Legends

by Deborah Smith

  “Mickey and Minnie?” Audubon asked dryly.

  “Elgiva and Rob, and don’t you be saucy to me, lad,” she retorted.

  “I apologize.”

  “This is Mr. Audubon, Mother,” the mayor said. “Would you happen to have heard when Elgiva and Rob might be coming back home?”

  “Oh, not for weeks! They were going on to that other famous American place. Hmmm … Tara. Yes! They were going to see Tara.”

  Audubon looked from the mayor to the mayor’s mother. Both smiled benignly. Now Audubon knew he was on the right track, but the track was getting crowded with more MacRoths than he’d ever expected.

  “You’ve been as silent as the mountains all evening, Douglas. What’s wrong?”

  Elgiva watched him lounge in a big upholstered chair near his bed, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his strong-jawed face carved into mysterious patterns in the firelight. He could have lighted his lantern and read one of the books on his shelves. She’d given him two-dozen American novels, ones she assumed he’d like, with lots of sex and violence.

  Or he could have worked crosswords in one of the many puzzle books she’d provided. She’d read that crossword puzzles were one of his favorite entertainments. When he couldn’t think of the correct words, he made up better ones. Resourceful and creative, that was Douglas Kincaid, though not particular about the rules.

  But all he did was scrutinize her. Elgiva lifted tense hands from the sweater she was knitting. Shorn raised his golden head from her feet and looked around sleepily. “What’s the matter, Douglas?” she asked again.

  He chuckled, but it was more of a disgruntled growl than a sound of pleasure. “Nothing. I love being kidnapped.” He lifted one large foot, which was covered in a bright red wool sock and a sandal of wide leather straps. “I feel like a Celtic Moonie.”

  “You’ve no need for real shoes. You won’t be going outdoors.”

  He thumped his foot down and cursed softly. “I’ll enjoy proving you wrong.”

  She sighed. Tonight was not the time to begin telling him about his Scotch heritage, it seemed. “In the wooden box under your bed you’ll find a cassette player, Douglas, and a few dozen of your favorite tapes. All those jazz people you like so much. I put in some tapes of the great classics of the bagpipe as well. Why don’t you listen to some ancient ceol mor to calm your nerves?”

  “My nerves are still calm from dinner.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m a grand cook.”

  “I wasn’t saying thanks.” He muttered something she could barely hear, something about her husband probably looking like someone named Pee-Wee Herman before she began to feed him. “Your husband,” he repeated in a louder voice, speaking to her directly.

  “Hmmm?” Elgiva forced her attention on her knitting needles and tried to appear nonchalant. “Did he die of overeating?”

  Elgiva told him grimly, “It’s not gentlemanly to make fun of a widow’s loss.”

  “It’s not ladylike to shoot an innocent stranger in the butt with a tranquilizer dart.”

  “I liked you better when you weren’t talking, Douglas.”

  “I liked you better when you were a blond sex machine.”

  “How about having another big piece of Madeira cake?”

  “Stop trying to brainwash me with food.”

  “It’s not brainwashing. It’s hospitality.”

  “Did you learn hospitality from a terrorist?”

  “You could make this a pleasant month, if you’d try.”

  “Give me that bottle of whisky you mentioned.”

  “Not tonight. Drinking might put you in an uglier mood.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Be a good lad, Douglas, and earn the right to a nip of Scotland’s best.”

  “Dammit!” He glared at her from the shadows of his corner like a predatory animal crouched in its cave, wanting to pounce on a victim. “You manipulative little—”

  “Tsk, tsk, Douglas. I’m not a little anything. You said so yourself.”

  He was silent, momentarily outmaneuvered. Then his slow, wicked smile appeared. “So tell me, Jumbo, would you like to be fondled again? With a little creative positioning we could do anything you want, even through the bars.” He held out his hands and wiggled the fingers lecherously. “Strip to your bare plaid, lassie, and come to your reward.”

