"I fetched her for ye yeeeowww!" He broke off with a yell of pain. He stared down at the girl in shock. "She bit me! The wee vixen bit me!"

The wee vixen moved to bite his leg again and Jimmy hastily shoved her off his horse. She dropped lightly to the ground and glanced warily around, preparing to run again.

"There's no need to be afeared," Cameron said hastily. He dismounted and took a few slow steps towards her, holding his hands up pacifically, saying in a soothing voice, "Nobody here will harm you. My cousin is a wee bit enthusiastic, that's all-"

"He's drunk," the girl said, backing away.

"Maybe, but he meant well," Cameron told her.

She snorted. "Meant well? To kidnap me in broad daylight?"

"Nobody's going to kidnap you," Cameron assured her softly and moved closer. She backed away and glanced at the bog, as if weighing her chances of escaping across it.

"Ye daft wee besom, he wants tae marry you," Jimmy said, still rubbing his leg.

She snorted. "He's drunker than I thought."

It was now or never, Cameron thought. He cleared his throat. "It's true," he said. It came out as a croak.

She made a gesture of disgust. "You're drunk, too."

"I'm not. I'm offering you marriage." There it was out. He was officially crazy. But at least he'd get control of his inheritance.

Away on the moors a curlew called, a mournful, other-wordly cry. The wind blew across the bog, carrying the scent of heather and dank, rotting mud.

The girl scrutinized his face, then turned to look at each of his cousins. "Marriage?" she said eventually. "You're proposing marriage to me? To me?"

Cameron nodded. "Aye."

In her dirty, mud-streaked face, her blue eyes gleamed bright with suspicion. "Why?"

Cameron shrugged. "I must marry someone. Why not you?" It was ridiculous when said aloud, but with the eyes of his cousins on him, he wasn't going to back down. He'd never broken his word yet.

But he might not have to. The girl could still refuse. He waited.

Down the road the girl's sheepdog barked. A sheep baaed in response. "You're tetched in the head," she told him. "You canna mean such a thing. Why, you never set eyes on me before today."

"It sounds mad, I know, but it's an honest offer I'm making ye," Cameron told her.

Stunned, Jeannie Macleay chewed on her lip and stared at the solemn young man in front of her. He was asking her to marry him? It couldn't possibly be true. He probably wouldn't even recognize her if he met her again she was all over mud, anyway. He was drunk, or tetched in the head, but ... Marriage? The thought gave her pause.

She would have married almost anyone to get away from Uncle Ewen and the sheep. And suddenly, like something out of a dream, here was this tall, beautiful young man, asking her.

Was he one of the fairy folk? She'd never believed in them until now well, not since she was a little girl but she'd heard they were invariably beautiful, and this one certainly qualified.

He'd wiped his face clean of mud. His cheekbones and jaw might have been cut with a blade, they were so perfect and sharp. His nose was bold and straight as a sword and his mouth firm and unsmiling. And his chin ... her mother always used to say a man with a firm chin could be relied on.

Warrior stock, no doubt, like many folk in the highlands, of Viking descent. His hair was brown and sun-streaked yet his eyes weren't Viking blue, but hazel. They watched her steadily, but she sensed an intensity beneath the calm manner.

He was well off, too, going by the quality of his clothes and his horse.

God knew why he'd even looked twice at her, with her in her uncle's old coat and boots and covered in mud, but he had. And try as she might, she could not dismiss it. She pinched herself, hard, to be sure it wasn't a dream.

"I don't know you from Adam," she said to silence the clamour in her head.

"My name is Cameron Fraser."

Fraser. It was a common enough name around here.

Oh Lord. She ought not to even consider his proposal. The poor lad was no doubt a wee bit soft in the head, and his friends were too drunk to realize what he was doing.

But she was only human.

The choices loomed large in her head; life with Uncle Ewen, the stingiest, gloomiest, dourest man in all of Scotland or life with this tall, solemn young man.

The rest of her life spent on the moors, half the time cold, wet and hungry, looking after Uncle Ewen's sheep or marriage to this beautiful young man who was probably tetched in the head to be offering marriage to her on so little acquaintance.

No choice at all.

People said better the devil you knew. Not Jeannie.

"Do ye have a house?" she asked.

"I do."

"Would I be its mistress?" It was the summit of her dreams to have a home of her own, to be beholden to noone. To belong.

He nodded. "My mother died when I was a bairn. You'd be the woman of the house."

The woman of the house. There it was, her dream laid out for her. All she had to do was to say yes. She swallowed. What if he proved to be a madman or violent?

She thought of how he'd plunged into the bog and hauled her and the sheep out out. He hadn't given a thought to his fine clothes. And he'd set the lamb on its feet with a gentle hand.

No, he wasn't a violent man, and if she was wrong, well, she was fleet of foot and nimble. She could always run away. She'd been planning to run away from Uncle Ewen anyway, only she hadn't yet worked out how to do it without a bean to her name. A different situation would offer different opportunities.

A home of her own. The woman of the house. Not a servant or an indigent relative, taken in begrudgingly and reminded of it daily. Her own home. And a place of honour in it as his wife.

It was probably a joke. He was making a may game of her, but oh ... oh, if it were true. Mad or tetched or drunk, he was young and beautiful and the thought of those lithe, powerful limbs wrapping around her made her shiver.

She gazed into his eyes, trying to read his mind. His steady hazel eyes stared back at her, telling her nothing. But they were steady, not wild.

She moistened her lips with her tongue and took the plunge. "Ye truly mean it?"

"I do." He gave a curt nod to emphasize it.

He sounded sincere. He looked sincere. Oh God let him be sincere, she prayed.

