She wasn't a chance observer. Presentiment-nay, certainty-of future contact compelled her; she focused her mind and slid beneath his guard, behind his reserved facade and tentatively opened her senses.

Hunger-hot, ravenous-a prowling, animalistic urge, swept over her. It caressed her with fingers of heat; its tug was even more physical. Beyond it, in the deeper shadows, lay…restlessness. A soul-deep sense of drifting, rudderless, upon life's sea.

Catriona blinked, and drew back, into her familiar chamber. And saw the letter still lying on her desk She grimaced. She was adept at intepreting The Lady's messages-this one was crystal clear. She should go to McEnery House and, at some point, she would meet the restless hungry, reserved stranger with the granite face and warrior's eyes.

A lost warrior-a warrior without a cause.

Catriona frowned and wriggled deeper under the covers. When she'd first seen that face, she'd felt, instinctively, deep inside, that at long last The Lady was sending her a consort-the one who would stand by her side, who would share the burden of the vale's protection-the man she would take to her bed. At last. Now, however…

"His face is too strong. Far too strong"

As the lady of the vale, it was imperative that she be the dominant partner in her marriage, as her mother had been in hers. It was written in stone that no man could rule her. Not for her an arrogant, domineering husband-that would never do. Which was, in this case, a pity. A real disappointment.

She'd immediately recognized the source of his restlessness, the restlessness of those without purpose, but she'd never met anything like the hunger that prowled within him. Alive, a tangible force, it had reached out and touched her, and she'd felt a compulsion to sate it. A reactive urge to soothe him, to bring him surcease. To…