  She jabbed herself with a knitting needle. Through gritted teeth she told him, “I’d give you better than you deserve.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Dream away, Douglas. You’d be spoiled for the rest, after having the best.”

  “I deserve the best. But in a smaller package, of course. And with blond hair—the real thing, not a cheap wig.”

  “You poor, poor bachelor. If you don’t curb your temper you’ll never find a wife to warm your icy soul.”

  “So tell me, Ann MacLanders, how long were you married?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “All in a row? To the same unlucky man?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Aye, brute. I know you can’t understand loyalty such as that.”

  “Tell me, did you meet him at reform school?”

  “No. We were promised as children.”

  After a stunned moment, Kincaid said, “Isn’t that like shopping for Christmas in July?”

  “It’s a custom around here. The mothers plan the marriages for their bairns.”

  “Oh, come on, Jumbo, you’re too modern for that.”

  “It’s not a bad custom. My mother chose well. I could have broken the bonds, if I’d wanted. And he could have as well. But we decided that we could build a good home together.”

  “So you loved each other.”

  “We respected each other. That’s more important.”

  He considered that information in silence, frowning. When he spoke again his voice was probing. “Then you had a happy marriage.”

  “It was a fine marriage.”

  “A happy marriage?”

  She clenched her fists and demanded in exasperation. “What’s it matter to you, Douglas?”

  “You had an unhappy marriage,” he concluded smugly. “I’m not surprised. You’d be too much trouble for most men.”

  “We had a good, decent marriage! Now stop your snooping!”

  “Aren’t there any baby Jumbos?”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “We couldn’t have any!”

  “Who couldn’t? You or him?”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “I was doing that until a few days ago. Now I’m being forced to play gossip monger just to keep myself entertained. So, was Mr. Jumbo shooting blanks? Or was he just afraid you’d hurt him in bed? I know—he didn’t want to provoke any flashbacks from your days as a bar bouncer.”

  She vaulted to her feet, letting the knitting fall unheeded to the hearth. “Stop it! Stop your cruel little picking!” Her voice broke. “You g—great, ugly, arrogant d—devil!”

  He got to his feet also, frowning harder. “I was just giving a little of the same medicine—”

  “Shut up!” Elgiva choked on the last word, and knew to her shame that she was about to cry in front of the heartless Douglas Kincaid, who’d undoubtedly get a laugh from it. She grabbed her cape from its peg. Shom scrambled to his feet, woofing softly.

  “You can’t be serious about going out,” Kincaid protested, sounding perturbed. “It’s freezing out there, and pitch-dark.”

  “It’s more pleasant than in here.”

  Kincaid gestured to his dog. “Sam, follow!”

  Elgiva headed for the front room. “I don’t need—” she struggled with her voice—“I don’t need—”

  “You need,” Douglas Kincaid interjected flatly, and he might have been talking about a lot more than Shom’s protection. “Sam, go.”

  The big golden retriever stayed at Elgiva’s heels as she hurried outside, slamming the cottage door. She took a deep breath of cold, reviving ai
r, but couldn’t stop the tears from sliding down her face.

  She understood why Douglas Kincaid enjoyed tormenting her. Any proud fighter would look for vulnerable spots in his kidnapper’s armor. She didn’t understand, however, why she had let him find them so easily.

  She had been gone for two hours, and the wind howled louder with every new minute. Douglas timed her with his diamond-studded wristwatch and chided himself for worrying about her well-being.

  It occurred to him that she could easily have taken his watch when he was drugged. She must have realized that it was very valuable. But the watch, like the money that had been in his wallet, the photographs of his sister, brother, and parents, and his jeweled car keys had not been stolen. He’d found them in a small paper bag tucked among the clothes she’d given him.

  She’s no thief.

  In his cell’s tiny bathroom she’d put his favorite soap, shaving cream, and deodorant—even his favorite toothpaste. When she’d said that she wanted him to have all the comforts of home, she’d meant it.

  His damned shower gave only cold water, but then, so did hers. He’d heard her shower running in the front room this morning, and when she’d returned to the main room dressed in trousers and a sweater he had seen the blue cast to her fair complexion. She was suffering too.

