-groaned with pleasure when her nails lightly grazed his scalp. “Aye, Drustan MacKeltar,” she said, with as good a lilt as any Scots lass. “I’ll be stayin’ wi’ ye ’til the morrow.”