She took a deep breath. "Well then, I'll marry you."

The man who'd tried to kidnap her gave a loud whoop, causing his horse to toss its head and plunge restlessly. "She said yes! I win! Pay up, Donald!"

His words punched into Jeannie's gut. All the breath left her lungs. It was a joke after all. A bet. See if you could get the gullible girl to believe a strange man would offer her marriage.

And the fool girl had believed. Had even allowed herself to hope. After all she'd been through in the last few years, had she learned nothing?

She tried to look as if she'd known it all along, as if disappointment and humiliation weren't about to choke her. "A bet, was it, lads? A laugh at my expense?" she said with an attempt at breezy unconcern. "Very funny. Enjoy your winnings. I'm awa' then to my sheep." She turned away so they would not see the hot tears prickling at her eyelids.

A firm hand wrapped gently around her elbow, holding her back. "It wasn't a joke," he told her. "There was a bet, yes, but my cousins will bet on anything and everything."

Jeannie stared down at his mud-caked boots, angry and ashamed, hearing the sincerity in his voice and refusing to be caught a second time.

"I meant it," he went on. "And you said you'd wed me."

She jerked her arm away. She wouldn't be made a fool of twice. "As if you'd marry a girl like me, a girl you don't even know. And as if I'd marry a man on an acquaintance of five minutes."

"You said you would."

She made a rude noise. "I was just going along with the joke. Why would I want to marry a man I'd just met?"

"Perhaps because you're desperate-"

She looked up at him then, glaring, ready to spit in his eye.

"-maybe even as desperate as I am," he finished.

His words stopped her cold. "You? Desperate?" she managed after a moment. "Why would you be desperate?"

"I need to gain control of my inheritance. My uncle my trustee is spending it like water. I inherit when I turn thirty, or when I wed. If I wait much longer there'll be nothing left."

Jeannie turned his words over in her mind, then shook her head. "You're saying you're to be rich? But there's nobody else you can marry? Just a girl you fished from a bog?"

"There are plenty of other girls," he admitted. "But I swore I'd marry the first woman I met. And that was you."

Marry the first woman he met? Jeannie couldn't believe her ears. She glanced at his cousins who sat on their horses, watching wide-eyed, like great gormless owls, to see what would happen next.

"Is this true?" she demanded. They nodded.

"You'd truly marry a stranger, just to get your hands on your inheritance?"

"I said I would and I never break my word," he said.

"He never breaks his word," the cousins chorused.

"That's the daftest thing I've ever heard," she said.

He shrugged. "Maybe. So, will you marry me?"

Jeannie stared into the steady hazel eyes, trying to read his true intent. She could read nothing, so she looked away into the distance, trying to decide what to do. She could smell the mud on her, feel it tightening on her skin as it dried. She must look a sight.

"I give you my word I'll take good care of you, Jeannie Macleay."

His word. The one he never broke. And he had big, broad, lovely shoulders, even if he was cracked in the head. "When?" she asked.

"Today."

Jeannie closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then counted again, just to make sure. And then she tossed commonsense to the wind. "All right, I'll do it. Were do we go?"

"The nearest kirk. St Andrew's-by-the-burn?"

She nodded. It was the closest church, though her uncle wasn't a believer and she'd never been there.

Cameron Fraser mounted his horse and held out his hand help her up behind him.

She hesitated and glanced back at the sheep waiting in a close huddle at the end of the causeway. Rab, the sheepdog, lay quietly, watching her, watching the sheep, ever vigilant.

Cameron Fraser followed her gaze. "If you want, Jimmy will stay to take care of your sheep."

She looked sceptically at his cousin who swayed on his horse, grinning muzzily. "They'll be safer wi' the dog. Have ye a handkerchief?"

He handed her a clean, folded handkerchief, no doubt thinking she meant to clean herself with it. She was beyond one handkerchief.

She picked up a stone, plucked a sprig of heather growing by the side of the road and knotted them both into the handkerchief. Then she let out a shrill whistle. The dog raced towards her like a dart.

She tied the handkerchief on to his collar. "I'll miss ye, Rab," she whispered, stroking the dog's silky ears. He'd been the only source of love and affection she'd had in four long years. She'd miss him, but Rab would be all right with Uncle Ewen. Her uncle was a lot kinder to animals than he was to people.

"Away home wi' them Rab," she said. "Away home." The dog raced back and began to circle the sheep. A bark here, a nip there and the herd began to move. They'd be home soon.

"Will no one worry when the sheep come home without you?" Cameron Fraser asked her.

"No. My uncle will understand the message in the handkerchief. He won't be troubled, as long as no sheep are missing, and Rab will get them home safe."

It was the exact same message her mother had left when she ran off with her father more than twenty years ago. Mam had left a stone, a sprig of heather and a note. A stone for Grandad's heart and heather for Mam's hopes for the future. Jeannie had no paper for a note, but her uncle would remember.

He frowned. "But he'll want to know where you've gone, surely."

Clearly it didn't reflect well on her that she had no one who cared. Jeannie tried to pass it off with a laugh. "He'll be relieved to have me off his hands."

Cameron Fraser quirked a brow at her. "Trouble, are you?"

"Aye, I eat too much and I'm the worst shepherdess he's ever had."

He smiled for the first time, and it was like the sun reflected off the silvery loch. It set off a flutter deep inside her.

"He never wanted me in the first place. I was dumped on him when my mother died four years ago." Lord, she was babbling. She bit her tongue.

"You can eat what you like and you'll never have to look after sheep again." He held out his hand.

"I'd marry the devil himself for that promise." She took hold of Cameron Fraser's hand, swung up behind him and, heart in her mouth, rode off to meet her fate.