  Without complaining.

  Douglas ran a hand down the front of his chest, then dropped his troubled gaze to the neat ribs of a soft gray sweater he wore with the gray trousers she’d provided. He assumed that she’d made this sweater herself.

  For you, yes. And it’s perfect.

  Of course, her motivations were selfish. She wanted to win his friendship. She’d need it, after he got out of her trap.

  Douglas checked his watch again. What in the hell was she doing out on those empty moors? Why did he care? Audubon would find him before long. But in the meantime, where was she? He racked his brain for information on the highlands. Weren’t there wolves up here?

  It wouldn’t hurt to be nice to her from now on.

  Douglas went to the bars and shook them fiercely. “Come back,” he shouted. “If anything’s going to eat you alive, it’s going to be me.”

  A few minutes later he heard her return. A draft of winter wind filtered through the main room to his cell, bringing with it the scents of the night and the land. Sam trotted into the room, his tail wagging, and came to the cell bars. Douglas stroked his cold fur and gazed hard at the open door to the front room, where he heard her moving about. Getting undressed? She ran water for a few minutes, not in the shower, he decided, but in a sink. He heard her splashing vigorously.

  “I hope that’s you,” he called, “and not some badass brownie who broke in to case the joint.”

  She turned off the kerosene lamp in the front room and strode into his view wearing the long white robe bundled tightly around her. The linen nightgown shown under her chin, where a strip of white ribbon tied it shut. On her feet were bulky gray socks, probably from the same silver-gray breed of sheep who’d supplied the wool for his sweater.

  Douglas felt the quick, uneven slamming of blood through his veins. Even wrapped in a ton of wool and linen she was arousing.

  Her eyes glanced over him with disdain; stroking her wind-tangled hair, she knelt on the hearth. With her chestnut mane trailing down her back in turbulent rivers of gold and red, she began banking what remained of the night’s fire.

  “You must love to walk on the moors,” he ventured politely.

  “Good night, Mr. Kincaid.” She finished with the fireplace and went to the heater near his cell. As she bent over the controls Douglas inhaled the scent of her body and hair. She smelled like the night wind, but also spicy, like wood smoke. Abruptly Douglas imagined himself surrounded by that intriguing fragrance, his face nuzzled into her hair, his body bathed in her scent through intimate contact.

  She straightened, but the set of her shoulders conveyed fatigue or defeat; he wasn’t sure which. “If you get too cold during the night, bang on the bars of the cell and wake me up,” she told him in a clipped, formal tone. “I’ll turn the heater up a wee bit.”

  “Listen, Goldie—”

  “Goldie, is it?” She arched a brow.

  “She’s the woman who won’t tell me her name.”

  “What happened to Jumbo?”

  “She went for a walk and got eaten by a wolf. Or maybe a brownie ran off with her. I don’t know. But I like Goldie better, anyway.”

  She made a weary, disgusted sound. “I know there’s an insult in that somewhere, but I can’t figure it out right now. Good night.”

  “Not an insult. An apology.”

  Her eyes flickered with surprise. “I didn’t expect an apology. What does it mean?”

  “In America the dictionary defines it as a request for forgiveness. What does it mean in Scotland?”

  She sighed at his coyness, “Prisoners aren’t supposed to apologize. In fact, in all I read about the great Kincaid, I never saw a reference to him apologizing for much of anything.”

  “Dammit, you’re not making this easy. All I’m saying is that I’m sorry for insulting you and your late husband. Apology ended. Good night.” He paused, then added with a jaunty twist, “Goldie.”

  Obviously bewildered and wary, she angled across the room to her own bed, her gaze never leaving him. “Don’t try to con me, you gangster.”

  “I can’t make any long-term promises, but you’re safe for tonight.”

  “Hah.” She pulled back a pile of thick, fluffy quilts. Her bedstead was tall and heavy; there were two mattresses and a set of springs topped by white sheets, several pillows, and the stack of quilts. The bed was wide enough for two, he decided. It had great pleasure potential, much like its owner.

  She stripped her robe off and tossed it over the bed’s tall corner post. The white linen gown floated around her, as revealing as a canvas tent but very graceful. She glanced over her shoulder as she climbed into bed, and saw him watching her.

  “Get used to me,” she said, frowning at him. Quickly she slid under the covers and pulled them to her waist as she lay down, her hair streaming across the pillows. The last rays of the banked fire cast amber light on her, along with seductive shadows.

  Oh, I could easily get used to you, Douglas thought.

  “Get used to me,” he replied lightly. He pulled his sweater over his head and dropped it on the wooden table in the cell. Slowly he ran his hands over his bare chest and stomach. Even though he couldn’t see her face well in the dim light, he felt sure that her eyes were on him. “Did you knit me any pajamas?” he asked. “Or maybe an electric blanket?”

  “There’s a set of long underwear in the bottom of the little chest of drawers.”

  “An appropriate place,” he quipped, as he crossed the cell to the chest. The long johns were bright red. “Oh, good. Now I’ll match my socks.”

  “I know you like to be well-dressed.”

  He tossed the long johns on the table and sat down in the wooden chair beside it. After he kicked his sandals off he unfastened his trousers. Then he stood to give Goldie the full effect. Slowly he pushed the trousers down his hips.

  “You’ve got a nice private bathroom for changing clothes,” she said quickly.

  “You’ll just have to put up with my lack of modesty. Don’t watch, if it embarrasses you.”

  She mumbled something dire in Gaelic and ended with English. “I’m not embarrassed by the likes of you.”

  “Good.” His trousers fell to his ankles. Across the room he heard an unmistakable gasp. Douglas glanced toward the chest of drawers. “Are there any shorts or briefs around here?” he asked innocently. “You’ll have to forgive me for not asking before. I’ve been a little distracted.”

  “Aye, they’re, uhmmm, somewhere.” She cleared her throat. “The dresser. Second drawer from the bottom.”

  Douglas stepped out of his trousers and stretched with as much show of nonchalance as he could muster, considering the state
of his arousal. Wearing nothing but knee-high red socks, he ambled across to the chest and took his time finding a pair of briefs.

  Folding his naked body into the upholstered chair near the bed, he drew one leg up, then the other. With unhurried movements that would have done justice to an exotic dancer, he teased the briefs along his thighs, arching his back a little. His sense of drama had won him A’s in the college acting classes he’d taken for fun.

  Finally he stood, slid his hands over his rump, tested the briefs’ waistband, and gazed down at himself in solemn scrutiny. “Well, what do you think, Goldie? Impressive, isn’t it?”

  From across the room came the deep, resonant drone of snoring.

  Douglas gazed at her dark form in disgruntled surprise. It took him a second to realize that the snoring was absurdly exaggerated.

  He grinned. By the time he got into bed he was laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes. He was the prisoner of a woman who had infuriated, harrassed, and insulted him more than any person in the world. He hated to admit it, but he was beginning to like her.

  Four

  The mists of Talrigh still mourn,

  Haunted by spirits of Kincaid and MacRoth.

  Replayed eternally: Theft of the brooch,

  Clash of the steel,

  Spectral blood shed for honor of clans;

  War and wizardy—neither shall save them;

  Only true love shall soothe the pain and Heal wounds of the past,

  That ancient sorrows may sleep at last.

  Elgiva read the old poem again, and frowned. Only true love shall soothe the pain. Her mother, solemn and practical, had always said that the line referred to love for Scotland. But her father, a daydreaming romantic, had insisted that it meant the love between a man and a woman. Considering their opposite natures, it was amazing that her parents had been so perfect together.

  One Christmas night twenty-five years ago was etched indelibly in Elgiva’s mind. She and Rob had tiptoed from bed, shivering, and had hidden behind the shabby drapes in the master hunt room at MacRoth Hall, giggling over the fact that both of their parents were tipsy from too much ale.